Salento is the coffee growing region of Colombia and the 3rd biggest coffee producer in the world! A tiny town, with a population of maybe 4000 or 5000 people, it looked and felt a bit like a South America version of Pai in Thailand. We found a really cool hostel, a mix of camping and hostel rooms, also home to a few tiny kittens, a cat and a dog! Went on a few excursions during the day, up to the town viewpoint, on a big trek around the mountains and valley an...

Working our way up to Bogota to meet up with everyone, our first stop after the boarder town was Cali. It wasn't a particularly picturesque city but famous for its salsa dancing and clubs... Not too much use though when none of us can salsa, or dance really at all!! First night we arrived quite late, checked into our hostel and headed straight out to a salsa bar/ club with some of the local guys who worked in the hostel and a few other backpackers. Salsa was at...

So... The much anticipated boarder crossing from Ecuador to Colombia, but not for fun reasons! The first day we took an early morning bus back into Quito, a short taxi and then coach to the Colombian boarder. The journey was relatively smooth considering! After the 'stamp out', 'stamp in', we took another taxi into the Colombian boarder town of Ipiales. Normally boarder towns are tiny and very strange but this was a normal town. A population of over 120,000 and ...

Our last stop in Ecuador was a tiny town called Mindo, nestled in a cloud forest with around 4500 people living there. The town was just built up along one main road, surrounded by rivers and hills! Really nice to look around, the clouds are always rolling over the trees and hillside. Only downside, as expected with a rainforest, is the rain that comes down a lot of the time! We found a nice little guesthouse made up of 5 or 6 wooden cabins, a bit like the ones ...

Nice couple of days in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We hadn't herd great things from people who had been to the city, just that there wasn't much going on but it turned out to be a great place. Found a nice hostel, decent facilities and rooms and it was near the old town which was the nicest part of town. The first day we took a trip to the 'Middle of the Earth'. The equator runs through Ecuador and as Quito is the highest point along the whole equator, its cl...