We were still in lazy mode and by the time we made it down to breakfast, Andy and Carlee were just coming back from a 2 hour tramp. We checked out our rooms at midday but left our bags in the reception office because our bus from Loja to Piura, in Peru, was not until 11pm. The afternoon was sunny so we spent it by the pool doing more blogging and sorting out pictures - we were doing so much and taking so many photos in Galápagos that there was so much more...

After breakfast we walked down the road to the village, mainly to buy our bus tickets to Peru but also to have a little bit of exercise. We wandered around the centre of the village and it's main plaza. There wasn't so much to be seen, a lot of internet cafes and a church which was relatively modern looking. There were also quite of lot of cafe/restaurants that seemed to just be catering for a coffee crowd. It was difficult to decide if they were tourists or ex...

We were under no illusion that we might do anything energetic during our stay at Hosteria Izhcayluma, it had already been decided that we would just chill out and enjoy the place for a few days. A breakfast buffet was available in the restaurant with heaps of fresh cut fruit, a homemade muesli full of seeds and coconut shards, some very tasty bread who's recipe must have came from the German owner and gallons of coffee. We took a wander round the large ground...

We had a really leisurely morning, almost too leisurely in fact, we just made it in time for breakfast. We had a midday checkout before walking a couple of blocks to El Cigale Hostal, the pickup point for our shuttle to Vilcabamba. The shuttle didn't depart until 1.30pm but the hostel had a cafe/bar with internet so it was easy enough to kill an hour. It was a really small van and it was packed full: as well as us there was an American guy, a Dutch girl, UK/OZ ...

We woke up to heavy rain and we could hardly see the mountains while we ate breakfast on the terrace. This wasn't a good outlook for our tour up into the mountains. We pulled out the merino thermals, rain jackets and wooly gloves just in case. A very nice and spacious van picked us up and our guide for the day, Diego, told us that there was only going to be four of us. A couple had pulled out saying it was too cold and wet even though they knew there was no ref...