Banos

Banos is know for its incredible natural beauty so we decided to join a horse tour leaving from our hostel. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as pleasant as the horse tour in San Augustine beause we spent most of the time feeling badly for the horses because we seemed to constantly be walking downhill on concrete :( In the middle we did go to a pretty waterfall that we got to climb up a bit but then we had to tourture our horses for another 2 hours after that so it wasn't super fun. Banos though is truely beautiful and it would be great to go back and spend some more time hiking and rafting there- apparently the river is awesome for rafting in June. In the evening I wasn't feeling very well so I stayed back at the hostel while Sagiv and Linnea went to the hot springs- Piscina de la Virgen- without me. It was particularly a bummer because that was our last night traveling with Sagiv and I didnt get to spend it with him.

The next morning, we headed to Cuenca by way of Riobamba which took most of the day and was one of my more unpleasant experiences because the bus ride was so bumpy and I was having stomach pains. We did go through some amazingly untouched small towsn though so it was interesting to watch the local dress change from place to place. When we got to Cuenca we checked into a hostel and then went out for dinner at a place called Cafe Eucalyptus, which was very pleasant- good food, good service, and live music- quite the unattainable trifecta in latin america. Then we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep before exploring Cuenca and heading to the Peruvian border the following day.