People of Baños Unite!!

I´m back in Quito now, but yesterday was a lot of fun in Baños. For the second day in a row, it started off pretty crappy, but redeemed itself throughout the day.

In the morning, I grabbed my backpack and headed off to a trailhead to do some hiking on the mountains above town. Right as I started it was misting a little bit, but that eventually turned into a good, steady rain. It only took about 30 minutes to make it up to the a viewpoint called Bellavista, but by the time I got there I was absolutely soaked through and my pack was getting really wet too. I hung out under a small shelter for a while, but decided to pack it in and cut the hike short. I didn´t need a soaking wet backpack for the rest of the trip.

After that I hung around Baños and decided later on to walk the 3 km out to the zoo. It wasn´t actually that bad of a zoo for a small town like Baños and I enjoyed the visit, especially the parrot exhibits. The walk was nice too and for the first time I got to see the volcano, Tungurahua, that sits outside of town and periodically forces evacuations with possible eruptions. It was giving off some steam and ash, which was pretty cool to see, though a litle unnerving.

When I got back, I decided to check out a little wine bar/art gallery across the street from my hotel. It was owned by the same people that owned the hotel I was staying at, so I talked with the owner, Jim, over a glass of wine. His wife pulled up a little while later on he bike and said she was going to head out to the protest.

Protest?

I asked Jim what was going on and he said the Ecuadorian government wanted to dam up one of the tributaries to the Rio Pastaza, just downriver from Baños, to put in a hydroelectic power station. The people of Baños were adamantly opposed to it and were planning a citywide protest against it. They said it would hurt the kayaking businesses in town. He also said they had had an information meeting a week or so ago and things got pretty interesting as the people from the next town down river,who are extremely supportive of it, and the people of Baños almost got into it. The police had to stand guard in between them. Apparently the people of Rio Negro like electricity a little more than kayaking.

Jim and I talked a few more minutes about it and I asked him where it was being held. He found it a little curious as to why I´d want to spend part of my vacation checking out a protest, so I filled him in on my history of causing civil disobedience wherever I traveled, and he laughed and told me where to go.

A few minutes later I was on my way to check out the Baños protest. I did manage to find something to eat along the way, so I probably looked pretty funny to the locals; a gringo eating a skewer full of meat and plantains with grease running down his chin checking out a protest against a hydroelectric dam. It may not have looked too funny though, as it was more like a parade than a protest and had a rather lively atmosphere. They even had a couple of bands to go along with the "No mas Hidroelectrico" signs.

Actually, I wasn´t the only gringo either. I ran into Jim´s wife Marcia and she invited me to join up with her and the other marchers. So in an odd twist, I was able to not only continue my streak of running into disobedience while traveling, I was able to join in.

After that, things calmed down. I left the protest when the press conference started at the end point of the march, City Hall. I wandered around town a bit, bought a couple of last minute souvenirs and grabbed a couple of beers at the hotel.

Today I got up early to pack and head back to Quito. I made it in around 2 and have been wandering around all afternoon. There was an art market in a park near my hotel, so I was able to get some neat things there. After that I headed over the Old Town area, where I´ll be spending most of the day tomorrow seeing its attractions.

Oh, and one more thing. Even though I´m having a blast here, I haven´t been totally out of touch. I´d like like to send a big "GO DAWGS" out to the UGA crew. I was pretty pumped to see they beat Georgia Tech. Does anyone else love seeing John Fulcher this miserable? I just wish Tech would play Nebraska so we´d have someone we could beat.