It’s been an interesting week in Baños! Ecuador went into a state of emergency on Thursday as the president removed the petrol price subsidy which had been in place for decades, essentially doubling the price of diesel overnight. This led to a country-wide strike of all taxis, buses and truck drivers, who setup road blocks outside all cities and large towns, including riots in the cities. But fear not as we were fine in the lovely and quiet small town of Baños de Agua Santa! The roads into and out of town were blocked here as well which meant no one could leave or enter for a few days and led to a lot of unhappy backpackers having to rearrange their travel plans (including missed flights, weddings,…). It was okay for us as we had planned to spend the whole week in Baños anyway.
This made our week a bit more relaxing and also cheaper as the town was essentially cut off for 3 days and some of the day trips we had planned to do here were cancelled.
We decided to leave Baños a day early as we had to get back to Quito Airport to catch our flight to Peru on Monday night. We’d heard some rumors that Sunday would be our only chance to leave as there were less road blocks over the weekend and it would all ramp back up again on Monday. On Sunday morning, we managed to get on a last minute bus heading towards Quito Airport via the Amazon Route (the VERY long way around which luckily avoided any blocks).
We managed to still do a few things while in Baños though, including a waterfall tour and a very un-organized jungle tour.
On one of the strike days, we (aka julian) decided we should do a 3 hour uphill hike up to one of the sights we originally had planned to visit via bus. Some other backpackers described the hike as being ‘cruisy’. Newsflash: it was not cruisy at all – we covered 900m elevation. Even Julian agrees it was a very difficult hike (yes, he said these actual words). I think my Fitbit must have been afraid I’d given it away to someone else on that day.
Luckily once we reached our destination, La Casa del Árbol (a.k.a. the swing at the end of the world), we were treated to some great views and very insta-worthy photos of us enjoying the swing.
We were not looking forward to the long hike back down the mountain (remember no taxis or buses were operating) but luckily we ran into a group of other backpackers who told us they had organized a private bus for $2 per person which would take anyone back down the mountain to the road blocks. It turned out the bus was not so much a bus but just the back of someone’s truck. We decided to take the small risk that we were all being hauled off to a backpacker harvesting farm in a strangers truck and ended up making it back down the mountain safely!
Our average spending on food here in Ecuador has been about $3-$4 USD per person each meal. We have been seeking out the cheaper places but it hasn’t been that easy to find things for that price, especially since we were in touristy areas where everything costs more anyway. We’ve been told that Ecuador is actually one of the more expensive places in Latin America and we can expect significantly cheaper prices once we get to other countries. (Yay!)
Besides the strikes, Ecuador has been a great country and we were initially a bit sad that we hadn’t planned more time here as there’s so much more to see. Lucky now though, it turns out as we wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere due to the strikes. The Galapagos was for sure a highlight and the mainland also has a lot to offer including nice towns, amazing scenery with beautiful mountains, waterfalls and parts of The Amazon.
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Current tan levels:
Eliza 4 / 10
Julian 0.3 / 10
Adventure Unknown 