BANOS ECUADOR

TREKKING MODE

NICE FIRE

LINDA'S HOUSE IN THE JUNGLE

MINI ORCHIDS

VIEW TO MOUNTAINS

                         2ND WALK IN FROM THE ROAD

BANOS ECUADOR

BANOS  ECUADOR

Four hours south of Quito, still in the highlands is a bite size gem where I met up with an internet friend and enjoyed a stay out in the jungle as well as the town of Banos itself.

Linda is known as the gringo queen of the jungle and  has many Ecuadorian friends after many years living down here as well as in the US. She has managed to build a brilliant house in the jungle with huge access problems. Ater getting a bus for 40 mins you still have to walk for an hour to get in there so everything had to be carried in ‘one way or another’ as I found out. haha! She has 2 german shepherd dogs and a schizophrenic cat and a thousand interesting stories and was well met.

The town is very pretty surrounded by very high mountains with a roaring river flowing through the valley floor. One really nice afternoon I did the walk up the 654 steps to the statue of  The Virgin of the Holy Water which gave a great view of the town. I had a great week here after the standout of the Galapagos and in its own way it proved to be another highlight of my trip. Thanks to Linda and all her friends that I met while there

BANOS ECUADOR

OLD FOOTBRIDGE

BANOS FROM THE VIRGIN STATUE

WASHING TUBS AT THE HOTSPRINGS

STREET ART

LINDA AND OLD FRIEND

WATERFALL AT THE SPRINGS

QUITO

CULTURAL CENTRE

PRESIDENTIAL GUARD

GOTHIC CATHEDRAL

GRANDE SQUARE

VIEW FROM GOTHIC BELLTOWER

STREETSCENE

QUITO

QUITO  ECUADOR

After coming back from the US and the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Quito was really nice ‘in the old town’ for 2 nights before I went out to the Galapagos. It has a world heritage listing for the old city and I stayed right in it and walked my tootsies off for the full day I had. There really are some great buildings in this city and the old Jesuit church has seven and a half tons of gold used to decorate it!! Bit excessive but its pretty nice inside looking at just about non stop gold. The other standouts were two major squares and the monstrous Gothic cathedral high on one hill that provides such great views from its bell tower which was pretty exciting to climb.

GALAPAGOS

GALAPAGOS