Baños - Chapter I: The Decent

Baños is sort of like adventure sports central of Ecuador. It's actually known for its hot springs baths for which it is named (Baños means "baths"). It's a beautiful little touristy town situated within erruption distance of nearby active volcano Tungurahua. From Baños you can do a plethora of adventure sports including white-water rafting, mountain biking, dune-buggy riding, waterfall climbing, zip-lining, and bridge-jumping. Unfortunately, I only got to about half of the options, but it was a pretty adventurous weekend nonetheless.

We (7 of us, I believe) spent three days in Baños. We stayed in a beautiful hostal called "Plantas y Blancas" (Plants & Whites... not really sure why). For $6.50 a night we stayed in rooms of four with comfy bunkbeds, a great view of the town's waterfall (I know, the town has a waterfall), personal bathrooms, and access to the roof top porch and kitchen. Great deal.

Anyways, after arriving early on Friday afternoon (it's a 4-hour bus ride), we explored the town a little bit and decided to hop in some buggies and go for a drive. They pronounce buggies like "boo-geese" here. And I like that. We "boo-geed" ourselves in two-person buggies up through the Andes mountains a few kilometers to where we had a view of Volcán Tungurahua. Unfortunately, the entire top of the mountain was cloud-covered. However, in the early 2000's, Baños had to be evacuated because of the volcanic activity going on on Tungurahua. There were big lava flows and several small erruptions. Anyways, what we could see was the river beds that the lava carved in the side of the mountain. That was redeeming. Also, the buggy ride was exciting and really fun despite some minor mechanical difficulties.

waterfall 1

waterfall 1 (zooooomed)

waterfall 2

waterfall 3

the waterfalls below town

The next day we went on a bike ride down a route called "La Ruta de Cascadas," which means "The Waterfall Route." It's named so because, as you bike downhill on this highway through a valley in the Andes, you pass seven or eight incredible waterfalls that you can see from the road. At some of them you can take a cable car across or even zipline across the valley. We opted not to, but stopped at most of the waterfalls to take pictures (see above) and a break from our 25-kilometer trek.

To be continued...