Early Morning Baños

Sunday morning, the rooster alarm clock woke me up for Mass at the basilica. The hostel reception manager told me they have Mass on the hour every hour starting at 5, mentiras! Walking through the streets of Baños early in the morning was very peaceful. It is much quieter than Quito. The weather was a bit misty, but warm enough. I saw a dead dog on the porch of a storefront. There are a lot of cute stray dogs around Ecuador. I imagine this one was about to kick the bucket and found the porch as good as anyplace to die. I later saw the storeowner cleaning off her porch with hot water and soap.

Anyway, so I made it to the basilica only to find out Mass was in progress, the 6am Mass. There was no 7, only 6, 8, 9, 10. I struck out on that one, but it was a nice walk. On my way there I saw a woman at a restaurant roasting whole cuy skewered on sticks. Cuy is something I’ve been wanting to try since I’ve gotten to Ecuador. It’s definitely more commonly found in Baños, so I thought it would be a perfect place to try it (more about this later). But I decided to return to the hostel and come back for a later Mass. When I came back to the hostel, a group of people were headed out to check out the thermal baths. There are more open in the mornings and there are bigger ones available. We got to the baths for our morning soak (only 2$). It was still fairly busy for being 0730, but totally worth it. The locals there truly use the showers there to clean off. They have soap and shampoo and everything. They soak in the thermal pools and clean off in the cool water from the nearby waterfall. We could only spend a short time there, because breakfast was at 0800. We got back to the hostel, ate breakfast, and I went to the Mass at the basilica with 3 other people. The music there is guitar based, with a definite local flair. There aren’t really altar servers, nor a real procession down the aisle to the altar. It definitely wasn’t a high mass for the feast of the Pentecost, but the basilica is quite beautiful. It’s hard to really describe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera on me, so I’ll have to get those pictures from someone else.

After Mass, I did some souvenir shopping and bartering and I went with my group to finally try CUY! So for those of you who are wondering what cuy is, I will now tell you. (I wanted to leave you in some suspense).Cuy is guinea pig. It’s rather exotic here so it’s expensive. We got half a cuyand split it between the four of us for a total of 7$. It was whole, but we got the lower half (no head). We all liked it. It kind of tastes like pollo. (Haha doesn’t everything that’s not pork or cow?) I even bit into the liver! It’s fattier than pollo though, a bit more succulent and rich tasting. It’s quite good though and I was happy to just say that yes I’ve eaten cuy! I also really like saying the name. It’s pronounced Kwee, like the noise a g-pig makes.

We had to leave earlier in the day around 1200 on Sunday, so after a bit more wandering en el Mercado, we returned to our hostel, packed, and returned to Quito. It’s taken me a couple hours to recount this entire weekend. There was just so much to do and it was amazing!!