Volcano Hotel Banos

We took a 3hr bus ride with a bunch of wacked out american kids and one who refused to get her passport out when the police stopped us for a routine check. Their guide took the flack for her and didn´t look happy when he got back on the bus. I jumped off the bus, happy to be on the move again and was confronted by stalls and stalls of sugar cane ladies trying to sell me sweets and sticks of rock. For a minute I thought we´d arrived in Brighton, but no, this was Ba ...

... river on carriage attached to a wire driven by a lorry motor operated by a friendly Ecuadorian. We were charged $1 each, $0.50 cents for the children as a return fare. The carriage passed right over a gushing waterfall, and the lorry driver paused us just in front of the waterfall so we could take pictures. On the other side was a lookout walkway which took you to the edge of the waterfall where we paid another $0.25 cents for the privelage. We returned back across ...

... tried to befriend the parasite now that i know what it is, and will soon ask it kindly to leave my body. hope it listens. This afternoon we are heading to Machalilla, the town that i worked in the last time i was here, to see the family that i lived with and relax on the beach. After that we are heading to another coastal town called Montañita to go surfing, and then further down the coast to Peru. I will add some pictures soon! <br><br><br><br><br>

... diverted for an hour down country roads for more than an hour along with the rest of Ecuador. Our three hour journey to Banos took much longer as a consequence and we didn&#8217;t get in to Banos until about 8pm, very late, tired and in the dark. The dutch couple had somewhere to stay and we may well have joined them except a really nice young Ecuadorian lad approached us as we got off the bus and said he had a room ...

... opted to take it really easy for the last few weeks and have a holiday from the holiday so to speak! We do still have some things we want to see but its mostly chilling from here on out.<br><br>Alas, the sleeping game was destroyed by the bike hire shop opening up next door in the mornings. Not bicycles. Quad bikes, motor bikes and buggys...you know the kind: the NOISY kind! Oh well, most days we lazed around the hostel until about 10 or 11 and then headed ...

... sprayed us with icy water. Painful as this was, one could only imagine it was part of the build up. We returned to our oven, for a further 5 minute baking. Then he returned. Lucy and myself shared looks of ´´Its been good´´ ´´I want my mummy´´ ´´typical, could have happened at the end of the trip´´. We are taken into a cool room, still echoing with french screams, and sat in pools of ice which did cause a few girly whimpers ...

... wondering. Although we never quite ascertained why we snorted tobacco juice, my best bet is that it was meant to jumpstart our digestive systems, as we´d fasted most of the day in preparation. After the tobacco, we were given a small cup of ayahuasca brew to drink. During all of this, the shaman was waving branches of leaves around our heads and bodies while chanting in Quechua.<br> After our drink, the wait began. About 25 minutes after drinking the brew, one is ...

... surrounded by mountains and a nearby volcano (obviously), so makes for a very scenic town.<br><br>Tuesday morning we attempted to go zip-lining, but the place was closed, so we had no choice but to relax in the thermal baths and then eat muchas comida! The waters are a really murky colour due to the high mineral content and quite hot like proper bath water. Felt so relaxed after the soak, so treated ourselves somemore by sampling three different cafes/restaurants around the town (its very ...

Somebody has done this story!<br>Another easy day, of into the old city to the post office, then to find a map (ha ha! decent maps are impossible to get).<br>All done back to the bikes to find the equator park Mitel de Mundo, not very special but you have to have a picture at the equator, well nearly the ...

Gabe woke up early and booked us on a canyoning trip. It turned out we were going with one guide, Franklin, and a British couple named James and Emma. After getting fitted for shoes we were off, trucking up a mountain to a little wood hut where we were told we could leave our clothes. Changing into our wet suits, harness, new shoes and strapping on our helmets we set off on our 20 minute "hike ...