Well then, on to Ecuador (which means Equator in Spanish don`t you know - or was that just me being thick) land of........ erm....... land of....... fair to middleingness. After Rose and I remorgaged our respective parent`s houses (sorry dad - will explain when I get home, there is a great rental market in Chorley at the moment) to get on the boat of dreams in the Galapagos Islands, we had 3 weeks to kill in this country I knew b***** all about. "Too many long sentences enclosed in brackets in that opening paragraph for my liking!" I hear you cry. Well who made you lot book critics alll of a sudden. Come on - outside - the lot of you! Count to 10...... happy thoughts....... bunny rabbits and kittens etc. Right then in a nut shell 3 weeks were spent mainly: * Riding atop a train with about 1,000 other gringos for 7 hours. Don`t ask - it was about 6 hours 59 minutes too long. * Whale spotting off the coast - now that was good! They jump and everything! * Spending 7 hours on a rainy day playing a game called Rummikub. The rules to this game are so hideously complicated that Stephen Hawking had a short circuit just reading the rules in 1997. In a bar the next day I thought it would be humorous to show Rose the effect this game had on me by throwing myself on the floor of a bar and shaking uncontrollably. This backfired when 3 locals and a bloke from Leamington Spa rushed over and attempted CPR. I had to explain my attempt at humour (note humour after a jug of sangria is not that easy to explain to the non inebriated). Off they returned to their upturned drinks muttering something about my parentage and coming from Kent. * Climbing mountains in death or glory situations. 5897m Cotopaxi was bagged after much huffing, puffing, wanting to give up, 15 coughing fits and various tricks to prevent me from being sick! Finally I stood aloft the peak, which is further away from the centre of the Earth than Everest due to an elaborate system of pulleys, cams and counterweights I think. * Avoiding markets of tat that Rose seems magnetically drawn too, I make my excuses generally around the topic of preferring to eat my own arm. That`s it really - generally killing time until the main event....... the Galapagos..... see you there! Si x