On Monday we travelled 3 ½ hours by bus from Quito to Banos, taking in some very impressive countryside on the way – massive green hills and valleys, a bit like Wales on steroids!
Banos is one of Ecuador’s premier tourist destinations (especially for the natives), as it’s nestled in beautiful hills and has many hot springs due to the nearby active volcano. The setting is very pretty, with a waterfall cascading down the mountain at one edge of town, and further waterfalls falling into a ravine at the other edge of town.
Unfortunately the town itself is pretty scruffy, lots of half finished buildings and bad architecture, only the church has any merit – very nice against the backdrop of hills.
A saving grace is that there are loads of great bars and restaurants, so we’ve spent the last couple of days mooching around and having nice meals – and have spent a lot of time on the internet planning the next few week’s travels.
Today we visited the famous hot mineral baths – which are in a spectacular setting, adjacent to the main waterfall and only a couple of minutes walk from our hotel. They were packed with locals and we were the only westerners – everyone was really friendly, chatting away to us in Spanish. We didn’t understand a word, but managed to nod in all the right places – we think!
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment