Baños, Ecuador: The Little Spa Town That Refused to Die (And Became an Adventure Capital Instead)

Back in October 1999, Baños was a ghost town. Tungurahua, the enormous volcano that looms directly above it, had woken up after decades of sleep, and the authorities ordered everyone out. Roughly 17,000 people packed their things and left, scattered across nearby cities while ash dusted the empty streets. But here is the bit I love. By January 2000, the locals had had enough of waiting, and thousands of them marched straight past the military barricades and went home. They even have a name for them now, Los Corredores de Baños, the runners of Baños. The volcano grumbled on for another sixteen years or so, throwing up the odd ash cloud and the occasional spectacular night-time lava show, before settling down around 2016. The town never left again. That stubborn, slightly bonkers streak says everything you need to know about the place, and its the reason a holiday here feels different to anywhere else in Ecuador.

Baños sits in a steep green valley at about 1,800 metres, right where the Andes start collapsing into the Amazon basin, and the setting honestly does half the work for the tour brochures. The air smells of eucalyptus, woodsmoke and, faintly, sulphur. Clouds drag themselves along the ridgelines like they are in no particular hurry, and everywhere you go there is the sound of water, because the whole valley is threaded with rivers and waterfalls fed by the volcano above. The Pastaza river barrels along the valley floor in a churn of white and green, and on misty mornings the whole town looks like it has been dropped into a cloud and forgotten about. It's gorgeous, in a slightly damp, dramatic sort of way.

Right, the adventure stuff, because that is why most people come. The classic thing to do is the Ruta de las Cascadas, a winding road that follows the river gorge past a string of waterfalls towards the jungle town of Puyo. Most people hire a bike for a few quid and freewheel down, the wind in your face, waterfalls crashing down on either side of the road, trucks hooting cheerfully as they squeeze past. The star of the show is Pailón del Diablo, the Devil's Cauldron, and it is properly ridiculous. You scramble down a wet staircase, past dripping orchids and moss so green it looks fake, until you are face to face with a torrent of water hammering into a bowl of rock. There is even a crawl-through tunnel that pops you out behind the falls. You will get soaked. That is entirely the point.

Then there is the famous swing. Casa del Árbol is a treehouse perched on a ridge high above town with a couple of rope swings hanging off it, and when you swing out over the edge you are basically arcing over nothing, hundreds of metres of air beneath your trainers, with Tungurahua's perfect cone filling the background. The photos look insane and, to be fair, it feels a bit insane too. Queues form at weekends but go early on a weekday and you might have it to yourself, just you, a plank of wood and a volcano.

Worth mentioning the chivas too. These are the open-sided party buses that rattle out of town at dusk, music thumping, and haul you up the winding road to the Bellavista viewpoint to watch the town lights flicker on below. On clear evenings you can see the volcano's silhouette against the last of the light while someone hands round canelazo, a hot, sweet, boozy sugarcane drink that tastes like Christmas and mischief. It's touristy as anything and completely brilliant. Half the fun of Baños is that it never takes itself too seriously.

That's barely scratching the surface though. The canyoning here is brilliant, abseiling down waterfalls through narrow gorges in a wetsuit while cold mountain water hammers your helmet. You can go white-water rafting on the Pastaza, grade three to four rapids that flip the odd boat and send everyone shrieking. There are ziplines strung across canyons, "puenting" jumps off the San Francisco bridge (essentially bungee but swinging under the bridge rather than bouncing), paragliding off the valley walls, and mountain bike trails that drop from cold páramo grassland into steaming cloud forest in a single afternoon. If you fancy stretching your legs properly, guided hikes take you up Tungurahua's lower slopes to the refugio at 3,800 metres, where the air goes thin and the views go silly. Book any of it through the agencies dotted around town, prices are negotiable and competition keeps standards decent.

After all that, your legs will be screaming, which is handy, because Baños literally means "baths". The town's full name is Baños de Agua Santa, Baths of Holy Water, and the whole place exists because of the hot springs heated by the volcano. The Piscinas de la Virgen sit right in town beneath a waterfall, steaming pools of yellowish mineral water ranging from pleasantly warm to genuinely scalding, packed with Ecuadorian families at the weekend. El Salado, just out of town, is quieter, and the posher option, Luna Runtún up on the hill, lets you soak in a warm pool while staring down at the whole valley. There is something deeply satisfying about sliding into volcanic hot water while the smell of sulphur hangs in the air and the mountain responsible glowers at you through the mist.

Accommodation runs the full range, and its all pretty affordable by European standards. Backpackers are well looked after with sociable hostels around the centre, think hammocks, rooftop terraces, communal kitchens and beds for well under a tenner. Family-run guesthouses offer spotless rooms, strong coffee and owners who will basically plan your whole trip over breakfast. Spend a bit more and you get boutique hotels with stone fireplaces, balconies facing the volcano and gardens full of hummingbirds, while the hilltop spa hotels up in Runtún go full luxury, infinity pools, massage menus, the lot. Eco-lodges on the edge of town trade wifi for birdsong and jungle views. Honestly, a mid-range room with a volcano view here costs less than a soulless chain hotel back home, which still slightly offends me.

One more thing on where to stay, location matters more than star rating here. The centre of town is compact enough to cross in ten minutes, so staying central puts the bus station, the baths, the tour agencies and the restaurants all within a short wander, handy when you've just come off a raft and can barely lift your arms. The places up the hill in Runtún and towards the swing are quieter and have the killer views, but you will be hopping in cheap taxis or walking up some seriously steep streets. Decide whether you want doorstep convenience or hammock-with-a-panorama mornings, because you can't quite have both.

The amenities are better than you would expect for a town this size. Cafés do proper flat whites next to plates of llapingachos, these glorious fried potato cakes stuffed with cheese. Street stalls sell melcocha, a sticky sugarcane taffy that vendors pull and slap against wooden door frames in full view, warm and chewy and dangerously moreish. The basilica, an extraordinary pink-striped Gothic pile, dominates the main square and pulls in pilgrims from across the country. By night the centre gets lively in a friendly, unthreatening way, craft beer bars, a few clubs, grill restaurants sending out smoky skewers. It never feels rowdy, just happy.

Which brings me to the other side of Baños, the slower one. For every traveller arriving with a death wish and a GoPro, there is another coming specifically to do absolutely nothing, and the town caters to them just as happily. This is the thing that surprises a lot of visitors, Baños has quietly become one of South America's favourite spots for wellness retreats. It makes sense when you think about it. You have got volcanic hot springs on tap, clean mountain air, jungle on the doorstep and a general pace of life that forces you to slow down whether you like it or not. Yoga retreats have sprung up in the hills above town, combining morning practice with waterfall hikes and long soaks in thermal pools. Massage places line the streets offering everything from cheap and cheerful rub-downs to full spa packages with volcanic mud wraps. Some retreats fold in meditation, cacao ceremonies and Amazonian plant medicine traditions from the communities further east. Plenty of travellers arrive for three days of rafting and end up staying two weeks, mornings on the yoga mat, afternoons in hot water, evenings watching the mist roll over the valley. As recoveries go, it beats a week on a Spanish beach by some distance.

Getting there is easy enough, regular buses run from Quito's Quitumbe terminal and take around three and a half hours through spectacular scenery, and Baños also makes a natural stop on the way to or from the Amazon. June to September tends to be drier, but this is a cloud-wrapped mountain valley, so pack a waterproof whatever the calendar says, and bring layers because evenings turn cool fast at altitude. Weekdays are calmer than weekends, when half of Quito descends on the place.

Baños could have died in 1999. Instead it came back louder, muddier and more fun. Go for the waterfalls and the white water, stay for the hot springs and the hammocks, and leave with a bag full of taffy and legs that need a week to forgive you.