Day 78 - Quito, Ecuador

The plan for today is to head to Termas de Papallacta, which is home to Ecuador's most luxurious and scenic thermal baths. In total there are over 25 blue lagoons each with varying degrees of temperature. 

Our first challenge is getting there on public transport as it is 70km from Quito, high up in the mountains. After a fair amount of research and misdirection from various people trying to be helpful we manage to get there (for reference we got a taxi for $9 to Cumbaya super maxi bus stop then got on a bus headed for Tena from there). It was a fair amount of waiting around for the bus as they are not that frequent. The people are really helpful though and we had an army of locals run to point out the right bus when it finally arrived. 

The buses are lovely in Ecuador. All good quality, cheap and comfortable and have their usual share of salesmen jumping on and off along the way. We even get treated to White Fang 1 and 2 on the TV! ;-) The route to Papallacta is really beautiful. Such lush greenery with great views of the mountains. 

We arrive at the spa after getting the $3 yute up the 3km hill to the baths. We pay $7 each to get into the baths. As it is the weekend it is absolutely heaving and full of kids. It is not quite as relaxing as we thought although the baths themselves are lovely and surrounded by some epic scenery set in a little valley in between the mountains. 

This pool was ridiculously hot. It was like sitting in a bath. Nat obviously loved it as she is constantly cold! 

This was a ice cold plunge pool. It's like a sheep dip to enable you to run in and out it is so cold. Very funny watching people take their breath away taking a dip.  

After a while we realise we don't think we are in he right place as there is a nicer spa one around the corner. We head around the corner and find a gorgeous more exclusive one and have a bite to eat there before we plan to head in. 

A lot less crowded than the other one and a lot more relaxing as they have places to sit and loungers etc. 

Unfortunately we have got here a little too late and they are full (they don't like it to get crowded at all). So unfortunately all out efforts to get here are for about an hour in he public baths being splashed by kids. It turns out to work in our favour though as getting back proves to be quite difficult as the buses are so infrequent and every time one goes past it is full. After waiting for about an hour and a half we manage to find the last two seats on one bus and head back to Quito settling down to watch FaceOff in Spanish this time. 

We opt to stay on to the Quitembe bus station as that is where we need to get the bus from to Banos tomorrow. It takes ages to get there and then to get back due to the horrendous traffic and it being pretty far south. But at least we got our tickets for tomorrow. Good job too as they were selling out fast. 

We get back to a very dead Foch Plaza. It is like a ghost town tonight. We head across the square to the BBQ place for food and find out that in the whole of Ecuador they are not allowed to serve any alcohol after 4pm on a Sunday! Crazy rule and not quite sure the reason behind it. At least it forces us to have our first dry day of the year!