From Quito, we got a bus to Banos and it took 3 and a half hours to get there, and it cost about $4 dollars so not too bad. I'll miss the bus prices once we get out of Ecuador and into more expensive places! We ended up driving past Cotopaxi again and it was a really lovely clear day. I wish we could have done our trek today, as it wouldn't have been snowing at least! The journey involved crossing a lot of high mountain passes, which were literally on the edge of a cliff. I was regretting sitting near the window now as I got scared and thought we were hanging over the edge. The drivers here are not the safest ones around! All along the roads where there is a sheer drop, there are lots of crosses to mark where people have died. I'm just hoping that we can make all the journeys safely in one piece. I just try not to look down or over the edge! 

We arrived there safely with no close calls, so I was grateful for that at least . Banos de agua Santa is a town set in a valley in the mountains and it has some natural hot springs. I wanted to come here to relax and to go in these springs as the water is good for you. When we went to Budapest a few years ago, we went to some hot springs there and I'm sure they healed my skin as I had a small itchy part on my neck, and after I used those springs, it cleared it up. We decided to walk to our hostel from the bus terminal as our hostel looked fairly close on the map. I really like Banos from what I've seen so far walking to the hostel. It was longer than we thought as usual and by the time we got near the hostel, my back was hurting from carrying my rucksack around! We checked into the hostel, it seemed like a really cool place where we could just chill our for a few nights, and it was cheap, so can't complain. After we dropped our stuff off, we went back out to have a walk around Banos, as it's a small place, you can walk round most of it easily. We wandered around the plazas and found a Mexican restaurant, so decided to eat in there. It was hidden away from the main road, so when we got there, we were the only ones in there! We had nachos, which I was really looking forward to, but when we got them, they were just like crisps we could have bought ourselves. I was a bit disappointed. After our dinner, we headed back to the hostel to get an early night as we were tired from travelling. We are going to the hot thermal springs tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to those . 

Hot Thermal Springs
 
We got up a bit later than we wanted to but we were still tired form yesterday. We're so lazy at the moment, but it's just nice to get up when you want and not have to worry about getting up early for work, so we're making the most of the lay ins! We had breakfast and went to find the thermal springs, as someone told us to go in the morning as it gets too busy in the afternoon. We bought our towels with us and got changed into our swimwear before we left as I don't know if it will be a communal changing area. Once we found the springs, there was already a massive queue, so we just had to wait there for a while, luckily it went down quite quickly. When we got to the entrance, we had to pay $4 dollars each to go in. It was pretty busy there, so it might not be as relaxing as I first thought. As we came today of all days, a Saturday it was full of all the parents taking their kids there. Once we'd got inside, we had to figure out where to store our bag, as most people were just leaving them by the side of the pool, but I wanted to lock it up as we took the camera with us. We saw an Irish couple who'd been there already, so we asked them what to do. They said to ask them to lock our bags up behind the counter, so we did that. 

There are 3 thermal pools here, all of varying temperature and size. One is really cold, one is just the right temperature and one is really hot . We decided to start off in the really hot one. We went to get in the pool and some woman comes over shouting at us that we need shower caps, waving them in front of us. I thought we got away with it, but you have to wear them here! So once we each had a lovely shower cap on, we went in the pool and it was really hot to get in, but once inside, it was a lovely temperature. Well that was for as long as we could bear the heat. Once we couldn't bear the heat, we went to the just right temperature pool. There was hardly any room inside the hot pool anyway, so at least the standard pool was a lot bigger. We both got in the other pool and it was chaos, kids were jumping all around the pool, they were splashing water everywhere and it was so noisy, you just couldn't relax! The temperature was just right tho. John wanted to get out and try out the cold pool, I couldn't bear that, so went back into the hot pool. We stayed there for a little longer and then decided to get out. The springs have a waterfall flowing right behind the pools and the thermal water is suppose to heat the pools in their varying temperatures. We took a couple of pictures and left. There was too much of a queue in the changing rooms, so we went back to the hostel to have a shower and get changed. At least we've experienced the hot springs, even if they did just look like 3 swimming pools!

After the pools, we went for some lunch in a really nice cafe, it had hammock chairs and served pancakes, so of course I had to have some of them . It was raining for most of the afternoon, so we didn't do much else apart from trying to catch up on some of my blog. Later that evening, we'd signed up for a BBQ at the hostel, but as it was raining, we got served the food inside the hostel. We bumped into the Irish couple who'd been at the hot springs, so we started talking to them. They are basically doing the same trip as us on the same route, but for 8 months instead of a year. We've not actually met many people who are doing the same trip as us, so it was nice to finally meet some people that are. After dinner, we all sat down, talked about our trips and had a few drinks together. Perhaps we'll meet them again on our travels. At about midnight, the hostel kick you out of the bar area, so we all retired to bed. 

Banos Zoo

The next day we decided to go to the local zoo on the advice of Shane and Kate the Irish couple we met, as we had nothing else to do. You could do white water rafting, or mountain biking here, but I wasn't sure about either of those, so settled for the zoo . We'd been told it wasn't far, so we thought we'd take a walk. We got up, had some lunch at our favourite cafe and after lunch, we set off to find the zoo. It was up a steep hill, so just walking up there made me quite out of breath, but it was exercise for me. We carried on walking for a while and couldn't see any signs for the zoo, so we gave up and took a taxi there. Once we got in the taxi and went there, it was quite far out and we'd have never found it walking, so I'm glad we took a taxi. We queued up for a few minutes and we were inside, it only cost about $3 dollars each to get in. 

We walked up some steps and entered and we saw some spider monkeys straight away, one of them happened to be outside it's cage, sitting on top of it! I don't know if it was allowed to do this or not, but no staff at the zoo came over to check it. We managed to take a couple of pictures before it scurried away and ran up a tree. We carried on walking through the zoo and saw some local South American animals, in particular there was this really ugly monkey type thing- although I can't remember the name of it! It was so funny to look at, but kind of cute at the same time . We saw a puma and a leopard, they kept pacing round their enclosures. I can't help feel sorry for them as the space they get must never be enough, but they were large enclosures for this small zoo. We saw some brown bears, but we were really high up, so could only see them from afar. There were also quite a few different species of monkeys and then we walked into the birds section. They had some big vultures there and they spread their wings, their wingspan must be at least 2 metres long. There were a lot of different parrots and other birds here, but one bird that caught our eyes was the condor, which is one of the largest birds in the world. Their enclosure was really big for one at the zoo, but when you actually see the bird spread it's wings and fly, it's not that big really. Their wingspan is about 4 metres, so by the time they've spread their wings to fly to the other end of their cage, they have to close their wings again. I've never seen this bird before, so at least I could see what they looked like now. We carried on walking and saw some Galápagos tortoises, which we'd seen plenty of in the Galápagos, so we didn't hang around there for too long! It then started to pour down with rain, so we stood under a tree for cover, there were also some young girls who stood next to us for a while until the rain stopped . When it stopped, we carried on walking, but John was getting bored, as we've seen so many animals in the Galápagos recently that's probably why! So needless to say, we didn't stay much longer, and made a quick get away. 

We took another taxi back to the hostel and chilled out until we were ready for dinner. We saw a sign at the hostel earlier that said movie night with free popcorn, so I was up for watching that. We ate out at a local restaurant and came back ready to watch the movie. The film they were showing was Jango Unchained, and John's been wanting me to watch this film for ages, I kept declining! So I thought tonight at least if we get free popcorn I'll watch it. We sat down and there wasn't anyone else there watching it yet, so we'll get the sofas to ourselves with popcorn galore- perfect! Well it would have been perfect if it had have been sweet popcorn! It was the saltiest popcorn I'd ever tasted and I didn't like it much, so John had loads of it! After they put the film on, some Irish guy who was sitting near us decided to watch the film with us, he was so loud and lairy and kept swearing- he reminded me of some of my Irish family! We chatted with him while the film was on and after the film, John and him had a few beers together, then we went to bed. We were suppose to check out tomorrow, but we decided to extend our stay here for another night. Not that we done anything the next day! Monday to Wednesdays the hostel give you a free dinner, so we had a free pesto pasta dinner. Although because I'd found a nice nacho place the night before, we went our first to have nachos before the pasta, so I didn't eat too much pasta as I was quite full from all the nachos! After the pasta, John and the Irish guy played some pool, we chatted for a bit and then we had to pack up our stuff ready to leave Banos to go to Cuenca the next day.