Banos was a fantasic little town set in the valley of the volcanos and had a great very chilled vibe to it. It was probably the first main traveller/touristy town we'd been to and every other shop was a tour agency offering every kind of excursion. However being clever (hmmm!) we chose to do it all ourselves and went out walking to see the valley and its many casacades down the main road to Puyo – a route which most people cycle and we soon found out why as there are a few very long, very dark tunnels on the way!! At the first tunnel we started to cheerliy wander through until everything went dark and then a lorry came thundering past barely missing us even though we were pinned up against the side in fright! The next lorry came through without its lights on only turning them on at the last possible moment as it swerved around us which was the icing on the cake and the cue to start running. This quickly turned into a scene from a movie as we were sprinting towards the end of the tunnel seeing the lights from the next vehicle bearing down on us quickly!! Made out just in the nick of time though phew! The rest of the tunnels luckily had paths around them for cyclists and crazy walkers (we found later that these were built due to the number of fatalities in the tunnels whoops!). We managed to get drenched again so jumped in the back of a truck to get a lift back into town. The vibe in Banos was so nice that we ended up staying a couple more days, did some more trekking (got chased by some very scary dogs!) and spent the evening chilling on our hostels roof terrace playing cards and drinking beer mmm!
Wanderlust for Life
Adventure travel around the world