Piedra de Agua

Piedra de Agua in Banos is a $5 taxi ride from Cuenca.  It is a little tourist spot with hot pools and mud baths.

It is $10 to use the basic hot pools and steam room,  $30 per person to have access to everywhere and extra if you want to get a massage or another treatment.

You could also take a bus here: lines 11, 12, 27 take you very close.  But i would have to recommend taking a taxi home because after hours in the hot pools you have no strength in your legs.

Another tip I heard was that they change the water of the pools on Thursdays, so it is cleaner to go after Thursday.  There are other hot pools in the area but this place is nicer than most.  And apparently they are open all year round too.

Piedra de Agua

Termas Papayacta

Flew into Quito Airport at 1 AM, there is always a chance of altitude sickness since Quito is at 9200 ft.  Luckily it wasn’t bad but I think it is because we spent the night 20 min away in Puembo which is at a little lower elevation.  The next morning we made a special trip to Termas Papayacta, which is a cool little spa resort in the mountains where the pools are heated by geothermal energy from the volcano; it was just what I needed after the 12+ hour trip.