We've booked a tour for this part of the trip which we regretted. It's a country Tomas has already travelled but the tour was booked some time ago and couldn't be cancelled plus it includes a stay with an Amazonas family which would be pretty impossible to arrange ourself.

When we arrived at the Hotel Quito, in Quito we were too late to attend the tour welcome meeting - thank godness! But we have instructions to meet our tour leader, Henry, early the following morning to go through the tour do's and dont's. There's also an invitation to go out to dinner with the group which we accept and meet them all in reception of the hotel at 8pm.

The group is pretty awful. There are 4 absolute dorks and 2 horrible old Canadians. Thankfully there is also 2 really nice and normal Canadians who we instantly connect with. One of the dorks seems to take a liking to Nikki right away and won't leave her alone as we walk to the restaurant. It's really creepy. We go to a very average Mexican restaurant in the centre of Quito - its a pity not to try any local cuisin on our first night in Ecuador. We sit at the end of the table hoping to be ignored - no such luck. The one who likes Nikki sits right opposite us and won't stop staring at her. Tomas, who had noticed the perv during the walk to the restaurant gets really upset and starts staring at him for a few long seconds or minutes and the guy stares at him too for a long time! They both stare at each other and Tomas in the end is like 'jeez.. this guy is a nutcase! He is going to pull a machne gun and kill us all' Another one of the dorks sits also opposite us and is extremely chatty. He needs to control the conversation all the time and everything somebody says he needs to say that he already knows about it that he has already been there or whatever.. Arrrghhh! All these dorks are of course in their mid or lat 30's, single, ugly, weird and all look like virgins.. some of them are just extremely weird and creepy, two of them are also very annoying.. We also sit with Henry's girlfriend who has joined us for dinner and wants to practise her English. As soon as everyone has finished and paid the two of us leave. We cant believe that we are stuck with this group for over three weeks - torture!!

The next morning we attended the meeting with Henry and there were another two Canadians there who didn't make the dinner the night before. They are a father and son. They seemed allright.. but that was the first impression.. After the chat we board our bus and begin the trip. Our first destination was Tena, a city in the amazon basin. After spending a night in the city we climb into jeeps and head off to our jungle home stay. We are staying with a guy called Delfin (?) and his family. The accommodation is basic. Cold showers. No electricity. But what else can you expect in the jungle. We are given a double room in a wooden structure about 5 minute walk from the main building.

Activities over the following few days included walks in the jungle learning about their customs, the local plants and what they use them for. Sadly the wildlife was nonexistent in that region because the natives hunt and eat everything that moves - accept a bird they call the stinky chicken. We also did chocolate making (chocolate is widely grown in the area and country), sifted for gold in a nearby stream, visited an orchid garden, painted our faces with clay from the ground near the house and they painted our faces using traditional paints as part of one of the tour.

One night when we had some free time before dinner, the two of us were hanging out in hammocks by our room listening to music, drinking very very cheap and awful wine by candle light and we saw literally hundreds of fire flies (light bugs as Tomas calls them) zipping around. It was incredible!

The last day we were taken white water rafting on a level 3 river. Our instructor was a world champion and that showed. He would abandon the raft, run across closeby rocks and then could hop back in the boat all in a matter of seconds. These guys are trained to -in case the raft capsizes- turn over the raft by themselves in less than 10 seconds..

He was leading us into rapids and big rocks to make it more fun when all of a sudden when he drove us into a big rock, the raft turned vertically and capsized.. OMG... It was completely frightening.. we all ended up in the water underneath the raft but he didn't get a single drop of water on him. During the safety briefing we were told if we capsized don't panic and hold onto your paddle since you need those to get down the river. When the capsize happened, this advice went completely out of the window for Nikki. She freaked out, threw the paddle and as I scrambled for the surface I grabbed and shoved something out of my way in a bid for freedom. That something later turned out to be Alex, the young Canadian guy. Oops. I also lost a shoe during it - very annoying. Tomas started shouting looking for Nikki and then, after seeing her, shouting for the Canadian dad.. who, despite being ok, wasn't responding and made Tomas kind of panic..

After this episode we went through some other rapids and Tomas, who was at the front of the raft, fell into the water.. so as to 'rescue' him.. the instructor extended his paddle, which Tomas caught and held, and started dragging him towards the raft. It was then when Tomas hit a rock under the water and released the paddle.. then the kayak intructor came and helped him back to the raft.. he had a very big bruise on his hip later..

After the jungle we went to Baños. The New Zealand of Ecuador. Unfortunately, Nikki wasn't feeling well and spent most of the time locked in the hotel. We did hire an off-road buggy one afternoon to go visit some nearby water falls. Driving in that thing was crazy. The road to the waterfalls is extremely busy with local traffic plus trucks and because of the mountainous region there are mannnny long dark tunnels to drive through. We made it safely to the waterfalls and back. Phew.

After Baños we drove to the Chimborazo volcano/mountain. A few crazy people, Tomas included, decided to walk a further 900metres up to a dizzy 5900 metres approx. The air was so thin it felt like they were drunk. It was like walking on the moon.. slow paces.. breathing slowly..

Once they'd all caught their breath we drove to the town of Alausi for a ride on the Devils Nose Train. An amazing switch back train. With no time to stop and rest we were on a bus to the coast bound for Puerto Lopez.

At this point we were already sick and tired of all the canadians (except the two that we liked) and the guide.. who was a control freak and treated us like 5 year old kids.. (which suited well the stupid canadians..) but not us.. we couldn't even order a meal at a restaurant without him 'having' to know what we were ordering..

Puerto Lopez is the biggest city on the coast and certainly not the prettiest. The war zone like we called it.. The beach is lined with small beach bars all yelling for your business and playing bob marley music - very original. Nikki is still not feeling that great so we decided not to take part in many of the activities that the rest of the group do. We do however decide to go horse riding and monkey spotting. Nikki had never seen a monkey in the wild before and with her mule riding experience under her belt she is very keen. The Canadian father and son duo joined us. When we arrived at the stables we are given boots. The room which they store the boots is housing a very large and deadly tarantula! After the excitment of the giant deadly spider we are asigned to our stallions. Tomas goes for the biggest horse while Nikki is given the mule.....! The mule turns out to be very grumpy and almost kicks me off everytime Tomas stallion gets too close. After about 30 minutes of riding our guide spots some monkeys. We climb off our animals and quietly walk towards them. They are high up in a tree and are as curious of us as we are of them. After a few minutes they get bored and start peeing on us but thankfully we aren't directly under them and aren't hit. We spend a few more hours riding at a verryyy slow pace through the forest spotting birds (jungle owls!) and more monkeys - and another giant tarantula!

Nikki still wasnt feeling too well since Baños and later that night we are due to take a 15hr bus back to Quito. After an hour into the journey we had to get off in a very little town called Jipi Japa.. because she really isn't feeling well. Unbearable headache.. It was a nightmare, getting of at this tiny little village and asking the taxi to take us to the most expensive hotel around.. The following morning we head to a hospital which is very small and unequipped. They tell us to go to Quito for a better diagnosis. We headed to a big-ish city called Manta and from there took a flight to Quito to go to Hospital. In Quito they did lots of tests and nothing is diagnosed. We are giving a huge prescription and told to rest. We have a tour to the galapagos booked for the following week so do as the doctor tells us and spend 3 days in Quito resting. During those days we go to the centre of the earth, to a shopping mall and to play ten pin bowling! We also called to our travel insurance in Canada (the tour requires you to have travel insurance) who agree to reimburse us the medical and flight expenses! Cool!

Ready for Galápagos now!