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(OYACACHI) On the last day of a week long vacation to Ecuador, I cajoled a group of friends into accompanying me on one final adventure -- a road trip to the east Andean pueblo of Oyacachi, an off-the-beaten path town known, at least locally, for its mineral hot springs and splendid scenery.

Besides myself, our party consisted of Brian, a college roommate originally from New York but now living in Ecuador, and Nora and Wendy, American ex-pats from Oregon currently teaching English in Quito.

Oyacachi is located in the Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve in Ecuador's Northern Andes region, at a point where the Andes mountains begin to dive into the Amazon rain forest. Like almost every "exotic" destination in Ecuador, Oyacachi is relatively easy to get to. The town is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Quito, with the last hour and a half spent on meandering, unpaved mountain roads. From Hacienda San Luis, where we were staying, Oyacachi is only an hour and a half drive.

We left for Oyacachi at 10:30 AM from San Luis in one of the hacienda's 4x4's. Passing through the city of Cayambe, named for the snowcapped volcanic peak which looms over the landscape, we stopped to buy water and biscochos (dry but tasty bread sticks, typical of the region).

Just south of Cayambe, we crossed from the northern to southern hemisphere, passing a small roadside monument to the imaginary line that traverses this rugged highland terrain.

At Guachala we turned left, leaving the Panamerican highway. Soon we began to climb the Andes' eastern cordillera.

On the way to Oyacachi, we first passed Cangahua, an authentic Andean village complete with a town square and colonial era church. The town gets its name from the fact that the majority of its buildings are made of volcanic mud bricks locally known as cangahua. The inhabitants are mostly indigenous and mestizos who on this pleasant Sunday filled the cobblestone streets.

Typical of Ecuador, there were no road signs. We stopped to ask for directions to Oyacachi from a local woman who pointed us in the right direction even before we asked. Tourists are few in these parts but they are almost always looking for the thermal baths.

Leaving Cangahua, we drove on a bumpy, twisting cobblestone road which quickly gave way to packed gravel. The scenery changed just as abruptly, a trait also typical of Ecuador. In this stretch, clear cut patchwork farmland yielded to scrubby paramo (high altitude tundra).

In the paramos, we were numbed by chilly winds whenever we ventured outside the car. We were, after all, dressed for hot-springs, not mountaineering. In the lofty and protected perches of our 4x4, we were still able to enjoy the spectacular panoramic views of glacial valleys and snow-speckled peaks.