We arrived in Baños which is the town just at the base of Tungurahua, which the week before we came had a full eruption , Banos is a very beautiful town and is not to big, there is also plenty to keep you occupied as it is located in the "valley of waterfalls and hot winds", its main survival comes from tourism so there is plenty to do while here, such as trekking, horse-trekking, canoeing, mountain climbing, mountain biking, bungee jumping, canyoning, white water rafting, i only got to do the mountain biking and the bungee (3 times lol) but if i was able to stay here longer i would have done much more, in the week baños i a quiet town and in the evening everybody heads towards the thermal spa, With water heated by the volcano, and of a weekend it turns in to a carnavel town with partys in the streets, i was in baños for four nights and went to the spa every night, it was so relaxing after two days of mountain biking, (i had a sore ass)(not from what you think) it was a very good meeting point to talk to other travellers and compare and get new ideas for trips, while in the spa we met a couple from USA and again we had a gr8 time going to see the huge waterfalls by mountain bike, one even had small cabins that you cold hire for the night for $10, witht the sound of the waterfall less than 50 mtrs away, and waking up to the sounds of the tropical birds in the morning, in comparison the forth warterfall we went to see was so powerfull it created a huge amount of spray and it was very difficult for me to take any photos, but i did my best, things sre so cheap here!!! with the usual eating and drinking the four of us all had a three course meal with 2 bottle of wine and four bottles of larger and the bill came to $30 which is only 15 pounds, so eating has been good, we decided to go up one of the nearby hills to see if we could get some good pics or the volcano, while we were up there it was amazing, because the noise of the town was not the you could hear the volcano rumbling away, there was constant white smoke billowing out if the top but every now and then there was a massive rumble that you could feel in the ground and there would be a huge billow of black smoke. i was unlucky with the photos because just as we got there the clouds set in, i managed to get a few pics but not clear ones :(. now today is the 17th of feb and we have left to head to Quito so that i can aclimatize to the altitude ready for my atempt at climbing Cotopaxi http://www.ecuador-images.net/mountain.cotopaxi.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotopaxi