Banos

Buy

There are a lot of different places to buy handicrafts, there are a lot of small business in front of the church in the middle of the town. In the markets of the city you can find a great selection of fruit. There you can also find cuy (roasted guinea pig), a specialty of the native Andean cuisine.

Eat

thumb|250px|Jugo de Caña thumb|250px|Melcocha In addition to the Ecuadorian traditional specialty cuy (roasted guinea pig, available e.g. in the market), the specialties of Baños are sugar cane, candies made of it, and other colorful sweets, all of which are available at stalls around the city.

Melcocha (sugar cane taffy) is Ecuador's hallmark candy and the majority of it is made in Baños. The abundance of sugar cane in the area makes this version of taffy a local specialty. It is a naturally sweet taffy made from boiled raw cane syrup. In store fronts that sell it you are likely to see it being made by pulling it and beating it against sturdy door frames.

Sugar cane is also popular in a less worked form as chewable cane pulp sticks or squeezed juice (Jugo de Caña).

Drink

thumb|200px|Flaming Bob Marley - Leprechaun Bar Baños has a good selection of nightlife with bars and discos concentrated in the south of the city.

There's a whole street in downtown with salsathecas where you can dance all night. Other than that, in most salsathecas around Baños, they mostly play American pop music. One place to dance salsa is the Leprecaun Bar. Go there early (around 9 o'clock) where the place isn't too busy, ask the staff to put on some salsa music and they are even happy to give you dance lessons.

Sleep

Given its small size, there are a lot of hotels in Baños , and thanks to the competition prices are in general low and standards high. Public computers with Internet access are common.

Go next

Quito — the capital is a couple of hours on the road to the northwest. Puyo — to the northeast, here you can see a spectacular waterfall and it is a gateway to the Amazon. Apparently, there buses leaving every 30 minutes. Riobamba — to the south, this is Ecuador's third largest city and next to it is Chimborazo, whose summit is the point furthest away from the Earth's center. Other bus destinations: Coca (Puerto Francisco de Orellana), Ambato, Cuenca, …