After the trauma and altitudes of the Cotopaxi cimb it was a great relief (especially to me) that we decended to lower heights as we headed into Ecuadors very own extreme sports capital, Banos.

After arriving and setting up in our hostel room (which has 2 floors…ooooh!), we headed straight out into the town to book ourselves some high octane activities for the coming days. We did not disappoint! The remainder of the day was spent chilling (Or rather sweltering) in the natural thermal spa’s opposite the virgin waterfalls.

The next day we were up, rejuvinated and ready for some action adventures. They duly arrived as we each jumped onto a Quad bike and raced up the nearby active volcano which over looks the town. All the bikes were pretty slow apart from mine which zipped up the hill in double quick speed. But it was all to end in tears for Mike, who after 20 minutes of riding conspired to snap his accelerator cable! Not a great idea! So he and John retired to the Bike shop. Apart from this, the ride was a whole load of fun especially when myself and Chris decided to do a bit of Off Road Quadding and getting absolutely covered in mud in the process. The views from the road were pretty cool as they flashed by as well.

The new day brought more activities and today was going to be the busiest of the lot! Our day started bright and early dispite the pouring rain as we each saddled up onto our mountain bikes ready for a morning of wet riding downhill through the Avenue of the Cascades. The numerous waterfalls and stunning gorge views were very pretty, if only slightly obscured behind the copious amounts of falling water from the sky! On the ride we took a neat little cable car (very rustically operated with a lorry engine, a cable and a metal basket) over the ravine and got some great views of the river below. Finally coming to an end we hopped into our escort which happened to be filled with 24 travelers on an Intrepid organised tour for the second part of the days fun.

The fun I’m referring to is of course White Water Rafting. These rapids are usually level 3 rated, today due to rain conditions the river was running as a level 4 with some 5 sections thrown in for good measure… those are the shit your pants type ones! The Goonies took up the helm of their raft any powered down the river. That was untill a huge rapid sent all boat crew scattering across the river. The first capsize plunge into the water displayed just how cold the water was and emphasized the fact that we really didnt wish to go in again! Well that was all of us except Mike whole aired the desire to go in again to get the full experiance (words he later regretted uttering!).

Unfortunately some people had already had enough and left for the safety of the vans. By the halfway stage at least half of the group were safe(ish) in the 4 wheeled transport leaving numbers seriously dwindling. This posed a problem as now the boat containing myself Chris and Mike was seriously under manned. Only 4 in a 6 man raft! I have never been quite so tired…arms were aching and legs killing from huge rapid after huge rapid which never ceased to calm. Doing fantastically well we paddled through the trickiest sections of the river only to be scuppered at the final hurdle.

It was about with 5 mins of river left, a very quiet command arrived from our rafting guide to “paddle faster” … within 3 seconds, before we even had a chance to react, I was flung into the air, Chris and Mike were both sent skyrocketing downstream Superman style over the front of the boat! Regathering ourselves this time was tricky. I had a choice, keep the paddle or keep the boat…being a man of common sense I opted for the boat, so I scrambled back into the raft and set about rescuing the scattered crew.

First our ozzy crewmate then Chris who was about 10/20 metres away. Looking up hardly able to see Mike through the raging river about another 50 metres away, we raced headlong after him. Upon approach i could see from the boat was mikes head bobbing up and down and an outstreched arm, so in true hollywood fashion, i grabbed him and brought his safely aboard! Soo tired from this fiasco (and a paddle down, which the kind safety kayaker rescued when he should have been helping mike, hehe) we overshot the finishing post by 200m. Having to carry this huge boat back over slippy rocks was the final (leg punishing) act of this pulse racing day of great fun! The Rafting was ace and the people we met were also v cool. After dinner we finally set about home singing aloud some cheesy power ballad’s as the sun set on this awesome day!

There was no rest on the final day in Banos either. Instead of relaxing from the stressful day just gone we were up early again and headed out for some Canyoning. With a funky name like canyoning i exepected a tad more than just rapelling down some waterfalls. But that is what we did, 6 falls with heights topping at 35m. The only issue was the waiting around getting freezing cold for the whole group to descend. This was a cool thing to do, but was a bit too cold for comfort.

After an exhilerating few days we packed the bags and headed further south totally shattered looking for a well earned rest.