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Well you will be glad to know that I wrote a massive entry for Baños and then managed to delete it so this will be the less rambling version.
We left Quito with a couple from South Africa and a couple from Germany and arrived in Baños in the afternoon, checked into a hotel and we all went out for dinner, upon returning to our rooms we had our first taste of crime in South America our door was open but fortunately we had locked all our valuables in our pack and nothing was missing. The Germans were less fortunate and were missing a camera and a couple of other things. As you can imagine they were quite put out by this and absolutley ripped shreds through the guy on the front counter and if you want to sound angry German is the perfect language for it. After delivering a torrent of abuse and threatening to go the police the camera miraculously turned up in another room. Any way after all that we decided to move hostels and ended up at a place called Santa Cruz which was great.
First day in Baños we hired push bikes and rode along a road out of town stopping at several waterfalls along the way including a big one called Pailon Del Diablo which was quite impressive. After that went back to the hostel bought a heap of beers and played cards with the other guys, which was the norm for every night we were in Baños.
Next day we went rafting on the Pastaza river which was a little bit disappointing the rapids just weren't very rapid and the water was a very dirty from the Volcano erruption two weeks or so ago. On the plus side where we hired the rafting equipment was like a little zoo they had a baby monkey and other unidentifiable Ecuadorian animals.
The great thing about Baños is there is just so much to do, nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains, rivers, waterfalls and the ever present (and very active) Volcano Tungurahua your options are endless, also a positive is because the road had just been reopended after the volcano wiped it out, there is bugger all tourists around in a town that is totally geared towards tourism.
The third day in Baños we chose the Quad bike option and hooned around the surrounding mountains and small villages stopping at the site were the road had been ruined, there were people crawling through the rubble pulling out rocks which were still too hot to touch two weeks after the erruption, in the end we had 4 hours on the bikes for around $10 each...absolutely great fun. That night we went up to a lookout where you can get a good view of the volcano it was very clear but unfortuantely the volcano was having a day off and didn't see any lava or anything.
The next few days were pretty quiet took a quad bike out for another spin, accidentally dropped the term "card nazi" in a card game involving four Germans and on our final night in Baños went out on the town with some Aussie girls from Melbourne and the aforementioned Germans and South Africans, Jo stacked it in the main street and grazed her hands a little bit...this time a combination of clumsiness and drunkeness.
We were waiting around to see if the volcano would do anything as would have been great to see it go off (probably not so great for the locals though) but it seemed very quiet so have decided to move on.
previous travel blog entryComments or Questions for the Author
Craig & Jo says:
G'day, The Volcano is still active and depending who you talk to it will probably go again, from what I understand though Baños is on the opposite side to where all the mud and lava will spill out so although you would probably be evacuated you should be fine...my opinion is it is such a great place it's worth the risk with the added bonus of not as many toursist floating around (although lots more seemed to turn up every day that we were there) If you do go stay at Hostel Santa Cruz..a great place.
titus1 says:
Hi Craig and Jo. I'm going to be in Ecuador in October and I had planned on spending some time in Banos but I wasn't sure how things there were after the volcano eruption. What's it like? It's ok to visit now? It sonuds as though it is from your blog. Cheers.