A RESPITE?

After a rough time in Quito, Joe decides he MUST take to the road again!

Scary. Haunting. Incredibly loud.
That’s my first impression of the cavernous, dilapidated Quito Bus Terminal.
The shouting, the haggling and the bargaining between the various touts from competing bus companies is deafening. Echoes everywhere. This place is like the ancient ruins of the Roman Coliseum, or something - without the history.
Or the architecture.
So, finally, I was able to extricate myself from my bed at Hostel Loro Verde after about a week, and believe me, it takes every ounce of my resolve. Where I’m attempting to go is a place called Bańos (baths) which is famous for its ‘aguas caliente’ - or thermal waters. Also, it’s a popular tourist town, which I think is probably good for me to be around people right now. Furthermore, it’s only about three hours away, and is known as the gateway to the Oriente, the Amazon region of Ecuador - which is where I kinda wanted to go in the first place.
Now, boarding the bus is where I encounter my first real Ecuadorian surprise.
Apparently, Jean Claude Van Damme, of all people, is a national hero here.
Or a cult favorite.
A legend?
The minute the bus pulls out of the depot, the driver immediately pops a Van Damme action DVD into the beat up monitor - and cranks it up to the highest possible decibel levels! Everything is dubbed in Spanish. For the entire three hour trip. I will soon learn that all of the long distance buses in Ecuador are each equipped with a damaged monitor and what seems to be an endless supply of Jean Claude Van Damme DVD’s. I mean, before I came here to Ecuador, I had not even seen one minute of one Van Damme flick! Unfortunately, I would soon become intimately acquainted with all of them.
By the time I finally exit the bus after three tremulous hours, I am beset with an excruciating headache - courtesy of countless bombs, explosions and machine gun fire - to say nothing of more than a few reservations as to why I had ever left my comfortable hostel bed in Quito in the first place.
I am now driven to scour the streets of Banos by a ferocious hunger, and this oddly enough, is where my luck unexpectedly changes. While running around with no real idea of where I am going, I happen to turn into this restaurant, which says:
‘Cafe Hood, where the food is good’