Bathing in Banos

After the effort of Cotopaxi I definitely needed some R&R! I felt a lot better after a hot shower and a decent night's sleep at the Hacienda just outside the park. We then drove south, losing altitude consistently as we went, down to the lovely town of Banos. This place is blessed by hot springs in the middle of town and they have a lovely hot pools set below a waterfall cascading down the several hundred metre cliffs above. Needless to say I didn't need asking twice!

Jo treated us to a hotel room with Xmas and birthday money the family had kindly given, and it was great to have a lazy day around the town. It's quite a touristy place, which normally we don't like but after this long on the road we love the variety of food you can get from the expats who have settled in the area. We couldn't quite bring ourselves to splurge on a $21 pp fondue, but we did find a fantastic raclette place for a quarter of the price - in fact it was so good we ate their twice. We also had to get in another dip in the pools before we left.

In between the eating and soaking we drove up onto the cliff and spent a morning acting like kids at Casa Del Arbol, with its famous 'swing at the end of her world'. Maya is so adventurous I even got her on the zip line with me! We shared our camp spot with a couple of alpacas, and Maya was hilarious trying to make friends! That evening we were sitting in the restaurant building when it felt like someone was jumping on the roof, as it got worse it dawned on us it was a pretty big earthquake (5.2) and we gathered outside with the locals looking worryingly at the huge volcano towering above us.Read more