Staying at the Papallacta Hotel is expensive, but where else can you walk out of your room and jump right into a thermal baths? The rooms are large and nice. The views of the surrounding mountains beautiful. And the thermal baths are so nice!

The most beautiful place I've ever stayed. I wish I could live here. You can spend an entire week soaking in these hot springs and never tire of the view. You have the Andes all around you with their constantly changing light and only the sounds of running water in your ears and the warmth of the healing waters around you for company.
I like how there is 24 hour access to the springs so if you wake up at 2AM desiring a swim that's no problem, just roll out of bed and walk a few feet out your door across a wooden deck and you're there soaking in the water looking at the stars. The restaurant on site is tasty as well, try the locally caught river trout. There are also some trails nearby for some easy hiking, they run along a river and there are small waterfalls and plenty of photo opportunities along the way.
You can book a day trip to the hotel from Quito including round trip transportation, any tourist offices in La Mariscal (or Gringolandia) will offer them, but shop around! Some will offer trip packages for a hundred dollars per person while others will offer the same trip for a thousand! A two day/one night trip for two people should not cost more than a couple hundred dollars. Good luck!

The location is wonderful. It’s in a high altitude valley from where you have excellent views of the Antisana volcano - 5,704 metres high - in the south and are flanked by mountainsides. It’s one of the gateways to the large Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve.

Rooms are clean and well maintained and have what you expect and need. You can use the thermal-based heating, but in my room it didn’t give any heat, so I turned on the portable radiator which worked perfectly.

All rooms face the many pools, and it has a communal feel to it – you do not have any pool to yourself or your room. If you want privacy, you can find an unoccupied pool. In my case I couldn’t use the one right outside my room if I wanted to as it was “besieged” by an extremely happy party from the US. Lots of alcohol and superhappy individuals! If you want to enjoy the wonderful full moon and starry sky, which I did, you simply find a pool with the best view of the sky and away from the crowd. I have no problem with that, and thus this place accommodates all needs.

You have wonderful trails from the visitor center, crossing farmland and Llama-pens and following the river far upstream. I was very lucky to get a permission to drive up the dirt road way into the reserve to about 4000 metres. If I didn’t I would have missed extraordinarily diverse and unique flora and fauna. It’s very far to walk up to that elevation, and thus most will miss it.

The hotel seems to focus on busloads, rather than individual groups or tourists, and that is not close to my heart.

For me the hotel itself is best after dark, as sitting in the hot pools watching thunderstorms or stars is unbeatable. During the day I much rather walk the trails into the wilderness to witness the unique flora and fauna. And what’s better than a long relaxing hot tub session before bed?

Website: http://www.papallacta.com.ec
My photos: http://www.ross.no/communicate

Spent three nights at the Termas de Papallacta in late Dec. 2011. Had a wonderful time. Everyone was very, very friendly and they keep the pools and the rooms immaculately clean. We stuck to using the pool right in front of our room--even though the hotel was pretty full, we still felt like it was our own private pool. We felt no need to pay to enter the pools within the spa area (they are bigger for swimming and have some jets). We didn't find out about the larger pools on the other side of the property until the end of our trip, so we didn't get to try those out, but we loved being able to hop in for a dip by our room, especially at night before heading to bed. Spectacular views, great trail for a short and simple hike on property. Spa and restaurant were great--both in terms of prices and quality. I was skeptical about the restaurant after reading reviews, but our experience was that everything was delicious, fresh, and reasonable. I highly recommend.

Note: it is a bit of a hike from Quito, but the driver the hotel connected us with for transportation form the airport was wonderful. We made arrangements with him to do short tours during the drive in both directions (at Mitad del Mundo and Historic Quito).