Well what a busy couple of days again. I am writing this from our hotel/hostel in Guayaquil. We arrived here about 4.30 this afternoon flying from Cuenca where we have been for the last two nights. So to bring you up to speed, we arrived in Cuenca late on Wednesday afternoon (we travelled straight from the Inca Fortress of Ingapirca). Our hotel, the Santa Lucia was just beautiful. Very old family home renovated (took over 19 years) to a hotel. One of the pic's s...

Well we had a really early start this morning. Out on the road by 5.45 heading to Alausi to ride the Devil's Nose train. On the way there we skirt the flanks of the Andes through twists and turns along ravines and river gorges. We have gone through many Indian villages and see the locals dressed in the native clothes, bright and colourful. It's amazing how many people seem to be out walking in the middle of nowhere, but it's all their land where they farm and gro...

Wow what a day this way. After breakfast in a gorgeous hacienda we took a spectacular route along the gorge of the pastaza river to the town of Banos (Baths) which is right at the foot of the Tungurahua Volcano. Nice have a little wander through this active town and see another very old church where apparently people from all over the world as well as the locals pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Holy Water and also it's the only church in the whole of ...

We leave Quito behind and start Hacienda hopping..... Today we had another early start and traveled again on the Pan American highway to the south to viist the Cotopaxi National Park. It's huge as in over 88,000 acres, which sits around the Cotopaxi Volcano which risess to 5897 metres above sea level. The Ecuadorian highlands are a huge attraction but there is no accounting for the weather .. after walking up the mountain for about an hour and get a great educa...

Another early start today. We went on a leisurely tour throught Colonial Quito see some amazing buildings and hearing beautiful history. We went into some incredible churches, one of which was completly covered in gold and took 160 years to build it was called Compania. We also went to the Middle of the World Village at this place is the exact centre of the equator. Where the compass reads 0.0.0. ie lattitue and longitude at 0. again amazing. On the way to th...