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Published: February 28th 2011
Well we left the crowded city, hopped on a bus headed 3.5 hrs south to the town of Baños. On the bus down they played the Green Mile ( in spanish, with spanish subtitles) which is a crazy movie to watch in another language, but albeit a worthy distraction. In was fun disecting the subtitles into verbs and nouns and conjugations and making some sense out of it. The highway we took there is dubbed the ¨avenue of the Volcanos ¨. There are about 6 or 7 along the way, only a few were on the portion of the highway to Baños, the main one called Cotopaxi, but it was overcast and cloudy so it wasn´t possible to see. Next time maybe, it´s one of the quinessential volcanos here, their water bottles have Cotopaxi in the background label ( kinda like FIJI bottled water ).
The town of Baños claim to fame is their thermal hot springs. Theres 4 or 5 of them. The water is derived from the Volcano Tungaruhua which Baños is located at the base of ! And yes it is an ACTIVE volcano. The last eruption was only 7 years ago. At night you can go
up to a viewing point where you can see it spit red clouds of smoke and ash. The mouth of the volcano is 1.5 km wide. Needless to say there is alot of history here with this Volcano and lots of folk art with mass eruptions and such.
The hotspring water is piped from the volcanic water. It is cafe au lait color and full of mineral floaties. It looks gross, but people here are believers when it comes to the health benefits. One might say miraculous. Bobby and I are more into the Hyrdotherapy aspect of the whole thing. Sit in hot water, raise your temperature, then plunge into cold water. (some kind of cleansing effect or endorphins )
The town is surrounded by gorgeous green Andean mountains, and there are dozens of waterfalls. On the second day here we rented mountain bikes and cycled up the Rut de Cascada ( route of the waterfalls) which was 21 km and took about 2 hours. There were 3 or 4 big waterfalls along the way where and a bunch of outdoor attractions such as ziplining across the canyon river near waterfalls, bungee jumping, and old rickety looking Gondola
The Hotsprings
These are the natural hotsprings with very hot water in the closest pool, and medium temperature in the next, and freezing cold water in the far pool. rides. The final waterfall Cascada Manchay, was the point of the whole trip, two hours of biking, 40 minutes of hiking down towards and back up for, but well worth it! For the view itself but mostly because you can swim in the pool/lagoon at the bottom. Its a perfect temperature too.
Baños is a tourist destination, kinda like Whistler to us, its full of Ecuadorians on holiday for the weekend. So there is plenty to do. There are atv and these odd go-kart things to rent to ride up and around the mountains, thermal baths and horseback riding. We took a week of Spanish classes here to, but you know that term about the more you know the less you realize you know, definitely applies here for sure. We know alot, but still struggle to make sense of it all and actually speak it
We stayed in this amazing hotel that had just opened, infact I think we were the first people to stay in our room ! We had this giant window that framed the bright green andes, it was amazing. One of our last days we rented an ATV to go up to the mountains
the town of baños
the town sits on a shelf with a menacing active volcano looming behind it to get view of the Tungaruhua Volcano, it was such a scenic ride up, but as per usual the clouds were against us, and the Volcano was a little hard to see clearly but you could still get the idea of the triangle peak with the top chopped off. No exploding lava that day
All in all Baños was an awesome little place to spend some time......but alas we are off to the beach
2 pages of photos
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