Hey Hey! For once the blog photo is actually of where we have been - Vilcabamba in southern Ecuador. After spending a few more days in Cuenca sightseeing we got on a bus to this quirky, hippy town. Vilcabamba is famous for it's longevity - lots of people apparently live til their 100. It's a beautiful place - the town itslef is nestled in the valley of the mountains. It's not a very big place but has a surprising number of American ex-pats living there and has a very chilled, hippy vibe about it. Anywho, we stayed at a place called Rumi Wilco (which is named after the sacred Wilco tree}. Rumi Wilco is actually a nature reserve and eco lodge and is run by two ex- galapagos guides from Argentina. The reserve basically consists of a mountain side which is classed as tropical dry forest and also the Rio Chamba. We arrived just at the start of the rainy season so everyting was becoming green and lush whereas the picture shows it in the dry season when the earth dries and turns brown and the only green plants there are cacti!! We decided to do some volunteering here so everyday we went up the mountain with our tools to repair the (many!} steps. Orlando (the owner} made some paths through the reserve a few years ago but they need constant maintenance. It was hard work especially in the blazing sun but as we were so high up we got to look out over the mountains everyday. Beautiful. We also got to see lots of birds (although they evaded our camera's!) and so many butterflies it was unbelievable! We also saw a snake on our first day - it was only little but venemous neverthelss- they call it the sleeping snake because if you poke it it doesn't really move at all!. The River that ran through the reserve offered some respite from the sun and was our shower a few times in the week - there's nothing like showering in a river when you've been sweating all morning! We only volunteered for four hours in the moring and then the rest of the day was ours which we generally spent reading, writing or playing cards. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. Although we did have a rat living in the roof above our beds which woke us up every night - one night it kept us up for two hours! Now' I'm a lover of all things ratty but I actually wanted to kill it that night!! So we spent a week in Rumi Wilco and now we are in Guayaquil as a stop over and then we continue to Puerto Lopez on the coast where we shall stay for around 5 days. We were actually meant to be in Peru now however we really like it here in Ecuador, there's so much to see and the people are lovely, so we extended our time here but we shall be in Peru in the next couple of weeks. We can't wait to get to the coast and do some swimmiing and maybe some snorkelling and body boarding in the sea - can top up the ol' tan too! Love to all. Katie and Vicki.xx