A Review of Hosteria Duran in Banos, (near Cuenca, Ecuador)

For the first time in 7 months, it’s quiet.

Not the kind of quiet you get by drowning out all other ambient sound with a fan or earplugs, but the kind of quiet where even birds chriping outside the window sound a bit loud.

We’ve been living in Quito for 10 weeks.

Even our weekend jaunt to the small town of Mindo left us wanting some peace and quiet.

We’ve found that peace and quiet here at the Hosteria Duran, near Cuenca, Ecuador.

Hosteria Duran is both a day spa (with a hot springs/pool, steam rooms, and massages,) and a hotel.

At $85/night, Hosteria Duran is the most expensive place we’ve stayed in Ecuador.

$85 at this Hosteria gets you access to the large hot springs pool, steam saunas (banos turcos – Turkish baths), and racquetball/squash courts.

Breakfast is also included in the price of the room.

$85 also gets you comfortable beds, cable TV (I don’t think we’ve used this in a hotel since last October), hot showers, and most importantly, a quiet and cozy place to sleep.

Side note:

It’s not fair to judge Hosteria Duran for the guy in the room above us, so I won’t do that here.

However, we were able to hear the guy above us quiet clearly. He spent the evening (until about midnight and again for an hour from 7:45 AM-8:45 AM) stomping around on the floor and more or less yelling into his cell phone.

In the morning, some woman from another room came and had what sounded to be a very heated discussion with him about something for about 10 minutes.

However, it might have just been a normal conversation, in very loud voices, which (we’ve come to experience) are the norm in central and South America.

When he wasn’t at it, we really experienced some peace here.

If you’re willing to spend a little more money than other places around, and like steam saunas and hot springs pools, we think it’s worth a visit to Hosteria Duran if you want a nice place to stay outside of Cuenca, Ecuador.