Greetings All! Yes, we've been left alone without a guide and some pretty dodgy Spanish, yet we have managed to get where we want and do what we want.......so far. So at this moment in time we're on the pacific coast of Ecuador in a surfer's hangout called Montanita.....walking around I'm pretty tempted to put my hair in dreads, say narly quite a bit and get a hemp tattoo....but Ruth isn't too keen on the idea....she prefers my clean cut, boy next door image......so she tells me!! It wasn't that easy to get here mind you. Our first leg was an 11 hour overnight bus journey from Quito to Puerto Lopez..thought we might get a decent kip as the bus was pretty plush by Ecuadorian standards. However, we did not allow for the fact that the bus became a 'party bus' after midnight when the driver turned off the martial art dvds and cranked up the bass on some hardcore Ecuadorian pan pipe music!!!! As a result there was no sleep to be had and we stepped off the bus at 6am pretty dazed and confused!!!! We did however manage to find an excellent hostal right on the edge of the beach with a nice chilled out atmosphere, which is just what we needed after our past couple of weeks excitement. Yesterday we took a boat to Isla de Plata (the poor mans Galapagos)....it was great, we saw amazing wild life including blue footed boobies!!!...albatross, sea turtles and I was even up for snorkelling until someone spotted a tiger shark....and then we decided to just paddle. The highlight of the trip was on the way back when we encountered a pod of humpback whales...... we got close up and witnessed these massive mammals jump out of the water etc.....it made up for missing out on the whale watching in NZ. So we're going to stay here for a couple of nights and just relax before bussing it further south to Ecuadors largest city Guayaguil where we might hook up with our last tour guide who lives down there. From there we'll bus it back to Quito on Saturday to catch our flight to Peru!! It's all go. Anyway I'm off to watch the surfers whilst sipping a pina colada...and maybe take in the France Portugal game.....it's a hard ife!! Hope everyone is well and we'll be in touch from Peru very soon. Ed and Ruth