Banos, Ecuador 5th - 9th Oct 2010

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With Quito in the middle of a heavy electric storm, we had no desire to stay there any longer than we needed and so from the airport we hoped in a taxi to take us to the Southerly bus terminal around 30 minutes drive away. As always at a South American bus terminal, you are lobbied by various bus company touts who somehow know where you are heading and tell you they have a bus leaving for there in the next five minutes. Today was no different and we got on a bus that was leaving "in 10 minutes" and 40 minutes later we were on our way.

It was a 3.5 hour drive down to Banos, a spa resort in the foothills of the Tungurahua volcano, which unfortunately shares its name with the Spanish word for toilets, or at least bathroom, so I didn't know quite what to expect – although it did get rave reviews from all who had been there.

This time we booked in advance and reserved the "Verde room“ in the Blue House of the Posada del Arte an upmarket B&B, which is expertly run by Jim and his wife, an american couple. When we arrived in Banos on the bus we got a taxi for a USD1 ride to the Posada, and on our short journey passed plenty of tour places offering night trips up to the volcano, which had last erupted in 2007. Since all was quiet now, it was unclear what we might see, but tourists were lured by the red rolling lava flows of 2007. As it was about USD35 for a short night trip to the crater, we passed on the offer.

The Posada del Arte really is a great place to stay in Banos, as we found out when we checked into a large room with 4 little balconies onto the courtyard below and in sight and sound of the waterfall from the hills that form the backdrop of an impressive view. The rooms are tastefully done with plenty of wood and a bit of art (as the hotel's name suggests) and the bathrooms are big too. Jim, the american owner is very keen to ensure his guest are happy and when on the first morning we and other guests had hot water issues, he was there telling us there were issues with the boiler that were being looked at and soon after telling us it was all fixed.

For our first evening, we walked to the end of the road and tried out a nice looking thatched restaurant called Chozon de la Marienda. It was a little late by Ecuadorean restaurant standards (8:30pm) so the service was a bit slow, possibly because they thought they'd finished for the night. But the food was well worth the wait. Pizza and Chicken & Steak Kebab (about 250g of each) for under USD5 plus 4 big beers for USD1.86 each and a wood-fired oven Pizza for Felicity. The whole bill was USD20 and it all tasted really great.

The breakfasts at La Posada del Arte are also huge and superb – including the Tungurahua option which includes fruit, juice, coffee and a huge american pancake shaped like a volcano with a sauce. A really great way to start the day.

For our first day, after dropping off 9 kilos of smelly washing at a nearby laundry and a quick walk around this quaint town, we decided to hire bicycles and do the ruta de las cascades (the waterfall route), a downhill route of about 16km to the town of Rio Verde. The route is mainly on the road down from Banos to Rio Verde, but for most of the tunnels that are on that road, there is a path which skirts around the tunnel on the side of the river. This avoids having to cycle through the badly lit and more dangerous tunnel traffic. We made frequent photo opportunity stops along the way to admire the view. There are a few cable cars and canopy rides along the way, with the latter allowing you to hang onto a T-bar for upto a kilometer ride over the valley. Fall off and you will bounce off a number of rocks before hitting the River. We politely refused any invitations for that or the bungee jumping that was also on offer, but Felicity did take a flimsy return cable car ride across the gorge. She was alone on the outward journey, but on the return was joined by a number of locals, one of whom was shaking with fear and held on to Felicity for dear life.

After a couple of hours we arrived at our destination Rio Verde, which has as its sole attraction (other than the views) the Puenta del Diablo (devils Bridge). They were in the process of making it extra touristy, with a new stone paved entrance to the walk down to the bridge. Felicity had been there before and said that there wasn't much to see and what there was could be seen from above. The walk down and up would have been good exercise, but having already rode our bikes for a couple of hours, we decided to fore go the experience and the USD2 per person entrance fee.

Instead we had a drink & a chicken Empanada and waited around for a truck to take us back upto Banos. The normal price is USD1.50 each, but since we were alone the local guy who had a truck wanted USD8 each for an 'express' journey back. We repeatedly declined his offer and instead waited in this small town and enjoyed the sun. Eventually 3 french people returned from their walk down to Devil's bridge and went to a cafe. We confirmed with them that they were heading back to Banos and then waited for them to finish. They were clearly in no rush and we waited around half an hour before they started to make a move. It had started raining and this truck had no tarpaulin cover for the back where normally you and your bike had to sit. So we made a pre-emptive move and put our bikes in the back and jumped in the truck cab next to the driver. Our fellow French passengers were not impressed, as we stayed dry and they got the full force of the rain, although by the time we got to Banos it had stopped.

We dropped the bikes back at our friendly rental man and headed back to the Hotel for a freshed up before heading out into town to try a restaurant there. We left it a little late and some had already closed. In the end we plumped for a newly opened Italian place called Papparadelle Buon Giorno. This was a big mistake. The service was bad and the food over cooked. It pretty much took the accolade of worst restaurant since we'd started travelling.

The next day we picked up our now not so smelly laundry and organised a 2 hour horse trek with our friendly bike rental man from yesterday, who will basically rent you anything that is on the Banos tourist menu. We took the laundry back to the hotel and with our trip to Australia getting ever closer, spent a little time working out where we would go, deciding finally on an initially couple of weeks in Sydney, Canberra and other parts of New South Wales for friends visiting, followed by a trip to Perth and the Western Australia Coast, Tasmania and Darwin, interspersed with stops back in Sydney.

Just before 2pm we went to pick up our horses. The guide was young and quiet and spoke no english. The horses were a little excitable, but not too bad. We went through the quieter side of town, avoiding most traffic, and then up in the hills in the direction of the volcano. It was nice scenery and it was good to be on the horses – even if I still got nervous went they broke into a trot or once into a gallop. However, it couldn't compete with our previous horse treks. The guide took us up to a small unimpressive mineral water spring and then we headed back to the town pretty much following the same route as we'd taken outbound.

Following our previous night's culinary disaster, we decided to have dinner at the hotel. What a contrast. Just like the breakfasts it was excellent and well served and reasonably priced. We realised then that with two great eateries nearby, there was no real need to stray too far for good food.

It started raining that night and then continued raining all of the next day. That very much restricted what we felt like doing, but gave us an excuse to firm up our Australia plans. Using the hotel's wifi, we booked our internal Australian flights, but Google Chrome crashed more than once during vital parts of the booking process and with Qantas taking a while to confirm our bookings, we spent a few hours of uncertainty, not knowing what our status was. Fortunately all the bookings went through and for AUD2100 we had booked 6 flights for each of us, which given the distances amounted to around 20 hours of flying. The Qantas Airpass does seem to offer pretty good value.

Our final night of eating in Banos led us back to the Chozon de la Marienda, which we had tried the first night. Avoiding being adventurous, I had the same kebab as last time and this time Felicity joined me. Good service and excellent value were both on the menu that night again.

The next day we had an uneventful ride back on the bus to Quito and returned to the Folklore B&B again. Despite reserving it before we left, our chosen room wasn't available and we had a smaller and slightly noisier room for our last night. But at USD39 per night and given it was only one night anyway, it was still fine.

We enjoyed our trip to Banos. It is certainly a good place to spend a couple of days if you are travelling in the Quito area, especially if you like nice scenery and are into extreme sports.

Places we have visited and can recommend

Hotels
Posada del Arte, Avenue Montavalo y Calle Ibarra, Banos
Excellent accommodation at a good price, Breakfasts are really good, Restaurant food is also very good and staff are pleasant and helpful – Jim and his wife will do their best to help you out. Good WiFi too. In an impressive setting with steep hills and a waterfall behind.

Restaurants
Posada del Arte, Avenue Montavalo y Calle Ibarra, Banos
Chozon de la Marienda, Avenue Montavalo, Banos

Things to do (a small sample list)
Bike Ride to Rio Verde (or Puyo if you are energetic)
Walks in the hills all around Banos
Bungee Jumping, Cable Car and Canopy riding
Horse riding

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