Quilotoa and Banos

So I never added details about the trip to Mindo by bike but I´ll have to do that later because I´m in a town called Banos now and internet is about 3 times more expensive than I´m used to.

Since that last post.........

I relaxed in Quito for a few more days and went to my friend´s concert on Thursday night. That was really cool. The only problem was I ordered a Cuba Libre (Rum and Coke) as my ¨free drink¨ after paying the 5 dollar cover. The coke part was fine but I think the alcohol wasn´t Rum. It tasted more like rubbing alcohol and was painful to drink. For a few days I thought my throat was damaged. From now on I´ll stick to beer where I know what to expect.
I stayed in Quito through the weekend. Friday night was great because I went out with friends to all their favorite bars. Saturday night was boring and I just wandered around and then went home to pack up my things, I wanted to finally get out of Quito on Sunday morning.

On Sunday I took a bus to Lago Quilotoa, which is a crater lake in the mountains about 3 hours south of Quito. On the way to Lago Quilotoa I met 3 people from Spain (actually Catalonia....like all people from Catalonia, they were quick to tell me that Catalonia is NOT Spain). I´ve been hanging out with them for the last 5 days. One of the first days, we hiked around the crater lake (Lago Quilotoa) which took about 4 hours. I have quite a few pictures that I´ll post when I´m able to. After we finished there, we took a bus to Banos and have been here for 3 nights so far. The first day we rented mountain bikes and rode approx. 62 km from Banos to Puyo. The bikes were pretty decent GT bikes with front suspension and only cost 5 dollars for the whole day. It was a good ride because we passed many waterfalls along the way and as we progressed we could see the ecology change from mountains to jungle. The ride took about 6 hours and then we took a bus from Puyo back to Banos. The next day we rented 4-wheelers and rode up and down 2 different mountains around Banos. One of the quads we rented was pretty good and really fun to ride on the stone/dirt paths up the mountain. The other one had some serious problems with the alignment and/steering and was very hard to control at speed. It was pretty dangerous to go any more than 30 mph. Overall it was fun and it only cost about 30 dollars for 2 quads for 2 hours.....so not too bad. The Catalonians are going on a jungle tour tomorrow and I´m trying to decide if I´m going to go with them on the tour from here in Banos or stick to my original plan of heading a little farther into the jungle to a town called Tena and getting a tour from there.

To be continued later.........gotta go.