What Can $100 Get in Ecuador? (Baños Travel Guide)

Not trying to flex on y'all too hard, but I have $100. In the US, this might get you a nice hotel stay, a night out with friends, or a single piece of candy at the movie theater. But here in Ecuador, it's a totally different story, and $100 makes you basically a billionaire. You can get days of value out of these five crusty old white dudes. My mission is to see just how far $100 can go in one of the most amazing countries in South America. I'm here in Banos, Ecuador, and we're not just gonna be surviving, but thriving to show you everything there is to do in this adventure paradise. And the first thing I needed to do is find a place to stay, so I set out searching and found Papacho's Hostel. There were a couple Israeli dudes playing ping pong in the lobby, and a Belgian guy with a guitar, both signs of a great hostel, even if there was the creepiest mural I've ever seen in my life. Yo, how much for a night? That sounds wrong. Got a six bed dorm for $7. Tengo 20, tienes cambio? Dude, I'm from Canada. So you might be wondering what I'm doing, spending American currency in a foreign country, but the U.S. dollar is actually the official currency of Ecuador. Their old currency, the sucre, underwent so much inflation that back in 2000, they just decided to switch over. After getting settled in, I rounded up a group of investing moguls from my hostel, and we headed to the local market to find the deal of the century. We're gonna make a great trade deal. Cuanto por pesos? Un dollar. One dollar for a whole bag of strawberries. This lady up here looks like she's whipping up some absolute heat. So this is something called cevichochos. It's a really typical Ecuadorian snack. It's got these chocho beans, toasted corn, and then some plantain chips on the top, and some salsa. Uno de este, por favor. 50 cents for this bad boy. Oh yeah, best 50 cents I've ever eaten. Then it was time to burn off the calories. All right, so next on the agenda, we're headed to go cycle down some kind of hill to some waterfalls. I really don't know, I'm just following these people. A bike rental here is $5. 74 bucks cheaper than back in Jackson. Let's shake, rattle, and skedaddle, my dudes. We headed south along Rio Pastaza to check out some of the best waterfalls in the region. It's such a dope ride that you can't miss when in Baños. It got juicy out here fast, but that wasn't about to stop us from checking out the most famous waterfall in Baños, Pylon del Diablo, which means devil's hill. Ha ha ha. Beautiful. For lunch, I made my way downtown to find a popular Ecuadorian delicacy. This is roasted guinea pig, which the locals call koi, and you can find it anywhere. Then a sweet old lady invited me to eat with her. Anita. So Anita was a really sweet lady, but I quickly learned that this woman is every pet store's worst nightmare. She ordered all this koi just for herself. That's like eight times what I got, and I'm twice her size. This lady has the appetite of a horse, but like a horse that eats guinea pig. I'm just joking, we love Anita, she's sweet. Then I got a coffee, I like coffee. So here in Ecuador, you don't find paper bills all that much and they mostly use these golden Sacagawea coins. The thing with using these coins for everything is I feel like freaking Blackbeard running around with all these shillings jingling in my pocket. Then my friends and I went to Casa del Arbol, which is basically a glorified playground on steroids. Our taxi costed us $2 each, which is crazy because it's a 30 minute drive. Immediately upon arrival, we were presented with shots of a mystery fluid. Is this blood? I do not know what that was. $1 to enter. So this place is kind of a tourist trap, which made me worried, but we actually had a really fun time. I started out on this zip line, which I later found out was only for kids. Call me David Rule Breaker. So this is all the hype here. It's called the Swing at the Edge of the World. I think you can see why. I'd like to see you try and explain this one, round earthers. The great thing about this place is it doesn't cost any extra to do the swing or anything. As soon as you pay your $1 entrance fee in, you can do whatever. That's pretty nice. I got nachos for dinner. They were good. I started off day two by doing something that's totally free, going for a run. And it was steep dog. This is the type of workout that turns your calves into cows. Gotta come back and get the camera. You know how it is. Finally made it to the top and look, it's Banos. Guess how much this costed, $0. Money can't buy a long run and a view like this. Then I went to go find breakfast because a runner boy's gotta eat. Not gonna lie, I kind of went to a fancy place and balled out because this costed me $3.50. So $3.50 is actually on the expensive side for an Ecuadorian breakfast, but you know what? That place was obviously a little bit bougie. Whatever, we'll try to keep it a little cheaper in the future. Then I set off for the river to do one of the things that Banos is most well known for. So Banos is actually a huge hotspot for whitewater rafting here in Ecuador. And there was a lot of rain the last few days, so the river is absolutely raging. We're gonna hit some class four water. It's gonna be pretty crazy, but this ain't my first rodeo. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. So the rafting trip also included dinner, so that's money we don't have to spend, which means that 100 bucks can go even further, which means that $25 on the rafting trip is a worthwhile investment. So I was shooting some footage of this soccer game, but then they asked me to play. They probably thought I'd be good or something because I have long legs, but I proved them wrong. All those middle school soccer games I won must have been a fluke because these guys absolutely destroyed me. Like, it was depressing. So Banos de Aguasanta means Baths of Holy Water, and Banos actually gets its name from the many hot springs surrounding the city. So there's hot springs all over here in Banos, and I'm going to some with some friends right now. To get on the hot spring, you have to get one of these swim caps back here. They're 25 cents. I guess they don't want your hair in the water, so that cuts into the budget. You look like you're ready to tell my fortune. Oh, he's rocking the bright pink. The hot springs cost $4, which may have been the worst financial move yet because, as it turns out, this place is nasty. It's seriously just human soup right now. If you want to stop infection, this is where to get in. The amount of kids that have been in here. Don't try this. The pool down there is extra nasty. I've never been more disappointed in humankind than I was today. This is disgusting. I've actually heard from a lot of people that it's pretty nice if you go in the morning, so yeah. If you're going to go to the hot springs, just make sure you get an early start. So the $100 is going fast, and we're almost to the end of it. Instead of going out for breakfast, I'm going to make breakfast back at the hostel. So I'm headed to the market to get the goody goods, and we'll take it from there. Just like that, we have our breakfast, and not only is it cheaper to do it this way, but it's a lot more fun if you make it yourself. Make it rain. We're headed out to experience one of the biggest adrenaline rushes in Banos. So this is Kyle from Texas. He's a fellow Yeehaw stater. We're out here in Ecuador yipping some calles together. And this dude's from Germany. Can you believe there's an entire country of people who sound like the three little pigs from Shrek? This might be the most horrifying trash can I've seen anywhere. We're here to jump off a bridge, something I've never done before, and what a better place to do it than Ecuador. Well, folks, we're living to see another day, not ending up in a Mr. Ballin story today. ¿Está bien? Yes. Ay, gracias. You're welcome. To finish off the funs, I got Papi Pollo for lunch because it sounded funny. I got a bag of these mystery fruits that look like sea urchins. Then I bought some of this girl's chocolate and left the last dime on a toilet for a stranger. So the reason I'm making this is to show you that you don't need to be loaded to travel and you can do so much on a pretty modest budget. As an American, your money can go so much further in a place like Ecuador, and traveling can literally be cheaper than your cost of living back home. So what I'm trying to say is go to Ecuador. All right, that's about it. Bye.