Second day in Banos. We decided to do a hike up in the mountains above the city. We climbed up to La Cruz first for an overlook of the city. About 1 hour straight up the hill. Then we continued up the mountain with the intent of getting to Casa de Arbol (Tree House). We were trying to reach a view point of the volcano Tunguruhua which has been incredibly active recently. The whole climb up we were hearing booms and seeing smoke in the sky but the clouds kept hidi...

Second day in Banos. We decided to do a hike up in the mountains above the city. We climbed up to La Cruz first for an overlook of the city. About 1 hour straight up the hill. Then we continued up the mountain with the intent of getting to Casa de Arbol (Tree House). We were trying to reach a view point of the volcano Tunguruhua which has been incredibly active recently. The whole climb up we were hearing booms and seeing smoke in the sky but the clouds kept hidi...

Arrived in Banos last night after a 6 hour bus ride from Otavalo. It was a really long ride but not too bad in the end. We arrived around 8:30 p.m. to Transilvania Hostal in the pouring rain. Great place owned by an Israeli/Ecuadorean couple. We got two rooms this time to give Sivanne a break from us. The next day the weather wasn't too promising but after breakfast it started to look better so we rented bikes and headed down the valley to the Ruta de las Casc...

We wanted to give Fuya Fuya another shot today but again we woke to rain this morning. We decided that it would be better to walk around Cuycocha Lake so we took a taxi there and asked the driver to come back and pick us up at 3:00 p.m. The weather wasn't too bad and the view of the lake (actually a caldera in the middle of the volcano) was spectacular. The hike was about 15 km and the altitude was about 3700 meters or 14,000 feet so we weren't sure how hard this...

Saturday night in Otavalo. Somewhat lively. Lots of bars and a few people out and about but the rain was probably keeping people in. We found a little restaurant that had a live Andean music group playing so we went in to have dinner there. The music was lively and great and went perfectly with our pizzas, beer and wine. Sunday in Otavalo. Rainy Sunday in Otavalo. We had planned to hike up Fuya Fuya, a volcano by the Mojandes Lakes. We are staying at the Rincon ...