We arrived in Cuenca mid-evening and so went to the mall for dinner. The top floor had a selection of fast-food outlets-I found some spag bol! We then went back to the hotel and played cards.

Sat 23/4/11
Me and Phil went out for breakfast at 8.30am. We found a mini-market selling fresh pan au chocolat and bought yogurt drinks and bananas to go with it and went to sit by the river to eat it all. We then hailed a taxt to get to ´Parque National Cajas´, the first taxi quoted to much from what our tour leader Martin had recomened to us, but the 2nd Phil managed to haggle down to a good price in Spanish so we jumped in. We had got about 5m down the road when the driver pulled into the petrol station and asked us to pay now. It was at this point we also noticed a small child was sleeping in the boot behind us!! After a fair bit of questioning we gave the driver a $20 note (the fare was $9) of which he used $5 to pay for the petrol and gave us back $15. (You don´t have to get put the car to put in your own driver, theres an attendent to do it for you!) We arrived at what we thought was the entrance to the park aznd we paid the driver the last $4 owed. The drive took around 35mins to the park and we were climbing high in altitude. It was soon after we got out the taxt we realised this was not the tourist centre of the park (where you paid an entrance fee and obtained a map) so we started to walk along the main road, as directed by the man in the toll both in order to get to the main entrance. After 1hr 10mins later walking at around 3500-4000m altitude we arrived at the main entrance. We paid 42 entrance fee and got a very large colourful map. we had lunch in the adjacent cafe, a delicious homemade soup and salchipappas (sausage and chips) then set off to walk one of the routes on the map around the lagoon. It took 1 1/2hrs to walk in this stunnign scenery around the lagoon, up and down very boggy terrai nwith lots of cactii!

After the walk we waited at the bus stop back on the main road outside of the main entrance building for a bus back to Cuenca. Whilst we were waiting a car puleld up at the bus stop with 2 Germans in (one was currently living and working in Cuenca as a teacher and the other a friend visiting), they kindly offered to give us and two other Germans waiting at the bus-stop a lift into Cuenca. The other 2 German tourists were both 20 and volunteering in Ecudor, the guy in a schoo, teaching English and the girl in a missionary helping to care for the elderly. They were visiting Cuenca on their Easter break. We were dropped on the edge of town (at no cost) and walked into the old town with the German couple. We then parted and went on to explore the rest of the Old town of Cuenca, seeing beautiful cathedrals and buildings (with a lot of Colonial influnece). Whilst we were sat in the main plaza gardens we were approached by 4 Cuenca university students who were studying tourism. They wanted to interview us in English (and filmed it) for a project they had to complete-they asked us generally toursity questions! Afterwards we headed back across the river into New town towards our hotel via a slight diversion getting lost from not looking at the map!

That evening we met back up with the rest of the group and went to a Thai restaurant for dinner, ahd another pad thai, then went onto a bar. Headed back to the hotel (via the playground) and played more cards!

Sun 24/4/11
we left the hotel at 5.45am in a private mini-bus to the bus station. From here we took a public bus to the border of Ecuador/Peru at Aguas Verdes. We had to stop in Ecuador for an exit stamp, then drove over the Ínternational bridge´to Peru (aguas Verdes) for Peru immigration, which was just a run down small building. Whilst we we waiting for the rest of the group to exchange their US dollars for Peruvian Soles, (at just a stand-alone wooden desk-NO security!!) some of the group witnessed a mugging, someone on a motormike stole the bag of a woman walking along the street!-apparently their is a shanty town not far away. We wanted to go to the loo before getting back on the bus but the girls had to be accompanied by a guy to cross the road and into the bathrooms. When we got to the tiolets we had to walk through someones bedroom and into the backyard where there were 4 wooden sheds-2 toilets and 2 showers. the toilets had no flush so you had to pour water from the bucket down the toilet after you! and tehn pay the old man outside on crutches 1 Soles!