Banos - Tranquilo Muy Tranquilo

Banos is just what the doctor ordered – except he wanted me to rest my broken foot and Pam’s doc said to rest her heel as well, but other than that…

We slept great and came down to a great breakfast of homemade granola, homemade yogurt, fresh fruit and fresh brewed coffee – exactly what I eat for breakfast at home every day.  Fuel in, we headed out for a waterfall hike that was only a 2.4 mile roundtrip.

It was a nice waterfall, but we needed more walking. Yesterday Rebecca – the hotel owner – told us about a trail in the hills that led into town and we took off with every intention of finding it and following it into town. We didn’t really remember the exact directions so we went the way we thought we should and sure enough found a trail. We asked a local Quechan lady in our best broken Spanish if the trail was private property and she told us to go ahead and go up – so we did. As it turns out, this steep trail was to her garden growing on the hillside where she had everything from corn to kiwis growing. Once we realized we were on the wrong trail we took a picture and headed down.

The little lady greeted us questioning whether we thought it was pretty or not – which of course we thought it was.

Adventure over we took the road into town for some lunch, provisions and to retrieve our laundry that we dropped off yesterday.  A pizza, some oranges, a bottle of wine and 5.7 kilos of laundry later we headed back to the lodge, changed and headed to the hot pools about ½ mile away for a good long soak.

Back at the lodge and totally refreshed we watched birds from little humming birds to some large hawks or maybe eagles from the deck. I’m guessing it’s 75 – 80 degrees and although there is a decent breeze blowing the deck is on the protested side of the building. I cannot emphasize enough how nice this lodge is. The rooms are large and common areas are fantastic.

Come to Ecuador,  travel to Banos, and stay at La Casa Verde. http://www.lacasaverde.com.ec/ I’d recommend this place more easily than I would recommend a wine – really.

Pam thinks we should horseback ride tomorrow, and although I’m still scarred mentally from our last horseback experience where I had to ride a Clydesdale because of my size I will go hoping that losing 60 pounds will get me back to a regular sized animal. I really don’t have any desire to be in a Budweiser commercial.

The next post will likely be written standing up because of saddle sores, but we’ll carry on.