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Some people enjoying the bonfire
Steam rising from the main bath
Cathedral
Inside the tarabita with waterfall behind meeveryone raves about Baños
I’d only been in Ecuador about three weeks and already I was heading out of the mountains, the main reason I’d wanted come to the country in the first place. To be fair, the weather had pushed me ahead of schedule but I couldn’t help but feel a bit of remorse as I lost elevation with each mile towards Baños. Things had been a relative success. While I didn’t get to completely circumnavigate Cotopaxi, my wife was more than a good sport in walking around the awe inspiring volcano for four days, camping out in remote locations with no human contact. We’d tried to summit Ilinizas Norte but an ice storm and impenetrable fog had put an end to that. We had also spent a week in the Andes going from village to village via local bus and one knee-bracing descent on foot. Sure, I had a few more hikes up my sleeves but it seemed the Andean summer was over and that poor visibility would be the order of the day in the high mountains. Despite my personal preconception that Baños was a tourist town I’d rather miss, we’d heard nothing but raves from both fellow travelers and Ecuadorians about it so we decided to bite the bullet and lose the acclimatization we’d spent weeks building up. (concluded below in Fondest Memory)
