11/11/12 - Never forgetting Remembrance Day xxx It was another scenic journey - I don't think I'd ever get bored of the gorgeous views here. We passed through a small town called Saraguro where it was market day so it was really busy. I saw one woman with a live chicken, she pulled it out of a bag and showed it to 3 or 4 women standing around. It made me laugh, I can imagine her telling her friends of her bargain and it made me think of how I show off my bargain...

9/11/12 At around 5pm, just under 4 hours after setting off, we arrived in Cuenca just as the rain came. Grabbing a taxi we made it to our hostel and settled ourselves in before immediately heading back out. One drawback with these medium length journeys is that there is not necessarily a working toilet on-board. And the journeys aren't long enough for a food/toilet stop. This means I tend not to drink enough leading to me arriving dehydrated and normall...

08/11/12 Happy birthday to my lovely step mum Bev xxx The 2 hour journey to Riobamba was beautiful, up and down huge lush green mountains, over bridges and through small villages untill we were told to get off the bus so we could get the next one to Alausi. We were not however at the bus terminal but instead at a few bus offices where no one seemed to know what we should do to get to Alausi so we decided to get a taxi to the main terminal. Once here we got a bu...

4th November The journey was once again amazingly picturesque as we twisted and turned our way up and over the many mountains and volcanos that make up Ecuador. As we neared Baños the road disappeared through many tunnels in the hillside and the views we did have of waterfalls into the river Pastaza below us were only bettered by those brave enough to do one of the various canopy lines from one side of the gauge to the other, seemingly a very popular activit...

We were up with the alarm at 7am and before we knew it we had said goodbye to what had been our home for the past month and were hailing a taxi. After a little bartering between Neil and the taxi driver we hopped in and set off towards Quatumbe bus station. Once at the bus station we were waved over by a friendly lady at the counter who wrote on the bus number as well as the platform number for us. Because we were early (Neil's prefered way to travel!) we headed...