Banos Anyone?

Here I am in Banos! My first trip in Ecuador!

No . . . it is not what you think!  Banos is a city in Ecuador . . . not the bathroom.  Well, it is that too, but not in this case. 🙂  Two weeks ago (13/10/12), two Riobamba volunteers – Sarah and Alicia – and I went on a day trip to Banos.

We left on a bus at 7:20AM.  It takes about two hours to get to Banos from Riobamba.  The bus was very clean and quite comfortable.  (I didn’t know what to expect for my first Ecuadorian bus ride.) There was a  television too!  I was excited when they started a movie, but then I realized that it was The Thing – a scary and gross movie, in my opinion.

This is the river running through Banos.

During the rest of the ride I tried not to watch the disgusting things going on in the movie, but sometimes I couldn’t help but to sneak a peek.

We arrived around 9:30AM and explored the city.  It was quite beautiful.  It was nice to wear a t-shirt and feel warmth all day long.  (This is not the case in Riobamba.  Usually it’s warm in the morning and early afternoon, cool in the late afternoon, and very cold at night.)  We walked around the bridge and river in Banos and then hiked up to a sculpture at the top of a mountain.  Let me tell you, I was exhausted.  The altitude was rough on my lungs! I made it though . . . with plenty of sweating.

This is one of my favorite photos so far! Amazing!

Next, we walked over to a waterfall in town.  It was breath-taking, as you can see.  After that, we went to a restaurant for lunch and then to a different restaurant for dessert.   We had to take advantage of being on “vacation” for the day and have dessert, right? 🙂  After that, we walked around town a little bit more and then headed back to the station to catch our bus back to Riobamba.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip.  As many of you know, one of the things I want to do while I am in Ecuador is to travel to many of the beautiful places in the country.  Banos was my first trip and I enjoyed it a lot.  I also loved learning how easy it is to travel by bus in Ecuador.  Plus, the bus is really inexpensive!  Our tickets were $2.00 each way – what a bargain, huh?

One final thing you may not know about me – I love public transportation!  I know I am in the minority with this one, but it is really fun and humbling being around other people experiencing the same things as me.  I don’t know how else to explain it . . . I just like it.  Even in St. Louis, I loved riding the MetroLink.  Go figure.

So . . . now I turn it over to you.  Here is a link to 10 places to visit in Ecuador.  Check it out (it’s brief!) and tell me:

• Where do you think I should visit while I am here?  Why?
• If you came to visit (which you could!), where would you want to travel?