So after getting back from Colca Canyon at 5pm we headed straight to our hostel for a quick shower and to grab our bags as we were heading out that night to start our extra long journey to Ecuador. Our bus was at 7pm and the company who we had bought our tickets from did transfers and were picking us up at 6.15pm.

By 6.30pm they still hadn´t arrived so we asked the hostel to phone them for us and their resposne was we had to make our way to the office for our tickets and they would get us a taxi from there, this was 100% not what they had agreed with us as we both remember the conversation they´d basically forgot to come and get us.

Our only option was to jump in a taxi and pray that we would get through rush hour in time for the bus, what happened next was like a carry on film. We got in the taxi and they didn´t understand us so Casson ran back and asked the hostel owner to translate for us, then we realised he had left the tickets in the hostel so he ran back for them. Then 2 minutes into the drive the taxi driver stopped for a chat with his friends, at this point Casson´s panic took over and he literally screamed "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", "Go, Go, Go" and then "Vamos" ("let´s go" in Spanish, he NEVER speaks Spanish as he leaves that to me), he still didn´t get the message so I then started with "siete, siete" (7 in Spanish) and then he understood and he turned into a rally driver! We made it to the station by 6.55pm but it was so busy we got dropped off in the street, Casson said he would run ahead (bear in mind we both had our massive rucksacks on) but he was wearing flip flops so was running like a penguin, I then couldn´t run for laughing! In the end the bus left late as usual so there was actually no need to panic at all!

The bus was a 17 hour trip to Lima but it was a really good one, massive leather seats, loads of room, our own TV´s to watch films and also to use the internet on so we were happy!

We got to Lima at about 1pm and we tried to get straight on a bus to Guayquil in Ecuador but there was only one seat left so we booked the 5pm bus instead. Next stop .... food, we have never been so happy to see the Golden Arches as we had hardly ate anything since the night before.

After a massive feed we headed back to the station and got on the 5pm bus, this was supposed to be a cama (fully reclining seat) style bus but it was far from it. We were packed in like sardines, it was horrendous, everyone was complaining.

There was also a horrible man who refused to put English subtitles on the films even though we knew he could as they were on at the start and he turned them off. Also when someone blocked the toilet (you´re only allowed number 1´s on the bus, no number 2´s) he was telling people in Spanish that it must have been either the English, German or French tourists. I was FUMING, I may not speak Spanish but I can understand a lot more than people realise. We were the only English people on the bus so he was pretty much syaing it was more than likley one of us who had taken a massive dump!

In total our back to back journey was about 49 hours, so halfway into the 2nd journey it became apparent that the cankles were going to make another appearance, my ankles were so swollen I looked like the elephant woman! In 32 hours we stopped twice, at the 2nd stop we had an hour as it was just before the border so we had time to go and get some food, it was seriously the best chicken and beef skewers we´d ever tasted and we ordered some sanwiches to go as well (we weren´t taking any more chances when it came to being without food)

We eventually got to Guayaquil at about 2am in the morning, on the bus there had been a guy who had been flashing his cash around a bit, buying food for the girl next to him and paying a fine for another girl at the border, we´d both thought he was a bit dodgy so imagine our joy when he got off the bus with us and then asked us where we were staying as he didn´t have a booking.

What made it worse was that at 2am in the morning he went to buy a new phone even though he´d had a phone and had been using it for the whole journey! Which screamed dodgy to us both! He´d been gone ages and there was another random guy waiting with us so he went to look for him and so Casson pulled their bags closer to us, at which point the hysteria/lack of sleep must have kicked in as I told him that now his finger prints were on the bag he was incriminated if he was a drug dealer (which was the story we´d made up about him) so Casson actually wiped his prints off the bag. At the time we thought it was hilarious but the more we got to know about the guy the more we did actualy think he was a dodgy mo fo.

He´d taken a 32 hour bus journey on his own from Lima to Guyaquil and had a flight booked back to Lima about 4 days later, he had nowhere to stay, no plans to do anything whilst he was there, he was just plain odd. We could have ended up on Ecuador´s equivalent to crime watch!

It was just 1 day in Guyaquil and next stop the Galapagos ......