The only place we saw in Peru was Cusco as we were meeting friends in Ecuador, Lucy , who flew over for a two week holiday, and Mel and Dan, who are travelling for over a year. It was so great to see friends.

We spent nearly two weeks in Montinita, a little surfing spot in the south which has turned into a party town full of Europeans and Americans - not ideal for seeing the 'real' Ecuador, but a great place to be with friends.

Both Mel and I turned thirty in this time. Jill and I don't really drink much when it is just the two of us, so we made up for it in these two weeks.

I had a go at surfing. This experience was mostly getting battered by waves, having your belly and chest sandpapered by the rough wax on the board and feeling like you've done a hundred press-ups. All for about six seconds of standing up. Rad. I was pretty poor, but they say it takes a couple of months of surfing every day to be competent. When you do mange to stand up it's a great feeling, but I'll think I'll stick to football. The surf in Uxbridge is terrible.

When Lucy left us to return home, Jill and I carried on to Banos with Dan and Mel (who are travelling for a year or more). Banos is amazing. Set in the midst of volcanoes and mountains, it's slight altitude makes for a perfect climate and beautiful scenery.

There are local baths with hot springs where you can boil yourself and then plunge into icy water, which is surprisingly addictive. Banos means baths, but it's also the work for toilets (or rather 'bathroom') - just like Bath in England I guess.

The hostel we stayed in in Banos is the best of the whole trip and we're sure won't be bettered. It was owned by an Aussie and Kewi couple and was an eco-lodge which means they do lots of green stuff. They also baked their own bread, brownies and granola, and on Christmas day made everyone a roast lamb dinner with all the trimmings, which we ate surrounded by tinsel and looking out over the river and mountains. We missed our families, but it was great to spend chrimbo with Mel and Dan. Having good friends around is a nice second best.

The trip to Ecuador involved going through Guayaquil and Quito, the two biggest cities. These are by far the scariest places we've been. Nothing we experienced in Columbia later was as bad. Most shops and every bank have armed guards outside, walking at night is stupidity, and locals make the finger across the neck gesture if you look like you're heading for a dangerous side street as a helpful warning. We met three people who were mugged in Quito.

Our remedy to this was to live in the huge shopping centre. To be in an air-conditioned, sterile, serene shopping environment, with food courts and designer goods and smoothly flowing escalators felt new again. I know that chain stores and shopping centres are destroying the individuality of towns, local culture, and are bad for society and the environment, but after over two months of heat and dusty markets, and of avoiding dangerous areas, this was a shopping experience we missed. Just goes to show that consumerism has really got you by the nuts.

The shopping centre was useful though. We bought an underwater camera ready for our trip to the Galapogos.