For about the first week in Ecaudor Claire and I were both dying from jet lag and a bit of altitude sicknes; average bedtime was about 9pm. Just aswell really seeing as it apparently wasn´t safe to walk the streets of Quito after 8 in the evening. We have been in some dodgy places, but the threats of South America take some getting used to. For example, we left Quito after a few days and headed out to Puerto Lopez by plane we got a taxi from the airport. Th taxi...

Blinking Dean. These past two weeks we have watched whales in the wild, hiked up waterfalls, seen all sorts of weird and wonderful (and deadly) creatures, we have visited an Indian tribe, wtached a snake swim across a river, tubed down the rivers of the amazon...and yet, YET I have never seen him as excited and enthusiastic as last night when he ran to tell me he had found a poker tournament in the casino. Blinking Dean.

Well, where do I start? After our initial stay in Quito we headed to Puerto Lopez which was a sweet little beach town which we used as a base to visit the Cloud Forest and the ´poor man´s Galapagos island´. The island was amazing - we saw some Boobies (these are birds, we were not on a nudist beach!). They were such comical little things with bright blue feet and funny expressions. I´ve been on a mission to get pictures of my bear all over South America and...

Hello again, We had our first proper day in Quito yesterday. We took a taxi around the city where we visited the local markets, volcano and bird park. Got to hold some little bird in the park - no idea what it was as they were all speaking spanish (The park keepers, not the birds) but it was great all the same. Today we are off to Cotopaxi where we will hike up the mountain (!) then have a picnic. Tonight we are flying to Puerto Lopez which is a fishing village...

Hello, Well after the longest journey in the world ever we finally arrived in Quito. Dean thought he was being clever with the plane seat bookings, reserving two seats with a space in the middle (assuming nobody would want to sit alone, between two other people). However, the joke was on us when a man with his baby happily took the seat. Thank God I packed those sleeping tablets! Anyway, 15 million hours later we rocked up in Quito. We´re staying in a GORGEOUS...