Beautiful Baños

After an amazing few days in the Amazon, I still had a couple of days before my flights to the Galapagos Islands. For a long time before my trip, I wasn’t sure where to spend these… Either in a different cloud forest area, perhaps Mindo or around the Sumaco region, perhaps the Quilotoa loop, or maybe further South around Banos or even Cuenca… However, the options of travel to and from the Cuyabeno region were very limited, so the only viable option I had was to return to Quito and take it from there.

So I decided to visit a region to the South, which was a wetland bordering the Amazon, and absolutely FULL of waterfalls, natural springs and adventure: Baños de Agua Santa.

After a quick night in Quito I decided to book a shared taxi (to maximise my time in Baños), so managed to get a whatsapp number, and join a small group of people going the same way for onlt $25, it was about twice as fast as the bus, especially since the driver thought he was an actual racer!! Why do I always get mental drivers?! haha

I only had 2 nights in Baños, so after checking into a cute little B&B with a wonderful view of a local waterfall, I just had a quick wander around town, grabbed some food and got an early night for a full day exploring the waterfalls the next day.

So the next day, I saw that the town had a lot of places to hire scooters/motobikes, BUT they also had these little electric dune buggies, which I’d never seen before, so of course, I decided to book one of these instead as a little novelty.

First stop was the biggest waterfall in the region; Pailon waterfall, also called El Pailon del Diablo, which was very busy, but absolutely amazing for a few hours exploring all the waterfalls in the park, and crossing very high suspension bridges.

From here, I continued up into the mountains to Cascada El Rocio Mahay, a little spot where apparently you could swim, the heat and high humidity dictating my plans!

It was a slow drive in the little buggy, and then what felt like a very long steep walk down the hillside along paths and metal staircases to the waterfall. There were only a few people here, swimming, it was much more peaceful. I stayed here for a bit, but was anxious to get my buggy back before sunset, and knowing how long the drive had been to get here (plus the price per hour for the buggy), I climbed back up the hill.

After returning the buggy, I had a quick shower and headed over for a very tasty vegan meal (and the BEST yucca fries I had in my trip) at the very cute Leprechaun pub.

Banos was lovely, and a nice change in enviornment and scenary after the Amazon, Quito and Mashpi, but I felt a little rushed, with only 2 days in between Amazon and Galapagos, I had wished I had gone somewhere a little closer, and maybe a little more off the beaten track. Still, the waterfalls were beautiful, and I was able to get back to Quito in plenty time to get my flight to Santa Cruz.