So it’s become a bit of a cliche – but it’s easy to see why! 

After meeting up with a travel buddy once more in Baños (de Agua Santa), Ecuador, we decided to be intrepid and walk up the mountain-side to the famous ‘swing at the end of the world’. We had a map drawn on a scrap of paper by someone we cornered in the food market, but the gist seemed to be to just head up. It’s impossible to get lost when you don’t have a plan in the first place, so I am still adamant that we didn’t get lost. 

Built by a local man, the swing drops from a precarious tree-house that was built on the top of this remote area so that he could enjoy star-gazing in peace (or so he told me that day..). It slowly became a bit of a tourist attraction and now there are little queues of people waiting to climb into the treehouse or buckle themselves onto the swing. The seatbelt took away some of the danger element so it was kind of scarier pushing other people – no mean feat while standing on a slippery cliff-edge – but it was pretty cool to be able to do this!

Sadly we didn’t catch sight of Tungurahua – the active volcano that looms over Baños – since the clouds were doing their very best to blanket the summit, but about a week before I was there it had erupted!