Another early start. A 5am bus to make the most of one the one day stop in Guayaquil, Ecuador's biggest city, before we fly to the Galapagos islands.

It's a big ol smelly city, and we experienced the usual combination of super friendly and pretty sullen encounters with people who live here, including my encounter with the man (i.e not woman) who did my bikini wax. Not something I was entirely comfortable with but we discussed football and acne and I got through it relatively unscathed.

There's also a park here, full of iguanas, they hang out in the trees like birds, very peculiar. It's helped get us in the mood for the Galapagos islands - we leave tomorrow and we are very excited, although a bit nervous as we haven't booked a boat trip and everybody is telling us that we are foolish to leave it so late and that we may not get on one at all now.

Hopefully our next blog entry will be full of the joys of last minute bookings and not one of berating ourselves for leaving things up to chance. Wish us luck.