The bus turned out to probably the worst bus in the world, the guy at the bus station totally ripped us off, we got the 5 seats at the back (there were no other ones) which didn't recline, were stuck in a forward position, were right above the engine so it was roasting, coupled with the fact the people in the seats in front of us put there seats back which meant there were about 2 inches from your face. We were less than impressed and were close to getting off th...

We decided to horse it through the rest of Ecuador and into Peru to meet Ray and Louise. We jumped on a bus early doors for about 7hrs to Machala which is quite close to the Peru border, we arrived into Machala around 7 and the bus to Mancora didn't leave till around 10 at night. Looking through the guidebook on what to do in Machala for a couple of hrs we noticed the first line, "do not take night buses in or out of Machala at night as they are prone to hol...

Arrived in Riobamba quite late and headed straight off to bed, we didn't want to hang around here to long as we still had to meet Ray and Louise, all we wanted to do was the train and then head on to Peru.Got up around 5.30 and munched some breakfast, headed over to the train station only to find it closed. Finding out if the train is actually running seems to be impossible, some of the line gets closed at random times. We decided to catch the bus to a town calle...

Got up early in the morning and headed off to the bus station to catch the bus for Tena, which we've heard has really good white water rafting. Taxi driver was being a bit weird and we thought he'd dropped us off at the wrong place, we gave him a bit of abuse but turns out we were in the right place so sorry taxi guy. Jumped on the bus to be met with pictures of crashed Ecuador buses on the TV, nice. Spotted a dead body along the road in the bus which wasn't ...

Finally made it to Quito, the capital of Ecuador after spending most of the day on flights and waiting in airports. Left Rio at 5 in the morning, flew to Sao Paulo, then on to Bogotá, Columbia, waited there for 8hrs and then finally on to Quito, arrived around 11pm and headed straight to the hostel, the Centro del mundo hostel. Did nothing that night except go straight to sleep. Woke up in the morning and headed out for some breakfast, a bird crapped down my ...