Baños, town next to an active volcano

Baños is about 3 hours bus ride from Quito. The city is in a valley and the scenery is spectacular. Baños offers a lot of activities, so it´s a great place to spend few days if you like adventure sports. For example you can go biking, rafting or enjoy your day at a thermal spa.

Baños is really touristic town with a lot of hostels, shops and restaurants. The place is famous among the tourists, probably because of the active volcano Tungurahua right next to the city. The volcano started the activity year 1999 and still continuing the activity. At the moment the city is on a orange alert, but it´s not a problem for the visitors. The activity from the volcano offers good view for people, especially at night when you have a chance to see the lava if the weather is clear.

When the Tungurahua volcano have the activity, I recommend you to go to town called Huambalo, it is the best place to see the lava and the smoke. You have to go by taxi, because it is quite far, but the view is good there. There are many tour agency’s offering adventure tours, sightseeing trips (to waterfalls and to see Tungurahua), motorbike or bicycle rental.

I have been there twice. First trip was with my husband and we did canopy (zip line), paragliding, bungee jump from a bridge, canyoning, horse back riding and rafting. Also we rented a motorbike to visit waterfall. The next trip was with my husband, baby and mom so we didn’t do any extreme sports but took a sightseeing tour to see the waterfalls, went to a thermal spa and just enjoyed the city and the beautiful views the town has to offer. Both trips were really nice, and based on these experiences, I could recommend Baños both adventure seekers and families.