We havent seen a marine Iguana, i just liked the photo and the computers arent letting me upload mine.

One of the top things to do in Ecaudor, according to the Lonely Planet and several other reputable guidebook publishers, is to ride the "Devils Nose" train ride from Riobamba to Aluasi. We have absolutely no idea why. It was sooooooo boring. Firstly, we were promised spectacular scenery, but it proved to be nothing more interesting than your average bus ride in the country (what it actually was... more later), at one point sleepy kate actually dozed off (perhaps also due to having to get up at 5.30am just to catch the thing), we were promised drama and entertainment, but a ride on a fairground miniature version designed for children under 3 foot high would have caused more fear. The main problem, however, was that IT WAS NOT A TRAIN. It was a bus, on rails. Obviously the real trains fell into severe disrepair a long time ago, and instead of admiting their last stretch of traintrack was over, they use buses now and show you photos of the old trains. So we paid through the nose to sit on a pointless bus journey that took 3 times as long as if we had just got a bus in the first place. But we have learnt not to trust the Lonely Planet, and (hindsight being a wonderful thing) have asked ourselves several times why ever thought riding a train would be fun in the first place!?

Since this mishap we have had an enjoyable breakfast in the Parque Central of Cuenca (another highlight apparently, but owing to our promise not to bother with colonial cities we swiftly moved on, having seen everything there was to see of the city in 3 hours when the LP recommends 4. we are learning!), several long bus journeys, and a fun couple of days in Vilcabamba.

Here we spent an extremely long time trying to find a hotel room that fitted our budget and at the same time didnt smell like someones dog had recently confused it with a bathroom. This wasnt possible, so we treated ourselves to a bit of luxury in a really nice hotel for a couple of nights, as its very hard work, this travelling around all the time malarkey! We chilled for the majority of the time here in the hammocks, but did find time to climb The Mandango (aka the sleeping woman although it bore no resemblance to anything human at all.. it was evil). This was a halfday hike that then took 2 days to recover from, owing to just how bloody hot it decided to become the moment we started to walk up it. It was very steep at the end, but worth it for the views and the sense of acheivement that we didnt die from dehydration. I did try and convince kate that we should take the path along the top of the mountain, which we had been told was "certainly not to be underestimated", and we did try, and the fact that it was only a foot wide and you had to go one foot in front of the other to avoid falling to your death either side didnt deter us (much), but the increasingly overgrown bushes preventing further progress along the path did.

We have since travelled via several more buses across the border at Macara, and have arrived at the beach in Mancora, Peru.