This morning after breakfast we decided to walk up to Banos El Salado, one of the hot springs in the area. El Salado is on the edge of Banos in a small canyon, only a couple of kilometres from our hotel. It didn't take long to walk there.
Once there, we had to rent bathing caps (50 cents each), which are required in the pools. There are change cubicles and a secure place to leave your basket of clothes. Admission fee was $3.50 each including clothes storage. There are 5 or 6 pools of different sizes, all outdoors, with a creek running past. The pools are at different temperatures and the water, although it is constantly circulating, is brown from all the minerals. It looks a little dubious but it actually seemed quite clean.
Since we were there at mid-morning to early afternoon, most other people there seemed to be Ecuadorians about our age. Some were obviously there to alleviate their arthritis pain. We soaked for a long time in the various pools and enjoyed it thoroughly. We got a bit sunburnt on our shoulders but we didn't really mind.
Eventually, feeling pretty loose, we sauntered back to our hotel. On the way, we noticed that in Banos there are signs for volcano eruption escape routes, somewhat like fire routes in other places. Different.
We ate some snacks and had a beer in our room and relaxed for awhile. Finally we went out to dinner at the Casa Hood this time, another restaurant owned by the same people who ran the place where we'd eaten the night before. The Casa Hood is also a hostel and is a very laid-back place, apparently owned by another old expat gringo. The food was good and reasonably priced. Dinner for 2, with beer, cost $16.
A music trio came in to play a few songs so we moved closer to hear them. Unfortunately they weren't very good but they did liven the place up.
We sat with an Aussie whom we had talked to at our hotel. He had recently completed a 14 day hiking and camping trip in Patagonia. His pictures were beautiful but he said the hiking was a bit much.
Finally it was time to go home and pack for our long bus ride the next day to Cuenca.
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