I woke up really early so that I could start exploring this area of Ecuador. It was Thursday and I realized I only had two full days of going on adventures here in Baños. I needed to be Quito on Saturday afternoon.
Breakfast was provided by my hostal and it was one of the reasons why I chose to stay at Hostal Carolina!
Baños is an escape in Ecuador for adventure. If you are into nature, Baños is the place to be. The landscape just begs to be explored. The city has natural hot springs right in the city. You can go on hikes through trails and visit waterfalls. You can bike around. You can visit the Amazon jungle from here also. There are a myriad of activities you can also do including river rafting, canopying (ziplining), bungy jumping and bridge swinging. There is also an active volcano called Tungurahua that you can see emitting smoke and flames. I didn't have anything set up but I read a lot about what I could do in Baños.
I decided to book most of my tours in a tour agency called Imagine Ecuador which was conveniently located about a few doors away from my hostal. I booked the Puntzan tour for the afternoon. The Puntzan tour is a canopy (or zipline) tour and is rated as one of the best ones in Baños. I've never done ziplining before and thought I should give it a try. There were 2 very kool guys (Darwin and Jonathan) who worked at the agency who helped me out and one really grumpy sour guy that I didn't even bother to remember his name (he seemed to be the supervisor but he had a really bad attitude so I just avoided him and dealt mostly with Darwin and Jonathon).
Here is a map of Baños. It's a fairly small town but the surrounding landscape is overwhelming!
Bike Ride
Breakfast was provided by my hostal and it was one of the reasons why I chose to stay at Hostal Carolina!
Baños is an escape in Ecuador for adventure. If you are into nature, Baños is the place to be. The landscape just begs to be explored. The city has natural hot springs right in the city. You can go on hikes through trails and visit waterfalls. You can bike around. You can visit the Amazon jungle from here also. There are a myriad of activities you can also do including river rafting, canopying (ziplining), bungy jumping and bridge swinging. There is also an active volcano called Tungurahua that you can see emitting smoke and flames. I didn't have anything set up but I read a lot about what I could do in Baños.
I decided to book most of my tours in a tour agency called Imagine Ecuador which was conveniently located about a few doors away from my hostal. I booked the Puntzan tour for the afternoon. The Puntzan tour is a canopy (or zipline) tour and is rated as one of the best ones in Baños. I've never done ziplining before and thought I should give it a try. There were 2 very kool guys (Darwin and Jonathan) who worked at the agency who helped me out and one really grumpy sour guy that I didn't even bother to remember his name (he seemed to be the supervisor but he had a really bad attitude so I just avoided him and dealt mostly with Darwin and Jonathon).
Here is a map of Baños. It's a fairly small town but the surrounding landscape is overwhelming!
Bike Ride
I wanted to see the waterfalls so I rented a bicycle and biked 10km to Paillón del Diablo. Paillon del Diablo are the best waterfalls to see in Baños (Pailón del Diablo translates to 'Cauldron of the Devil'). The bike ride was a little dangerous because you're travelling downhill for the majority of the way and you're also riding on a highway with other cars on the road. You just need to be careful. The ride takes about 30 minutes non-stop, but I took about an hour to get to the waterfalls because I stopped by in many places to enjoy the scenery.
Videos of biking along the highway:
Along the way, I stopped by to enjoy the spectacular views of the rivers and mountains. There are many spots where you can pay to take a ride in a
I also got a chance to see adventurers doing canopying (aka ziplining):
And also bridge swinging:
Cascades de Pailon del Diablo
I finally reached the waterfalls of Pailon del Diablo. It's about a 30 minute hike to get to the waterfalls after parking your bikes. I stopped by to get a bottle of water and an empanada for the short hike to the watefalls.
The waterfalls are breathtaking to be next to nature so powerful and natural.
I was able to crawl through a small rock opening to get underneath the waterfall! It was simply amazing!! The path to get underneath the waterfalls is short, but you need to take care when you go through because you literally have to crawl in some areas and expect to get soaked. I took off my shirt with GoPro in hand and went for it!
On the way back, I passed by a fruit stand and bought a slice of watermelon for a dollar. The lady working there looked at the dollar bill I gave her with a funny look and did a double take on me. I asked her what the matter was and she said the bill I gave her was falso! Falso meant fake! WTF?! I was curious more than anything and she told me to feel the bill. At first glance, I could not tell the difference, but it did feel smoother than another dollar bill I had. Incredible, I've never seen fake money before and you couldn't even tell to easily!
Here's a picture of the fake dollar bill (and a real one). Can you tell the difference??
Since I didn't want to bike uphill and all the way back to town, I paid a truck driver $2 to bring my bike back. I'm glad this service exists because I had to be back in town to do the canopy tour by in the afternoon! I bought a natural melon drink at a store where my bike was locked up. I thought to myself as I savoured the juice there could not be a better way to complete a waterfall trip like that without a quenching drink like I was having.
At the waterfalls, I met some cool people from Argentina: Pablo and Maria del Mar. They are vacationing in Ecuador and staying in Quito. I saw them also waiting for the truck to leave with our bikes. Maria was eating an ice cream and it fell on the ground. We laughed about her spoiling her ice cream. I guess there is an exception to the 5 second rule especially with ice cream!
Videos of biking along the highway:
Along the way, I stopped by to enjoy the spectacular views of the rivers and mountains. There are many spots where you can pay to take a ride in a
I also got a chance to see adventurers doing canopying (aka ziplining):
And also bridge swinging:
Cascades de Pailon del Diablo
I finally reached the waterfalls of Pailon del Diablo. It's about a 30 minute hike to get to the waterfalls after parking your bikes. I stopped by to get a bottle of water and an empanada for the short hike to the watefalls.
The waterfalls are breathtaking to be next to nature so powerful and natural.
I was able to crawl through a small rock opening to get underneath the waterfall! It was simply amazing!! The path to get underneath the waterfalls is short, but you need to take care when you go through because you literally have to crawl in some areas and expect to get soaked. I took off my shirt with GoPro in hand and went for it!
On the way back, I passed by a fruit stand and bought a slice of watermelon for a dollar. The lady working there looked at the dollar bill I gave her with a funny look and did a double take on me. I asked her what the matter was and she said the bill I gave her was falso! Falso meant fake! WTF?! I was curious more than anything and she told me to feel the bill. At first glance, I could not tell the difference, but it did feel smoother than another dollar bill I had. Incredible, I've never seen fake money before and you couldn't even tell to easily!
Here's a picture of the fake dollar bill (and a real one). Can you tell the difference??
Since I didn't want to bike uphill and all the way back to town, I paid a truck driver $2 to bring my bike back. I'm glad this service exists because I had to be back in town to do the canopy tour by in the afternoon! I bought a natural melon drink at a store where my bike was locked up. I thought to myself as I savoured the juice there could not be a better way to complete a waterfall trip like that without a quenching drink like I was having.
At the waterfalls, I met some cool people from Argentina: Pablo and Maria del Mar. They are vacationing in Ecuador and staying in Quito. I saw them also waiting for the truck to leave with our bikes. Maria was eating an ice cream and it fell on the ground. We laughed about her spoiling her ice cream. I guess there is an exception to the 5 second rule especially with ice cream!
Puntzan Canopy Tour
I returned to town around 2PM and waited for a taxi to take me to the Puntzan Canopy tour. The tour was set up to pick up the people who signed up and includes 6 zip lines. In my shared taxi I met 4 girls from Ecuador who spoke really good english. They were accompanied by 2 guys from US who took another taxi (lucky me!). They thought I was their guide! LOL. I ended up taking videos of everyone in the group for the tour - which reminds me I need to give them copies.
I've never ziplined before and I was excited to try it out for the first time. The price of $30USD cannot be beat. In Canada, I don't know how much something like this would cost but I'm guessing at least $100+.
I brought along with me my JBL portable speaker so I can play music while doing the ziplining. My favourite line was the superman ones (there were 2 that you could lay down stomach first). The other ones you did sitting down, upside down. I was lucky to do a tandem ride with one of the girls, Adriana.
The ride back to the city was fun because I got to sit in the back of a pick up truck. Not that I've never done that before, but it's always fun to do different things.
I returned to town around 2PM and waited for a taxi to take me to the Puntzan Canopy tour. The tour was set up to pick up the people who signed up and includes 6 zip lines. In my shared taxi I met 4 girls from Ecuador who spoke really good english. They were accompanied by 2 guys from US who took another taxi (lucky me!). They thought I was their guide! LOL. I ended up taking videos of everyone in the group for the tour - which reminds me I need to give them copies.
I've never ziplined before and I was excited to try it out for the first time. The price of $30USD cannot be beat. In Canada, I don't know how much something like this would cost but I'm guessing at least $100+.
I brought along with me my JBL portable speaker so I can play music while doing the ziplining. My favourite line was the superman ones (there were 2 that you could lay down stomach first). The other ones you did sitting down, upside down. I was lucky to do a tandem ride with one of the girls, Adriana.
The ride back to the city was fun because I got to sit in the back of a pick up truck. Not that I've never done that before, but it's always fun to do different things.
For dinner, I ate a seafood dish which was called 'Mixto' on the menu. I didn't know it was fried rice. The portion was enormous and I figure it was good enough for three people, so I ended up giving my leftovers to Jonathan and Darwin at Imagine Ecuador Tours. While I was at the tour agency, I booked a rafting tour for 9am the next day.
After dinner, I had really good massage with a Lady named Mary in one of the many massage shops in town. She was nice and I got to practice more spanish. She told me stories of how life was like in Ecuador. She had 3 kids and is studying makeup so she can start her own business.
After the massage, I went across the street to a travel agency called Blah Blah Travel (nice name right?! You'll never forget it! LOL). That's where I met Libeth who helped me pick out a cruise for my upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands.
After the massage, I went across the street to a travel agency called Blah Blah Travel (nice name right?! You'll never forget it! LOL). That's where I met Libeth who helped me pick out a cruise for my upcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands.
I had planned to go to a club called Leprechaun bar in the evening, but I was so tired from doing all the activities in the day I decided to walk around and take pictures of the city and then retire early, after all I had to get some rest because I had to wake up early for RIVER RAFTING!
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