Baños, Ecuador

I spent a couple days in the valley adventure town of Baños. Though quite touristy it really is picturesque between tall mountains and waterfalls galore.

I hungout with a couple from Germany that have been traveling the world about 2 years now and we took the early morning trek up to Casa Del Arbol. We were told that a 6am bus can being you up there so we arrived at the bus stop a bit before only to find out it left at 5:45.

We caved in and got a taxi to take us up there. The Casa Del Arbol is a tree house high up on the mountain just below a volcano. It has tree swings that push out over the clouds and it really is a spectacular view even when a bit foggy.

After spending sometime up there we met some Colombians who had camped the night there. We started to walk down and ended up hitchhiking back to town.

Later on in the day Chris (the German) and I decided to rent bikes and bike the 24km Ruta de las Cascadas (route of the water walls). This brought us past beautiful valleys, lush green mountains and of course many waterfalls.

The last stop on the bike trip was Pailon del Diablo a 100m waterfall that you can climb under and gel how crear forcé of the water is. We ended up meeting the Colombians again and climbing up through the waterfall together.

The next morning I got to relax in some thermal baths just under a waterfall on the off skirts of Baños. A great way to spend the early morning hours watching the clouds and fog lift off the top of the city like the sheets of a bed waking everyone up.Read more