Pauline on the left, and Evelyn on the right, enjoyed a day at Piedra de Agua in Bano de Cuenca

Today was spa day for Evelyn and her visiting sister. Since I am usually ready to go 15 minutes after arriving at places like this, I opted to stay home and let them enjoy themselves… which they managed quite nicely!

The two of them took the local Blue Bus for 25 cents each to Bano de Cuenca (the hot springs just outside of town).  They decided to visit one of the most upscale spas, one that we had looked in on when we were in Bano a couple weeks ago. Piedra de Aqua is one of the newest spas in town, opening only 4 years ago.  It is beautifully landscaped, has a restaurant, bar, patio and multiple exterior pools.  By buying the premium package for $30, the women were each given a personal assistant to take them through the entire process, and they were also given access to a series of underground cavern pools.

Their assistant directed them to a steam room, rinse, then a dip in the red clay pool.  When they came out of the clay pool, it looked as though they had forgotten sun screen, becoming completely red all over!  A hot shower was encouraged to finish the process, which was then repeated in blue clay — which made them come out looking like zombies. [This is why I stayed home…:) ]

They were then led to the subterranean hot springs down some candle lit steps. The cavern had 2 pools in a romantic setting. They alternated from hot to cold pools – 37c hot (99 F), 14c cold (57 F). Then a steam sauna, swim in the pool, and shower. Pauline described herself as “Gumbie” after all that.

After all that, they felt they had to try the restaurant to see if the food matched up to the spa experience – it did. To curb their hunger the waiter brought some sweet potato and red potato chips. They ordered a sanguchera tea, Cuenca egg soup, and a hot salad consisting of corn, carrots, olives, zucchini in a teriyaki dressing. Once they told the waiter they were celebrating Pauline’s birthday. the waiter also brought a complementary cheesecake. “Yum-oh” was the only description I got. 🙂

Tonight we heard more rockets from the nearest church, so I went over to see if I could improve on last night’s efforts (nope…).  They opened with the same twirling tops in front of the church as before.  These spin rapidly and climb into the sky.  The last one snagged, then went flying horizontally directly at the building across the street, burned on the wall, climbed the wall while spinning, then sat burning on the (fortunately clay) roof…

Next up were more rockets, just as last night.  This time the guy lighting them seemed rushed, putting up four rockets at a time instead of one or two, and setting up new ones seconds after the prior ones launched. There were kids playing on a playset not more than 10 feet from this rapid rocket launch. Safety is not even on the menu at these church fireworks…

Normally the spinners that led off yesterday’s blog would come next.  The guy that had been launching the rockets went over to the pile of them.  He picked up the couple dozen that were on the ground ready to go, picked up his six foot pole, and with two other men went to the street, hailed a taxi and drove off with them.

What the ???  I asked a couple people “donde estan ellos yendo”  (my best attempt at “where are they going?”). They all shrugged or spoke rapid Spanish that I could only understand to say they didn’t know.  A few minutes later the doors of the church closed, and within 10 minutes the square was mostly deserted.  Figuring the show was over, I left.

About 3 hours later, we could see fireworks over the trees of our apartment.  Seems the church resumed with “real fireworks” much later.  They never last long enough for us to grab camera gear and hoof it there, so we also just shrugged and went back inside…