We hit the beach on Ecuador´s Pacific coast. Its full of surfers and has massive waves! spent a few days with Adam and Mateo building sandcastles so big that we were interviewed for the local newspaper and the local TV channel. by night there are loads of bars and the mojitoes are cheap. we managed to spend about 10 days by the beach and thought we´d never leave. despite being really popular with tourists from Ecuador and abroad, its really chilled o...

Packed extra mosquito repellent and suncream, and headed off to the oriente in the east of Ecuador, near to the Colombian and Peruvian borders to visit a reserve of primary rainforest. It´s sometimes a bit dodgy due to the Colombian Army occasionaly dropping bombs here but we were luckilly not hit. we spent 5 days in the jungle, rowing a canoe up and down the cuyabeno river. we hunted for and ate piranas (they are vicious little things, they can eat a chunk...

We gave our hosts a break from us, and headed North to Otavalo, which is a town in the mountains, with the biggest crafts market in latin america. Terrified by the prospect of loads of fat americans haggling rudely over 50 cents with tiny indiginous weavers, we headed for the hills and spent 4 days walking in the Andes. There are loads of lakes and volcanoes, its very cold, and its so high up that we had trouble climbing one volcano which was 4100 (Fuya Fuya) be...

We are so lucky to be staying with a family in Tumbaco, a village in the next valley from Quito, the parents of a friend of Damian´s. Faviola, José and Santiago have been amazing and have made us so welcome here. Since we have been in Quito we have had a tour of the city from the family, where we saw the oldest church in South America, and lots of statues of Bolivar of course. We have been to two football matches, our new team here is Nacional. They ...