13th - 14th September 2008: After a long day of travelling from Banos (but luckily no hangovers, we must have danced all the alcohol out of our systems) we arrive in the colonial city of Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. Our hotel room is huge and we have a balcony with views over the city. We´re all tired so grab a quick meal before bed. Naledi and I spend the day exploring the colonial centre of Cuenca - it´s sunday so there are lots of street mar...

11th - 12th September 2008 Early start leaving the wonderful jungle lodge to start our journey to the thermal springs town of Banos. We use almost every form of transport except for a train! After canoes, planes and buses we arrive in Banos, which is a small and pretty town surrounded by huge dramatic mountains. We pass Cotopaxi on the way and stop for a quick picture. Very impressive. Six of use decide to go ratfing tomorrow and Team Chachalaca plus one is refor...

8th - 10th September 2008: We leave Quito early to catch our 30 minute flight to Coca, in the Amazon asin. After 45 minutes and alot of turbulence we still haven´t landed yet and are starting to wonder what on earth is going on, when the pilot makes an announcement - the weather is too bad to land so we are heading back to Quito. Collective groans from the whole plane - none of us want to spend another night in our dive of a hostel, we were definitely looking fo...

5th - 7th September 2008: Mum and I have a relaxing morning before wandering around the market and buying ourselves pashminas, earrings and a panama hat for Dad. In the afternoon we head into the Old Town, I get hopelessly lost trying to navigate our way around the streets and get stressed that we´re heading totally the wrong way until we emerge into one of the main squares where we have coffee and a snack. It´s our last night together before Mum heads home ...

28th August - 4th September 2008: We head to the airport to transfer onto our cruise ship - The Galapagos Legend! Because our transfer never showed up on our first day we have been upgraded to a superior cabin so we get two huge windows instead of teeny tiny portholes - yay! The ship fits 100 people so is one of the largest sailing around the Galapagos and we will hopefully avoid getting seasick from the rough seas round these parts! We all get on little pangas (...