Banos - Cuenca - Vilcabamba

after leaving quito we headed down to BANOS (which is what you say in spanish when asking for the toilet, or bathroom i suppose). so i guess i have learnt some spanish which is good! it is about 6 hours south of quito and a really lovely place. a refreshing change from quito, smaller, quieter, less scary, but still set in between the most amazing scenery - mountains and volcanoes all around! with a recommendation for a hostel from the folk at the secret garden we made our way to 'plantas y blanco' and got a nice little (slightly musty smelling - although didn't notice that the first time we went into it so maybe its us stinky girls!?) room.'

the next day we decided to hire quad bikes to go and explore the waterfalls and cable cars in the surrounding mountains (sorry to you all who think that was a stupid idea). so the nice ecuadorians showed us (me and tamsin) how to drive them, gave us a map of the route and sent us off on our merry way.

all ready to go...

somehow, we took a wrong turn off the main road and ended up heading up a very steep and windy little track/road up the volcano (we only really discovered this when we got back). had a fun little drive up and about an hour or so into our drive, in our best spanish asked the only passing vehicle if we were going the right way. turned out that we weren't so we turned around and went back down. luckily we were at the bottom when tamsins breaks packed up! so we took the quads back and in the afternoon got the bus up to the waterfalls (cascadas). our trip on the quads was really beautiful though.

tam and laura stopping for a conflab...

at the first fall was a very dodgy looking cable car. it went 100m across the river and 500m above and it looked a bit like a shopping trolley suspended by just 2 wires.

the first cable car...

but it was fun, and we went across the next one too (a little bit higher and longer and they stopped it half way across to scare us)! the final waterfall we had to walk down through the jungle/forest to, and then view from a rope bridge (which held maximum 4 people)! then we had to walk back up!

one of the views from the bus, which was litterally weaving its way along the edge of the drop... agh!

the bus we were in had seats on the roof and when halfway along the trip the driver told us we could sit up on it we jumped at the chance. a few hairy corners and shear drops down into the river later the driver told us "get your cameras ready"- lauras translation. then a nice man also on the roof told us "put your cameras away to protect them"- we chose this translation. and luckily so as when we turned the corner we were driven VERY slowly right through a waterfall! so laura's spanish needs a bit or work still, nice try though.

in fact we thought we were getting quite good at understanding people but i think that most of the time we make it up and hear what we want to!

ooh, our hostel did steam baths so we thought that would be a good way to start the day, and it was. sat in a strange wooden cubicle then doused ourselves in cold water, the process repeated about 4 times before we sat in a cold bath then hosed down by little ecuadorian man. felt very refreshing afterwards.

anyways, so we headed off to CUENCA the following day, another spent on a bus and feeding on our new staple diet of crisps, banana crisps, water, coca cola, oreos, apples and bananas.

a very scary few roads later (unpaved, windy, high and eventually dark) we arrived. the buses here are mad, starting off reasonably comfortably then after stopping outside everyone's house along the way, they are packed! people, children, dogs etc. taking up all the space along the isles, sitting on your lap pretty much! we've been lucky to get seats and i'm dreading the day when we too have to stand for 8 hours on a rickety bus bombing down mountain roads. although i guess the drivers do these routes all the time so they are probably the safest people to be with, i hope?!

cuenca is a really lovely town, bigger than banos and very picturesque - cobbled streets, colonial style buildings etc. a brief visit but we took in the main sights - market, square, cathedral. then got our 3rd bus in almost as many days to VILCABAMBA.

whilst in banos we read about a hostel just outside vilcabamba called IZHCAYLUMA, rave reviews so we thought we would give it a go. and it is everything all those people said, really beautiful, quiet and german run. had a great dinner when we arrived then got shouted at by a scary old german bloke in our room for turning the light on!

following day we decided to try out the "mandango trail"- a 4 hour hike up the mountain and along the ridge at the top.

looking fresh faced and ready for the climb...

turned out to be more of a climb as it was soooo steep and we chose to leave in the heat of the day, not very clever. the sweet old little lady who we paid our dollar to to enter the walk kindly gave us a bottle of water (we did have some already) and a sachet of sugar, she clearly new what was to come!

1 hour later and after stops every minute or so, me and laura made it up to the first cross (just a single cross at the summit of this first part of the climb). the other 2 had turned around a bit earlier. in some parts the track was almost verticle and we got a bit scared whilst hovering on the edge of a hugely high drop. but we braved it and then crawled back down on our bums (a move laura has coined the "crab") just in time to get soaked on the way back to the hostel and a well deserved swim in the pool.

made it to the top and a stunning view over vilcabamba...

just chilling out in the sunshine today and me and tam borrowed bikes to head into town to use the computers, which was really fun but i think we may get in a taxi back up as it is all up hill!

so my next entry will be from somewhere in peru. we are leaving on the overnight bus over the boarder tonight. i forgot my camera today so still no pics i'm afraid, will try to remember next time though.

all in all have had a fabulous time in ecuador. looking forward to our whistle stop tour of peru as we embark upon about 5 days worth of buses in order to get to cuzco by satuday! agh!

Ecuador: Quito

arrived quite late in quito and felt really spaced out and weird, so went to bed fairly early on our first night.

then... went out and explored quito, had a wander around the old town down to the main square, plaza de indepencia. it was rather nice, quite square like with a church, palace and government type building around the edges. there was also some kind of protest going on, not sure what for but with our magnificent spanish, managed to windle it down to something about abortion? there was a woman dresed only in 2 pieces of paper with writing on covering her modesty, and then some others on massively high stilts.

then we walked along to a basilica just near our hostel and climbed up the spire on what can only be described as a very ropy wire-metal ladder which went up the side of the tower on the outside. was very very scared and felt a bit sick but once i got to the top had the most stunning views of the city! worth it i guess. and then i remembered i had to climb back down, which was even less fun than the ascent!

so after a walk to the new town, went into a supermarket and picked up some picnic stuff and went and sat in the sunshine. burnt my nose and now i look like rudolf! it was really boiling but it gets very cold and rainy in the afternoons. so we headed to a museum, very much like the british museum, but ecuadorian, to avoid the downpour. and a downpour it was! on the way home we were forced into a little cafe to have a bottle of coke and some over boiled corn on the cob, which had the texture of potato? hmm, well we tried it.

had ecuadorian night here at the hostel last night which was really fun. met another londoner and a crazy lady from nz who made us play drinking games. i was so good that i only had to drink one glass of lager, result! the others were not so talented and ended up a bit worst for wear. tam and claud went out with some of the people from here, laura was sick so couldnt quite face it and i didnt really feel for it so took myself off to bed. there is no sign of movement in our room at the mo, so i crept out to come and do my first blog entry.

we're heading down to banos today as we have to get to cuzco by the 2nd. we were hoping to go to cotopaxi for the day but all the tours are booked up and we dont really have enough time to wait until tomorrow, which is a great shame, but a good excuse to come back!

am on a very old school computer which appears to have no usb thing, so pictures are going to have to wait until we find somewhere with slightly more modern technology.

The Party

Hi to you all,

Countdown has begun, only 22 hours to go...

Just checking that I have figured out how to use this properly before I depart, so thought that I would write a little note to thank everybody who came to our party. I hope you enjoyed yourselves! It was really nice to see so many faces and be able to say goodbye to you all.

So on that note, I shall love you and leave you, just for a year. Have a good one and keep in touch, I want to hear what you are up to and all the exciting things that will be going on here. And I will try to keep you updated with my adventures.

Lots of love xx

Here are some party pics...



The four of us



My lovely family



Me and my kendell and my mummy

Welcome to my "BLOG"

Hi everybody...

So as you all know (seeings as you are reading this), I am heading off to travel the world very shortly (21 November). Usually so disorganised, I have decided to get organised and sort things out before I go and in plenty of time (hmmmm).

So, without further ado, please make sure that you log onto my blog for the duration of my trip and read about and look at pictures of the adventures as they unfold...