For our time with the cousins in the resort-ish town of Baños, we rented a house on the river. Eight of us had the run of the house to ourselves. Great idea, right? Well…kind of. Our house had some idiosyncrasies that made it somewhat challenging. One problem, which I blame myself for, was that the location, while beautiful, was far from town — we had to call a taxi every time we wanted to do anything, which pushed my Spanish abilities to their limit. This I mentioned in the Airbnb review. These other four things, not so much.
1. The Porthole in The Bathroom
It’s as if the architect thought: What if you want to get up in the middle of the night to pee, but still want to watch your sleeping children? Mission accomplished! The Bathroom Porthole (patent pending) allows you to relieve yourself while watching loved ones sleep!
2. NOT Just Another Brick In The Wall
The house was built of bricks. Not unusual, right? Lots of houses are built with bricks. What made this house very different was the choice to color them all in astonishing, day-glo colors and also camouflage.
Because bricks lend themselves to camouflage, right?
3. Ooooh, That Smell
My hunch is that there was a problem with the septic system in our bathroom, but that didn’t stop Julian from assuming that his father had just spent some quality time in there every time he walked by. My response: “If I ever create a smell like that it means that I’m dead.” Just like Skynyrd said, people.
4. The Scorpions
Yeah, I wish it were the band. We found the first scorpion by our campfire. Wasn’t that big a deal, but still pretty exciting. We found the second scorpion in Lisa and Todd’s room. Okay, that got the adrenaline going. The third one was in my shower and, maybe because I was naked, frightened me the most. I was proud of myself for using an almost normal voice to call Sarah in to take this photo:
Within moments, the bathroom was full of kids and cousins marveling at my bathtub buddy. I wrapped myself in the shower curtain as Seth clubbed it repeatedly with a mop handle. The arachnid showed some pluck — it actually raised its stinger-tail at the handle — but it wasn’t long before I was alone again in the shower, just me and some scorpion parts. Yeah, I was born under a bad sign.
That’s Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Scorpions and Albert King in one post. You’re welcome.
