After turning off the Panamericana we followed an impressively made and wide cobblestone road for quite some time, eventually turning off and driving across a field scattered with small mounds which turned out to be from volcano debris. When we pulled into the Secret Garden hostel we were very pleased with what we saw. The hostel consists of a large house with communal dining and lounge, kitchen etc. There is a central patio with some hammocks that looks straigh...

Back in Quito for a night. This time we booked a room at the Secret Garden, a large and popular hostel around the corner from the one we had previously stayed at in Quito. This hostel houses the office of Carpe Diem, the company we used to book our Galapagos tour, and also offered a cheap transfer to their other hostel, Secret Garden Cotopaxi which was our next destination. We only had the afternoon back in Quito. Our plan was to visit some of the camping stores...

Mindo is a small town about 2.5 hours north west of Quito. The bus wound its way along mountain roads before descending into a valley, dropping us at the bus station on the main street. After checking into our cabaña we wandered the streets of town, stopping in at a coffee shop where we were joined by the cutest little puppy named Valentina. She sat with us for a while but she was more interested in our brownies than our company. Walking the streets a bit more...

Our bus took quite a while longer than expected, though that is not uncommon, so in a way its not really unexpected. It was dark and rainy when we pulled into the bus station and there didn't seem to be any taxi's, but fortunately one pulled up after a few minutes. At first we had trouble finding our hostel, so our taxi driver, some locals and us searched in the rain for a while. We ended up calling them and found them behind a barely marked door. It was a new G...

There was little information available online for places to stay in Tulcán, so we relied on a Lonely Planet recommendation called Hotel Azteca. It was a very aged hotel and we are pretty sure we were the only guests. Despite paying for 2 people we were only allowed one towel. At least it was super cheap. We wandered around the town for the afternoon, checked out the main square, and found an internet café since our hotel had no WiFi. They charged a whopping 1 ...