Big travel day. Spent 9hrs on a bus from Quito to Coca. As the bus chugged up the winding mountain roads we reached 4100m above sea level, before descending out of the Andes into the lowland jungle. For much of the way a large oil pipeline hugs the road. A 500km eyesore that pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels each day from the oil reserves in the amazon to the distant coast, ready for shipping.

We arrived in Coca that evening, jumped in a taxi and asked the driver how much to our chosen hotel. "Dos dollar" (two dollar) was the price. I read in our guide book that all taxi journeys in Coca are one dollar (it's a small town) but the driver insisted that it's double for evening journeys - obviously conning us. Next morning, we walked out of the hotel only to find that bus station was 100m down the street. The taxi driver took us on a big loop of the town, when we could have walked it in 2mins! b***** - conned again.