Quito Day 92 - Tuesday 1st June Quito is set amongst a fantastic mountain range and is incredibly long and thin. Consequently it took a long time to get into town and check into my hostel The Secret Garden (a maze of an old building that feels like a favela!!), where I met Joel from Rio!!! It was wicked to catch up and kinda strange seeing as I think of him as a best mate (who may live with me in London in 2011) and at this stage I'd spent approximately 10 hou...

Guayaquil Day 88 - Friday 28th May Tried to leave Baños early doors but buses didn't start til midday. Luckily for me the volcano on the edge of town decided to erupt at 11. Cancelling all the immediate buses. 10 years ago the town was evacuated during a bad eruption but luckily it was only erupting on the other side. Eventually I managed to get onto a bus to the nearest big town and from there wondered the streets until I found another bus to Guayaquil again....

Baños Day 85 - Wednesday 26th May After arriving late the night before, wondering the dark and dangerous streets until I found Hostel Transylvania, I was ready to get out and explore the countryside. In daylight Baños is a beautiful place, small and tucked into a lush, steep valley, it's key feature is a waterfall running down one side. I gave an open invitation to the hostel to join me exploring the area and was met by another Steve, who I'd happened to have...

Day 84 - Monday 24th May Really, REALLY cool town. More compact than Mancora but all the buildings had a hundred wonky levels and were all made out of wood. Music and colour everywhere made it a pretty cool place. It turned out that it was a public holiday and so it was heaving but good all the same. Had a mini siesta in my hostel (which was fairly open and had tents spread across the concrete 3rd and 4th floors). Read on the beach for the afternoon, grabbed som...

Mancora's a small little surf town close to the Ecuadorian border, with a long and fairly empty beach and extremely friendly people. Ended up staying for 6 days and really didnt want to leave... Day 78 - Tuesday 18th May I signed into The Point as a Nuclear Physicist and prompty bumped into Meg (who was travelling with Lloyd) and Anders (Charlie's doppelgänger from Arequipa). Dee and I headed into town and made good friends with some teenagers who waited the t...