Blogs from Baños, Centre, Ecuador, South America - page 37

Arriving in Bańos in the morning after a long overnite bus from the coast was a much welcomed surprise. Bańos is a small town located in a lush green valley with an active volcano overlooking it, and is full of adventure travel things to do. The first day we spent the morning catching up on lost sleep in the nicest hostel we have stayed in so far, called Hostal Marquez. We got a spacious room with really comfy beds, with a nice balcony and a view of the main waterfall in Bańos called the Virgin. We decided to do a night tour of the active volcano nearby, and got driven in an open aired “Chivy” truck blasting reggaeton music with 20 other people that took us to a viewpoint of Bańos. It was raining pretty hard ... read more

27th September- 29th October The Idyllic town of Banos is situated in one of the lushest green valleys that i´ve come across, and shouldered nearby by a volcano, which has erupted twice in the last few months, sending people running! i heard that if the eruption was big enough, then you have about 4 minutes to get across the other side of a bordering river! and the scarry thing is, they can never predict when this will happen! the volcano is almost always mildly active and you can see the red flames in the dark of night. stayed in a very cool hostel called ¨plantas y Blanco¨, with its own steam room and a rooftop bar overlooking the town. Met 2 Canadian girls called Sheryl and Erin and for the next 2 days we attempted to ... read more

Where do we start? Actually we´re not in Banos any longer but in Puyo, 1000 metres down in the Oriente (Ecuadorian Amazon basin) after evacuating! The volcano was rumbling around all day yesterday (it was hard to concentrate on our Spanish verbs while the windows rattled and the volcano roared). However, we were assured we were in no danger, and in fact were quite excited to go up and have a look at the activity from a safe distance. Just in case, when we went to bed we packed an emergency bag, which was just as well as two of us - Rosemarie and Gail - were dramatically rushed up another mountain at 1am with the rest of the town to spend the night. They crossed the only bridge, with people surging across on foot, with ... read more

Bonjour à tous. Les dernières 30 heures ont été particulièrement riches en émotions. Avant d'aller plus loin, sachez que le récit suivant est basé sur des faits réels et que les noms des protagonistes n'ont pas été modifiés. Je suis aussi prêt à vendre les droits pour en faire un film...Toute offre raisonnable sera acceptée. Le récit débute à Quilotoa dans la même froide bâtisse où nous étions dans l'update précédente. Nous nous sommes levés tôt pour marcher de Quilotoa jusqu'à Zumbahua où les bus sont plus fréquents. La madame de notre hôtel nous a dit que ça prenait 8 heures, le guidebook disait 5 heures et un monsieur sur la rue disait 2-3 heures. Les paris sont ouverts! Finalement, on l'a fait en 1h48. 1h40 de marche et 8 minutes dans la boîte d'un truck ... read more

Hola from Banos, a picturesque village nestled beneath the currently-active Tungurahua volcano. The surrounding countryside is lush and green, a bit like alpine Europe. It´s warmer, but with heaps of tourists: a sort of Queenstown but much tackier! It feels totally different from Otavalo, and we´re sorry to see hardly an indigenous costume anywhere. We´re finding our home stays much easier to understand, but perhaps that´s because they are both teachers, and we have 3 weeks experience! Perhaps something is getting through after all! The journey down was a bit longer than expected due to a blockade near Mt Cotopaxi. At first we were told it was a check for arms, and we looking forward to a body search. However, it was nothing more interesting than a bicyle race - which held us up for nearly ... read more