Ecuador

03-04/05/08

Cuenca

A lovely city that we spent one day in. Unfortunately i cannot do this city any justice as i spent my time here doing admin and laundry.

05-07/05/08

Rio Verde

Just outside the town of Banos, we stayed at a campsite owned and run by a scotsman named Richard. A former overland driver, Richard looked after us well.

In the two whole days we had we packed in canyoning, a bridge swing, and two and a half hours of grade 4 and 5 white water rafting. It was an awesome three nights here.

Canyoning involves climbing, absailing, and jumping through a wet (i.e. a river flowing through) canyon.

A bridge swing involves jumping off a bridge while attached to three climbing ropes. You have to jump out as far as you can as the ropes are climbing ropes not bungee cords. If you just drop off the bridge as on bloke did you end up with quite a sore back for a week or two...

The white water rafting was awesome! There were two rafts. Ours made it all the way without flipping but the other raft was not so fortunate and managed to flip about five times. Great fun that i would gladly repeat!

08-10/05/08

Misahuaui

This was our Ecuadorian amazon adventure. Unfortunately for me this was where my good luck ran out as far as health goes. I spent most of my time recovering from throwing up and very liquid number two's. Yuk!!

11, 23-24/05/08

Otavalo

Otavalo is most renowned (according to certain guide books) for having one of the best markets in South America. Although the markets are indeed good (on Saturdays), if you have just spent the last two months travelling north from Santiago, you will probably be well and truely over markets. Also, you will have seen almost everything they have to offer by the time you get to Otavalo.

12-14/05/08

Quito

We had a couple of days here but didn't explore very much. I think most people on the truck were over the "Big Brother truck life" and just wanted to chill.

We stayed in the new town which after about eleven (like most of Quito apparently) turned very dodgy. In the three nights we spent in Quito, two of our group were mugged.

Quito is very contrasting and during the day you would never guess how dodgy it is at night.