Quito to Baños
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2007
1
20
80
Trip End
Mar 16, 2008
Baños,
Ecuador
Monday, April 16, 2007
Baños, meaning baths, is a great little town completely surrounded by nearby mountains. The name baños relates to the handful of hot baths which are in Baños having heated water from the nearby volcano. In fact, it bubbles up at a very hot 50oC and this gets cooled to a more acceptable 22oC in a big pool underneath a nearby waterfall... idyllic setting!
Baños is a total Gringo town and very nice at the same time. It´s a place where you can relax in the baths, go trekking up the local mountains or volcanos, or do countless other activities including biking, quod-biking, horse-riding, canoeing, white-water rafting, canyoning, bridge-swinging... I think you get the idea! Anyway, in the 3 days in Baños we went cycling, horse-riding and relaxed in the hot baths. Great fun! The cycling was for a distance of around 20K from Baños to Rio Verde where there was the famous "Devil´s Cauldron" waterfall. The ride was said to be 90% downhill... mmmm... seemed more like 60%, on a generous day! Even so, it was great fun and (of course) it poured down with rain. The nice thing was that after seeing the waterfall, there was a vehicle waiting for tired bikers to take us and our bikes back up to Baños. Nicely done! The horse-riding was for 3 hours and we went around the brim of the surrounding mountains of Baños and finally descended the steepest slope I´ve ever seen and miraculously we survived, but only just! Also, it rained and rained so not only was I unable to walk properly for a few hours, but I looked like a drowned rat too! Fun all the same, and I did experience trotting and cantoring which was both fun and worrying! It was a good plan to go to the baths afterwards and definitely worth the $2! The 48 degreeC bath was unbelievably hot, but it had to be done.
So, Baños done it was time to move on to Riobamba, a 1 hour bus ride away...
