Banos, Ecuador is located about 4 hours south of Quito and altough it is tucked away in the Andean highlands it is considered to be one of the gateways to the Amazon jungle. Our trip to Banos was slightly unexpected. We acutally had planned to stay in the Galápagos for another 4 days but after our New Zealand friends from the Liberty yacht informed us about Banos we decided it seemed like a place we needed to see! We headed to the airport early in the morning ...

Visiting the Galapagos Islands was truly an amazing experience! We couldn`t wait to get out of Quito so we booked our trip on a 4 day cruise aboard the Liberty, which is a 70 foot motor yacht classified as first class (also known as the Estrella Del Mar II). When booking, our main concern was obviously cost so we chose our boat based on it`s "super last minute special deal". We later learned that most of the boats have multiple names, so we were actuall...

After a long day of air travel and airports we finally arrived in Quito late in the evening. The original plan for Quito was just a quick stop over while we organized our trip details for the Galapagos Islands: this plan did not change. Our first impressions of Quito came while looking out the window of the airplane before landing; and it was quite an amazing city at night, from miles above. Quito is one of the longest cities in the world because the mighty Ande...