We have temporarily landed here in Loja, Ecuador, five hours south of Cuenca. Arriving here in one piece is certainly a miracle, as the bus ride was definitely the most frightening one to date.The driver was very evidently agitated from the moment he stepped on the bus, and this attitude played out in his driving…jerking around stopped cars, yelling out his window, and speeding up for red lights.The clincher was at hour one when he decided it was a good time to...

We just returned from Cuyabeno Reserve in the Lago Agrio area in northeast Ecuador after 19 hours via motorized canoe and three different buses…one of which was host to a small dog and a parrot at one point in our journey…in addition to all of the town´s school children and us!We arrived in Quito at 4am this morning, checked into a hostel and crashed for a couple of hours.Now here we are catching up on all of our errands - email, bank, and most i...

We are spending our final day in Banos, Ecuador, for tonight we will be heading off on our first night bus ride (11 hours) back up north to Lago Agrio for a 5-day jungle tour. We are travelling along with some new friends we met along the way in Quilotoa, Maya and Rob, from Scotland(and England). It´s been nice to have some English speaking companions for the last week...plus it´s fun to hear all of their little sayings - like ¨having a wee bit o...

We are spending our final day in Banos, Ecuador, for tonight we will be heading off on our first night bus ride (11 hours) back up north to Lago Agrio for a 5-day jungle tour. We are travelling along with some new friends we met along the way in Quilotoa, Maya and Rob, from Scotland(and England). It´s been nice to have some English speaking companions for the last week...plus it´s fun to hear all of their little sayings - like ¨having a wee bit o...

Hello again to everyone, Well it has been a very interesting few days. The longest we have stayed anywhere and have done a lot during our stay south of Quito by a town called Machachi. We booked our stay at an old farmhouse called Papagayo which organizes tours and activities throughout the area. I had organized a five day acclimitization program with a final summit of Volcan Cotopaxi at 5897m. Amongst the other peaks in preparation were El Corozon and Ilini...