A lot has happened since the last blog entry and the final horse has now arrived. Susannah has named him Noah (due to the fact that it rains every day and he will hopefully take us safely to La Paz!) He is loving his new life away from the jungle and was quite overwhelmed with the amount of food he has recieved. He has settled into our training regime but he has yet to bond with the other horses. Susannah has now returned to the UK but she has been a massive help...

We have now completed our first week of training in the mountains of San Miguel at 2,300 meters. We have four of the five horses on the training regime now - varied exercise between one to six hours per day. Having expected to be applying liberal amounts of Sudocrem at the stage we have all been mightily impressed by the power and comfort of the South American criollo pony. The Miranda´s have continued to be incredibly helpful; Carlos oversaw the first day of t...

After a ten hour bus ride from Quito we have arrived in Guayaquil on the Western Ecuadorian coast and are staying with the Miranda family who have shown us incredible hospitality. Carlos Miranda has been helping us find horses for the last four months and is the man who has arranged for us to train with the animals on his Aunt´s mountain hacienda to the East of Guayaquil. We have been finalising equipment and supplies with the help of the Mirandas before heading...

We have now arrived in Quito (without our luggage) but in good health. We are very slowly improving our Spanish and making arrangements for the start of the trek. We head down to Quayaquil on Tuesday and from there we will go to meet our horses.