Banos Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

Danger is all relative and every place has its dangers. Colombia has the FARC and kidnappings as part of its ongoing civil conflict, Quito has its muggings and petty crime, and Banos has a more natural danger, its volcano. Located 7km from the crater of Tungurahua, which erupted two weeks ago and rained ash down on the city, Banos is in a less than ideal location when it comes to its safety. At the foot of the volcano and surrounded by deep river gorges and other mountains, the…

Well I´m actually writing this in Peru after the event - but I just wanted to place this entry in my favourite destination in Ecuador whilst covering those places, both rewarding and disappointing, that I haven´t yet written about...  Banos Whatever little Banos lacks in size, it makes up for in personality. We only spent two days there but I would have been much happier if it had been many more. Under the shadow of the increasingly …

So here I am. I´m just over a week into my trip and still finding it hard to believe that I actually got it together to do this.  But so far its been worth the effort and hassle of organising, moving out etc. What can I say, I´m loving it!!Made my way over without a hitch, apart from arriving in Madrid and being half way through the airport and realising I´d left my new North Face fleece on the plane, so I had to run back down and try to remember which of the 50 identical gates I´…

I took 4 hour bus from Quito to Banos for about half of the cost of a pint from Melrose.  This is a beautiful town in a small valley surrounded by steep forested mountains and volcanoes.   It is most famous for it´s hot baths but locals from other town come here to party on the wekends.  It feels a bit like Banff or Queenstown because of the florencent homade signs on every street advertizing everything from jungle tours to bungy jumping. &nb…

So, day two in the jungle. There were huge spiders everywhere. For some reason, I wasn´t scared. I think the difference was being out in nature, versus feeling clean and safe in a home and seeing a big F-ing spider out of the corner of your eye. But interesting to think about how safe overall I felt in the jungle, and since I´ve been in Ecuador. We had a great breakfast early in the morning: crepes (pancakes), yogurt, fresh fruit salad, etc. all food that I love. We started the day by hop…

Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru

We spent Tuesday in the Amazon rainforest. We canoes out to a wildlife sanctuary, where we were greeted by playful squirrel monkeys and rehabilitated woolly monkeys and Capuchin monkeys. Capuchin monkeys are meant to be the most intelligent of the New World monkeys, and are know to rub their fur with Pipers (a plant from the chilli family) and millipedes, to coat themselves in the toxic chemicals that keep insects away. We also saw captive Macaws, parrots, peccaries, capybara, ocelots …

I moved south on my own on Tuesday because unfortunately Tara was sick. Instead of going to meet her friends who i didn´t know I decided to head to Latacunga, near the Quilotoa circuit. It was another 2 hour journey and I arrived in a very small town by comparison to Quito.       I got there in the late afternoon and ran round the travel agencies trying to get a one day tour to the Quilotoa Crater instead of doing the round trip on my own, but they were all…

After such a physical day with the bikes we decided that the next day we definitely deserved to be motorized, so the 6 of us rented ATVs for a few hours to explore the local volcano.  The cuadernos were simple and slow, with no gear switching possible, but were certainly fun to maneuver around.  Our guide rode on ahead on motorcycle and we followed, up and off paved roads on to lumpy gravelly walks.  The scenery going up was once again hugh green mountains rising in all…

I´m spending around 1 year in South America, I had an amazing time. Enjoy my pictures, I'd do it again.

if you like hiking, biking, you get the idea...oh, also if you like to do it in one of the most beautiful places....

We climbed Tungurahua after staying a few days in Banos. When we reached the summit, we could not see a thing...  We had left our paragliders on the way up, as we saw they would be of no use...

june 2008

so this blog is about my recent travel trip first travel experience out of the states on my own with only my older brother and i... the events i go through are very memorable.. i went to school and lived in the city partying every weekend than went to peru for two weeks and in being held hostage while going back to peru to get new visas, and living on the coast of ecuador in canoa studying on a organic eco-farm for 5 months... than going into thde amazon with my parents and sisters for two-weeks

So ich bins wider mal! inzwuesche bini scho i dr 3. schuelwuche und ich han langsam au ds gfuehl dass ich mich cha verstaendlich mache also ds vorletscht weekend hani in quito verbracht will ich immer no recht jetleg gha ha. usserdem hani mich no nid so i di ueberlandbues gwagt (das system het der name nid wuerklich verdient)... ich bin de am samschtig mit dr silvie uf de pichincha mit dr bahn, und nah simmer de no 1 1/2 stund i richtig gipfel glufe. na wo mier zrug cho sind, hemmer ues de no…