After spending the day hanging around a very decent mall with the wealthy of Quito, it was time to pack up and head to the jungle. Whilst waiting for the overnight bus (yup, we shunned flying in favour of, well, see below) we learned that Quito is a dry city on Sundays. Apparently most of the police are given the day off and so to try and keep things calm the sale of alcohol is banned. Genius. And so to the bus. No sign of the spacious luxury coaches so famed i...

Back on dry land and ridiculous altitude in Quito yesterday, time for a day trip to the market in Otavalo. Not for us an organised tour, no we hit the local bus service for the 2 USD, 2 hour journey. Bargain and they even put the English subtitles on the movie - Journey 2 - The Mysterious Island. Highly recommended! Otavalo has 4 markets, the two of touristic interest are the livestock and the artisan products. What can I say about the livestock market? Cows, s...

Last day in the Galapagos, or rather last morning as our flight back to Quito was mid morning. However this did not stop the tour - we had a pre-breakfast trip to North Seymour Island to see nesting birds. We were on land by 6am!! Highlight was finally seeing the Frigate Bird with its dramatically inflated throat (see main pic) - a mating ritual to impress the females. Birds? Chicks? Thus came to an end our Galapagos adventure. Beyond the things I have describe...

Second to last day! This blog hasn't been as brief as planned. The morning saw a stroll along the coast and a snorkelling session in James Bay, Santiago Island. Sights on the walk included sea lions, fur seals, marine iguanas, several bird species and interesting lava rock formations. The highlight of the snorkelling session was coming back alive. There was a strong current, poor visibility and rocks everywhere. Not fun. In the afternoon we moved to the beautif...

We hit the most westerly island this morning to see the famous marine iguanas. The salt-sneezing dragons were there in their thousands. They camouflage in with the volcanic rocks so well it really was a miracle none of us trod on one at some point. The first real disappointment of the trip came on the snorkelling trip afterwards - not one of the thousands of the beasts decided it was hungry and so we didn't see any in the water at all. Small comfort came from a ...