The Clearing

Baños is perhaps most famous for the active volcano Tungurahua whose threatening shadow it lives under. The volcano regularly sends out puffs of sulfurous clouds into the atmosphere which make for impressive displays and are best viewed from a smaller adjacent peak. I made the hike to this adjacent peak on my third day in Baños. One of the things I picked up on this trip was learning to deal with territorial unfriendly dogs whom I often encountered while hiking. This lesson came from the Quito couple who biked wherever they traveled and had learnt how to deal with this issue from experience. The trick was--sorry, if this is obvious to anyone who is reading this; it wasn't to me--to prove that between the dog and you, it is you who is the alpha male. The best way to do this is to look fierce(!) and chuck, or at least threaten to chuck, stones in their general vicinity till the dog is convinced of your dominance. They told me that for the over confident ones scoring a direct hit was more effective, and in some cases necessary ("Just nail the ^&**er!" is how they put it.).

Armed, no pun intended (I lie!), with this knowledge I began my uphill hike to see the volcano. Climbing in South America is certainly more adventurous than say in the US. In addition to dogs, there are hikes people advise you to not take any valuables on because of a strong possibility of getting mugged, and often there are trails that are poorly if marked at all. This particular hike also didn't have too many markers. At some point I had to decide between which path of a fork I should take and ended up taking the wrong one. After walking through a boggy insect-infested stretch I found myself on a paved road. It was hot, and I felt silly about hiking up a paved road but didn't have the enthusiasm to retrace my steps and find the trail again. I had been climbing for about close to two hours when a man emerged from the side of the road beckoning me to follow him for desayuno. I was obviously on my guard immediately but decided to follow him to his hut when I decided he was too old , frail and missing too many teeth to be dangerous. Maybe not the best criteria under the circumstances; I guess I was just lucky it turned out okay. He offered me some fruit and also some sopa which was cooking on a fire. I ate the fruit but refused the rest. The vessel looked dirty and besides I was afraid of getting drugged and discovering my kidneys missing on waking up! He was friendly enough though and gave me the charming toothless grin of a host every time the volcano made the ground tremble, almost as if he had organized the activity of the volcano just for me. When I motioned to leave, he asked for money for the fruit. I gave him a little something which he quietly accepted.

A little farther up I had a scary encounter with an Alsatian. I heard some ferocious barking headed my way and soon saw, almost in slow motion, this large Alsatian bounding his way toward me; it was time to put the who-is-the-alpha-male lesson to work. I picked up some good sized rocks and hurled them toward the dog. I didn't really hit the dog but was able to cower him enough to continue on unmolested. Felt quite empowered.

The trail soon became a bit of labyrinth because some of this area was inhabited and many of the paths led to the dwellings of people living there, and it was hard to figure out where exactly to continue. After a few false leads came upon a bunch of tourists picknicking, waiting for the clouds around the volcano to clear and hoping to see a fresh eruption. There was a Dutch couple who had made their way up for the second day in a row and a German guy about my age. The Dutch man showed me some burst clips which he's captured on his handycam the day before, which unfortunately were the only bursts I got to see as it remained cloudy till all of us decided that it was late and time to head back. I decided to come down with the German guy as I was hiked-out after walking up the paved road and was eager it get back to the hostal. He was taking a short cut as he was running late for a meeting he had organized with his friends. We took this really scary, slippery and steep path back which we literally sprinted down, me doing my best to keep up with him. After a couple of falls I tried to convince the German to carry on without me but he was a nice guy and would not desert me. (It was incredible, the number of friendly people I met on this trip!) We did the last quarter slower but not as slow as I would have liked.