Ecuador's adventure capital under an active volcano — where Baños de Agua Santa sits at 1,820 metres at the base of the active Tungurahua volcano (5,023 metres, erupting actively since 1999) and packs more adventure tourism into a 3 km main street than almost anywhere in South America: white-water rafting on the Pastaza River, paragliding from the valley rim, zip-lining above the town, the Casa del Árbol swing (the 'Swing at the End of the World' — a treehouse swing positioned on the volcano's flank at 2,660 metres with a 100-metre drop below the seat) has been seen by hundreds of millions of people on social media, and every block of the 2-km Calle Ambato candy strip sells melcochas (Baños taffy stretched on iron hooks in storefront windows — a tradition dating to the 1940s)
Baños de Agua Santa (20,000 permanent population; up to 50,000 visitors on peak weekends) is a small adventure and wellness town in Tungurahua Province in central Ecuador — positioned at the confluence of the Pastaza and Bascún rivers in the valley below the Tungurahua volcano. The town's name comes from its thermal baths (fed by volcanic springs heated by Tungurahua's magma chamber) and its patroness, the Virgen de Agua Santa, whose basilica is the most-visited pilgrimage site in Ecuador.
Baños de Agua Santa grew around the thermal hot springs fed by the Tungurahua volcano and the Dominican basilica founded in 1563 to house a venerated image of the Virgen de Agua Santa, which local tradition holds has protected the town from volcanic destruction multiple times. The town became a resort destination for Ecuadorian elites in the 19th century (the thermal baths were seen as curative) and a major adventure tourism centre in the late 20th century as sports developed around the valley's rivers and cliffs. Tungurahua's 1999 eruption — its most severe in recorded history — forced the c…