Banos
After spending another night in Quito, we headed off to the popular spa town of Banos, a couple of hours away by bus. Incidentally we travelled on the type of muddy roads which recently killed 27 people when a mud-slide occured.
I'm a big footy fan, and was gutted that we hadn't heard about Ecuador v Brazil occurring the day after we left Quito. I doubt i could have got tickets for the game, but Ecuador amazingly won the game 1-0 and the celebration scenes in Quito were incredible. Not that i was too annoyed, because Banos proved to be a fantastic destination. Theres some nice places to eat along the main street, our hostal was cool (they even washed our stinking jungle clothes - Hostal El Oro, with free pool too), and the activities are wicked! The town itself is very touristy, but it has only just reopened after volcano Tungurahua erupted a couple of years ago and threatened to destroy the place - thankfully the rumbles never materialised into a major eruption. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the peak itself, but the smaller mountains surrounding the town were pretty impressive anyway.
I'd highly recommed GeoTours
along the main street, we kept going back to them, although that 
may have had more to do
with Lisa's fascination of the men there, Jonathon in particular!
White water rafting was absolutely superb, the
most fun i've had for ages, even more fun if you really go for it
and fall out, as me and dave did. The scenery was fantastic, the
water strong and the weather gorgeous.
We also went horse riding, on crazy wild horses. Sarah is quite a skilled rider, and confident enough to shout at her horse to go faster. Unfortunately i'm not so good, but my horse, Mariatchi seemed to listen to Sarah and speed up when she did. Obviously we had no helmets, and i was a little bit apprehensive, but i loved it, again the scenery was great and we all enjoyed it. And at least my horse wasn't a pathetic little runt who was bullied by all the other horses, as in Cuba. Our guide was a funny guy with a moustache, but he was forced to shave it off after losing a bet that day - he'd betted on Brazil to beat Ecuador.
The next day we went mountain
biking on the route to Puyo with
Jonathon. We rode 22km, stopping all the time to visit waterfalls
and meet pet monkeys - Lucas the monkey seemed obsessed with
jumping all over us, and it was really 
funny
having a little version of me climb around my face. We even
stopped off for a meal in a delightful house with a pet llama,
before hitching a ride back to Banos on the back of a truck. The
bikes we hired for $7 each were wicked, full suspension machines
which let you gain some real speed. Dave is pretty quick, I have
never been that fast on a bike but poor Sarah just couldn't
handle the pace! We also went on a $1 cable car accross a valley,
but again were unable to get lisa on it. Not sure how safe it
was, but for $1 you can't go wrong! The entire day was superb, i
can't think
of a better setting to go cycling, although I did ache after.
Which is where the hot spa came in. Now i thought it'd be hot, but not this hot! Imagine forcing yourself into a very hot bath and staying in there until your already sun-burnt skin started to feel like it was bubbling. That's what it was like, and was a result of the volcano sitting next to the town. I think it was about 52 degrees celcius. But there is also a cold bath, and that's as cold as the other one is hot, so you have to keep switching between them. The cold certainly shocked Lisa, one shriek and sudden movement resulted in her accidentally flashing one of her breasts, much to the amazement of the locals. I chatted to one old lady for quite a while, she knew a lot about London, and would love to be able to go there.
That night we went out to
sample Banos' nightlife - which meant cocktails.
Long island ice tea was my choice (rum, vodka, tequila and gin),
but not necessarily a good choice considering how hammered i got.
My memory is a bit hazy but i know i fell asleep for a while on
the podium, was 
unable to
stand properly and was play fighting with lisa (she was also
wrecked) in the streets after. Jonathon later called me a 'crazy
english guy', its just a shame dave was feeling ill and didn't
drink cos he's usually just as much of a pisshead. We also
managed to wake up most of the hostal residents when we got back,
oops. No more cocktails for me for a while then...
So we left Banos the next day, said goodbye to Jonathon (although lisa and sarah saw him again, lisa especially) and got on a bus for the next leg of our journey... Riobamba and the Devil's nose train journey.