Next stop on the trip was to Baños, translation: bathroom, toilet, bath (take your pick), so known for its thermal waters. It was a short hop on the bus from Latacunga, made slightly longer by roadworks (at least they're trying to improve their roads unlike many other countries) with Tijs and Jacqueline.

We checked into our hotel, where we had a balcony with a view of the nearby waterfall and our own bathroom for the princely sum of $20, then headed out to lunch. We had some tasty food but the service was definitely lacking! Not unusual in Ecuador it seems. We then had a wander round the town and found it to be extremely touristy, with loads of tour agencies and souvenir shops. However, being surrounded by beautiful hills made up for this. Also in abundance were shops selling huge amounts of teeth-rotting sugar-cane products, locally known as melcocha. So of course I bought some: 10 sticks of rock for $1 was a bargain! That evening we found a tiny little pizza cafe run by a friendly couple, where we had a couple of slices of pizza and some excellent coffee.

After being recommended by Kate and Mike, we took a trip up to Casa del Arbol (Tree House) on our first full day. A very enterprising local family have constructed a tree house with two swings in their back garden on top of a hill overlooking Tungurahua Volcano. For 50 cents, you can go on the swing which takes you over the edge of the hill and get some great photos. I later read in the local newspaper that the owner is also one of a small group of local people who are monitoring the volcano in order to help predict if there will be a big explosion. He definitely has prime viewing position! The volcano has been erupting since 1999 when all residents were evacuated. Since they were allowed back, this group of volunteers has vowed not to leave. There was a big explosion in 2006 and also in the last few months the volcano has produced some bigger eruptions.

We walked up to the tree house, first via a viewpoint over Baños. The walk took us nearly 2 1/2 hours uphill and it seemed that we were most definitely in the minority with most people getting taxis or driving cars, motorbikes or quadbikes. However it was a peaceful walk and we also walked with two young Ecuadorian men who were on their way up to a resort to look for work. Once we arrived, we joined lots of Ecuadorian tourists and some backpackers and waited our turn on the swings. Simon said he struggled to get good pictures of me because I wasn't going high enough- it felt high enough to me! After enjoying the views and some chocolate-covered strawberries, we commenced our walk down after first bumping into our Dutch stalkers who had taken a taxi up. On the way back down, we kept to the road so that we wouldn´t miss the cafe with amazing views, as again recommended to us by Mike and Kate. Sadly we couldn't find it to start with so resigned ourselves to walking all the way back into Baños for food. However, as we were walking down the path from the viewpoint, we saw a sign facing the wrong way, but eventually worked out that the cafe was up a steep narrow path. Committed to finding it, we sweated our way up another steep 500m, to find it was part of the resort that the Ecuadorians were looking for work at and that we had walked past and discounted as the sign didn't have the name of the cafe! It was worth the extra detour though as we enjoyed stunning views across the town and surrounding hills with the sun shining down as we rewarded our walking efforts with some yummy food. Unfortunately Tijs and Jacqueline weren't so lucky and hadn't been able to find it on their walk down.

A well deserved shower and some relaxing time later, it was time to head out for food again. However I was still quite full from lunch so ordered a starter thinking that would be sufficient: it was huge! I also tried a local speciality drink of canelazo, sugar-cane spirit mixed with passionfruit and served hot. It was nice but pretty potent. Whilst killing time waiting for our evening acitivity, we played Jenga in the restaurant where Jacqueline lost every single time.

For the evening, we had booked onto what we thought was a tour to see the volano at night with the chance to see the glow of lava. It turned out to be not what we thought! We headed onto the Chiva bus (a type of transport that used to be used in rural areas but now is pretty much only used for tourists) and crammed in with all Ecuadorian tourists. The disco lights and the music was turned on and off we went up to the viewpoint over the town. So far so good. However it soon became apparent that we were to stay here for the rest of the time, with all the other Ecuadorians from the 11 other Chiva buses and not going further up the hill as expected. There were some guys putting on a comedy and fire-throwing show, which was clearly very amusing, if you understand Spanish well. At one point, Tijs ended up in the show, holding a flaming torch. We couldn't understand what the man was saying but we're pretty sure Tijs was being used as amusement for the crowd! He did a sterling job though. So with no view of the volcano and feeling very tired from the walk earlier, we headed back into town in the party bus, disappointed with the evening. If we had been certain that you definitely could not see the volcano from the viewpoint then we would have asked for our money back, but we weren't sure and as it was $4 each, it wasn't the end of the world.

The next day for us was doing very little apart from eating and sitting around. Meanwhile, Tijs and Jacqueline were out on an action-packed day of canyoning and paragliding. In the evening, we joined the queue of Ecuadorians for the thermal baths round the corner from our hotel. Once through the doors, we picked up some (obligatory) stylish cloth swimming hats- sadly no photo evidence of Simon wearing the pink one- and stood around looking confused about where to go next. Luckily a nice man saw us looking lost and directed us to get a crate for our stuff and the corner we had to take it to to be stored. On the advice of Mike and Kate (thanks!) we skipped the very very hot pool and the freezing cold one and went to the hot pool right by the water fall. As the pool of murky brown water filled up with people, we watched as the light faded over the town and darkness fell. Every so often we had to hop out to cool down in a shower of diverted waterfall and after not too long, the heat was too much and we decided to leave, all warm and relaxed. After such a busy day, we decided we needed a good feed up and headed off for some filling burgers at Comics Burgers (see picture of Simon with "The Hulk"). We then joined Tijs and Jacqueline back at the hostel for a goodbye drink, as once again we would be parting ways the next day.

Katy