Trip to Banos, Ecuador (Oct. 7-9)

We ended our first week in Ecuador with a trip to the resort town of Baños, which is famous for its baths filled with healing mineral water heated by the the volcano Tungurahua.  The volcano wasn't active during our visit, and apparently hasn't been very active recently, but did have a big eruption in 2008.  Baños is a huge tourist spot, and it offers every type of outdoor activity you can think of - mountain biking, hiking, rafting, zip-lining (canopy), canyoning, horse-back riding and puenting (like bungee jumping off of a bridge without the bounce).  

Walking through Baños

In the morning, we went zip-lining in the canopy.  We rode up the volcano to a little ranch where a family lived and ran their zip-lining business.  Their property was beautiful and was filled with exotic flowers and an orchard growing granadillas, which are a sweet fruit filled with seeds.  The family had a daughter about the age of seven, who was one of our guides.  She led us on all of our hikes through the mountain and between lines, rode the lines like a pro and even took pictures for us.  Most of the lines crossed a large valley, and at one end, we were able to stop and take pictures of a waterfall.  The best part about zip-lining was that after the first line, we were able to go in different positions.  I rode one hanging upside down, and a few more stretched out like Superman.  It really felt like flying!

Huge calla lilies growing along the trail to the zip-lines

Sue, Me, Cristina and Jana by the first waterfall of the day 

Concentrating so hard!  This was the easy (normal) way to go down the line.

Beautiful view from a high platform

After zip-lining, we had a truck take us part of the way down the mountain to the road from Baños to Puyo.  Beyond Puyo is the jungle and the road makes a gradual descent with lots to see along the way, so it makes a perfect bike ride.  We road our mountain bikes until we reached a tourist area with more waterfalls and a cable car that crossed the canyon.  Again, there were beautiful views and we got to do a little more exploring when we got to the other side.  Once across the canyon, there was a wobbly wooden plank bridge that we crossed, as well as a few dogs and chickens, and the weirdest spiders I have ever seen.  

Cable car along the road to Puyo

View looking south from the cable car

Crazy spider we found on the other side of the bridge.

View looking north from the cable car.

We made another stop on our bikes when we came to a small waterfall along the road.  We all had to stop and touch the rainbow!

We crossed the bridge over the Rio Blanco, and were stopped by locals asking us to try puenting.  Jana went first, and dove of of the big bridge head first.  It was crazy.  Sue and Chloe jumped off of the little bridge together, and Cristina and I just watched and took pictures.  Standing on the edge of a bridge and jumping was not really on my to-do list!  There were some great views from my safe spot at the end of the bridge.

Our final stop on our bike tour was at El Pailon del Diablo (the Devil's Cauldron).  It is a massive waterfall (I read about 100ft high) that is just a 1km hike from the road.  Its impossible to get anywhere near it without getting wet from the spray.  I wish I would have taken video to show the force of the water, because the picture just doesn't do it justice.  Absolutely amazing!  We finished our hike back just as it was getting dark and hitched a ride in the back of an old truck back to Baños.  

We ended our day with a soak in the piscinas (hot spring baths) in Baños.  The heat felt great after a long day of biking and hiking.  The following morning, we did a little shopping.  Baños is also know for hand-made taffy (melcocha) made from locally grown sugar cane, so I had to get some to bring home.  


Finally, on our bus ride home, we had great views of another volcano, Cotopaxi, which is the highest active volcano in the world according to some sources.  Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day and the glacier covering the mountain doesn't stand out too well in this photo.  Still, its pretty cool that there is a glacier so close to the equator.  


Hope you enjoy the photos and checkout my Facebook photos for all of the rest!

Cotopaxi