I'm going to keep this one short because this blog has been a pain in the ass since I started it. My last day was spent on a fast tracked tour through Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city. It gets a bad reputation, but I found it to be quite pleasant apart from the unbearable humidity. Gabo took me to a few lookouts with 360 degree views of the huge city and rivers flowing through. I also paid for what was surely the most expensive meal I had bought in South Americ...

Before even arriving in Ecuador, I had already heard mental stories out of a tiny village called Montanita, in fact I think I was in Chile or Bolivia at the time! A renowned party destination, drawing hundreds of tourists from all parts of the continent, admittedly it was not the sort of thing I was interested in before actually going there. In hindsight it was one of the best ways to finish my time in South America. With only days to go before what was sure to b...

Wooooooo! Bring on the heat baby! It was well and truly time to soak up some cosmic rays and throw down a few David Frothelhoffs in a small, lazy beach village. Don't get me wrong, the mountains, jungle, desert and alpine regions were amazing, but it had been a good 4 months since I had spent time on a sunny, warm coast, and that was back home I think. Having not adjusted to the whole different type of climate going on, I was sweating like no other and needed mor...

Latacunga was a kind of last minute decision before heading to the coast, and the only real reason I decided to go was because of the unique electric blue lake rumoured to be a couple of hours from the town. Latacunga doesn't have alot going for it unfortunately. It is a place that doesn't get alot of foreigners. The hostels were really expensive (more so than I had experienced previously), though I did find one, and would you believe it, there were pet turtles!!...

I was now finding it extremely difficult to deal with the shopping spree I had indulged in during my time in Otavalo. The 15 minute walk to the highway to flag a Quito-bound bus ruined me, and I now felt like I had so much more "stuff" to look after. It is always difficult to judge the size of a new town when first arriving, Quito was no exception to this. It is a monster. The total metropolitan area is something like 4000 square kilometres. The actual "centre" i...