Banos - Cuenca - Vilcabamba

after leaving quito we headed down to BANOS (which is what you say in spanish when asking for the toilet, or bathroom i suppose). so i guess i have learnt some spanish which is good! it is about 6 hours south of quito and a really lovely place. a refreshing change from quito, smaller, quieter, less scary, but still set in between the most amazing scenery - mountains and volcanoes all around! with a recommendation for a hostel from the folk at the secret garden we made our way to 'plantas y blanco' and got a nice little (slightly musty smelling - although didn't notice that the first time we went into it so maybe its us stinky girls!?) room.'

the next day we decided to hire quad bikes to go and explore the waterfalls and cable cars in the surrounding mountains (sorry to you all who think that was a stupid idea). so the nice ecuadorians showed us (me and tamsin) how to drive them, gave us a map of the route and sent us off on our merry way.

all ready to go...

somehow, we took a wrong turn off the main road and ended up heading up a very steep and windy little track/road up the volcano (we only really discovered this when we got back). had a fun little drive up and about an hour or so into our drive, in our best spanish asked the only passing vehicle if we were going the right way. turned out that we weren't so we turned around and went back down. luckily we were at the bottom when tamsins breaks packed up! so we took the quads back and in the afternoon got the bus up to the waterfalls (cascadas). our trip on the quads was really beautiful though.

tam and laura stopping for a conflab...

at the first fall was a very dodgy looking cable car. it went 100m across the river and 500m above and it looked a bit like a shopping trolley suspended by just 2 wires.

the first cable car...

but it was fun, and we went across the next one too (a little bit higher and longer and they stopped it half way across to scare us)! the final waterfall we had to walk down through the jungle/forest to, and then view from a rope bridge (which held maximum 4 people)! then we had to walk back up!

one of the views from the bus, which was litterally weaving its way along the edge of the drop... agh!

the bus we were in had seats on the roof and when halfway along the trip the driver told us we could sit up on it we jumped at the chance. a few hairy corners and shear drops down into the river later the driver told us "get your cameras ready"- lauras translation. then a nice man also on the roof told us "put your cameras away to protect them"- we chose this translation. and luckily so as when we turned the corner we were driven VERY slowly right through a waterfall! so laura's spanish needs a bit or work still, nice try though.

in fact we thought we were getting quite good at understanding people but i think that most of the time we make it up and hear what we want to!

ooh, our hostel did steam baths so we thought that would be a good way to start the day, and it was. sat in a strange wooden cubicle then doused ourselves in cold water, the process repeated about 4 times before we sat in a cold bath then hosed down by little ecuadorian man. felt very refreshing afterwards.

anyways, so we headed off to CUENCA the following day, another spent on a bus and feeding on our new staple diet of crisps, banana crisps, water, coca cola, oreos, apples and bananas.

a very scary few roads later (unpaved, windy, high and eventually dark) we arrived. the buses here are mad, starting off reasonably comfortably then after stopping outside everyone's house along the way, they are packed! people, children, dogs etc. taking up all the space along the isles, sitting on your lap pretty much! we've been lucky to get seats and i'm dreading the day when we too have to stand for 8 hours on a rickety bus bombing down mountain roads. although i guess the drivers do these routes all the time so they are probably the safest people to be with, i hope?!

cuenca is a really lovely town, bigger than banos and very picturesque - cobbled streets, colonial style buildings etc. a brief visit but we took in the main sights - market, square, cathedral. then got our 3rd bus in almost as many days to VILCABAMBA.

whilst in banos we read about a hostel just outside vilcabamba called IZHCAYLUMA, rave reviews so we thought we would give it a go. and it is everything all those people said, really beautiful, quiet and german run. had a great dinner when we arrived then got shouted at by a scary old german bloke in our room for turning the light on!

following day we decided to try out the "mandango trail"- a 4 hour hike up the mountain and along the ridge at the top.

looking fresh faced and ready for the climb...

turned out to be more of a climb as it was soooo steep and we chose to leave in the heat of the day, not very clever. the sweet old little lady who we paid our dollar to to enter the walk kindly gave us a bottle of water (we did have some already) and a sachet of sugar, she clearly new what was to come!

1 hour later and after stops every minute or so, me and laura made it up to the first cross (just a single cross at the summit of this first part of the climb). the other 2 had turned around a bit earlier. in some parts the track was almost verticle and we got a bit scared whilst hovering on the edge of a hugely high drop. but we braved it and then crawled back down on our bums (a move laura has coined the "crab") just in time to get soaked on the way back to the hostel and a well deserved swim in the pool.

made it to the top and a stunning view over vilcabamba...

just chilling out in the sunshine today and me and tam borrowed bikes to head into town to use the computers, which was really fun but i think we may get in a taxi back up as it is all up hill!

so my next entry will be from somewhere in peru. we are leaving on the overnight bus over the boarder tonight. i forgot my camera today so still no pics i'm afraid, will try to remember next time though.

all in all have had a fabulous time in ecuador. looking forward to our whistle stop tour of peru as we embark upon about 5 days worth of buses in order to get to cuzco by satuday! agh!