After leaving Quito on a nice sunny bright day, we had high spirits on getting to Banos. As it was only a 3 hour bus trip we and the buses left quite regularly we were in no rush and the trip was as always beautiful going through the mountains of Ecuador. Although the driving was a little crazy as usual, watching the abundant green mountains fly by was a treat to the eye.

We arrived in Banos at about 2pm and quickly found our way to an eco hostel that had clean, spacious rooms but more importantly a gorgoues dog and two tiny, tiny, exciteable kittens!! Nothing better than animals in a hostel.

After speaking to the owner of the hostel, we decided to do a small trek that would take around 1 hour 45 mins. So after a quick bite to eat we set off in the drizzle to begin the trek. It started with an old, rickety wooden bridge that crossed the huge, rapid river that went through the town. Lex was keen to go straight over however I was a little skeptical and after a few squeals and yelling at Lex to stay away from the holes, we made it across and started our ascent. At this point the drizzle had stopped and we worked up a sweat so the soft cool breeze was refreshing and the views were phenomanal. The trek all was going well until we reached a small river that we had to cross....the crossing part was fine. It was the sign that lead us astray. One pointed up the mountain to "Banos" and the other pointed across the mountain to "Los Sauces". Obviously we were to follow the Banos sign, however I had a small feeling of doubt that we were supposed to follow the other sign....although that was probably due to the fact that it was down the mountain and I'm a lazy cow. And with Lex insisting to take the Banos sign we began our trudge up the mountain.

Now, Im not sure if it was due to the steepness, the overgrown track or the fact that it wasn't leading anywhere in particular but I was definately starting to question the reliability of the direction we were going. Not only that, but the sun was setting and night was definately starting to set. After stopping a couple of times and wondering wether we should go on, Lex continued to insist that we were going the right way......"I swear, it's just over this ridge babe". Well, that ridge never came and the sun was pretty much down, and finally we stopped and decided that, yes we should turn around and head back.....fast. So running down the mountain we avoided the mud puddles, thorny branches and rocks and finally made it back to the river crossing, however this time we didn't pause to take photos and chat about how "beautiful it is". Nope, no time for that, we still had at least a 30 minute walk to go and by this point it was night. On the plus side we were back on the safe side of the river and the path was more of a road. After encountering an angry dog and trying to sooth it with our soothing voices (didn't quite work) we slid past it with Lex suprising me and coming between me and the dog....my hero!!!

Feeling a little more comfortable knowing we were on the home stretch we continued on the walk back to town in pitch black....on the plus side there were fireflies everywhere and they gave us quite a show shining up in the bush that surronded the path. (Although we definately wish we bought the torch that was being sold on one of our bus trips!). Eventually a pickup truck drove past and about 10m past us it stopped and instructed us to jump in the back. A little skeptical at first, I spotted that the driver was an old man and he probably realised that we were a couple of stupid white tourists who had managed to find themselves lost whilst trekking at night.......mmm and mostprobablycorrect too. So we jumped in the tray and hoped he was taking us back to town. Which he did!!! Hooray we were back on home ground.....and after taking a moment to reflect on the situation with a few laughs we continued walking to relax our aching muscles in the hot springs.

When we arrived there, they weren't exactly what we had been expecting. There were three large pools all of different temperatures and would have been nice if they weren't full of hairy old men, children of all ages and brown dirty looking water. As I'm not too much of a fan of public bathing areas anyway, we decided to give it a miss and check out the waterfall right next to the springs that provided them with the cold water.

We left, checked out the main square and then made our way back to the hostel where we enjoyed a couple of hours chatting to some fellow travellers and of course play with the kittens. Showering off the mud and dirt was also an awesome treat too!

After a good night's sleep, we woke up early to catch our bus to Cuenca where we would spend Chrissy day!