There were a few sore heads this morning. It was impossible to sleep in, the sun hitting the tents quickly turning them into small ovens so we had no real choice in getting up around 7am. Mid morning the crew were heading into the nearby surfing town of Mancora and many of us took the […]
Day 71 : Cuenca to Punta Sal (Peru)
Today we left Ecuador and entered Peru. The border crossing was different to any we had done before mainly because of the distance between border posts. Normally we would find ourselves at one passport control leaving a country then walking or driving through no mans land a short way to the passport control of the […]
Day 70 : Cuenca
In the morning we were guided by Vanessa to a Panama hat factory. Panama hats are made in Ecuador, the name apparently comes from when the workers on the Panama Canal were all given the hats to wear as they worked and it has stuck ever since. We were shown the process of making the […]
Day 69 : Ban?s to Cuenca
The drive from Ban?s to Cuenca took all day. Normally I don’t take many photos on driving day, being too snobby to shoot from a moving truck. Today that changed and I took lots of photos, probably helped by the beautiful weather and stunning scenery. Rather than write about driving from A to B here […]
Day 68 : Near Ban?s
We had nothing planned today and pretty much did a lot of relaxing. The sun came out for long periods and I was able to take down our tent and dry the groundsheet. We got some washing done and I figured out how to edit movies using the laptop. The horse riding continued in Keryn’s […]
Day 67 : Near Ban?s
Another day in paradise and today we went white water rafting. There were two rafts going down the Rio Pastaza and in our raft we had me, Keryn, Rhys, Vanessa and Danny. Danny and I were in the front. The other raft had Kerrie, Albert, Melissa and Sean. Much like our first rafting experience in […]
Day 66 : Near Ban?s
As this is pretty much the only place on our trip through South America where it’s possible to do canyoning I had signed up for this as todays activity. Shortly after 9am I was getting kitted up along with Sean, Daniel, Janet and Angie. We all got wetsuits, spray jackets, life jackets, abseiling harnesses and […]
Day 65 : The Amazon Jungle to Ban?s
Before leaving the jungle we had time for one more activity. Fausto led us on a short walk from the lodge and we met the boat on the other side of the island. Along the way we saw some spider monkeys in the trees, they didn’t seem very happy to see us with angry expressions […]
Day 64 : The Amazon Jungle
The morning boat trip took us to a local village. We waited on the shore while Fausto cleared our arrival and then walked through the plantations and gardens to reach some of the village buildings. We walked past a house and school to a field where locals were working clearing weeds from the crops of […]
Day 63 : The Amazon Jungle
The mornings activity saw us head upriver past the point where we had left the truck and onward to a curve in the river where we disembarked to start a nature walk in the jungle. Our guide was Fausto, a knowledgeable and friendly local man. For a few hours we slowly walked and every now […]
Day 62 : Otavalo to the Jungle
Our journey today was a reasonably long driving day out to the Amazon basin and the eastern edge of the Amazon jungle. It was a beautiful day and we drove past some amazing scenery as we drove over the Ecuadorian Andes and a high pass at 4200ft. Taking in the view One of the alpine […]
Day 61 : Quito to Otavalo
The group met at the hotel reception just before 8am and we were taken a short way down the road to where our truck, Tranquilo, was parked. Vanessa showed up around the vehicle and our bags were loaded into the lockers and then we were inside and heading for the equator park. Vanessa was talking […]