Weekend trip to Banos

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By the end of the week of studying I was ready for a break. For the weekend, the school arranged a trip to Banos - centre for acivities. The town is approx 4.5 hours from Quito.

We left Quito at 07:00 on Saturday morning and after a brief stop for a coffee/food we arrived in Banos around midday. The hostel was in a quiet part of town halfway up a very steep hill. The rooms are clean and each having it´s own private bathroom.

After collecting our bicycles, we cycled away from Banos into the country admiring the sights.

After about an hour, we stopped for some lunch for approx 1 hour and continued on cycling for the rest of the afternoon.

Around 5pm, we stopped cycling and walked through the forest to a viewing point for a waterfall. After paying a 1USD entrance fee, we were able to walk behind the waterfall at various heights. We were natuarally covered in spray from the water but the view and noise was great. Unfortunately there are no pictures from behind the waterfall as too wet and I didn´t have a protective cover for my camera.

After returning to the hostal at Banos around 7.30pm, we all went for something to eat after which a visit to a local bar rounded off the night. One of the teachers in the group for the weekend bought a round of drinks which he called ´Bob Marley´. This was a multi-coloured drink (green, yellow and red I think) and the barman lit all the drinks which we consumed through straws. Reasonably strong, but I´m not sure what was in it.

Sunday 11 April: I´d opted to go horse-riding for a couple of hours in the morning. At 10:00 the horses and their owner were waiting outside the hostel and we were led up the hill out of the town to the country - the horses only responded to their owners command (probably a good thing). My horse in particular was obsessed in being in front regardless of whether there was any room for him to pass between any other horses who were in front of him. At other random times, any of the horses would veer off to the side of the track and stop for something to eat.

The outing with the horses lasted about 2 hours - the weather wasn´t fantastic but the scenary was good.

After a quick lunch it was back to the hostel to catch the minibus back to Quito.
The bus back to Quito was supposed to pick us up around 2pm - at 1:45pm the driver called to say that he was only just leaving Quito, which would mean he would be with us by 6pm ish. The decision was made for us to take public transport back to Quito. We caught the bus from Banos bus station at around 3pm, and arrived back at Quito around 7pm.

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Photos

Banos in the morning
View from outside the hostal taken around 8am. The clouds are unfortunately blocking the view of the volcano nearby.