Agua Termas de Papallactas

Yesterday we went to Agua Termas de Papallactas, which are natural hot springs that are located on the side of an active volcano. It was only an hour and a half away by bus. It cost $7.50 to enter the hot spring pools for as long as you'd like and our group of 10 spent most of the day there.

This is the view about halfway up the mountain road we had to walk up to get the hot springs.

This is one of the adorable puppies we saw on the road to Papallactas.

Papallactas is a local favorite, but it's also becoming a tourist destination as well, so they have things like hostels on the way up the mountain.

Hostels like this are advertising wifi, cable, jacuzzis, and more.

Once we got up the mountain, the view was gorgeous.

We were so high up that it almost felt like we were in the clouds.

The flowers here are beautiful and hummingbirds really seem to like these ones.

Then when we actually entered the hot spring pool area you could see the river that was feeding some of their pools.

There were also a lot of signs in English because of the tourism to Papallactas.

There were so many hot spring pools of different temperatures; the closer you got the the mountain, the hotter the pools. They also had cold pools which were fed straight from the river that you could cool off in if you got too hot.

This is our group of 10 GAIAS students sitting in one of the hot springs pools.

They also had a cute little area that had some bunnies chowing down.

Another nice view of the river where you could actually get in. It was freezing!

Aguas Termas de Papallactas also had a restaurant right near the hot springs where we ate lunch.

Esto es jugo mixto de guanabana y morta. This is mixed juice of guanabana and blackberries.

Empanadas de queso. They were filled more with air than with cheese unfortunately. They also give you a sugar packet, which at first I found very odd. However, I tried the sugar on the empanadas which was actually pretty good.

Finally, we got back to Cumbaya around 5 and were greeted by a double rainbow.

You can barely see the rainbow on the right, but it's there.

 After that, we tried Ecuadorian KFC which was really good. I will have to have it when I return to the states to compare; all Ecuadorians who have had both prefer it here. Also, their American fast food restaurants here are kind of a big deal. The KFC we went to, which you can see the logo for in the above picture on the right side, was two stories tall and had a children's play area and very nice seating.

Unfortunately, we aren't going to Cotopaxi today. Perhaps another weekend...

Chau for now