Three days in Baños: the town Ecuador goes to when it wants to jump off something
Two nights under Tungurahua, with an evening in the thermal pools, a day down the waterfall road to the Pailón del Diablo, and a swing over the valley before the bus out.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Baños
- Places
- 7 across 3 days
Baños is where the Andes fall away into the Amazon basin, and the drop is the whole point. In twenty kilometres the road east loses more than a thousand metres, the air turns warm and wet, and the walls of the Pastaza gorge start producing waterfalls one after another. Ecuadorians come for the hot springs and the pilgrimage church; everybody else comes to ride down that road on a bicycle.
Above the town stands Tungurahua, which erupted in 1999 and forced the whole population out, then stayed restless for most of the following fifteen years. It is quiet now. The town is not: the main street is solid tour agencies selling canyoning, rafting, ziplines and a bungee jump off the bridge at the end of the block.
Two nights is the right length. The town itself takes an afternoon, the waterfall road takes a full day, and the famous swing above the town takes a morning, which is exactly three days including the bus in and the bus out.
Highlights
- Soaking in the Termas de la Virgen at night, with a floodlit waterfall coming down the cliff beside the pools
- The Ruta de las Cascadas, a downhill bicycle ride past a dozen falls into warmer air
- The Pailón del Diablo, reached by a staircase cut into the rock behind the water
- A neo-Gothic pilgrimage church built out of black volcanic stone
- The swing at Casa del Árbol, out over a 100-metre drop with Tungurahua behind it
Where to stay
Baños, two nights
The full name is Baños de Agua Santa, holy water, after the springs that come out hot at the foot of the cliff on the southern edge of town. Pilgrims have been coming to them for centuries and still do, which is why a town of fifteen thousand people has a basilica the size of a cathedral.
It is unashamedly a tourist town, and locals joke about the nickname Gringobamba. That is worth knowing rather than worrying about: the food is good, the beds are cheap, and the gorge outside would be worth the trip if the town were empty.
Stay in the centre, anywhere within a few blocks of the Parque Central. The southern edge near the baths is quieter and closer to the water, and the northern edge near the terminal is convenient and noisier.
Day by day
Day 1 in Baños
The pilgrimage church, the waterfall in town, and the pools after dark
The bus from Quito gets in around lunchtime, which is enough time for the three things at the southern end of town, all within ten minutes of each other on foot.
Start at the basilica. It is named for a vision of the Virgin reported at the falls above the town, and it is built of the black volcanic rock the valley is full of, so it looks far older and heavier than a nineteenth century church has any right to. The paintings around the nave are votive: each one shows a disaster somebody survived, with the Virgin painted into a corner of the sky, and several of them are eruptions and landslides.
Walk on to where the Cascada de la Virgen drops off the cliff at the edge of town and empties beside the bathhouse. Then come back after dark and get in. The Termas de la Virgen are municipal pools rather than a spa, filled with the hot mineral water that gave the town its name, and the cheap yellow floodlights on the waterfall behind them are the best thing about the place. Locals go at five in the morning and again at night; go at night.
- 15:00
Church of the Virgin of the Holy Water
VisitThe neo-Gothic pilgrimage basilica in black volcanic stone, hung with votive paintings of the disasters people survived. Free, and open all day.
- 16:30
Cascada de La Virgen
VisitThe waterfall that drops down the cliff at the southern edge of town, right above the bathhouse. Five minutes to look at, and it is the reason the springs are here.
- 19:00
Dinner in the centre
EatTry the tablas de melcocha being pulled on hooks in doorways along Ambato, then eat properly: trout out of the river valley is on nearly every menu in town.
- 21:00
Termas de la Virgen
VisitThe municipal thermal pools at the foot of the waterfall, at their best after dark. Bring a towel and buy the compulsory swimming cap at the gate.
With more time: The Parque Central is where the town gathers in the early evening, and the bars on Eloy Alfaro run late without ever getting difficult. If the pools are too full, there are quieter baths at El Salado, a couple of kilometres west up the valley.
Day 2 in Baños
Down the waterfall road on a bicycle
The Ruta de las Cascadas runs east from Baños down the Pastaza gorge towards Puyo and the jungle. Rent a bicycle in the morning, ride out past the bridge, and let the road do the work: it descends the whole way, so the effort is in the brakes rather than the legs. Most people ride the first eighteen kilometres to Río Verde and put the bike in a pickup truck for the way back, which is included in the rental.
Stop at the Puente San Francisco on the way out of town, a road bridge over a very deep slot in the rock. People jump off it on an elastic rope all day, and watching is free. A few kilometres on, the Manto de la Novia comes off the opposite wall in two chutes, with a cable car strung across the void to look at it from the middle.
The end of the ride is the Pailón del Diablo, the Devil's Cauldron, and it is the one that justifies the day. A path drops from the road to the river and then a staircase squeezes into a crack in the rock, so wet you can barely see, and comes out in a chamber directly beneath the falling water. You will be soaked. There are two approaches from opposite banks; the longer one from the far side puts you underneath, and that is the one to take.
- 09:30
Puente San Fransisco
VisitThe bridge over the Pastaza gorge just north of the centre, and the town's bungee platform. Two minutes on the way out of town, and worth stopping to watch somebody go over.
- 10:30
Manto de la novia
NatureA waterfall on the far wall of the gorge that splits into two chutes after rain, with a cable car crossing in front of it. About halfway to Río Verde.
- 12:00
Lunch at Río Verde
EatThe village at the end of the bike ride has a handful of simple places doing set lunches and grilled trout. Eat before the walk down to the falls, not after.
- 13:30
Pailon de diablo
VisitThe best of the gorge waterfalls, with a stairway cut into the rock that takes you into a chamber behind the water. Allow two hours and expect to get wet through.
With more time: If cycling does not appeal, the same route runs as a chiva, an open-sided bus, from the centre several times a day, and any agency will sell you a seat. Going further east to Puyo gets you properly into the Amazon foothills, which is a full day rather than an afternoon.
Day 3 in Baños
A swing over the valley, then the bus
Casa del Árbol sits on the Bellavista ridge above the town, a treehouse built as a volcano watch post with a couple of swings hung off it that go out over a very long drop. It became famous from photographs and it deserves it: on a clear morning Tungurahua stands directly opposite, and the swing puts nothing but air between you and the valley floor.
Take the bus that leaves from the market rather than a taxi; it is half an hour up, costs a dollar, and comes back about ninety minutes later, which is the right amount of time to be there. Go on the first departure. Cloud usually closes the view before eleven, and the queue for the swings gets long in high season.
That leaves the rest of the day for the terminal. Quito is three and a half hours north, and there is a bus every hour or so.
- 08:00
Casa del Arbol
VisitThe treehouse and swing on the ridge above town, a dollar to get in. Take the first bus from the market and go back on the same one ninety minutes later.
- 14:00
Bus out
TravelThe terminal is on the north edge of town, ten minutes on foot from the centre. Ambato is an hour, Riobamba two, the capital rather longer.
With more time: With a slower morning instead, walk up to the statue of the Virgin above the cemetery. It is 250 metres of stairs and takes about forty minutes, and the view down over the roofs is the one nobody photographs.
Before you go
Getting in
There is no airport and no railway, so it is the bus. From Quito's Quitumbe terminal the run takes about three and a half hours and costs under five dollars, with departures through the day. From Ambato, the nearest city, it is an hour and buses go constantly. Riobamba is two hours, Guayaquil about five and a half.
The terminal sits on the northern edge of town and everything is within a fifteen-minute walk of it, so do not bother with a taxi unless you are carrying a lot. Buy the onward ticket the day before in high season; the Quito buses fill up on Sunday afternoons.
Getting around and booking things
Walk. The centre is flat, small and gridded, and a taxi anywhere inside town costs about a dollar. Bicycles rent for a few dollars a day from a dozen places on Maldonado and Ambato, and the rental includes the pickup truck back from wherever you stop.
Every agency on the main street sells the same canyoning, rafting and zipline trips at roughly the same price. Look at the equipment rather than the poster, ask whether the guide is going in the water with you, and pay on the day.
Weather and what to bring
The town sits at about 1,800 metres almost on the equator, so the temperature barely changes across the year: low twenties by day, twelve or thirteen at night, and rain possible in any month. Bring a fleece and something waterproof rather than a coat.
The pools want a swimming cap, which is sold at the gate for pocket change and enforced. Take flip-flops, and leave anything valuable at the hotel; the lockers are small.
Baños is a small place that knows exactly what it sells, and it sells it well: hot water at one end of the day, cold water in your face at the other, and a gorge full of waterfalls in between.
With two more nights, take the road east to Puyo and sleep a night in the jungle foothills, or turn the other way and climb from Riobamba towards Chimborazo, which is the furthest point on the earth's surface from its centre.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is three days enough for Baños?
- Yes, for the town, the waterfall road and the swing. Add a night for each adventure sport you actually want to do, because canyoning or a rafting trip eats a whole day, and another two if you want to carry on east to Puyo and the jungle lodges.
- Is the volcano dangerous?
- Tungurahua emptied the town in 1999 and was active on and off for years afterwards, and it has been quiet since the middle of the last decade. There is a monitoring system, an evacuation plan and painted routes on the streets. Nobody in Baños treats it as a reason not to be there.
- Do you need to book the adventure trips in advance?
- No. There are more agencies than customers on most days and the price is the same whether you book a month ahead or an hour ahead. The exception is the long weekends when Quito empties into the town, which are worth avoiding altogether if you can.
- Where does Baños fit in a longer Ecuador trip?
- Between Quito and the south. It is three and a half hours from the capital, two from Riobamba and on the way to Cuenca or to the Amazon at Tena and Puyo, so most people arrive from the highlands and leave downhill.