My first trip out of Quito was to the town of Banos, about 4 hours south of the capital. It was organised by my spanish school so was a gerat opportunity for me to get to know some of the other students better as well as having someone else organise the transport and accommodation etc for a change. We left Quito on Friday night and I had my first experience of the madness of Quito traffic. It must have taken us nearly an hour just to get outside the city before we even got onto the highway and started to head south. But it didnt really matter, everyone was in good spirits and for the first couple of hours the bus was full of cheery voices all swapping stories of travel, adventure and mishaps with the spanish language.

The driving on the way to Banos was crazy, and we were actually in a private bus being driven by one of the teachers - the local buses were even worse. The roads, although properly constructed, required a little more thought in their planning. In several places you come across what should be a dual carriageway, however, where they carved through the rock to make the road, no-one thought to actually introduce some support to the remaining rock so it has just fallen down into the road and is a real hazard meaning one side of the road has to be closed and you are down to one lane again!

It seems the concept of health and safety definitely hasn´t reached Ecuador. There were quite a few students who had chosen to go on this weekend trip, so much so that there weren´t enough seats in the bus...But in Ecuador this isn´t a problem. The solution...grab a plastic patio chair from the school and stick it in between the driver and the passenger to form another seat - perfect huh?!

To break the journey we stopped off at a fiesta in a small town called Carvallos. I have no idea what it was all about, why the festivities, but we were greeted warmly by the locals and cajoled into the dancing. The live band never seemed to stop playing and so the locals never stopped dancing. There was no time to stop and catch your breathe, we were all exhausted by the time we crawled back into the bus and most of us slept the rest of the way to Banos, where we eventually arrived at 1am!

The next morning though it was up bright and early for a full day of activity. We had hired bikes to cycle down the famous road between Banos and Puyo. Although most of the road is downhill there were some uphill parts to test the fitness, and which were particuarly challenging considering that we were still at altitude. During our 37km ride we saw many waterfalls, beautiful countryside and moutains, cycled through pitch black tunnels (with no lights on the bike!) and saw many locals going about their everyday lives selling all sorts of wired and wonderful things by the roadside, including another of the amazing food combinations that is barbequed banana stuffed with cheese?!

We did have a small break from the bikes for a while when we went for a walk down a steep hill to a river and then across a somewhat rickety bridge. Whilst it was great for photos the downside was that we had to climb back up the other side and by the time most of us got to the top we were almost on our hands and knees huffing and puffing away. Altitude is a real killer and something that would normally be so easy is just unbelievably difficult and debilitating. But to make things better we were told we didn?t need to repeat the walk to get back to the bikes...oh no, there was another treat in store...after tasting some sugar cane juice to restore the sugar supplies, we could travel back across the river in a little metal "cage", suspended hundred of metres above the river and operated by a child who looked no more than 10! It wasn´t good for the old fear of heights, but looking straight out onto the horizon and admiring the view rather than the drop was absolutely fine.

After lunch at Rio Verde it was back on the bikes for a short while before we reached out final destination at Rio Negro. Some people braved the river for a quick swim before we headed back, although it didn´t seem that appealing to me. Then I had a real feeling of deja vu as a truck arrived to take us back to Banos. Firstly the bikes were piled onto the back and then 16 of us climbed into the back of the truck for the ride home - just like the journey in the pick up truck in Cambodia all over again, only this time it was only for about 45 minutes and thankfully much less dust on the road!

After a rest back at the hotel we were treated to a local drink before dinner. I´m not exactly sure what was in it, but definitely orange juice, cinamon and a big bottle of sugar cane alcohol - potent! It wasn´t really my favourite drink ever, but it would be rude not to try...and the same thing happened again later when in a bar we were invitied to try another local throat burner. This time I saw it being made and the rainbow-looking drink consisted of - more of the rocket fuel sugar cane, orange juice, grenadine and blue curaco. Then once it was alight you had to drink it through a straw - yes more of that health and safety - drinking a burning drink through a plastic straw...hence the idea was to drink it very very quickly!

After a little dancing I finally made it to bed ready for an early start the next morning. We got up at 6.30am to go to the local thermal pools. Even at this time in the morning they were packed with locals so I dread to think how musy it would get later. There were three different pools - one freezing cold, one hot and one very hot. I spent most of the time in the hot pool, kind of like a nice hot bath, but after just seconds in the very hot pool you could literally feel it burning your skin - not too good for you me thinks...But the setting was beautiful, sitting there early in the morning as the cloud lifts and the sun appears surrounded by luch green moutains.

After a few more hours sleep I just about had time to expore Banos before we headed back to Quito. It is a pretty town and this particular day it was bustling with locals becuase it was Mother?s Day in Ecuador. There are many shops selling crafts and artesan goods, we went into the main church where there are famous paintings of several different miracles being performed, we saw taffee being made by hand and I got my first glimpse of the local delicacy that is guinea pig being cooked on the street - simply skewered and grilled whole over a barbeque!

The journey back to Quito was long and it was a struggle to stay awake. As we got nearer to Quito the traffic became very heavy and what was a road with two lanes on either side suddenly became a three lane and one lane road as the drivers made up their own minds about the road layout and just started to drive down the wrong side of the road in order to try and beat the traffic. And all was going well until the police caught up with everyone and made us fall get back into the proper lanes. Then to make things better the police decided to send one lane of traffic off the main highway and take a detour in the dark through some back street villages. We and most other people had no idea where we were and the police so thoughtfully hadn´t bothered to position any other officers along the diversion so whenever you came to a junction it was simply a case of making a lucky guess. Eventually we got back to the main road and arrived back in Quito about 8pm - only 3 hours late, but late doesn´t really seem to matter much out here!

And then it was an early night ready for more spanish lessons the next morning...