Oddly, Baños shares its name with the Spanish word for toilet but that's as far as the comparison goes. This small town up in the mountains is squeaky clean to appeal to the thousands of tourists who flock there every week. The town itself was a little too touristy for my liking, with 'I Heart Baños' merchandise displayed garishly in every shop window. However, the surrounding area boasts some of Ecuador's most beautiful waterfalls so it was still worth a stop.
Keen to get a closer look at the falls, we hired mountain bikes and cycled the eighteen kilometre Ruta de las Cascadas. We saw dozens along the way but made three main stops, at Cascada Agoyán, Rio Blanco and Rio Verde.
Cascada Agoyán is quite remarkable because it's actually two waterfalls which collide together to cause double the calamity of crashes below. The local people have done all they can to capitalise on the tourism of the area, building cable cars, zip lines, bungees and all sorts else from the cliff edges facing the falls. One could argue that its destroyed the natural beauty of these wonders but at the same time, it enhanced our experience by allowing us to view them from all kinds of angles and closer in. For just $1.50 we jumped on a rickety old gondola which took us right up over and then into the falls.
A little further along we came to Rio Blanco which again, was littered with different activities to do. This time Hana and I opted for a tandem zip line across the canyon, god knows how many metres above the river. As we were strapped into a superman position with fraying ropes and rusty clips, I have to admit I was bricking it a little. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't scare me at all at home, but in somewhere like Ecuador, you just never know. Tres, dos, uno, and we were off! Luckily the line was pretty long which gave us enough time to get over the initial shock and actually enjoy the incredible sensation of gliding through the air. It was an amazing view and an even better experience, all for just $7 when we'd have paid ten times that amount in Australia or New Zealand.
Our day ended in Rio Verde where we stopped for a late lunch before finding our final waterfall. Following the recommendation of a girl at our hostel, we sought out the 'Empanada Lady' and tried one of her chocolate and cheese combos. It's the first sweet empanada I've had and I think the outer casing was more doughy than pastry but whatever it was, it tasted delicious.
Cascada El Diablo was a forty-five minute walk from the town, deep down into the canyon. Along the way we passed a couple of stalls selling Jugo Cana, a South American juice made from pure sugar cane which made the perfect pick me up for our aching legs. When we finally arrived we woke right up, to the most powerful waterfall I think I've ever seen (Iguazu aside.) By crawling between the boulders up the mountain side, we could reach the very top of the fall and even stand behind the stream of water. We traipsed home completely soaked but it was so much fun!
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