Well it turns out that Banos was exactly what we needed after our incident and we decided to stay another night after we learnt the Nariz del Diablo train no longer leaves from Riobamba.

The hostal we are staying at turned out to be the base for a number of New Zealand, Australian and Canadians who were here for a wedding. Amazingly lovely group of people who certainly ensured we started to relax an enjoy our trip again.

Rebecca and Doug was simply amazing and nothing was too hard for them to help us and Rebecca's brownies well wow is about the way to explain them.

So we explored the town and the local markets after finally locating the bag repair place (with no luck - our spanish and his no english let us down that time). After about a 5km walk into town and out again to this place it was time to return to the local Police for an updated report wih our names on it and not someone elses! Surprisingly easy to fix and then it was off for coffee.

We went back to Cafe Hood, a local cafe run by two italians who are either ridiculously laid back or permanently stoned. Either way it was a great place to while away an hour or so.

Yet more churches too. Must admit they certainly know how to build them.

What I love about Ecuador so far is the statues and other monuments they erect. They don't always make a lot of sense but it is nice to see toucans, hummingbirds etc all around the towns and none of them are graffiti'd which is lovely to see. My personal favourite is the hummingbird fountain.

It appears some sort of street parade happened and below was the funniest car we found when walking around.

After walking through the local food market we stumbled across Brian and Denise, 2 of whom were here for the wedding. They had bought an interesting looking fruit, round, red with a long stem and generously offered us some to try. Wow. . . It was like a passionfruit only bigger and sweeter.

Banos is also known for it's taffy a kind of toffee that the locals pull from wooden hooks. We just had to try it and it was yummy although sickly sweet.

After a walk back to the Hostal, Phil keeps telling me it's good practice for the Inca Trail, and Phil it's like the hill in Vanuatu only worse, we relaxed for a while overlooking the lovely river.

On a recommendation from Rebecca we wandered back into town to locate Cafe Miranda. Either we are both blind or it doesn't exist. (tunrs out it's hard to find). On a great note we located the Swiss Bistro and had potentially the best steak both Phil and I agree we have ever eaten and it was only $8.50!!
On an ever better note I got the waiter to understand I am allergic to cream (crema) so no sickness for me yay.

So we decided to walk back to the Hostal. After about half way back we did start to question our decision, Banos is generally safe, but got back fine at which point my body reminded me that it still isn't quite on the South American time frame and I promptly crashed leaving Phil to write his journal.

Thing to consider:
Why is it only after you get half way back to a hotel do you consider that maybe you should have taken a taxi?

Banos seems to have the most amazing houses. The coolest we saw was a castle! But the best thing is that all the walls, gates and buildings are done by hand and they can be amazing.

After another great sleep we are up early to leave for Cuenca (pronounced kwenka - yep we don't get it either) and a 7 hour bus trip.