Wednesday 7/09/2011

Banos was set in a pretty surreal location, the town was completely enclosed by volcanoes, cliffs, and waterfalls. The lads hired pushbikes and headed off on a recommended trail that offered views of a series of spectacular waterfalls streaming off the volcano and into the Rio Bamba. The first OSH-approved activity of the day was hopping in cage and flying across the river over the top of the first waterfall. The whole set-up was dodgy as f***, the cage was massive, the wires thin, and the whole operation was driven by a diesel truck engine complete with gearstick. However the boys survived the experience without any serious bowel movements, took some good snaps, and cycled on down the road to the next waterfall.Here the boys got their second taste of Ecuadorian adventure tourism, which came in the form of a 1 kilometre zipline off a cliff and down the river. The boys thoroughly enjoyed their brief moment pretending to be supermen, and after a harsh climb back to the road, it was back on the bikes again. It wasnt far down the road where one of the boys spilt the second lot of blood for the trip. Balf was moving along at a reasonable pace, and for some reason jammed on the front brakes and spazzed head-first straight over the handlebars.

Yet again the weather wasnt playing ball with the boys, and after checking out one more waterfall, the boys got frustrated with the rain and caught a bus back to the hostel. Chilling out at the hostel over a few beers, the boys ran into a rare Kiwi joker called Joe from Auckland. The lads found it refreshing to meet another bloke who was on the same wavelength in regards to things such as drinking and foul language. The hostel owners were less than impressed at the boys standard pre-town funnels in the hostel lounge area, but care factor was close to nil by about this stage. Four big swinging d*** hit the first bar in style, after drowning the throats with some cheap hip-flask vodka. A yankee girl who had a number of metro f***wits drooling over her thought she was the duck nuts, and made some back-handed comment at balf about coming from New Zealand. Having probably had a wee bit too much of that straight vodka, balf in reply, "you probably think New Zealands a state in America, you ignorant b****". The slut kept giving it to Balf though, making gay little whorish remarks in response to Balfs sloppy pool playing, until he apparently lost it. He cleared the bar with an ultra loud remark, "Iv never hit a b**** before, but i f***en will soon".

Wisely moving on, the boys hit the second bar pissed to peices. Balf spotted 3 local birds staring at the boys, so he stumbled on over and tried to spin some yarns. It seemed to be going fairly well, f***en excellent in fact, as gus left the bar for two minutes and came back to find Eddy Joe and Balf playing tonsil tennis with the birds. When the bar shut, the girls came back to the hostel for some more drinking and sexy-time was looking imminent. Back in the two bunk hostel room, Joe passed out and it was left to eddy and Balf to look after the girls. However, Gus came back from eating a slug feed and helped the boys out with his best Ryan Giggs impersonation, swiping Joes girl. The fellas cant remember a great deal from here on in as the vodka consumption was getting a little silly, but the girls all stayed the night without getting put away which was a little disappointing.

Thursday 8/09/2011

In the morning the lads couldnt remember s***, the girls had done a Houdini, and luckily the boys possessions hadnt followed suit. Gus had woken up a bit earlier than the other two and had slunk into town and hired a XR400. he picked the other two up and took them back to the hire shop. Balf was clearly hammered drunk still and creating a small scene as the owners were not overly keen to give him a bike. In the end eddy and gus were given their bikes but the only thing balf was allowed to thrash the f*** out of was a s*** little quad that was probably half his size. The boys headed up the volcano that looked over banos and immediately began showing their machines some disrespect. Balf got hold of eddys bike and promptly bellied it up to the chain, while gus somehow got trapped underneath his bike. Still pissed balf was responsibly ramming trees with the front of his miniature quad, then gus gave him a hand to do some sweet wheelstands. All these drunken stunts were documented on guses camera, which was a big f***-up when the owner of the bikes wanted to borrow the memory card and check out the photos on his laptop.

Eddy needed to be back in Quito the next day to pick up his emergency travel document, so the lads made the decision to grab a bus back to the big smoke that evening. they checked back into vibes hostel at ten after demolishing some of the kernels finest wings, and set about getting drunk as quick as possible. Eddy was keen to sort his s*** out in the morning, so gus and Balf wandered into Quitos old city in search of strippers and cocaine. After charging in and out of a couple of bars, Gus and Balf hunted for somewhere in Quito to watch the All Blacks game. Suprisingly, the World Cup is f***en popular in Ecuador, alot of places were showing it, but they settled on a dodgy upstairs bar that only had entrance from the back. Was pretty cool to be watching a live All Blacks game in Ecuador, and gus and Balf stayed up drinking in the bar till 530 in the morning. Vision was blurred as f*** when the boys stumbled back to the hostel, but the boys werent sleeping yet. Balf played barman at the hostel and did the old kiwi-help-yourself to a couple of beers and a full bottle of vodka, and with some help from gus, got through a bit more piss until 7am.

Friday 9/09/2011

Yet again there was another mattress fire in the room, this one quite substantial. No prizes for guessing who the hero was that put it out. Eddy was now back on track with his passport etc after his visit to the embassy in the morning so things were looking up. Balf was nursing a monumental hangover, only rising from eddys scratcher at 2 in the afternoon for half an hour for a shower and feed of 11 herbs and spices. The boys got Balf up again at 7 and the three of them set about having a few brewskys, excited about getting loose on Quitos biggest day of the week. Sick to the back teeth of the hostels barman playing the gayest tunes, the lads headed a couple of doors down to a rock bar to kickstart the evening. There was a couple of live bands playing in the pokey wee converted garage, and they were playing some pretty heavy s***. the lads were getting more than the occasional stare from some hard rockers, but they made their way through a few big botts before heading back to the hostel to see what the go was there. It was at the hostel bar where the lads met savvy english redhead lucy, who wisely agreed to come out with the boys. Obviously Balf and Lucy had alot in common, but it was Gus who was putting in the yards for some firecrutch. The lads with Lucy in tow headed from the hostel to "Attic" bar which was packed to the rafters with wired Ecaudorians. The line for the toilet was ridiculous as everyone in the establishment was blatantly and unashamedly taking s*** to the dome. The team dabbled at another couple of bars before heading back to the previous nights back door bar to watch the english rugby team bore argentina into a loss. On the way, edward had somehow charmed a red-hot smoking local incan sheila to come with them and spent the next couple of hours eating face with her on a couch while balf and gus watched the rugby. Blowing out with chicks was becoming a real feature of the boys trip, and this phenomenon couldnt have been illustrated more perfectly by eddy. Eddy walking out the door with his bird gave Balf and Gus the double fingers and a "f*** you motherf***ers", before reappearing literally twenty seconds later minus his girl. Apparently the girls brother-who had been watching eddy and her hooking up all night-had given eddy the big "adios amigo", when he tried to get in the taxi with them. Back in the hostel room, Balf jumped into guses bed as his one was a little damp, and helped gus out by getting Lucy the coppertop to spoon with gus in her bed. Eddy and Balf (and probably the sour 35 year englishwoman also in the room) were then forced to listen to some passionate noises coming from lucys bottom bunk. Obviously a backpackers room is not the ideal setting for romance and therefore gus couldnt get balls deep, making do instead with a cheeky five-knuckle shuffle under the sheets.

saturday 10/09/2011

the lads were intending to make it back to lima, Peru on the 14th to watch the Chilli Peppers play, so they decided to start heading south later on that evening. They f***ed around at the hostel all day, balf praying that hostel staff wouldnt discover the wet mattress. After a big box meal from that friendly kernel man, it was off to the bus station to catch the 830 overnight bus south to mountainous city, Loja.

sunday 11/09/2011

The lads had done a bit of research on Loja and it sounded alright. It had a couple of close national parks, 30 discoteques, a couple of universities and was apparently ecuadors safest and cleanest city. After attempting to check into several different hostels and finding they were fully booked, the lads assumed that Loja was obviously the place to be. The boys finally settled on a dingy looking hostel at 7 in the morning and were given half a bread roll and coffee in a plastic cup as a welcome. The Hostel was pretty s***, scummy rooms and no other gringos about, but that didnt really bother the boys as they had a quick waddle around the city centre. What did bother them was the blatant lack of intellect shown by the locals. Taxi drivers, food vendors and hostel staff couldnt get their heads around the lads charades moves that they had perfected in other centres in order to get s*** done. After visiting a massive mall/market place full of genuine labelled clothes and raw meat, it was becoming clear that there wasnt a great deal of exciting s*** to do in Loja, except for maybe getting absolutely pissed to bits. So after devouring a gigantic Pollo Brosterizado (for the uneducated, thats chicken), the fellas started charging around the centre to find an establishment that would wet the whistles. Frustration was kicking in big time and tumbleweeds were rolling out the throats, as the lads tryed in vain for half an hour to find a pub. What the f*** was going on and where the f*** were these 30 discoteques? After flagging down a taxi driver and offering some correspondence in espanol, gus worked out that no-one in Loja was allowed to sell alcohol on sundays! The boys were fairly filthy as they allowed this information to sink in, but the taxi driver reckoned he had some festival thing he could take the boys to instead. In all fairness, the festival/fair/show was pretty cool, the boys cantered about trying all the indigenous food from all the different vendors, a particular favourite being the skewer kebabs with various questionable meats on them. The boys spent a couple of hours there wandering round checking out clothes and food and girls, the whole time getting blatantly laughed at by the locals for wearing jandals, being ginger, and having white skin. It started to rain so the lads nailed another skewer then hightailed it back to the hostel for an early night, plan was to leave at 6 in the morning.