Termas de Papallacta

So while Jennifer was at Plaza de las Americas updating the blog today, Ilse, Vicky, and I ventured out to the verge of the Amazon basin in search of something relaxing to ease the pain of our previous day's aventura. Specifically, we were looking for the termas de Papallacta, a resort with about 15 different thermal baths and pools set in the lush mountains on the edge of the great Amazon rainforest. Our 2 hour bus ride began at the same station we go to for the bus to Pifo, and took us through the winding mountain passes to the west of Quito, down to our destination. We then hitched on a camioneta (truck) up to the resort. Our initial impression was: "wow... this is a lot of public swimming pools" but as we warmed up to the awesome scenery and the fact that the water was piped in directly from the volcano at very high temperatures, the place grew on us pretty quickly.





The place wasn't quite teeming with folks, but it was pretty crowded! After we secured our stuff in a locker and changed into our bathing suits, we headed off towards the steaming blue pools. The water was rather warm - not as warm as the green pool in Baños, but just warm enough to relax you almost to the point of passing out. And boy was it relaxing. We spent a good couple of hours trying out some different hot pools, and Vicky taught us how to go back and forth from the hot pools into the FRIGID river nearby, and then back into the steaming pool - which after being frozen in the river felt like diving into boiling champagne. Below is a picture of the river:



After a few hours in the outdoor sauna, all three of us were about as relaxed as we could be, and sufficiently cured of the pain that the day before doled out to us. So we showered off, changed back into our regular clothes, and headed back down to wait for the bus. By then it was drizzling, and the buses that take us back to Quito had to come a long way from the Oriente so they were few and far between, so we huddled under an insufficiently large bus stop to avoid the cold rain. But in our downtime, Vicky bought from a street vendor a bundle of guava fruit, which looks like really huge green pea pods, and we cracked them open to eat the white, fuzzy, sweet "peas" inside. Finally our bus came and zipped us back up the hills to the mother city, narrowly escaping a random boarding of our bus by police to search for ID. I'd definitely say that the baths were the perfect antidote to the beating our muscles took the day before at the Pita Cascade, and after a good night's sleep we'll be ready for our next aventura - frolicking on the great snow-capped volcano Cotopaxi... pray the skies are clear and blue tomorrow morning!