If this is your first episode of this journey then take a minute to read this note.

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Just before landing in Quito airport there's one thing that's guaranteed to cross your mind – the catastrophic consequence an airline crash will have near the airport. The Quiport like the rest of Quito lies in a valley but unlike any other airport we've been to it's strangely surrounded by buildings. Inside the architecture is modern and I must admit that I awaited much worse. At 8am everything was working as it should and we passed through immigration with no hassles or incredulous looks at the passport, although I doubt it came out of familiarity with our country. After collecting our luggage we took a taxi to the bus station 'Terminale Terrestre'.

The taxi driver dropped us in front of a stairs leading to a square where we should have found the ticket offices but instead we somehow ended up in a telephone cabin office instead. After putting some of last month's Spanish lessons to use we managed to find the ticket office and the bus to Banos. The trip promised to be culturally rich from the start my Madam pointed at a policeman pissing on the front of a bus. The bus to Banos, probably free of piss, was relatively modern but the people inside gave just the perfect retro touch to remind us that we were in Ecuador.

The characters on this bus became imprinted in memory and will probably remain there for a long time, at least until I continue hearing 'A Banos', 'A Banos' reverberating in my mind. This was the call the bus attendant or as I preferred referring to him, the bus sales man, was calling out at each stop. No matter were we stopped, be it to let people off or to wait in the traffic, the attendant called out at the top of his voice to load more passengers. His tactics were fruitful because the bus kept replenishing itself with people. Then there was the bus driver who must have been under an accumulated adrenaline rush out of watching Fast and Furious, because we were close to smash against other vehicles throughout the whole 3½ hour trip. Lastly there were the bus vendors 'vendedores' who came on the bus handing over things like 'medical tea' or 'special ball pens' trying to convince us in very fast Spanish why we couldn't live without their goods. At least we made a deal with the best one of the bunch who was a traditional musician that played his flute and guitar on the bus and sold us 2 CD's with traditional Ecuadorian songs for $5. (Click on image to download video)

When we arrived in Banos after passing through Latacunga and Ambato we caught a taxi ($1) from the bus station to Hotel Palace for practical reasons rather than because of the distance. Hotel Palace is one of the higher end hotels along with the Sangay Hotel listed in Lonely Planet but this hotel offered a better price and a better e-mail response than the latter.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the streets of Banos trying to take some representative photos of the village. While returning back to the hotel we came across a local artisan who made Salasacan weavings. When the lady saw us staring at her work displayed on the veranda she welcomed us inside for a better view. We tried to understand as much as possible from her explanation in Spanish but the only things we understood were that the wool used was sheep wool and it is naturally dyed and water resistant. Her best piece took her 3 weeks to complete and was selling at $35. We left the house with a piece depicting two blue footed boobies but this also allowed us to take some photos of her art without feeling guilty. After the walking tour we went to eat at a Mexican Restaurant called Panco Villa. The food was good, but the place was empty. We had cheese nachos, chicken and beef hard tacos and natural (thick) juice all for $12.