We arrived in Banos late afternoon. That evening we went out for dinner in a restaurant called ´Mamma Ines´- which served a mixture of food-I hada strange chicken lasgna! After dinner we went for drinks in a bar, we served some flaming Bob Marleys! & then went dancing in a quaint little club which played a mixture of Spanish latino music and POP!

Thurs 21/4/11
We had breakfast in our hotel (La Florista) which was a good breakfast of granola and fruit with yogurt and a fresh fruit juice.

We went out and hired ´Buggies´out of Banos into the Andes. There was 2 to a buggie so we took it in turn to drive. They were automatic and went at a good speed. Just had to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road!!! First stop on our buggie ride was for 3 of the group to do a bungee jump off a bridge (30m high) over a river. It was strange though as they were tied with a climbing harness rather than the usual by their feet! We continued our buggy drive, through some cool mountain tunnels and some off roading and stopped again to take a cable car down the valley up close to a waterfall. After more driving we then stopped and trekked it down to ´Cascada del diablo´- a MASSIVE waterfall, with such a large volume of water falling into ´the devils cauldron´so fast that it was splashign back up with force! We paid $1 to climb low under the mountian rocks and right up to the waterfall, as well as to stand behind it and have the water falling at arms reach down in front of you, needless to say we got a little wet! We then drove the buggies back to Banos, but one broke down on the way!!!

In the afternoon I briefly went shopping around the town a bought a new top! there were lots of market like stalls, a main (small) green central plaza and 2 churcehs.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Casa Hood-I had more avocado for starter (seeing a lot of avocado in Ecuador), a pad thai for main and cookies for desert! To drink I had an aphrodisiac juice smoothie!!!-very yum! We all then headed back to watc h a movie in the hotel.

Fri 22/4/11 (GOOD FRIDAY)
There were lots of Easter processions taking place in Banos. Lots of people had walked into Banos from surrounding villages and highlands to go to the waterfall or the volcano-they have to apparently experience pain on this day, e.g by walking up the volcano on their knees!! others had clearly just come to party! The roads were absolutley crammed with people and lots had camped in the plaza and on the streets overnight. Lots of sugar cane was being sold-the people use teh juice in a drink and also chew it to suck the juice out, they then just chuck it on the floor when all the juice has been sucjed out and the streets were now covered in the stuff. we tried some-it certainly was very sweet!
That day also the volcano was active-we saw it smoking from the mini-bus and also there was LOTS of ash in the air-we got covered i the stuff-grey and dry feeling all over your hair, clothes, bags, it was everyone, falling from the sky like rain, but want wet! The church was playing music out to the plaza as well for the occasion.
After a delay due to the roads crammed we got on our private mini-bus to Cuenca. Our tour leader Martin had to lie to the police to let the bus drive into town to pick us up,(- they had stopped traffic in as it was so busy,) he had to say that his wife was sick and he needed to pick her up, which was partly true as one of the girls was very sick with a parasite and couldnt manage to walk out of town to the bus, so when we were driving back out of town we had to pretend she she was his wife in case the same policeman saw us! As we drove out of towm we could see that people were queing for miles to get into banos and by 10am people were then starting to leave the town on foot. The local buses were crammed like animal carts with people standing in the cart and literally hanging out of it!

On the way to Cuenca we stopped off (1 and half hours before Cuenca) at some early Inca ruins called Ingapirca archaeological complex. A tour guide showed us round the ruins, explaining how the people lived.