Arriving in Quito from Cotopaxi we booked into the secret garden hostel, the parent hostel of the Cotopaxi one. The hostel, which is in the old town has a rooftop balcony with great views over the city and the obligatory South American hill with a Christ statue. We had arranged to catch up with Andrew, an Aussie guy we had met in Santiago and travelled to Valparaiso with. After a few beers in the hostel we headed to bandido brewing company. The night was cut s...

From Banos we travelled to Cotopaxi (3 hours north). Here we were staying at the Secret Garden hostel, a recommendation from fellow travellers. The hostel is in the middle of nowhere. A beautiful setting that looks similar to the Lake District, except for the huge active volcano, Cotopaxi facing the hostel. It is possible to summit the volcano at 5897 meters, but we chose to appreciate it's beauty from a distance. A view you could see everywhere on the premises, ...

We arrived in Banos greeted by weather we hoped we had left behind in the UK. Highs of 15 degrees and rain, ooh nostalgia. But you don't go to Banos for good weather, it's all about the activities. The journey there from Guayaquil was also pretty interesting with our drivers skills more at place on a rally track. Overtaking lorries blindly on hillside corners did little to calm our nerves. Safely in Banos, we checked into Hostel D'Matteus near to the bus stati...

Our first stop in Ecuador was Guayaquil , which is for most people a stop over for the galapagos. For us, it was a stop over for the poor man's galapagos. As the second biggest city in Ecuador, we'd once again been alerted to the dangers on the streets. It didn't ease us when we crossed the border from Peru and were given a safety guide on how to avoid express kidnappings. It was a boiling hot sweltering city (hitting around 30 degrees) that was mostly a hub of c...