banitos

the plan, originally, was to go to he tourist city of banos, north of cuenca, green and drippy with hiking trails and thermal baths. we were to spend roughly a week there, and for this reason, we hadnt planned to go to the small pueblito of banos, 10 minutes from cuenca, which also has thermal baths and green scenery. but then these things happened:
1) the volcan tunguruhua erupted, thus declaring banos and vicinity a disaster zone.
and
2) in an equivilant but slightly less dramatic show of both strength and vulnerability, anthony hurt his ankle playing basketball, thus causing us to reconsider a one day hiking excursion to el cajas national park.
so we decided that for anthony´s birthday we would take a trip to the little banos to soak his ankle and look at green hills. we took the city bus (good old city bus) out of cuenca again, this time for about 20 minutes. a the bus climbed up we watched families and vendors roast entire pigs, and watched the city change to suburb change to country side. eventually the bus let us off on a steep road, on top of which there was a candy hued blue church with white trim. we hadnt planned to hike.
we wandered up the hill, looking at the different hot spring, weighing our options. the chhurch still looked far away, but it beckoned. it looked like candy land to me, and i was, of course, hungry. so we walked up to the church and looked at it and it was pretty. we turned around and looked down and saw almost all of cuenca. we looked up the road and decided to walk just a little bit more.
a bit more turned into a bit more and soon we were out of town, moving often to the side of the road to let herds of cows (?) pass by. one peed and i thought we would drown. we went up and up and the scenery was greener and greener. it got cold and we saw pigs. we looked down again and this time, saw cuenca and banitos. it was lovely.
we couldnt stop walking.
eventually, though, we got hungry and went down to banos and ate secos (stews) and coca colas. then, we went to the hot springs, which werent so hot but had a fun water slide. after an hour or two, we left banos.
on the way home i decided i absolutely needed a haircut. when we got off the bus i went into a tiny peluquaria and asked, in spanish, or so i thought, if i needed an appointment. everyone laughed, hard, for some reason, and my face burned but i sat down and waited for the hairdresser anyway. i really wanted a haircut. after much miscommunication my hair was shorter. not exactly how i wanted it but shorter nontheless, and for $2.50. i cant complain.
afterwards, we had plans to meet up with our spanish school friends for a famcy (over $4) italian meal to celebrate anthonys birthday. more people came than expected, which was really very nice and after we ate we went back to cafe eucalyptus for salsa night, where we stayed long enough and got drunk enough to actually dance. i thought i was pretty good but apparantly i was wrong -- anthony still calls me coñejo, as i resembled a hopping rabbit, to him. vincent, however, was surisingly good.

the next day, with our bags and hangovers in tow, we set off for vilcabamba.