Hey all!

We are back in the ´civilised´ world of Quito. This time we´re staying in the new town where all the other travellers stay. It´s totally different from the old town with lots of bars, clubs and more expensive places to eat (although we´re sticking to the local restaurants which do lunch for $2 which consists of a soup, drink and a big main meal).

Anyway, enough about Quito, the last two weeks we have spent living in the rural community of Las Tolas (2.5 hours from Quito by bus) in the beautiful cloud forest. Needless to say it was very cloudy there (!) but on a clear day you could see for miles - mountain after mountain as well as forest and farms – absolutely stunning views.

We stayed with a man called Germanico (pronounced Hermanico) who, upon our arrival, was actually in Quito! Lots of confusion ensued but the family that works for Germanico took us to his house. As it turned out Germanico is the richest man in the village! His house was gorgeous and we had a really nice room. We later found out that he owns 100 hectares of land and he was once a colonel in the army. He now runs a coffee plantation and also has small herd of cows that are milked (which we had a go at using mechanical means and by hand!). Germanico was really, really nice and we really enjoyed staying with him. The family that works for him were also awesome - we had such fun with them even though there was a big language barrier, but we tried out best and learnt so much new Spanish. Amparo (the mum) found absolutely everything hilarious and her husband was very comical- they are both the most genuine, nicest and happiest people we´ve ever met!

There was also a little 2 year old called Eric (although we called him Eddie for over a week-whoops!) who Vicki fell in love with. He was very adorable and loved us too.

So, anyway, in Las Tolas we worked with the community every day for about 4 hours doing things like path making, weeding and cleaning very steep slopes of vegetation and we also worked on the coffee plantation picking coffee, washing it, transplanting seedlings etc. It was really good work- just like being back at work at home really! We also got to do things like yoghurt and cheese making (which was very easy), making bracelets and we also had some Spanish lessons (which were very difficult as she was trying to teach Spanish IN Spanish!) We had an adventurous walk in a small part of cloud forest too which was, erm, memorable. The only downside of our time there was that it wasn´t as well organised as we had hoped - the website had made out we could go for walks in our free time but we couldn´t so we had lots of downtime to read and chill out which wasn´t so bad!

We were fed really well- 3 square meals a day and as usual Katie´s rice intake increased exponentially every day!! We helped Amparo do the cooking and washing up every day (good girls that we are!).

So, all in all, Las Tolas was really good despite the lack of things to do in the down time. The people in the community were so nice and welcoming and so happy all the time!! There was one guy we didn´t take to too much as he was a total sleaze but apart from that everyone was brill.

Wildlife wise we saw a snake and a tarantula within the first few days, we saw hummingbirds, parrots and birds of prey and loads of interesting butterflies and moths

So now we are in Quito for two nights and then we shall be heading South. First to Latacunga where we will ´do´some of the Quilotoa loop, then on to Banos where we´ll stay a few days, then Cuenca for a few days then on to to Vilcabamba right in the South. Not sure of internet places along this route but I´m sure we´ll be able to update at some point!

Lots of love to all, hope you are all keeping well. We miss you all and think of you ALL!!

Lots of love.

Katie and Vicki