Papallacta Hot Springs
- Location
- Papallacta, Napo, Ecuador
- Water type
- bicarbonate
- Temperature
- 40 °C
- pH
- 8
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Soft water — natural, classic buoyancy.
Perched above 3,300 metres in the Ecuadorian Andes, Papallacta Hot Springs occupy an extraordinary high-altitude setting at the edge of Napo Province, where tropical clouds drift across moorland páramo and snow-capped peaks loom on the horizon. The well-appointed resort offers a series of outdoor thermal pools surrounded by Andean vegetation, the air crisp and the light luminous at this elevation.
The water emerges at a welcoming 40 °C — pleasantly warm against the cool mountain air — and carries a bicarbonate composition with a mildly alkaline pH of 8 that lends it a smooth, silky quality against the skin. Long appreciated by travellers crossing the Andes as well as locals from nearby Quito, these springs offer a deeply restorative soaking experience that combines the serenity of high-altitude landscapes with the gentle, mineralised embrace of volcanic waters.