When I was in Ecuador many of local people had told me that I would hate Lima, that it was dangerous and not a nice place, but my experience was completely to the contrary - I really enjoyed Lima and would have liked to have had an extra couple of days there. I enjoyed a luxury bus for the journey down the Pan-American Highway to Lima - big, comfy reclining seats with air hostess-type staff who served food (a tasty lomo saltado - beef fried with onion, tomato an...

We carried on south along the coast of Peru in the evening, enjoying the beautiful sunset; the landscape in between towns was semi-desert, reminiscent of South Africa. Later it started raining heavily so we were delayed and didn't arrive at Huanchaco until around 2am. The next day we visited some archaeological sites and were guided around by a crazy French lady, Ozelyne, who told us all about local customs and traditions as we were driving around. Firstly we we...

Mancora is a beach resort and it feels much more like Thailand or Bali rather than Peru. It has one dusty street lined by bars, restaurants and souvenir shops; most of the buildings are made from wood with palm roofs. I was staying in a little wooden bungalow with an outdoor bathroom. The hostel even had a lot of Balinese paraphenalia - batik art, carved wooden masks, stone statues of Buddha and Ganesha. I had a five hour bus ride from Cuenca to the border betwe...

Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador and the old part of town, where I stayed, was quite pretty - it is known for its colonial style buildings. It was a long bus journey from Baños to Cuenca on my birthday but we livened it up with some music and beer. Along the way we stopped to see some guinea pigs grilling on a barbeque - it was a bit strange - they were bigger than I expected, more like small pigs than the little furry creatures we have at home. Whe...

Baños is a small, pretty, colourful town, surrounded by mountains and close to the Tungurahua volcano. It's quite touristy with lots of souvenir shops and many agents organising activities in the surrounding area. The town is famous for the sweets that are made there and there are several shops dedicated to them where I also watched them making the sweets. The local people seemed to be very friendly and I felt a lot more safe and relaxed there than in Quito. Th...