After a very long sleep and lie-in (we had to be at Joybe Tours for 10am) we all woke up a little rosy from the day before and started packing for the cruise. We had a continental breakfast before leaving to visit Santa Rosa, a town in the centre if Santa Cruz with a tortoise sanctuary. We walked past loads of different sized tortoises, the heaviest were around 200 kilos and the oldest 120 years. The males are bigger in general and the youngest one we saw was 15 ...

We had another early start today (6.40am) for a day trip to San Christóbal island. We got a quick breakfast (bread and marmalade) from a cafe before heading to the pier to meet our guide. There was about 16 of us on the boat, the guide told us there were four seats at the top so Browny and I headed up there thinking Eddy and Nathan would follow. Unfortunately another couple grabbed the places (these turned out to be the most annoying couple on the trip, we could...

We woke early and headed to the airport for 6am. This should have been plenty of time however we had a bit of a nightmare as the process is different because of flying to the Galapagos - we had to pay the park fee, then have our bags inspected (in addition to security). After queuing for 2 hours to get our boarding passes we finally got fast tracked to the front as we were concerned we were running out of time. We made it though and it was worth it as Kathryn and...

After greeting the girls at 2am we decided to have a quiet-ish day around Quito, starting with breakfast in the central market with the locals. If nothing else we realised that café leche is really weak, milky, sugary coffee, just as Nathan likes it (as you can't taste any coffee). We caught a taxi to the TelefériQo (cable car) for some impressive views of the city, although we were slightly underprepared for the wind and cold in our flip flops and t-shirts wh...

Arrived safely at Colonial House Hostel at 1.30am..ready for a good nights sleep! On Monday morning we had a stroll around the old part of Quito where our hostel is. It's much warmer than we were expecting for the highest capital in the world (2850m) and everyone seems really friendly. We decided to head to la Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world) 22km North of Quito,where you can stand on either side of the equator (2 buses and 1 1/2 hour journey for $0.50). T...