Week 27 - Misahualli, Quito, Pasto, Popayan, San Agustin (Ecuador, Colombia)

After heading back from our jungle lodge to Misahualli by motor canoe, we spent the day relaxing in our hostel. Although the bedroom was small there were plenty of hammocks strung around the tropical gardens, a mirador overlooking the river with a fire pit and a swimming pool to keep us entertained. We headed into the plaza for fish cooked in leaves for dinner and spent the night with the hostel dog sleeping curled under my bed because she’d taken quite a shine to us. 

The next day we were up early for the direct bus to Quito, leaving a very sad hostel dog behind. The trip went quickly with the road skirting the edge of the Oriente, passing numerous waterfalls and patches of cloud forest before climbing into the Andean plateau surrounding Quito. Once in Quito we jumped in a taxi to a hostel located between the old and new towns. As we only had two nights left with mum before her flight home we decided to head out to a recommended restaurant in the new town for a goodbye dinner. Having only seen the old town on our last brief visit to Quito we were surprised at how completely different the new town was, street after street of bar, restaurant and hostel (we chose not to stay in new town as pretty much everyone we’ve spoken to who has been to Quito has been mugged there). It being the Thursday before Good Friday there were loads of people about but the Irish owned Asian restaurant we went to – Uncle Hos – was relatively quiet and we had a delicious meal before heading back to our hostel.

The following morning Rhys stayed in the hostel to use the computer and me and mum walked through a couple of the city parks to an artisanal market in the new town. Around midday we headed back to the hostel to collect Rhys to head out to the Basilica to watch the Good Friday parade, hundreds of people parading the streets dressed as penitents in purple cloaks that looked like something the Klu Klux Klan would wear. Some of the people dragged full size wooden crosses, others had barb wire wrapped around themselves or had cactuses strapped to their backs. It was a little eerie. After watching it for about half an hour we headed into the Basilica to climb the towers. The basilica is really gothic looking with gargoyles in the form of aardvarks, condors, frigates and jaguars. Some of the ladders to the viewing platforms were definitely not up to European safety standards and gave mum the heebie jeebies. On the way back down we stopped at a little café in one of the towers for coffee with a view over the city towards the El Panecillo hill where the parade was heading. We wandered back to the hostel and enjoyed our last night with mum eating dinner on the roof terrace overlooking the old town.

Our last day in Quito we intended to visit La Compana a magnificent gold gilded church built by the Jesuits followed by coffee on La Ronda, a street on the edge of old town known for it’s art galleries, restaurants, cafes and artisanal shops. It being Easter Saturday though everything was closed. After a while walking around Rhys headed back to the hostel. Me and mum popped into an art gallery and then back to La Ronda where one café had finally opened for us to stop for coffee and cake. Back at the hostel we sat on the roof terrace playing cards waiting for 3pm and mum’s taxi to arrive to take her to the airport. It was very sad to say goodbye but we had a great 2 weeks and you have to be proud of your mum when she backpacks with two twenty somethings and does everything they do without them needing to change their itinerary in the slightest (love you mum!). After mum had left me and Rhys headed into new town for a drink at an Irish bar (we were lulled in by the promise of a free shot that they didn’t honour, how un-Irish) before eating at an American dinner that was showing the movie the Hulk. 

We were up early to leave Quito to head north to the Colombian border. After a taxi ride to a bus terminal in the north of the city we managed to get on a 6:50am bus to the border town of Tulcan 5 hours north. At Tulcan we jumped in another cab to Rumichaca, the border, where despite having read that the crossing could be long winded we were stamped out of Ecuador and into Colombia in super quick time. Once in Colombia we jumped in a collectivo to the bus terminal at Ipiales where we caught a bus to Pasto 2 hours further north. Once in Pasto we cabbed to a hostel that was perfectly fine for a stopover night in a non-touristy town and after dinner at Mister Chicken we sat in bed and watched the Hobbit.

The next day we were up early again and headed back to the bus station to attempt to buy a ticket to Popayan. Buying bus tickets in Colombia is a bit of a challenge, although they have bus terminals so they’re one step ahead of Peru, each terminal has about 20 ticket offices and none advertise their routes and most advertise towns but don’t actually run buses there or have one bus a day at stupid o’clock and in addition it would seem that it is expected that you haggle for bus prices. We were lucky with our bus to Pasto as it was a full size bus and was quite luxurious unlike the two buses we’ve caught since then. Getting a bus from Pasto to Popayan was difficult as we hadn’t worked out the deal with the super taxis and were asking around at all the bus offices with no luck despite being told at the hostel and by the Rough Guide that buses go all the time. In the end we were pointed towards the super taxis and finally worked out that the minibuses go pretty much whenever they’re full and you just have to ask around to find a ticket office going where you want to go. After boarding our mini-bus and throwing our bags on the back shelf to be spooned by sleeping passengers we picked up along the way we rocketed our way to Popayan. We checked in to a lovely hostel – ParkLife, located in a colonial house on the main plaza owned by travellers from Ireland, Romania and Spain. We headed out for juice and ended up with a bowl of unset jelly full of fruit and a spoonful of ice cream and headed back to the hostel to relax before dinner at an Italian in town. 

The week ended with another bus trip in a mini-bus to San Agustin, or more accurately to a road junction 5km out of town from where a pick up truck took us the rest of the way. Having left our big bags at ParkLife the journey was relatively painless and even with the random stop for lunch and a delay because people struggled to sit in their allocated seats we still made it in 5 hours - highlight of the journey was a man with a cockerel on a rope sitting in front of us. Once in San Agustin we headed up the hill to the outskirts of town to a hostel we’d been recommended, La Casa de Francois. The hostel is a cluster of cute little bamboo and plaster buildings set in tropical gardens with lots of little nooks for chilling and a huge communal kitchen. After exploring town we cooked a homely spaghetti bolognese and played cards while drinking the cheapest bottle of rum we could find.

Our hostel in Misahualli.

Chips asleep under my bed, Misahualli.

The Basilica in Quito.

Good Friday parade, Quito.

Stained glass window in the Basilica, Quito.

Week 26 - Cotopaxi, Banos, Misahualli (Ecuador)

Our first day in Latacunga we awoke and ate a lovely breakfast in the hostel courtyard before being picked up by our guide (along with a really weird Dutch guy) for a trip to the south face of Volcan Cotopaxi. The trip started with a 2 hour drive to a refuge at 3,500m with spectacular views over the valley. From there we hiked for about an hour and a half to 4,800m alongside a canyon carved by the lava from previous eruptions. The volcano has destroyed Latacunga 3 times over the years and as a result, the town that was initially founded at an altitude of 800m is now at 2,700m. The walk wasn’t as strenuous as the walk in Quilitoa and we made it to the ridge with no difficulties. We didn’t attempt the climb to the top at 5,943m as it’s not the right season for visibility. The higher you climb the more sparse the vegetation and the ground is covered with ash that clogs together to look like a kind of spongy land coral. At the ridge we could see down into the valley with the rocks all different colours depending on whether they were formed from lava, ash or foam. The stupid Dutch guy decided to go his own little way and we started heading back down to the refuge without him for lunch just as a storm was coming in. The Dutch guy turned up half an hour later while we were enjoying our pack lunch and just as we finished eating an andean condor came gliding past the window. We felt pretty lucky since there are only 67 left in Ecuador and only 4 in Cotopaxi National Park and they are pretty impressive with wingspans of up to 3.2m. After lunch we drove back in to Latacunga and spent the evening relaxing before heading out to a cheap café for dinner.

The next day we headed to Banos after breakfast. Although there are no direct buses from the bus station our hostel had told us of a direct bus from the outskirts of town so we jumped in a cab to the San Felipe bridge and straight onto a waiting bus. 2 hours later we were in Banos and checked in to a cheap hotel south of town. We popped out for tapas at a lovely café with an outdoor patio area and had a wonder around town before heading back to the hotel. The town is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Ecuador and has a certain charm to it set amongst mountains with sweet stalls lining the streets with people stretching sugar to make melcocha, a kind of softer version of a stick of rock. That night we ate in the plaza overlooking the black volcanic stone cathedral at a booth selling hamburgers. Next we headed to the tour agency where we had booked a chiva trip up to a mirador where we hoped to be able to see lava exploding from Volcan Tungurahua. The trip was awful. The chiva, one of the open sided truck things with rows of seats on had been decked out with flashing neon lights and played regatone at full volume all the way up to the viewpoint. We then had to stand around for over an hour twiddling our thumbs waiting for the return trip into town with not so much as a puff of smoke visible from the volcano, anyone reading this and going to Banos, avoid the trip at all costs.

On our first full day in Banos we ate breakfast on the hotel roof terrace overlooking one of the waterfalls in town then we headed out to rent bikes to ride the first 20 km of the Banos to Puyo road following the Pastaza valley along the newly christened Ruta De Las Cascadas. There are over a dozen waterfalls on the route and the first 20 kms took us to about 7 of them. We started slowly with mum getting to grips with a bike with gears and missed the first waterfall. At the second one though we saw a sign for a tarabita (cable car) and chained up our bikes so we could take the ride over the valley to follow a trail to the top of a waterfall. A little further along the road after 18km and we came to the most impressive waterfall of the day, the El Pailón del Diablo (Devil’s Cauldron). There are numerous viewing platforms and suspension bridges so you can see the falls from all angles and then after crossing the bridge on the main road you can enter again from the other side and crawl through a narrow passage to pass behind the falls. The last stop of the day was Machay waterfalls by which point all the cycling and walking up and down the hillside had worn us out too much to walk further than the first viewing platform. We headed back to the main road and to the bus stop to try to work out how to get a lift back in to town (the route is pretty much all down hill out of Banos so all uphill to go home and we had no intention of cycling it). After 30 mins of trying to flag anything that looked plausible as a lift and as the rain started an official truck pulled up and loaded our bikes into the back. We returned the bikes and headed to the hotel to rest. 

That night we met up with Monique and headed to the thermal springs – it was like a dirty outdoor swimming pool with one pool at 45 degrees too hot to stay in for more than a minute without scorching yourself, it was truly painful. Afterwards we headed to an international restaurant for dinner and on to a bar in town for cocktails it being Friday night. One screwdriver later and I walked mum back to the hotel before heading back out to meet Monique and Rhys. We watched some of Monique’s friends salsa, sat by a firepit in an Irish bar and were home in bed a little after 2am.

The next day me and mum went for a walk around town to buy some sweets for her to take into work when she got back while Rhys sat in the hotel watching TV. At 3pm Rhys joined me for a steam bath in the hotel spa, mum was too sun burnt from Quilatoa to have one. It started by sitting in a big wooden box with just our heads poking out while they pumped in steam, then after a couple of minutes you were let out and had to brush your body with a cold flannel before starting the process all over again, after the third time you had to sit in a bucket seat full of cold water and then after the last time in the steam box you had to stand there while the woman jet washed you with ice cold water. Rhys wasn’t too keen on it but it was quite enjoyable – and would probably have been more so if we weren’t a little hung over. Rhys went back to the room to play on the computer and at 5pm I had a chocolate massage booked; a full body massage where you get coated in chocolate along with reflexology, a head massage, aromatherapy and hot compresses. It was all fun and games until I woke up in the night with the worst pain where she’d been way to rough with me, I think she managed to pull a neck muscle or something, it’s taken days to recover and Rhys has had to help out with my bag, he’s banned me from massages now. That night we went to a BBQ restaurant for dinner.

We caught a bus out of Banos for Tena at 10:40am the next day. The bus was packed and we didn’t end up with seats together, I had to sit with some woman half on my chair and her baby flopping about. We got to Tena quicker than expected though in 3 hours and took a taxi to a hostel we’d read about. We dumped our bags and went for a walk around town to try to book a jungle trip for the next day with absolutely no luck – everywhere apart from our hostel was closed as it was Sunday and the trip from our hostel just wasn’t what we had in mind. After some consideration we decided the best idea was to get in a cab to nearby Misahualli and to either do day trips from there or try to organise something once we were there. It was so much nicer than Tena, just a small place located on the Napo River with Capuchin monkeys running around the plaza terrorising the local dogs. Although the hotel was a little over budget the cabins were set in beautiful tropical gardens with a lovely pool and a mirador with a fire pit and the best dog ever. We spoke to a couple of tour operators and arranged a trip through a French/Ecuadorian agency who also arrange volunteer placements with a local Kichwa community. We were relieved to have a trip booked and to have left Tena. We grabbed some street food, chicken skewers and empanadas for dinner and headed back to enjoy the fire at the hostel with a carton of cheap red wine.

Early the next day we were up enjoying an amazing breakfast of croissants, eggs and all kinds of tropical jams before heading to the tour agency to meet our Kichwa guide and our Ecuadorian/American translator. The trip started with a motorised canoe ride (with a roof for shade thankfully), to a riverside museum where a local guy took us around to show us different traps used by local people that they’d mocked up in a bit of forest, the tour ended with us trying out a blow pipe, I have to say none of us would be eating if it was down to our blow pipe skills. After that we were back in the canoe for the trip to AmaZoonico. A wildlife refuge set up in the jungle on an island in the river Napo for Amazonia animals, founded by a Swiss group and run by volunteers. It was really interesting to see and sad to hear some of the animals stories. We had a tour of the animals who couldn’t be released from cages for their own good before walking for 2 hours through the rainforested ‘liberation zone’ where numerous animals had been released – although we didn’t spot any animals other than a woolly monkey we did chew a couple of lemon ants each. Back in the canoe our next stop was at a ceramic workshop, it was brief and after watching a girl make a pretty rubbish looking pot we were back in the canoe again and headed for our cabin.

The cabins we stayed at were very new, the rooms were huge with ensuites and hot water, far superior to the dorms we stayed at in Rurrenabaque. We showered, had a beer sitting on a bench overlooking the river and the forest and ate dinner in the communal shelter before heading out on a night walk through the forest close to the cabins. Although we heard an armadillo we only saw insects, lots of spiders, stick insects, crickets, centipedes and hundreds of moths.

Once we were tucked up in bed a massive storm hit. It went on all night and the noise of the torrential rain on our corrugated iron roof and the thunder was deafening. We had arranged to go on a 6 hour hike early the following morning but had to put it off due to the storm that was still raging. We relaxed at the cabins and caught up on some sleep until noon when the rain started to subside and pulling on our wellies we started the hike. We spent 3 hours walking to a waterfall through both primary and secondary forest with our guide stopping every now and then to explain the medicinal properties of the trees and plants and giving us various things to taste. By the time we got to the waterfalls we had tribal drawings with natural ink on our faces and I had a lovely handbag made out of leaves and vines. The water at the river was high because of the storm so we couldn’t get too close to the waterfall and had to wade across some fast flowing water. The walk back only took a couple of hours and we spent a second night at the cabins in the forest before heading back to Misahualli the following morning. The jungle trip wasn’t quite what we’d expected, there were hardly any animals or birds to be seen, just lots of bugs and butterflies including lots of conga ants that are about an inch long and can give you a bite that would put you in bed for days. It was really interesting though to see how people live with the jungle, learning about traditional uses for plants, speaking to a local family who have a plantation in the jungle and who have had all their chickens eaten by a puma and watching people just carrying out daily chores along the river banks. It wasn’t a wildlife experience but was very educational and you can’t help but be mesmerised by the 45m tall, 700 year old trees and the vegetation in all shades of green you could ever imagine.

Mum hiking Cotopaxi Volcano.

Me and Rhys, Cotopaxi Volcano.

Bike ride, Banos.

Rhys at El Pailón del Diablo waterfall.

Steam baths, Banos.

Capuchin monkey, Misahualli main square.

Rhys and a MASSIVE tree in the jungle.

Our cabin in the jungle.

Poisonous frog.

Cricket on cacao left out to dry.

Week 25 - Mindo, Mitad del Mundo, Quito, Quilitoa (Ecuador)

The week started with a long journey. We left Canoa at 7:30am and caught a taxi to San Vicente 20 minutes down the road, spending the entire journey debating whether to go to Bahia for a direct bus to Quito or whether to try our own route. We decided we’d left it too late for Bahia and got dropped off at the terminal in San Vicente where we sat in a bus office waiting for the 8:30am bus to Chone. When the bus arrived the guy ushered us out the door to the parking lot and another man swept us away from the bus and into an amazing open sided truck thing with rows of seats. It all started well, hurtling down the dirt tracks through the lush green hills and the fish farms, pointing out the wildlife and brightly coloured birds to each other, and then we started stopping to pick more people up. Rhys got wedged in and spent an hour only being able to put one foot on the floor. We can’t really complain though, our row had us, our bags and some man in. The row in front had 6 adults and 6 children squashed in. We made it to Chone with plenty of time and boarded the 10:30am to Quito, on schedule to get to Quito for our bus to Mindo. 

The route was beautiful, we had a 2,000m ascent through cloud forest from Santo Domingo to Quito with the hills shrouded in mist making it even more dramatic. We arrived in Quito at 4:00pm and figured we had plenty of time to catch the 5:00pm bus to Mindo until we realised we were at a different terminal and had to get to the complete opposite side of Quito – bear in mind this city although only 8km across is 50km long and we hit rush hour traffic. At 5:05pm our taxi arrived at the northern terminal just to find out that the last bus to Mindo actually left at 4:00pm. Disheartened we decided to get a cab to yet another bus terminal where we could catch a bus to the turnoff to Mindo. In the cab though the driver offered to take us all the way, we bargained him down to £26 and decided it was worth every penny to cut an hour and a half off the trip and to not have the problem of being stuck 7km outside of Mindo at a road junction in the dark after an already long and stressful travel day. We arrived in Mindo just after 7:00pm and checked in to Casa de Cecelia, a great little place with wooden cabins next to a river surrounded by tropical vegetation and flowers. We dropped out bags and headed in to town. Having decided we deserved a decent meal we treated ourselves to steak.

Our first day in Mindo we headed into the village to buy some rolls and ham for lunch then caught a cab 7km out of town to the La Tarabita cable car. The cable car takes you across the valley 150m over the river basin from where there are trails through the forest leading to 7 waterfalls. We only found 5 of the waterfalls and none were overly spectacular but the walk was pleasant enough despite Rhys falling in the river. After we had caught the cable car back we intended to go zip lining but the rain set in. In Mindo it would seem that at 2:30pm every day it rains and it rains until dinner time. We walked the 7km back down the track to town and got absolutely drenched. Back at the hostel we changed before heading to a nearby restaurant, El Quetzal for a chocolate tour. Along with two other Brits we had a brief history of chocolate, tasted raw cocoa beans and learnt about the process before being walked around the small farm to see guava, bananas, cocoa, peppers, coffee beans and other herbs and the like growing. Then we continued to see the drying tent, the fermentation boxes and then the best bit, the processing room. The last bit of the tour was a tasting, unrefined chocolate is nasty, add some sugar or some ginger syrup and its incredible. 

Our second day in Mindo we caught a cab to the zip wire centre where we spent 1.5 hours flying through the trees over the cloud forest on cables hanging by our harnesses. To spice things up we did the superman pose where you lie face down with your legs wrapped around a guide and your arms out in front of you, and I did the butterfly which was a little more disconcerting where you lie on your back with your head slanting down while a guide holds your legs in the air, hard to explain but quite a giggle. We had a great morning. We had intended to walk to a refuge on our way back to town but the rain started again so we headed back to the hostel for lunch and sat by the river watching tropical birds at the feeders. After lunch we headed out to a lodge called Mindo Lindo to sit on the porch, drink herbal tea and watch hundreds of hummingbirds of all different sizes and colours feast on sugar water feeders. We had intended to walk some of the trails at the lodge but the rain was just too heavy to make it fun.

We left Mindo at 10am the following day and caught a taxi in town to take us to the Mindo turn off on the main road where we could hail a bus to Quito. We waited about 30 mins when a car pulled up and offered us a lift to Mitad del Mundo. We agreed a fee and climbed in with the little car struggling under the weight of our bags. Half way to our drop off point we had to stop for a digger to clear the road after a landslide, our driver says landslides are common on that road so we were greatful to be back in the vicinity of Quito in one piece. After paying him double the agreed fee (the cheek!) we bought tickets for Mitad del Mundo and dropped our backpacks in security guards booth. Apart from a big monument built where the equator was initially thought to be and a hundred souvenir shops and restaurants there wasn’t much more there so we headed 300m up the road to the real location of the equator – crazy that they built the original monument in the wrong place. The museum on the real equator was far better. An English speaking guide took us around to show us some of the ethnographic displays before showing us some experiments to prove it was the equator, like watching water go down a plug hole clockwise on one side of the line, anti-clockwise on the other and straight down over the equator. Rhys balanced an egg and was given an egg master certificate before we headed back to collect our bags and catch a bus back into Quito. The bus took us to the outskirts of the old town from where we walked in the rain for an age to find our hostel.

As we didn’t want to do any sightseeing in Quito until my Mum had joined us, we used our first day in Quito as a planning day booking flights for the second year of our trip – South Korea and Taiwan here we come! We went for a quick walk around town to find a well hidden cash point and to grab lunch – the Old Town is not the place to go if you want to eat. At 5pm we grabbed a taxi to the airport to pick up Mum. We stood with a hundred other people in arrivals who were waiting for some famous guy called Phillppe before spotting Mum and whisking her back to the hostel for a quick dinner of super noodles before bed. 

We were up early on Monday for a bus to Latacunga 2 hours south of Quito. Half way there the bus got pulled over by the police and the guys behind us were searched. The policemen were asking us if we’d seen anything unusual (very hard to understand that question in Spanish) before moving us to empty seats near the front of the bus. We got to Latacunga in decent time, bought a slice of pizza at the bus station and bought tickets for a bus to Quilatoa, another 2 hours away. The bus was slow but eventually, along with a handful of other tourists we were told to get off the bus seemingly in the middle of nowhere. A few hundred metres down a little road and we found the small village of Quilatoa. We found a cheap room, £8 each including breakfast and dinner, drank some herbal tea in the common area, donned our waterproof coats and headed to the mirador to see the crater lake. It was stunningly beautiful and incredibly peaceful. The 2 mile wide, 250 metre deep lake was formed by the collapse of a volcano after it erupted nearly 800 years ago. Although all the tour books show it as bright blue it’s actually quite green in colour from dissolved minerals. After seeing the lake from the mirador I was keen to walk down into the crater. Rhys headed back to the hostel to watch TV while Mum joined me. We walked the 400m down to the lake edge and half way down stopped a guy with two mules to ask him to come back for us. He gave us his blanket to carry as assurance that he’d come back and we continued to the bottom until he returned. The mules were so hot and tired poor things but they did look incredibly healthy. Despite being quite stubborn and needing some coaxing to continue to climb back to the ridge they got us there in record time. We walked back to our cabin to find Rhys stoking a fire. We bought beers and sat in the room playing cards until dinner time. Dinner was in the main building around a communal table. Rhys spent the rest of the night collecting pieces of wood from the building site next door to put on the fire in our cabin - it was toasty.

The next morning we were up, packed and fed by 8:30am and started the trek around the crater rim – the crater itself is about 9km wide so although we don’t know how far the actual hike was I’m guessing at nearly 25km. The village is at 3,914m so the edge of the crater probably varies from about 3,600m to 4,300m. Having not really considered the altitude we hadn’t really given mum enough time to acclimatise so we took it slowly and spent 6 hours on the walk getting lost only for about 20 mins in the middle. It was spectacular, really too difficult to give a fair description in words. We couldn’t have been more lucky with the weather, the sun shone all day and only when we were on the home straight with the village in sight did the thunder start. We got back to the hostel, had a cup of tea by the fire and caught the 3pm bus back to Latacunga. It’s a bit bizarre in Quilatoa in that no one seems to know what time the buses go – either than or they don’t want to tell you so you have to get a truck to the next town paying someone local for the trip. 

In Latacunga we checked in to a lovely hostel and headed straight out for Mexican. Back at the hostel we were showered and in bed by 8:30pm doused in aloe vera since we all managed to get varying degrees of sun burn as we thought it would rain all day instead of being glorious sun shine at altitude.

Mindo - Waterfall walk.

Hummingbird in Mindo.

Hummingbird, Mindo.

Rhys at the Equator.

Me and Mum on our mules at Lake Quilatoa.

Lake Quilatoa.

Mum and Rhys hiking Lake Quilatoa.

Week 24 - Puerto Lopez, Bahia, Canoa (Ecuador)

Our second day in Puerto Lopez the sea had calmed enough for the boats to go to Isla del Plata. We left the hostel for the beach where the boats launched and hung around for an hour for late comers to arrive. After checking in at the floating lifeguard station we headed out of the bay. Before long the engine cut out and engine oil was pouring down the steering block. Credit to our captain though, a bit of gaffer tape and we were off again and after an hour we were at the island. As there weren’t enough people on our boat wanting to do a longer walk we had to do a short hour walk that took us to the cliffs to see blue footed boobies and nazca boobies including a fluffy one month old chick. The island was beautiful, absolutely covered in flowers and it’s a shame we couldn’t walk for longer. We climbed back aboard our boat and headed to a cove just around from the landing area where the crew threw watermelon overboard to attract green pacific turtles. We got given snorkels and swam around the boat, although visibility wasn’t great we could still see lots of brightly coloured fish and Rhys enjoyed diving off the top of the boat.

The next day we caught a bus to Porto Viejo (and were ripped off for the ticket paying the price of a full fair to Quito). In Porto Viejo we had tens of people meet us as soon as we stepped off the bus trying to get us on their bus next. We ended up following a guy who said his bus went to Bahia and after checking with the luggage guy and the driver we sat down ready to go only for the conductor to run on and tell us it wasn’t going to Bahia and we had to get off. After checking with the ticket office we finally found another bus to Bahia. From the bus station in Bahia we grabbed a taxi to a hostel in the centre of town owned by an Australian lady. 

Bahia de Caráquez is quite small and very quiet. The 1997-1998 El Nino climate pattern caused landslides ruining the roads and just as the town was recovering there was a 7.2 earthquake that levelled most of the city so most businesses moved out leaving a quiet residential town. It’s pretty clean compared to places like Puerto Lopez, although it is overrun with American expats. The town is set on a little sandy peninsula, there’s a little beach (although we didn’t visit it), a mirador, a Galapagos tortoise and a handful of restaurants but that’s about it. After we checked in we headed to see the tortoise who lives in a school courtyard where you can just wonder in to visit him. That night, after watching a Spurs game, we went for dinner with a few people from the hostel on the waterfront.

Our second day in Bahia we went back to see the tortoise with some bananas and the camera. He loves bananas but it’s quite scary feeding him, he’s so big and prehistoric looking. After the tortoise we walked up to the mirador before heading back to the hostel to meet Kate and Adam - two Canadians volunteering for a reforestation project in Bahia, who joined us for a trip out to Isla Corazón. After a taxi journey we arrived at a little community by the side of the river Chone where we met our guide. We climbed into a canoe and he paddled us out to the mangrove island where we rowed alongside the mangroves watching thousands of birds, including one of the biggest frigate colonies in the world – amazing birds, the males puff out their red chests to the size of basketballs to attract mates and when they find one, they mate for life. After spending some time watching the birds we entered the mangrove tunnels, at one point our guide got us all to climb out of the canoe and hang on to the mangroves so he could paddle back to answer a call of nature. Out of the tunnels we landed on the island at a little wooden walkway where we took some mangrove sprouts to plant to help the mangrove to restore itself. When we were back on dry land we took a bus to San Vicente and then a river taxi back to Bahia. That night was quiz night at the hostel, we were awful and the expat Americans took it extremely seriously but happily shared their winnings, a bottle of rum.

We woke the next day and caught a taxi with Kate to Canoa, a beach town about 20 minutes north and a bit of a backpacker hub (taxis are so cheap here, the 20 minute journey only cost £4.70 between the three of us). When we arrived we walked along the beach road to find a decent priced hostel and ended up in Canoamar. Our room was on the third floor overlooking the beach and was the perfect place to relax for a while. We arrived on a Saturday and at the weekend the town gets quite busy. We spent a couple of hours on the beach enjoying the sun and swimming in the sea before heading back to our room to get ready for dinner. That night we met Kate, Adam and a few others from Bahia to chase happy hour along the beach bars before grabbing cheap pizza slices and heading to a bar shaped like a boat on the beach. A beach bar later and me and Rhys were ready for bed.

We spent most of Sunday in our room recovering from Saturday night only venturing out for dinner.

Monday we headed to the beach and rented a little beach tent thing for shade. Rhys rented a surf board for the day and headed out while the waves still seemed small (at high tide they’re massive and great fun for swimming!). Turned out though just because the waves looked small getting out beyond the break was pretty on impossible and after 40 minutes of non-stop paddling he was exhausted. An hour or so later he tried again with but it was just as hard so he gave up and took the board back and headed to sit on the hostel balcony to play computer games. I stayed on the beach until the tide was up and under our beach tent and decided it was time to head in when a local kid had to rescue my flip flop from being swept away. Back at the hostel Monique from Cuenca appeared having checked in that day. That night we headed to the Surf Shack for dinner then on to the beach to collect drift wood (and there is a ridiculous amount of drift wood in Canoa as the mouth of the river opens right onto the beach and brings all the debris with it). With a helping of DEET we got a bonfire started and the light attracted a few randoms who came to sit with us. 

Tuesday we decided that one more night in Canoa wouldn’t hurt especially since Monique had only just caught us up and the trip to Mindo sounded pretty long winded and we wanted to put it off as long as possible. After drizzly weather in the morning the sun came out – Canoa gets pretty hot, it must have been about 35C. Rhys stayed on the hostel balcony most of the day while I sat on the beach and swam with Rhys running down to join me in the sea when he spotted me in the waves. After a couple of games of cards on the balcony and a few boxes of wine we headed out for cheap pizza for dinner again and a cocktail at Surf Shack.

Blue footed boobies, Isla del Plata.

Flowers, Isla del Plata.

Mangroves, Isla Corazon.

Flying frigate, Isla Corazon.

Red chested frigates, Isla Corazon.

Green sea turtle, Isla del Plata.

Beach tents, Canoa.

Canoa beach.

Week 23 - Vilcabamba, Cuenca, Puerto Lopez (Ecuador)

For our last full day at Izhcayluma in Vilcabamba we’d booked to go horse riding. After Rhys’s first attempt at riding in Chile he was a little concerned that a 7 hour day was pushing it but as some of the people in our dorm had done it and said it was brilliant he was happy to give it a go. We were collected by our cowboy guide (it was just the three of us for the day) then we spent the first 30 minutes galloping through the streets of Vilcabamba and down tracks until we got to a river, Rhys was starting to regret it. Once our horses had waded through the river we started climbing the hills surrounding the town into the Podocarpus National Park, the slower pace was a lot more bum friendly although we often found ourselves clinging on for dear life as the horses made their way up narrow gorges and climbing over boulders. After 3.5 hours we descended into a cloud forest where our guide had to use his machete to clear the path as we rode (I got a bit scared when I got a vine tied around my neck). We stopped to eat lunch by the side of a river in the forest before heading back along the track where we left the horses to graze while we walked down to the base of an 80m waterfall. It was magical with the water crashing down under the canopy; we were the only people there. Out of the sun it was a bit chilly so we decided not to swim and made do with paddling, supposedly we’ve gained 20 years from that alone. The ride back to town was equally as hair raising with the horses jumping down steep drops. By the end of the day Rhys was quite happy galloping and racing the guide as we headed back through town. 

Back at the hostel one of the local kids was teasing the dog with a stick when he got knocked in the pool. Suppressing a giggle Rhys scooped him out and after empting his wellies I took him to find his mum. We spent the next hour throwing sticks in the pool for the dogs to chase, swimming and relaxing. That night we ate German food in the hostel again and played pool and cards with our dorm mates.

We left after breakfast the following day and took a pick-up to town then a bus into Loja where we caught another bus to Cuenca. After the ride the previous day we could barely walk. We arrived after dark and checked in to a hostel in the centre with dorm rooms around a courtyard café, El Cafecito, very chilled and a little bohemian. We dropped our bags and headed out to explore stopping at a little café for Mexican and happy hour mojitos. When we got back to the hostel the waiter told us our friend was looking for us and was in the garden. We found Monique (who we met in Vilcabamba) sitting with a group of older local men around a bonfire with a guitar and joined them. We spent the night listening to the men play and sing Argentinian songs before a French couple joined in with their own songs and then a mariachi band rocked in off the street and joined in too. By the end of the night there were about 20 people crammed on the logs around the fire.

The next day we were feeling a little fragile and had to deal with an 8:30am wake up call from a south Korean girl in our room who swore someone had come in while she was in the shower and stolen her iphone while the rest of us slept. She spent over an hour crying while the hostel manager tried to sort it out with all her friends coming in the room to see what was happening while we sat there in our PJ’s. In the end she found it in her sleeping bag and bought us all cookies to say sorry for causing a scene. 

We ventured out briefly to the main square to admire the nuevo cathedral before heading back to the hostel to watch TV. That night we met Monique again and went out to a German restaurant with a group of people from our hostel.

The next day we checked out of our room before being told the room we’d reserved for our last night was double booked and we’d have to go elsewhere. An hour of walking the streets and we ended up in the hostel next door to our original place, El Cigale, which was actually a whole lot nicer, again a colonial building set around a courtyard but this time it was really clean and felt newly renovated, lots of dark wood and beautiful bathroom tiles and a big breakfast included to boot.

We headed out into town again to wonder the streets and admire some of the 52 churches (there’s one for each Sunday of the year). Unlike the intricate facades of Peruvian churches in Ecuador the statement is made with the roof, bright blue tiles or tall spindly spires. After an amazing ice cream in the main square we stumbled across a tattoo parlour and went in to see if we could get some better disinfectant for Rhys’s lip piercing. On the woman’s advice Rhys decided to change his hoop for a bar but after several tries the bar wouldn’t go in and we called it a day. I think Rhys may be over piercings now - or for a couple of months at least. 

That evening we met with Monique and Anita for a few drinks and rounds of cards before heading into town for food. Calle Larga is a street with rows and rows of restaurants and bars, after a few laps we decided on a Moroccan bar for kebabs, cocktails and shisha. After drinks we headed back to El Cafecito for a few more happy hour mojitos before heading back to our hostel.

We were woken by our room mate, an elderly Canadian guy who spent 2 hours getting ready for breakfast. We packed our bags, ate breakfast and headed to the bus station for a bus to Guayaquil. In Guayaquil we had a 2 hour change over so we treated ourselves to McDonalds (Rhys’s choice obviously) then caught the bus to Puerto Lopez. We arrived in Puerto Lopez in the dark and caught a tuk tuk to a hostel we’d been recommended where we checked in to a private room with bunk beds for a bargain USD$13. We managed to buy a beer despite it being illegal to sell it on a Sunday after 4pm and sat in the communal area playing with the dog Spike, supposedly an American Staff but about twice the size, we swear there was some pit bull in there and were a little scared playing with him.

Our first day in Puerto Lopez the weather looked threatening so we decided to stay around the town. Before lunch we walked along the beach to the south then headed back to the hostel for lunch. That afternoon we headed out to the beach again and walked north for a couple of miles to the cliffs where the river mouth opened into the sea. It’s not the nicest beach, could do with a good clean but once you get out of town it’s very peaceful and the hills surrounding it are lush and green. We bought food from the supermarket and for the first time in months cooked our own meal in the outdoor kitchen. The hostel had a rescued honey bear who came out at night too which was pretty cool.

We had planned to visit Isla del Plata on our second day and got up and ready to go before finding out that the sea was too rough and no boats were allowed to leave port to go to the islands. Instead we got a free lift to Los Frailles in the Machalilla National Park, reputedly one of the best beaches in Ecuador. As we were there early the beaches were empty and we walked along the beach to a viewpoint before walking to the next cove and then along a track through the dry forest for a couple of miles back to the dirt track leading to the main beach. The sun was so hot and by the time we’d walked the 40 minutes back to the beach we were more than grateful to get a cold drink and an ice cream. We spent the next couple of hours on the beach, paddling in the sea and enjoying the sun. Despite the warnings not to swim Rhys was straight in diving in the waves. Once we were completely sun frazzled we caught a tuk tuk back to the main road and flagged a bus back into town.

Waterfall, Podocarpus National Park.

Rhys on his horse, Mandango, Vilcabamba.

View from my horse. Vilcabamba.

Nuevo Caterdral, Cuenca.

Los Frailles, Machalilla National Park.

Machalilla National Park.

Week 22 - Mancora, Vilcabamba (Peru, Ecuador)

After Rhys had finished his first day of Spanish homework he was too fried to go out for dinner so I ended up heading into town myself and ate at a lovely little café away from the blaring bars along the beach road with a good book and cuba libre for company.

Our second day of Spanish classes started at 9am for 3 hours. We couldn’t have picked a better location, sitting in the hostel common area with views over Mancora and out to sea and a 4 month old puppy called Lola to distract us. (Lola became our best friend after staying at the hostel for 6 nights and took a liking to running into our room and stealing anything she could find from toothpaste to socks, flip flops to Rhys’s pants and running off with them to the reception area. One morning when we’d slept with the door open because of the heat she came in to wake us up by biting Rhys’s feet, oh how I laughed!). After Spanish Rhys headed into town for tacos while I studied and we spent the rest of the day relaxing outside our cottage in the sun. We headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and some happy hour mojitos.

Spanish lessons on day 3 started getting more complicated with past tenses and the like. It’s amazing how tiring 2.5 hours of studying a language can be. Before the lesson, Rhys stayed in the room playing computer games while I went to the beach to watch the surfers and to make the most of the sun – every day we were in Mancora it was blue skies and in the region of 32C. I headed into town for dinner by myself again while Rhys played on the computer and went to a little place serving BBQ fish.

We were both glad when it got to the final day of Spanish lessons, I don’t know how people do 4 hours a day for 5 days, it was really hard. The last day was mostly conversational though so we started to put what we’d learnt into practice, role playing going to the market and buying bus tickets. I spent the morning before the lesson on the beach while Rhys stayed in the room with the computer but that afternoon Rhys came out with me for a walk around town to buy bus tickets and we had a super healthy dinner back at the hostel of red wine and Doritos.

Our last day in Mancora was Spanish free. On the advice of the girl working at the hostel we caught a local bus to Los Organos, 15 minutes south and then a tuk tuk the last couple of kilometres to a working fishing pier at a place called Nuro. Nuro is a small handful of smart houses along a desert like strip of beach. We paid 5 soles (£1.25) to be allowed on the fishing pier and to be able to jump off and swim with the green sea turtles. It was incredible. There were only a few other people there as it’s not in any guide books (yet) and most of the time it was just me and Rhys in the water. At one point when the fishing boats came in, there must have been about 20 turtles swimming around us and nudging us, each with a shell a metre or more across. They were after the fish discards that the fishermen were throwing in – so it smelt pretty bad and you didn’t want to get the water in your mouth but it was so so worth it to be able to swim with so many turtles. After the turtles we got a tuk tuk back to Los Organos and had lunch at a restaurant on the beach before hiring surf boards for an hour. The waves were not for beginners, when you caught a wave but lost it before you could stand the power of the waves made you feel like you were in a washing machine, it was a bit scary. That night to say goodbye to Mancora we went back to the Mexican restaurant and ordered a ridiculous amount of BBQ chicken wings. 

We were up early on Sunday for a direct bus to Loja in Ecuador, only when we got to the bus terminal we were told there was a problem with the bus and it wouldn’t be running so instead of the nice direct bus we had treated ourselves to, we were taken to the Eppo bus terminal and put on a bus to Sullana where we had to get a tuk-tuk across town to another bus office (the address of which no one in Mancora seemed to know). We dug around for the last few Soles we had to pay for the tuk-tuk before being told by a woman at the bus office that we couldn’t board the bus without paying 50 cents. We didn’t have 50 cents, just a 50 Soles note that they wouldn’t change. Eventually they accepted a US dollar bill and let us on to the bus. The border crossing was thankfully easy although we were running extremely low on water. Rhys ended up running off the bus at a stop on the Ecuadorian side to grab some from a stall. The bus finally arrived in Loja and we bought a ticket to Vilcabamba, 70 minutes south. Rhys went to get cash and got chatting to some people and we ended up missing the bus and changing the ticket for the next one 30 minutes later. Arriving at Vilcabamba in the dark there were no taxis at the bus station and we were told there would be no taxis at this time of night. After despairing for 15 minutes a taxi pulled up and we finally made it to Izhcayluma, a hostel retreat 2km out of town owned by German brothers. We were so happy to get there and the guy on reception was kind enough to ask the kitchen to stay open for us as we hadn’t eaten all day. The Bavarian goulash was incredible. After dinner we headed to bed to recover from the journey.

The next day we had a chill day. We had pancakes for breakfast and a huge fruit salad before walking into town to explore. There’s not much in Vilcabamba itself, people tend to go there for the hikes and the horse riding in the surrounding national parks and hills. It is however full of American expats. We shared a BLT for lunch and had some anti toxin juices (yuck) before buying a carton of wine and some supplies for the following day and heading back to the hostel. We moved rooms into a huge 6 person, 2 floor dorm and spent the afternoon relaxing in the hammocks overlooking the tropical gardens, drinking wine and playing cards with our dorm mates. After dinner (more Bavarian fair, this time stroganoff) we headed to the bar where we played pool against the owner and his friend and Rhys met his match in table tennis. Rhys also managed to get bitten by a dog (no actual damage to him, just his jumper) when he startled the old dear while she was asleep.

The next day we decided to go on a hike in the surrounding hills. The hostel has mapped out about 8 walks and gives you a print out of the trail with detailed instructions of where to go. As you walk around the trail they have even gone to the hassle of spray painting boulders and branches so you can’t get lost. The walk started following a creek across the valley before joining a country road which we followed up hill for about an hour and a half. Although not the prettiest bit of the walk it’s always nice to actually see how the locals live, to see their houses and schools and the like. After the road met the new highway we started climbing, under a barb wire fence with permission of the land owner and through a local farmers pastures until we reached the ridge line. We spent about an hour then just walking along the ridge at the top of two valleys, it was stunning although a bit precarious in places. The rain started just as we started our descent and all of a sudden the path was slippery and we had to speed up and really concentrate to get down into the river bed without any injuries. The last part of the walk followed the river bed for an hour, ducking under barb wire fences and climbing over tree branches as we went. The walk was supposed to take about 5 hours but we were back at the hostel in 3.5 hours. We spent the rest of the day relaxing before playing cards and a new game Dobble with our dorm mates. Turns out Rhys gets quite raucous playing Dobble.

Walking in the hills around Vilcabamba.

Rhys walking along the ridge, Vilcabamba.

View from the restaurant, Izchayluma, Vilcabamba.

Week 21 - Huaraz, Huanchaco, Mancora (Peru)

Early during our first day in Huaraz, two girls checked into our dorm, Priya and Ash, and said they’d booked on to a 10am tour to Llanganuco lake. Since we quite fancied visiting the glacier lake too we decided to join the tour. Big mistake. After a 3 hour bone shaking drive via Carhuaz and Caraz we arrived at the Huascaran national park by the shore of a small and not overly impressive lake. As the guide only spoke Spanish we had no idea where we were and what we were supposed to be looking at and thought it was a break to get some lunch. Back in the minibus our next stop was the actual lunch stop where we had to wait for over an hour for everyone else to eat. The tour continued driving up into the valley and into Yungay before stopping at the site of a memorial park where an avalanche had wiped out a village before stopping at a cemetery, a dulce de leche shop and a pottery barn. We were glad to get back into Huaraz, it wasn’t quite the scenic lake trip we expected. Only then did we realise there was a lovely 2 hour walk at the lake that would have taken us around to see the second lake. Partly our fault and partly a rubbish tour, they didn’t even give you time to walk to the second lake.

Anyway, that experience and a quick explore of the area near the hostel made up our minds to get out of Huaraz rather than staying to do any further hikes (we’d fancied the Laguna 69 hike but couldn’t bare the thought of doing the bone shaking drive into the mountains again). We booked a bus ticket out the next night then headed into the centre for pizza to celebrate. Huaraz isn’t a pretty town, it’s very modern, busy, dirty and dusty.

As there aren’t any particular sites in town other than another cathedral we spent the day waiting for our bus in the hostel on the roof terrace where we probably had the nicest views of the city anyhow. The bus journey back down to the coast wasn’t half as scary as on the way up although pretty much everyone on the bus was struggling with travel sicknesses. We had a bit of a surprise when we arrived in Trujillo at 4:30 in the morning rather than at 6:30 per Lonely Planet. We jumped straight in a taxi and headed to Huanchaco, a beach resort about 5km out of Trujillo, where we checked in to our room and went to bed.

That day, and the next day were chill days. We walked along the beach, ate in the European Chocolate Café, drank £1.25 Mojitos and generally watched the world go by. It’s not the most attractive of beaches (Rhys found a syringe) so we made the decision to keep moving north to Mancora and booked a night bus for our third day.

On the third day we caught a bus to Chan Chan, the largest Pre-Colombian city in South America and the capital of the Chimu Kingdom (at it’s peak in the 15th century before falling to the Incas). Back in town we spent 3 hours sitting on a concrete bleacher watching a BMX and skateboard competition. Some of the BMX riders were incredible, these guys just have no sense of self preservation. We ate in the Chocolate café again that night (having also had lunch there!) before heading in to Trujillo to catch our bus.

We arrived into Mancora at around 7am and walked up the hill to our hostel. It’s beautiful. We’re perched on the hill top with views over the beach and town. We have our own little bungalow with a hammock and chairs out front. The worst of it is the noise from town carries and it’s pretty loud here at night and every time you go into town you have to climb the hill to get back to our little haven. Mancora is extremely touristy with bars, restaurants and markets everywhere but it’s exactly the kind of place we’d been looking for to stop for a while with a beautiful beach, blue skies and every day sunshine. All up we’re intending to stay for 6 nights. The first day we explored and sat by our bungalow enjoying the view before going out to an expensive steak restaurant for a treat.

Today we had surf lessons at 10am. Before we even made it into the sea Rhys had kicked a rock and taken a chunk out of his toe and on his first attempt at surfing he hit the rocks in the shallows and took a chunk out of the other foot. After that though he was awesome. It took me a little longer but I got there in the end and our teacher (who only spoke Spanish) was very persistent and wouldn’t give up on me until I got it. After an hour we were knackered and headed back up to our hostel to bandage Rhys’s feet.

This afternoon we had a Spanish teacher come to our hostel for a private lesson. It was so nice to actually use my brain and learn something, being on holiday for 5 months does have its downside… After 2 hours we were fried, we’ve booked in for more lessons over the next 3 days. Rhys is sitting doing his homework now so we can go out for dinner (I did mine hours ago while he was playing Pokemon, no suprises there).

Huascaran National Park, near Huaraz.

Chan Chan, near Huanchaco.

Watching the BMX competition, Huanchaco.

The view from our bungalow, Mancora.