Baños

Typical view in Baños.

Well it´s been awhile so I´m going to jog the old memory banks and try to update everyone here. Now I´ve really started travelling, I feel like I´m doing so much in so little time. I´m now in Northern Peru, yes oddly as I´ve arrived in a hotter climate the weather icon to the right seems to have grown. How odd.

Anyway Ecuador, well what a country. I now wish I´d planned more time for Ecuador, it´s such a wonderful country and so diverse, from beaches to jungle to mountains. I really think I will go back one day for a holiday. Only in my third country of about 20 and I´m planning my holidays!

From Quito I travelled south to the resort town of Baños. The town is nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and a very threatening volcano, Tungurahua. It last erupted in 99´, destroying part of the road into Baños, but the people moved back into town. It´s a thriving tourist town with plenty of excursions to the Amazon, whitewater rafting, horse riding and Spa treatments. It felt good to be somewhere so safe, after Quito.

I spent my first day in Baños looking up. The views are incredible, it´s hard to take in the scale of the landscape. I enjoyed the wide choice of good food too, I had a choice other than beans and rice!

On my second day in town I treated myself to a massage at one of the many Spa´s in town. It felt very good.

Baños is a hippie town with plenty of relaxed places to enjoy a drink and read a book. It felt like every cafe had it´s own book exchange.

I took a night trip to see the volcano, thankfully it wasn´t active. But the view of Baños was incredible. As the other tourists on the excursion were Ecuadorian, the guide spoke Spanish. Thankfully I could follow. He explained how Baños has a warning system in case Tungurahua erupts and a few times each year the town practices an evacuation. Apparently the town of 24,000 can be emptied in 20 minutes without using cars. Safety lies across the bridge out of Baños. But I assume people have to be moved on again quickly.

Okay my plan was to add lot´s of nice photo´s to this blog. But I´m not having much luck with computers, so I think I will just publish this now and try and add some more photo´s later. I have updated my Flickr account.