Tall Mountains, Deep Gorges and Spectacular Waterfalls of Tungurahu...

Once outside of Quito, the scenery changes rapidly, gray concrete gives way to lush green rainforests blanketing unbelievable landscapes

Baños de Agua Santa is a city also known as "Gateway to the Amazon", as it's the last major city one must pass before leaving the Andes and entering the hot and humid jungle of the Amazon River basin. Turns out it's pretty hot here on the Equator after all, just you leave the mountains and feel free to start sweating.

^{Rio Pastanza below}

^{Waterfalls dropping from the ledge that holds the city}

Baños is built on the northern foothills of the Tungurahua volcano which puts it at risk to repeat the fate of Armero and in fact in 1999, all 17000+ residents were forced to evacuate the city for weeks.

Overhanging Rio Pastanza, Baños is one of the most popular tourist points of interest in Ecuador due to its astounding natural beauty (it is home to more than 60 waterfalls) and its plethora of available adventure sports and attractions. Locals and visitors alike enjoy rafting, kayaking, canyoning, bridge jumping, hiking, biking and horseback riding. And I did exactly none of that. Except a bit of biking, which took me down the valley, outside of the city in eastern direction, all the way to the confluence with Rio Verde to the massive waterfall Cascada El Pailón del Diablo.

^{Vertigo stairway ->}

Next day I decided to take a look at the area from above, that is from one of the mountains around. No shortage of those, obviously, but any mountaintop requires some effort to reach it. Or to pay for the transport like tourists do, which is way too easy to be an attractive option. And besides, those 2 bucks may be spent better.

Took me way longer than expected, but in the end I reached the top, La Casa del Arbol, featuring multiple swings that seem to be popular on this mountain. I counted 3 principal places where you can swing back and forth above the abyss, with different grades of extreme.

Fun fact: while it's clearly warmer than Quito, weather forecasts somehow are horribly wrong about the temperatures in this city. They were showing values from 2 to 6 degrees C but in reality it never falls below 10, I'm quite sure.

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