Back to Quito and On to Banos

Sunday, February 1st, 2015 to Quito and Monday February 2nd to Banos
I hardly slept all night. The street noise wasn't that bad but I was experiencing some gastric discomfort (as Josh would say) and my whole body ached. At first, I thought it was a reaction to all the caffeine in the cocoa beans and chocolate that I had eaten the day before so I tried to choke down breakfast over at the Beehive so I'd have energy for the day.
While we ate breakfast we chatted with a young guy from upstate New York. He was trained and worked as a civil engineer for a few years but grew tired of staring into a computer most of the time so he chucked it all and became a park ranger. We shared some stories about the US southwest river canyons since he had kayaked solo into the Black Canyon on the Colorado below the Hoover Dam and was interested in my Grand Canyon tales. Good guy.
We caught the 11 am bus back to Quito. The 2 1/2 hour ride wasn't real comfortable because by now I was realizing that I had some kind of virus. However, we made it without incident (thankfully) and quickly caught a cab ($8 cost) at the Ofelia terminal back to the Cayman Hotel in the Mariscal district.
After a nap, we bought some water at the little store down the street where the lady stands by the door and only unlocks for the people she likes the look of. There must be a reason for that.
Later we had a bowl of soup at the restaurant next door and chatted with a couple of other SKIers (Spending the Kids Inheritance) from Winnipeg. After that it was back to bed to try to recover.
The next morning Anita was finally able to convince me to take some immodium and ibuprofen and I managed to eat a banana, piece of dry toast and cup of mint tea for breakfast. We had booked our next hotel in Banos through booking.com and there was no way to cancel so luckily I felt well enough to go. Booking through Hostelworld is often much more flexible but we just couldn't find what we wanted through them this time. Booking.com and especially hotels.com always seem to have little catches that annoy me.
After checking out, we got a cab for $10 to the Terminal Quitumbe in the far south of Quito. That's a long way from the Mariscal. We were surprised when we arrived because it's quite new and looks a lot like a small airport. It's very clean, modern and efficient. Within minutes we had tickets ($3.50 each) for the 3 1/2 hour ride to Banos. I was beginning to feel a bit better so the ride was fine. The highway south is quite good and eventually we turned east to wind down into a river canyon toward Banos.
The Banos terminal is tiny but busy. We caught a cab for $1 to La Floresta Hotel where we were staying for the next 3 nights. La Floresta has about 30 rooms and is quite nice except that the floor drain in the bathroom is venting a bit of sewer gas so there is a slight smell which doesn't bother us as long as we keep the door closed. We tried pouring water down the drain to prime the trap but I'm not convinced there is a trap. We've run into this problem before in other countries. Gotta love Canadian plumbing standards.
We checked our travel guides, got a town map and went out to find the Cafe Good for dinner. It was really good, as advertised. Afterwards, we walked up to one of the little squares or plazas which are a nice feature of Ecuadorian towns. It's really nice to sit in a plaza/park and enjoy the small town and the surrounding mountains which rise very steeply just a few blocks away. Banos is in a little bowl and is completely surrounded by steep mountains. We even caught a little sunshine as dusk approached. The weather so far has been low 20s and quite variable throughout most days with a bit of sun and a few short showers along with mostly overcast skies. Each day we prepare for sun, cloud and showers, which is actually quite easy to do. The showers usually only last a few minutes. Sunscreen is a prerequisite even on cloudy days because we are higher up in thin air at the equator and we (especially me) can burn easily every day.