After retaking the long trip from Cuyabeno Reserve to Quito we decided that the next morning would be another ideal time to ship out to our next stop Banos! So navigating our way through an Ecuadorian bus station (flawlessly might I add! or because we stuck out like a sore thumb that people were very eager to sell us a ticket), we were treated to our first true Ecuador Bus trip! Think of a 4 Hour Bus Eireann trip except they stop and let buskers and street food vendors onto the bus every 10 minutes...... You'd never go hungry but the busking did make it harder to concentrate on the on bus movie Undisputed 3 (if you are unaware it is a Prison MMA ultragore movie......very appropriate for the audience and time of day of this bus!).

We arrived in Banos and realised our Hostel was very far out of the town indeed....Quick taxi and we are in the lovely Mama Tungu Hostel high in the hills of Banos. First order of business was to throw on the hazmat suits and try to gather our still soaking wet clothes from the Amazon and put them into the wash (we apologised quite a bit to the staff for the unpleasant task.....) and then proceeded to air out my bag for the next 3 days (I'm writing this from Chile and I still get a whiff of the Amazon from that bag!).

The next 5 days were a mix of Chilling, hiking, soaking and Instagram picture taking. There were a few smaller waterfalls around our hostel so that made for a few pre dinner / early morning hikes! Our hostel had a pool and hot tub so we were well chilled for the hot days and when the WiFi worked (which wasn't often) it was fast(ish)! We ventured out for a trip to the "Hands of Mother Earth" which were a good bit more colourful than the "Hands of God" on the other side of the valley as well as being the only people there so that's where the instagram pics were pulled from! We went up to La Casa Del Arbol - Nicknamed "The swing at the end of the world" - made famous from a national geographic photographer who won an competition for his photo! It wasn't the highest swing in Banos but it was the highest I was willing to attempt! 

To cool off from the excitement of the swings we joined the locals for the number one passtimes in Banos, Hotsprings! Stretching my spanish to the limits to get a taxi out to the locals hotspring and stretching even more to actually get into the springs, I did manage to understand the assistant who told me because of my baldness I did not need a swimming hat.......swings and roundabouts.......The water was heated from the still active volcanoes in the area and lead to really building up a sweat (aswell as a freeze from some of the plunge pools and redirected waterfalls!). We rounded off our trip with a day hiking out to Cascada El Pailon, which was a lovely walk down (willingly ignoring the fact we had to walk back up the valley.....) we arrived to some great view points with a less then navigable cave to the upper view point! A longgggggggg walk back up the hill we grabbed an ice cream as a reward and a local bus as a second treat!

Banos definetly a contender for top place to visit in Ecuador for the variety of things to do!