Cuenca

What can I say about Cuenca... It has a river running through it.



And lots of churches. Quite a nice town, pretty relaxed. You could probably stay here for a while and feel quite comfortable, but I´m off tomorrow!

The Devil´s Nostril

Oops, just realized that I uploaded some of these photos without rotating them. Oh well, connection here is a bit slow so we´ll have to live with it for a while.

Our trip down the devil´s nostril ended up quite difficult. All the tickets from Riobamba has sold out so we had to catch a bus to Alausu (sp?) and then hang around until around 1ish to actually get the train.

Alausu is a pleasant place, bit quiet and a bit weird:



The train turned out to be a bus like contraption on tracks. But the views were spectacular.



Halfway through the trip they let us all sit on the roof (apparently this isn´t really allowed anymore as a tourist was decapititated a few months back!).

Riobamba

Left Baños and on our way to Cuenca. From there I´ll fly back to Quito and then to the Galapagos!

Here we´re hoping to take a train ride down the "devil´s nostril".

Volcano erruption!

Puma!

The town was just invaded by a wild Puma!

Hopefully he´s now off to the local zoo, but it´s been an entertaining morning for everyone.

Quad Biking!

Went quad biking yesterday. Absolutely fantastic! I´ll add some photos here and a bit more prose later.



Got pretty far up the mountain, no views of the volcano as it was a little cloudy, but good views of the town.



There´s been a few recent erruptions and we came accross a pretty wild mud flow. The noise was incredible.

Still in Baños

Wend rafting yesterday. I have to say, it was a lot easier than last time when there was only two of us in the boat paddling. This time there were seven people and we shot down the river in half the time it normally takes.

The sun has also finally come out! We´re still quite high up in the mountains so it´s not crazy hot. But it is nice to finally get back into the shorts!

Baños

Adios Quito!



Escaped from Quito and I´m now in a place called Baños. On the way here, we passed a volcano that started errupting. Very exciting!

Here there are hot springs and baths (hence the name...).

Flights to the Galapagos booked. It´s all coming together.

Around Quito old town.

Went exploring around Quito old town the other day. They seem to have quite a surplus of churches.






And here´s the residence of El Presidente:



Hopefully a few of us will be heading to a place called Baños this afternoon. This morning I´m trying to book my flight to the Galapagos islands, but it´s a Sunday, so I´m not sure how much success I´m going to have...

Ecuador!

Flew in last night to Quito, Ecuador. It´s pretty high up so we were still flying through the clouds when we came in to land. Little bit surreal.

Haven´t quite found my feet yet. Think it´s going to take a few days to get into the swing of things.

Washington DC

London was pretty hectic. Wedding anniversaries, catching up with people and stag weekends. I need a holiday after all the excitement.

Now in Washington DC for a few days. Will be heading back down South on the 18th to carry on the adventure.