Thurs 22nd -Thurs 29th Dec On Thursday 22nd Dec I headed back inland to Latacunga as I had been invited to spend Christmas there with friends I'd met last time I was there. This involved a long journey from the coast, about 13 hours door to door, but luckily it went smoothly! Can't say I liked getting up at 4.15 for the first bus of the day (5am!) and I didn't sleep well but I did manage to get some sleep on the bus, although the driver did his best to stop me b...

I ended up spending more or less 2 weeks in Puerto Lopez on the coast. (8.12-21.12) It's a fishing town and with a pretty stretch of beach and fishing boats in the bay. Famous for whale watching, unfortunately I wasn't there at the right time for that but it also meant it wasn't too busy. I arrived with a plan of spending a week at the beach but as we know plans change! Originally I was going to spend a few nights in Puerto Lopez then go north up to Canoa. But I...

On Wed 7th Dec I got the bus to Guayaquil from Guaranda- took about 4.5 hours and turned into a hot journey! As we left the mountains and headed south-east, the weather got noticeably warmer and a bit humid too. We were also travelling on straight roads, it seemed like a very long time since I'd done that! Also looking out the window and not seeing mountains and hills seemed a bit odd. Arrived at Guayaquil at about 3pm and decided I'd prefer to travel onward to t...

Well, it's 3 weeks since I updated my blog! Very lazy of me, but mostly to do with having spent 2 weeks at the beach- more on that later! From 5th-6th Dec 2011 So since I last updated, my next stop was a little place called Salinas (de Guaranda), not the one on the beach but the one in the mountains. A couple of people had recommended me to visit this small village and it sounded interesting- it is famous as a model of rural development as a co-operative commun...

Well firstly I've got to say it's hard to believe it's already December! No advent calendar for me this year! Don't think they have them here though I haven't looked so I'm not sure. Anyway, this past week I've had some busy days with quite a lot of time on buses and a few quiet days too! Saturday (26th) was a travel day to get to Latacunga from Mindo. The bus to Quito took 2 hours and the bus from Quito to Latacunga took just over 2 hours. In between the bus b...