Hello everyone,Well its time for the next installment of our journey through Ecuador.

Following on from our adventure in the rainforest, we headed back to Quito. It was a quick visit as we had arranged to meet up with our new friend Rodrigo (our guide from the lodge) to head down to his home town of Tena to spend a day or two partying at Carnival!!Things didnt really go to plan, which was completely my fault (its Andy writing today by the way). Rodrigo called as planned, his words were ´hi Andy I am here´. I thought he meant in the hotel lobby, so all excited I put the phone down....bad mistake!! When me and soph ran down to meet him, he wasnt there and the receptionist said that it was an outside call. We then guessed that Rodrigo meant that he had arrived at Quito airport, but after waiting 2 hours for him to get to the hotel (should take 20 mins), we thought he meant that he was at Quito bus terminal to got to Tena!! So we got to the terminal.....no Rodrigo, we searched all over the place, but couldnt find him. In the end, completely gutted that we couldnt find him, we decided to head to Banos, our original destination.

Just as our bus was about to pull out, we saw Rodrigo!!! We ran out and grabbed our bags, it turned out that when he said that he 'had arrived' it was in Coca, the place where he needed to take the flight to Quito, but because i had put the phone down he didnt get the chance to tell us that he would be a bit late because the plane was delayed......oooopsy!!Still, we were all now together and we jumped on his bus to Tena, problem was they had sold all the seat tickets!! No worries, soph got Rodrigos seat, me and him then stood up for the entire journey........Five hours!! Blimey did I need a beer when we arrived in Tena!!

Rodrigo´s town was great, in full party mode!! The next day we headed off to party with all the locals and met up with some of Rodrigos lovely family. Again me and soph got picked on as the local attraction....tourists!! We were dragged up on stage for a dance competition against a local couple!!! Now being english i dont dance and i have no sense of rythm, but still, not a problem as I´d had a few beers and was all loosened up and ready to go!!! Man we were rubbish, sorry correction, I was rubbish, soph can dance!! We shook our booties and the audience voted us as the winners!!! Sympathy vote I know, but a win is a win!! One local later told soph that she was great up on the stage, but it looked like she was dancing with a robot!! Hmmmm time for some salsa lessons me thinks!!

The next day we went with Rodrigo and his family to the neighbouring town to continue partying!! There was a huge stage and live music all day long. Not to mention the bikini and wet T shirt competition!!! Well I didnt know where to look, too much for my English reserve!! The party was madness, in the jungle next to the Napo river. Carnival is all about soaking each other with water, flour and cans of this bizzare foam spray, no-one is spared, especially a couple of tourists like us!! From the moment we arrived we were covered!! Brilliant day, checkout the pictures!!After a couple of days in Tena we said our goodbyes to Rodrigo and his family, we were really sad as they had all been so welcoming and friendly, we would miss them loads, but had to leave. 

We caught a bus to Banos (we had seats and everything), again the journey took about 5 hours into the hills, but what a great town it was!! Its surrounded by huge sloping hills capped by an ACTIVE volcano (Tungurahua) which last erupted in 1999. We hired a couple of quad bikes and set off to explore this beautiful town, another mistake as everytime we stopped in traffic a local would cover us in foam and water!! So onto our second change of clothes and off to party we go…..Banos is a great place, very lively loads of bars, clubs and restaurants (and tourists). Again it was in full carnival mode and the whole place was partying to live music and dance. Once again the crazy foam spray was out, but this time we gave as good as we got, but still another set of clothing was now a mixture of red, blue and orange from this bloody foam!!

The next day, after having gotten rid of our hangovers we headed up into the hills for a half day horse trek. The weather was perfect, warm sunny and not a cloud in the sky. We passed by the smoking volcano and took in all of the amazing scenery, well I didn’t because I failed to mention that I don’t know how to horse ride, so far from taking in the views I was holding on for dear life!! Ok, ok so I wasn’t exactly riding ´sea biscuit´ but to me when that nag started to gallop I needed a vice like grip to stay on. Of course soph, having ridden horses all her life was away like the wind with me being thrown about miles behind!! Still a brilliant day and please see the photos. I am walking like John Wayne today by the way, much to sophies amusement!

The last evening in Banos was very quiet, carnival was over and just a few locals were milling around. After a lovely meal we decided to still foam a few people with our last can!! However, you soon realise that although the party was over, loads of other people still have cans too!! We started a massive free for all in the middle of the main plaza!! Soon though our can was empty and as I ran off to buy more supplies, sophie was set upon!!! They covered here from head to toe in foam, I had to laugh and encourage them to keep spraying!! Soaking wet we headed back to our hotel, in our drunken state without anymore locals to get we just ended up spraying each other!!! Much to our amusement!So now we have left Banos behind and took a short two hour bus ride to Riobamba, it’s a town like any other but from here early tomorrow morning we shall take a 6 hour journey on the roof of a train (crrrrazy I know) down to the beautiful city of Cuenca where we shall spend a couple of days before heading back to Peru.Well that’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed it and we’ll update again as soon as we can……