El Baño

 

The bathrooms in Quito and in the Galapagos have several differences in comparison to the bathrooms in the United States.  Or I should say, the bathrooms in the United States have luxuries that are rare to find in Ecuador.  There are five main differences.  All five usually exist in public restrooms and usually only one of them commonly exists in homes. 

The luxury commonly not found in homes in Ecuador (and is something I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries) is a mirror.  The other missing luxuries are the lack of soap for hand-washing, the lack of toilet seats on the toilets, the lack of toilet paper, and the lack of paper towels.  These useful objects are even missing in the hospital on Santa Cruz Island.  How a hospital can have bathrooms without providing soap boggles my mind.  Hospitals should promote hand washing and the prevention of spreading germs; without offering patients or visitors soap, no promotion exists.  However, I do give the hospital credit for supplying a bar of soap for the physicians to use at the sink in the ER. 

The lack of toilet seats does make some sense to me.  When a man uses the toilet he commonly raises the seat, and when a woman uses a public toilet she often squats instead of sitting on the seat.  So, really, the seat in a public restroom often goes unused.  But even in the hospitals' physician restroom a toilet seat, nor toilet paper or paper towels, are placed for the physician to use. 

Few restrooms provide toilet paper….. and when it is provided it's common for the restroom to only have one dispenser of toilet paper at the entrance of the bathroom for the user to collect prior to going into a stall.  Other restrooms provide a teller to sell you a few feet of toilet paper for 15 cents.  And when one has used the toilet paper, the paper is to be put in a trash bin near the toilet- not down the toilet.  The plumbing isn’t up to par, so the toilet paper easily clogs the pipes; therefore, never flush the paper. 

After rinsing one’s hands (notice I didn’t say washing one’s hands- remember there is no soap), usually the only option for drying one’s hands is to let them air dry.  Sometimes a hand blow drier is available for use. The only paper towels I have encountered during my time in Quito and while in the Galapagos are the paper towels I have bought myself at the grocery store. 

However, the restrooms in tourist-trap restaurants usually do provide a mirror, soap, and toilet paper.