John and Lynnette's fun trip - Recently Updated Pages

Arrival In Paradise

John&Lynnette — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:35:09 CDT

Well we certainly thought it was!

Our arrival in Miami in the middle of the afternoon was wonderful. The plane ride was uneventful, though on time at least.

In fairly short order, we were through immigration and customs, and, having collected our bags, we were heading for the hire car collection point. Minor snag was that the information board which gave us the telephone number for the Alamo office, turned out to give us the wrong number. We asked advise and were told to ust step out of the airport and flag down the first Alomo bus, which we did. The driver simply said 'No problem, I'll take you to the office', and off we went.

Arriving at the office, we handed over the voucher for our car. The clerk was helpful in the extreme, but regretted that they didn't have any of the type of car we had booked available. Again, 'No problem, I'll simply upgrade you! Go out to the lot and look for zone 16. Choose any car in that zone that you like, the keys are on the door.'

And so we did. A beautiful pearlescent cream Buick, 'fully loaded' as they say. Auto trans, leather interior, automatic lights, automatic windscreen wipers, spotlessly clean was ours, well at least for the next few days. Cost wise, well it cost less to hire this car for 10 days, than it would to hire a Ford Ka for a week in England. We were well pleased.

I may have said this before, but one thing I really liked about the US, is the ease of driving. Sure, the cars are mainly automatic, and drive themselves really, but the other drivers are always polite and willing to give way. There may be six-lane highways, but the signage is generally very good, and changing lanes is a breeze. At first, being 'undertaken' was a little disconcerting, but you soon got used to keeping your eyes open, and watching what other cars are doing. Also the rule that you can turn right even if the lights are on red is also disconcerting. Of course, if you are on foot and happen to be crossing the road, even with a green man, there may be cars who turning right, and these will then be crossing your path, but with courteous driving, it isn't a drama. Of course, there are still idiots, but mainly everyone stuck to well below the speed limit in town, and nobody seemed intent on mowing down any one who happened to walk across the road on a red man. I decided whilst in the US that when we finally did return to the UK, I wouldn't bother to buy a manual gear change car, it would be automatics for me from now on! Oh., and in case you are wondering, I don't kow what happened to the date stamp on the camera - my best guess is that at some point the camera got damp, and this affected the settings. All I can tell you is that on this picture of the car, it was 20th August.

Anyway, our first night in Miami was spent at the South Beach Marriott (very expensive), but as we had planned to head to the Florida Keys the next day, and we were already tired from our late night/early morning start from Cartegena, we couldn't be bothered looking for a less expensive place.

So, after settling into our room, we changed into swimming costumes and spent an hour in the flat calm sea, just on the beach less than 2 minutes from our hotel room. After a meal at 'Pink', we had an early night as we planned to some some shopping the following day before heading to Homestead, half way between Miami and Key Largo.

The first picture on this page was taken a couple of miles out to sea, as we stopped at Key Largo to go fishing. Lynn caught this Angel fish, which was the biggest fish that we caught. I managed to bag several much smaller snappers, but neither of us were anywhere in the running for the biggest fish of the day, which turned out to be a shark, a couple of feet long, caught by someone else in the party. After spending a pleasant few hours fishing, we returned to the harbour, got in the car, and headed to our planned overnight stop at a Days Inn on Isla Morada, (or Esmeralda as we mistakenly called it).

There we met a beautiful male white parrot called Sugar, who actusally owned the hotel! And could speak very well - read more about Sugar, and see the pictures, in the next blog.

Flight to Sea Level

John&Lynnette — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:47:09 CDT

Charts our Journey from Lima to an even Better Place

Having stayed only one night in Lima, we were again up early to get to the airport for the first of our two flights to take us back to sea-level, and civilisation for some much needed R&R. (yes I do know Lima is at sea level, but I'm using poetic license here to make the story better!). Flight number 1 was Lima to Bogota, capital of Columbia. The flight was a mid-afternoon one and lasted only a couple of hours, but because of the usual security checks we had to get to the airport quite early. Once we arrived, our bags were checked through to Cartegena, our second destination of th day, so we only had to enter the country, wait for the internal flight and arrive. Of course, we had to wait for a couple of hours at Bogota airport, so we didn't get a chance to see anything of the city. The flight there was uneventful, and, once we had cleared immigration, we could only wait for the next flight to be called, though the immigration officer was slightly bemused that we were transitting through his country to the US, rather than having a direct flight from Lima. I explained that this was because the flights were much cheaper with stops!

We only waited a short while before we had to board our internal flight to Cartegena, which was due to arrive around 11pm. We then had an overnight stay before boarding the next flight. However, we didn't have a hotel booked, a we figured that there was bound to be an airport hotel, and, anyway, if push came to shove, we could always spend a few hours in an airport chair. HOW WRONG WE WERE!

The plane duly arrived, and, of course, being an internal flight, all we had to do was pick up our bags, no customs control to go through! We were a little surprised about this, but there you go. Clearly, international transit passengers weren't expected to take this route.

We were somewhat dismayed to discover that although it is an internaional airport, it is one which closes as soon as the last flight has arrived, and we were it. Plus there was no airport or near airport hotels. Eventually, we asked for help, and a kindly lady told a taxi driver to take us to a nearby hostel. Although near by, it was also full, so he took us into town to a fairly swish hotel, where we were told the only room was a suite, and quite an expensive one at that (no surprise, given that it was now after midnight, and it was obvious we were desperate, so he knew he could charge whatever he wanted. Even given that we would need to be away from the hotel by 6.30am, so would have less that six hours use, we still had to pay the full price. The room, however, was lovely.

The next morning we took a taxi back to the airport, and we discovered what a lovely walled town Cartegena was. A real shame that we didn't have more time to explore this city, which we have learned is known as the prettiest city in the whole of South America. But our plane wouldn't wait.

Peru 8 - Puno and Lake Titi Caca

John&Lynnette — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:09:37 CDT

Off to Puno, and The Lake

The journey to Puno was an arduous one for both Lynn and I. Again we had to be up early, and we were then collected from our hotel and taken to the coach for the six hour journey. It needn't have been that long, but there were several stops along to way to visit sites of interest, and for lunch, which at least afforded us the opportunity to meet with some alpacas and llamas, like the one pictured here with Lynn.

Puno turned out to be a tourist town, similar to, but larger than Aguaes Caliente, but at 3800 metres, it was also higher. The weather here was very changeable, and even in the one and half days we had before our trip out on to Lake TitiCaca and the panned overnight stay with an island-based, Quechuan-speaking family, we had everything from bright warm sunshine, to a few flurries of snow!

On the day we arrived, it was particularly cold, and the staff had placed hot water bottles in our king-sized bed to warm the place up! They had even provided a heater to take the chill off the air in our room.

However, one of the first things which had to be done after climbing to our third floor room, was that Lynn had to be given oxygen to help her breathe. Only for a few minutes, but it was fairly indicative of some of the problems we had both been suffering since our arrival in South America. We had both suffered on various occasions from altitude sickness, and we found that any sort of exercise caused us real difficulties with chest pain, coughing, lethargy, and general ill-health.

Many of you will know that Lynn and I often go walking when we have time back in England. Typically, on a Sunday, we will walk anywhere from 5 to 10 kilometres along the river bank, or when we go camping. Couldn't do this in Peru without gasping for every breath, and climbing for us was very difficult. We were often slower than our younger counterparts, (though we did everything that they did), it really was a drain on our physical resources to keep up sometimes.

Anyway, we were scheduled to take a tour of Lake Titi Caca, the highest navigable lake in the world. At 3600 metres above sea level, this lake is right on the border between Peru and Bolivia, with Peru 'owning' 60% of the area, an Bolivia the rest. It really is like a huge inland sea, and, in sunny weather, it could easily be mistaken for the Med, with its scattered islands and different communities.

The first of these which we were due to visit was a community of indians, who live on reed islands, which they build themselves. The reeds grow naturally, and they use them to make the island, to navigate the island in reed boats, to eat, and to make all kinds of artifacts for trade. It seemed very strange to step onto these islands, as your foot sinks several inches into the reeds, but you don't quite touch the water.

These people are very friendly, and, they were keen to show us their way of life. They were quick to point out that they chose to live on these reed islands, and that they could, if they wished, leave to go to the towns and cities of the mainland. They all said that their lives were stress free, and that although living conditins were not always ideal, they worked for themselves, and used their skills to make goods to sell or barter as they wished. They certainly semed to be happy. Their children are taught to read and write by a local teacher who comes every day by boat during term time. Electricity is supplied by solar panels supplied by order of the President, and, for them, life is good, even if somewhat simple. They seem to have much better lives than the Ecuadorian Indians, who live in mud huts, often whole families in one room, with no electricity. It does seems a shame that tourism is spoiling what seems to be an almost idyllic lifestyle, provided you can put up with the lack of hot water and flushing toilets!

Soon we were off to one of the more conventional islands, where we enjoyed an al fresco lunch cooked by our guide and served to us on paper plates. The setting could almost have been n a Greek island, as the sky was clear blue, and the sun shone. After this we were taken to another island where we were allocated to a family who would look after us overnight, providing an evening meal and breakfast before our journey back to Puno. This family lived on their farm, in a few mud-brick buildings. Their kitchen and dining room was in one such block, and, lit only by a candle, and the fire, we were served a vegetarian meal - though the have animals on the farm, these are sold for money and meat is only eaten on special occasions. The family spoke Quechuan, the local Indian languauge, and only a smattering of Spanish, and no English at all, so we had to get along by sign-language as best as we could. Our room had a neon light but the power was low, and using anything else electric caused the light to fluctuate from almost 2 candlepower down to half a candle power. It was going to be long night, as the privy was some 30 metres away, using a bucket to flush, and had no light except that of a wind up torch, lent to us by the owner.

Before bed tough, we had to dress up on local costumes, ( a frilly dress for Lynn and a Poncho for me) and walk in the pitch dark into the town for an eveing of local dancing, hen walk back in the dark to our sleeping room. It turned out to be a cold and windy night!

We were up bright and early again the next day, as we had to catch our boat at 8am, for the return trp to Puno. We had to endure yet another island stop, this time to climb several hundred metres to the top, walk around three-quaserts of the island, have lunch and then walk down over 500 steps to get to the harbour! Although the weather was beautiful, the thin air took it's toll from me, and I was fair knackered before we got back onto the boat. Shortly after our arrival, the boat set off back in the direction of home. It was a beautiful ride back though, the strong sunshine burning our faces, though I kept my pPeruvian hat on to keep the sun off my head, which had been burnt to crisp the previous day!

Arriving back in Puno by mid-afternoon, we were sent back to the hotel in a taxi where we enjoyed hot showers, and hour in bed, then off for dinner.

Puno was set to be our last 'holiday' stop in Peru as, much as we had enjoyed ourselves for all the time we were away, both Lynnette and I agreed that we needed to be back in civilisation for some much needed recuperaton, at, or as near to, sea-level as we could be. To this end, we searched the interweb for flights, and booked one to Lima, from Puno, and then on to a secret destination, via Bogota and Cartegena in Columbia. Keep reading the blog to find out where we end up, and also what happened for us to be forcibly evacuated after only a couple of days!

Peru 7 - Leaving Aguaes Caliente & Off to Puno

John&Lynnette — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:49:07 CDT

The Journey Back to Cuzco & On To Puno and Lake TitiCaca

The photo here shows the Inca statue in the centre of Aguaes Caliente, where we stayed the night following our visit to Machu Picchu and our chance meeting with Amsi, alias Gaijin.

Our journey back by train was fairly uneventful. Once again the train was fairly full, and the staff provided a snack meal which was served to a fairly high standard, and included coca tea, and a soft drink.

The journey back was still due to take some four and halkf hours, so we sttled back to snoozxe, look at the magnificent scenery through the panoramic windows, or read.

The staff, however, had laid on some entertainment, which included a display of dancing, and a fashion show consisting of clothing items made from alpaca wool. These items were very expensive, with even the cheapest alpaca scasrf costing over $100, with a jumper costing as much as $500! Whilst the quality of the finished products was excellent, we couldn't afford any of them, though several of the others in our carriage were quite happy to get out their credit cards.

It was all very entertaining, and the others in the carriage seemed to apreciate it.

The only problem with the fashion show was that it seemed to go on for too long, and though the female crew member certainly seemed to enjoy the attention, the male waiter was clearly not so happy at being the centre of attention!

Peru 6 - Return of Gai Jin

John&Lynnette — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:01:53 CDT

So, we were now at the bottom of mountain, and walking up the long long street, that would lead, we hoped, to our hotel, where our bags should be awaiting us.

The street was very long, and all uphill. After walking a good quarter of a mile, we were knackered, so we stopped off at one of the many local hostelries, and ordered 'Una cervaza granda, y dos vassos, per favour'. Our drink was brought to us fairly promptly, as were the two glasses. This beer, however, was a full 1.1 litre bottle, much bigger than we usually get. but no matter, we poured a couple and settled down to talk about what we had seen.

Only 5 minutes later, we spotted a familiar face also walking up the hill, looking at the shops. It was 'Gaijin', the Japanese student we had met on one of our previous tours. She was very surprised to see us, and seemed quite delighted when we invited her to share our much larger than usual bottle of beer.

It turns out that Gaijins real name is Amsi, and she is a 24 year old tourism student, who wants to change the way that Japanese tourists go abroad, and at the same time, help the local communities of wherever the tour is. It seems that the Japanese rarely go on a holiday that is not already pre-packaged for them, with every detail sorted out, from their 1st class flight and hotel, to the trips they do once they are their. Amsi's experience is that these holidays are already bought and paid for in Japan, with very very little being spent in the local economy, and she has the fire i her belly to change all that! Well good luck to her.

I fetched her another glass and poured her a beer and we all chatted happily away. Only a few minutes later, walking down the street from the opposite direction, came a friend of hers, whom she was at school with, and who had met her here in Agues Caliente completely out of the blue. I forget his name (something Japanese no doubt), but he was soon invited to join us and help us finish this huge bottle of beer.

Pretty soon, it came to time to pay. Our waiter came by, and he said he would be back shortly with the check. Both of our guests offered to contribute to the bill, which we declined. A girl came by and told us the total of the bill, and we gave her the money. She went off to make change. Shortly afterwards, our original waiter came by with the bill, and seemed totally non-plussed when I said I had just paid a girl and was waiting for change. 'No girl work here!' he said, before going back into the bar. Ooops - had we been robbed? It certainly looked that way, so I went into the bar, in search of the waiter or the manager to try to sort this out. Five long minutes passed, then the girl turned up with our change - boy was I relieved. Turns out the waiter hadn't seen her arrive to start her shift, and it was all just a huge misunderstanding. Anyway once it was sorted out, the two students took their leave and we went in search of our hotel, then food then to turn in for the night.

The following day for us was fairly quiet. Our train back to Cuzco wasn't until 3.30pm, so we had plenty of time to kill, exploring the town. We also decided to go to the hot baths, which were located only a couple of hundred metres from the hotel. We spent an enjoyable couple of hours there, though it wasn't quite up to the standards of the baths in Banos.

Peru 5 - Machu Picchu

John&Lynnette — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:07:01 CDT

Machu Picchu - The 'Lost' Inca City, and Wonder of the World

So, up very early, and off to catch the train for our visit to the famous Machu Picchu, and an overnight stay in nearby Aguas Caliente (the village which serves as a transit station for buses up the mountain to the entry). Those of you who know a bit of Spanish will know that Aguas Caliente means Hot Water (or Hot Springs in this case).

There are three trains which go to Macchu Picchu every day. The 6.00am train is for backpackers, and isn't very comfortable, and is often crowded. The journey in this train is also very slow - taking almost 6 hours to get there.

The 7.00am train is more comfortable, has 'panoramic' windows offering good views of the mountains and scenery on the way there, and offers breakfast on board, served by uniformed staff. This train takes only 4 hours to get there, and passes the back-packers train which waitds in a siding. In addition, because it is cold in the morning, (some cars we passed had ice on their windows), the staff issue travellers with alpaca blankets to keep them warm.

The third train is called 'The Hiram Bingham' after the American professor who 'rediscovered' Machu Picchu in 1911, and promptly stole many of the artifacts and treasures, which now reside in the Yale University Museum. This train is a first class train, offering gourmet food and excellent service, but at a whopping price. It leaves at 8.00am but gets to Machu Picchu first.

We had opted for the middle train.

The train set off promptly at 7am. After going about 1 kilometer, the train abruptly stopped, and reversed. Then off it went again, for another kilimoter, then stopped and reversed again. It took us a little while to work out that the train was not going back along the same track, but was zig-zagging up the mountain. Soon it had completed it's manoevering, and off it went at a fairly modest speed, on it's 4 hour journey.

The views through the windows of the glaciers were excellent.

Though the journey seemed endless at times, it was interesting, and as the train was pretty full, we son got talking to those sitting in the neighbouring seats.

Soon enough we passed the backpackers train, and we were soon passed in turn by the 'Hiram Bingham'. We arrived at the train station in Agues Caliente around 10.45am.

We were met at the station by a man waving our names on a placard - he was there to take our bags to our hotel, as we had been instructed to waste no time doing this ourselves, but to head off to the bus station a short walk away to board the bus for the last leg of the journey up the mountain to the city.

After to almost 30 miniute drive up he steeply winding road, we were there!

Using our Tourist Pass once more, we passed through the entry gate, to meet up with our guide for the day, a male version of the infamous Jenni, named Hector.

Hector was very knowledgeable, but he resembled Jenni in his desire to stick to a schedule, so he quickly herded his group altogether, gave us a quick lecture on how we had to stick together, and not to stop for pictures, unless he told us we had time to do so!

So we started climbing the steps to one of the best view points, from which we could see the city of Machu Picchu, the mountain behind it (also called Machu Picchu, meaning Old Mountain) and the mountain in front of it, called Wayna Picchu, or Young Mountain.

Machu Picchu bills itself as a Wonder of the World, and it truly is. Maybe not quite on par with the temples at Anghor Wat in Cambodia, but not far off. This town was built on a mountain top, with natural stone thsat had to be hauled 100 kilometres from where they were quarried, and then pulled up the moutain. It is an incredible feat, made more so when you realise it was built in the early 1500's, and took over 50 years to complete.

The biggest problem we had was the altitude. Though slightly lower than Cuzco, at 3600 metres, climbing up the steep trails took it's toll on us both, leaving us breathless and struggling to keep up with the younger members of our party, (and Hector of course).

Soon enough the tour was finished and we had some time to ourselves to have lunch (take your own, the restaurant offers a buffet at $30 each, and the cafe was very overpriced - $15 for two burgers, 1 coke and 1 water). We did some further exploring of the city on our own after this, and then caught one of the frequent buses back down the mountainside, so that we could make our way to our hotel for the overnight stay.

We did have a bit of a surprise in store but you can read all about that in Peru 6 - Return of Gai Jin.

Peru 4 - Dancing

John&Lynnette — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:30:06 CDT

Peru 4 - Local Dancing

Our final day in Cuzco saw us visit a number of local churches and land-marks, and then we attended a local dancing show in the Cultural Centre Theatre of Cuzco.

Again, this last was included in our Tourist Pass, and so I suppose it turned out to be good value - the Pass also pays the entry into Machu Picchu, to whih we are heading by very early train tomorrow!

The dancing was very interesting, lasting about 90 minutes in all, and showing several different styles both of dance, and dress.

Although the dancing was interesting, I was quite surprised to see that the theatre was full, many of those present were clearly locals, and they were clearly enjoying themselves.

Though the weather during the day was warm and sunny, evening in Cuzco are downright cold (it's at 3600 metres after all), and so not only were we well wrapped up, but hot coca tea was served during the interval.

It was quitre interesting to see the scant regard paid to Health & Safety in the theatres. The theatre was full, with more patrons than fixed seats, so foldaway chairs were brought out, with these sited at the ends of the aisles, quickly blocking the exits!

Glad to see the H&S police weren't present.

Peru 3 - The Sacred Valley

John&Lynnette — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:56:42 CDT

The next day, we were booked to go to The Sacred Valley, one of the major Inca sites in the Cuzco vicinity. We desperately hoped that our guide wouldn't be Jenni...but, alas, I'm afraid it was.

To the usual imprecations about not being late back to the bus, we boarded and headed out of the city.

We were soon at the site of The Sacred Valley, and Jenni led us to area. Once again, we had to show our tourist passes, without which we could not gain entry.

The site is a large Inca ruin, in fact, a very large site, but very interesting for all that.

We were 'treated' to a short lecture from Jenni ('As I was saying....'), telling us about the history of the site, and then giving us some free time to explore the area for ourselves. See picture below of Jenni giving this lecture.

The site is pretty close to the 'White Jesus' monument, which is clearly visible from Cuzco during the day, and brightly lit at night.

Sadly, after too short a time for a really good look, we were herded back onto the bus, and off to a 'shopping opportunity', that is, to a local village with hand made craft items for sale.

Most of you will know that these are not my favourite past time, but I do enjoy the bargaining part!

Peru 2 - 'As I was saying...'

John&Lynnette — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:05:56 CDT

Right, well as the title suggests, this saying has begun to get on our nerves a bit. This is because our tour guide, Jenni, used this saying as a preface to every sentence, and I do mean every sentence.

We decided to take a tour after arriving at Cusco on the advice of Veronica, who we met at the airport. We hadn't booked a hotel in advance, so we decided to seek the advice of one of the many hotel agents who were ast the airport. Veronica arranged the hotel and the transfer, and led us to a taxi for the 20 minute drive.

The hotel was in a reasonably good area, and was well enough appointed for what we wanted. As we were tired, Veronica suggested coming back the next day to tell us about the tours and options available. Though we had been happy going it alone, our conversations with other travellers had suggested that here in Cusco, and Macha Picchu to come, we would see more on an organised tour.

Veronica duly turned up next morning, and on her advice, we booked our City Tour, to be followed by an overnight stay in Aguas Caliente, the village which caters for tourists visiting Macha Picchu. Those of you who speak Spanish will recognise that Aguas Caliente means 'Hot Water' or 'Hot Water', more about this later.

Anyway, the city tour is a tour of the city, plus the four or five Inca sites which lie within 10km of the city. Included in the tour are several museum and church visits, and an evening of traditional dancing in a local theatre.

First shock is that all of these require the visitor to purchase a tourist ticket - this is a single ticket which gives entry to most of the main attractions. You can't buy individual entry to the sites, the full ticket must be bought, but as it includes entry to Macha Picchu, well, we soon convinced ourselves that it was worth it.

The problem was Jenni.

Stalin could have learned lessons from that girl. As we were the only English speakers, apart from a young Japanese girl (more about her later), Jenni started her tour in Spanish, then translated to what she classed as English. Well, she started off with a list of rules, mainly about the dire consequences of not sticking to her schedule, or keeping up with her commentary. 'Be one minute late back to the bus, and we will not stop to pick you up, I have a schedule to keep to' being one of her favourite lines.

Nevertheless, the local Inca sites were interesting enough, with or without commentary. I know she was trying hard to impart her information to us, but after a while, her constant, 'Jenni's group, this way' or 'As I was saying...' or dire threats to those who dawdled or who didn't get on the bus quick enough, grated on our nerves.

The tour though was interesting, and worth the effort.

Our next day was scheduled to be rest day, before we tackled the very early start and train ride to Macha Picchu, which deserves a page of its own. Suffice to say that we used the rest day to visit many of the more local attractions of Cusco.

The next blog will be about our visit to Machu Picchu, and our meeting with Gai Jin, (Japanese for 'foreigner'), the young Japanese girl who we oroiginally met on this city tour. See you all soon.

Peru 1 - Getting to Cusco

John&Lynnette — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:00:19 CDT

Hi again. If I recall correctly, the last time I updated was whilst we were waiting in the VIP lounge in Guaquil, Ecuador for our flight to Lima and on to Cusco.

Well, we duly boarded the flight to Lima, had champagne served us before take-off, whilst the cattle-class passengers filed passed us, and looked on in envy at our fully reclining seats, and more than enough legroom for little me to lie on the floor and not even touch the back of the seat in front! Oh what luxury!

Sadly the flight was only 110 minutes, then we landed in Lima. After a very short wait ( we were off-loaded first from the plane), we picked up our back-packs, and headed through customs control.

Like Mexico, this entailed me pressing a button on a post and waiting 4 seconds to see if the light turned red or green. Red means that your bags are searched, green means off you go.

Incredibly, the light god decided that we weren´t carrying contraband of any kind and turned green. We were through!

We picked a taxi for the short ride to our hotel, and we were in our room 35 minutes after landing! Can´t be bad.

we had a quick snack, and headed off to bed, as we had to be up early next morning to catch our connection to Cusco - an internal flight, barely an hour away.

After an interminable wait at the airport, we boarded and headed south. The weather was warm and sunny, with no cloud cover, so we had a series of gloriuos views of the Andes.

Unilke Ecuador, Peru is much drier and so the landscape is much less green. It i also more barren that Ecuador, with a lot less in the way of cultivated land. The Andes here are also much higher, so there isn´t much in the way of moutain top villages.

As we descended for landing, the mountains grew ever larger out of the windows, until eventually we were flying between the mountains, turning left and right with the twists and turns of the valley.

A steep left bank brought us around a tall mountain, and onto our final approach.

We landed at the small airport of Cusco, with it´s single runway, and short taxi-ways, looking much like Luton airport did 30 years ago, when the kids were young.

Not having a hotel booked in advance, we approached one of the many agents operating just inside the terminalm shack, and, after being told about several hotels, we opted for the Cusco Imperial Hotel. this hotel is a bit more expensive that those which we had stayed in whilst in Ecuador (US$70 a night, or 35 quid) but is proving to be excellent value.

Peru is markedly more expensive than Ecuador anyway, and we had decided that at least for time being, we should have some comforts, including a hairdryer for Lynn.

We were at the hotel in short time, and soon we were ensconced in our room, having a couple of hours sleep.

We had arranged to meet our tour operator, Veronica, the following morning (Tuesday) to decide which tours we were going to take.

The next instalment will reveal what happened when we visited the local Inca sites, and our meeting with tour guide ´Jenni´, aka ´Stalin´!

Ecuador 8a-Shrunken Heads

John&Lynnette — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:28:38 CDT

Hmm, well not quite sure where this page went to, but a couple of days ago we visited the main Banco Populaire Museum in Cuenca, and followed this up on Monday 28 july with a visit to IngaParga, the main Ecuadorian Inca site.

The Museum was spectacular. This is a huge building with exhibits on 4 floors. It cost $6 each for entry (half price if you look young enough to be a student!), so off wen went.

The exhibits are well arranged, and have a large number of exhibits from all of the indiginous Indian tribes.

These include artifacts, musical instruments, village exhibitions, and a variety of Shrunken Heads - real human heads which have been shrunk by Indians. These are usually revenge killings on members of opposing tribes - the explanation said that the indians did not take or shrink the heads of white men (the Conquistadores), as they regarded whites as `an inferior people`.

Very intersting to see, and only slightly gruesome. There were 5 or six heads in all, perfectly preserved and well detailed.

All in all, a very good value exhibition.

This was followed up by a visit to IngaParga, which turned out to be quite expensive for what was a relatively small site. Although we could have stayed for 4 hours and caught the late bus back, we had completed the whole site in less than an hour, so we caught the 1pm bus back home. All in all, this was a disappointment.

Ecuador 9 - Leaving

John&Lynnette — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:17:49 CDT

Well, it´s Wednesday 30th July and I am writing this in Guayaquil airport as we wait for our flight to Lima, Peru.

Having spent a fairly uneventful day yesterday finishing our sight seeing in Cuenca, where we visited the `old` church museum, and the CIDAP museum of popular art, we had a quiet dinner in a `posh` hotel and then retired to bed.

Up early this morning, we headed to the bust station to get our bus. I was quite surprised that the fare was $7 each for the four hour journey. Typically, fares here run at about $1 per hour of travel time, but it turned out that we had caught an express bus, which travelled almost non-stop.

Travel here is almost ridiculously cheap. s I said, it is typically $1 per hour. All the buses have a young `conductor`whose job is to check tickets, take fares and to act as a caller as the coah passes anyone who looks like they may want a ride. The caller hangs out of the door and shouts the bus destination and stops in-between - and if the person signals, then he tells the driver to stop. Although there are bus stops, our experience shows that you can get on and off almost anywhere.

It seems also that the indigineous indians seem to travel quite a lot - and why not, when it is so cheap?

Anyway, here we are in the business-class VIP lounge (!), with free food, drinks, internet etc. so Lynnette and I are making the most of it. Next missive will be from Peru. My daughter Claire tells me that she has received the last CD we sent her and will be posting some new pictures soon,

Ecuador 8 - Journey to Cuenca

John&Lynnette — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:16:38 CDT

Wednesday afternoon, and we have completed the spectacular Devils Nose train ride, so now we are heading off to Cuenca (Ecuadors ´prettiest´ city).

This a usually a 3 hour bus journey, over some pretty rough roads ( the sort I´d hesitate to take an Army 4x4 on) but we didn´t expect any problems, though the bus driver did load us all up (almost full of gringos, all of whom had been on the train ride), drove 100 metres, stopped the bus and annouced it was his break time, and we wouldn´t be going anywhere for 30 minutes, so we had to get off the bus.

This was just enough time for a quick bite to eat ($2 for 2 bowls of chicken soup, and two colas), and then we set off.

As I said before, the roads were very rough, with loads of shear drops, but after about 90 minutes, we stopped, almost at the summit of a moutain. There were some men at work, widening the road, and just minutes before, they had had a major landslide, as they had cut too far into the mountainside. we were the first vehicle to arrive on the scene after the slide, to find the road blocked for 50 metres or so by tons of earth and rocks. Two diggers and bulldozer were about to start clearing the debris, which, after about an hour, they had taken the top off the slide, and created a road up to the flattended top of the slide, and down the other side.

Our bus was to be guinea pig to see if the men had done thir job sufficiently well in creating this way through the slide.

Our by then nervous driver, set off at a crawling pace, up the side of the hill. Several rocks battered the side of the bus as some of the earth moved under the weight. We were sitting nervously watching the shear drop only what seemed like inches from our bus.

At last, after what seemed like a very long time, but was probably only a few seconds, the bus reached to summit, and started down the other side. More rocks and earth slid into the bus, knocking it ever nearer to the edge.

With a last burst of speed, we were through the land slide, and back onto more solid road. Oh how we cheered and gave the driver a round of applause!.

And so the journey went on. After the hold up, we didn´t arrive until around 5.30pm in Cuenca, but a short taxi ride took us to our hotel. They only had an inside room, so we booked only for two nights, and today, 25 July, we moved in to a much better hotel, where we will stay intil we head to Guayaquil on Wedmesday morning, to get our eveing flight to Lima, then on the following day to Cuzco, some 1000 miles to the south. More news to follow soon

Ecuador 7 - The Devils Nose

John&Lynnette — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:00:53 CDT

So we arrived in Riobamba on Monday afternoon and checked in to our hotel. Riobamba is a couple of hours south of Baños by bus, and the climate is much warmner and lot less damp!

After a quick shufty around, we were glad that we had decided to take all of our stuff with us on the train ride, as Riobamba is a dead, one horse town, where we were lucky to find a restaurant open at 7pm for dinner!

Early Tuesday morning we headed to the train station, only a couple of hundred metres from our hotel, intending to buy tickets for the train which takes us to Auyosil, where we would catch The Devils Nose train journey.

As we were trying to book our tickets it became clear why the town was so deserted. The train was only supposed to run on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, but the clerk informed us that there was a track problem on the way to Auyosil, so we would have to catch a bus from outside the station (at 6am!!) to make it in time for the train around the Devils Nose.

This clearly was a situation which had gone on for some time, and word had gotten around the travelling comminuty that it made more sense to head for Auyosil directly, rather than via Riobamba!

Anyway, next morning, there we were all packed and ready to go on the bus. And off we went, not at all sorry to be leaving Riobamba.

Two hours later we were in Auyosil, and we then had to queue for ages to get tickets for the ride.

As it turned out, the trains ran every 30 minutes or so until at least lunchtime, so there was only a short wait in the sunshine for the ´train´.

I say ´train´because it turned out to be a bus body (complete with steering wheel), married to a couple of train bogies. The engine, clutch and gearbox of the bus had been married somehow to train part, and it all seemed to work, even though the steering wheel was merely for decoration (except for the horn, which was used a lot to clear the line of sheep, llama´s, Indians etc).

We climbed on to roof, and waited for the train to depart.

Boy, it was a ride worth waiting for!

The Devils Nose describes the approximate shape of the route the train takes, but nothing prepared us for the steep down hill track, nor for the apparent nearness to the edge (and 500 metre sheer drops), but it was Oh so worth it for the views. These were truly spectactular, and I hope the pictures we took do the journey justice.

The downward run took about 3/4 of an hour, then we had to leave thr roof top, and allow those passengers who were insode the coach to take our place for the return journey.

It was almost as spectaclur from inside the train, but not nearly as much fun!

Litle were we to know what was in store for us on the journey from Auyosil to Cuenca - that was another thrill ride!

Ecuador 6 - Sickness

John&Lynnette — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:35:11 CDT

Hi there once again. Although it´s Friday, 25 July, we thought we should let you know what has happended since last week.

Whilst in Baños, and after our Jungle trip, we both had several days where we simply did not feel well. This we think was a combination of a number of factors:

1) We were very tired after the excitement of the white water rafting (you will remember we were dunked in the river)

2) We had been taking an anti-malarial drug, Malarone, both during and after our trip to the Jungle,

3) Baños is a very damp environment and we simple couldn´t get warm, and stay that way! Much as we liked the place, it did rain a great deal, and both our room and clothes were staying damp all night through.

Anyway, the upshot was that we both had several days where we couldn´t be more than 5 minutes away from the loo - talk about Montezumas Revenge!

So, Friday Saturday, Sunday and Monday we did very little, although we did manage to pack our things on Monday and head for Riobamba, where we were going to take a roof-top train ride through the Devils Nose.

Fortuantely, by Tuesday we were on the last day of the Malarone treatment, and so things could only get better.

Ecuador 5 - The Public Baths

John&Lynnette — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:46:48 CDT

Saturday - Well after doing nothing on Thursday and Friday (except sleeping and recovering from The Jungle), we decided to brave the Hot Thermal Baths, along with a zillion Ecuadorians who had decided to have their weekly/monthly bath along with us.

We had been warned by a Canadian family that using the baths at the weekend wasn´t recommended simply because Baños is full every weekend with Indians who come here to do their washing and then to bathe in the Hot Thermal Springs, heated by Tungarhau, the local volcano which last erupted in August 2006.

We were a little trepidatious about heading for the baths, but neiother of us felt very well yesterday, and we were simply not up to it, after our trials and tribulations of the previous few days. So, with our day bag packed with our cozzies, off we headed to The Hot Thermal Baths, situated only 250 metres from our hotel.

Once we arrived, we saw that clothes etc can be placed in a box and left behind a counter for safety. The attendant duly informed us that there were three baths, a pool at 35 degrees C, one at 20 degrees, and one ´frijo´ie cold. But we first had to shower (with soap) in a thermal shower.

We were quite relieved to see that ALL of the zillions of Ecuadorians who were also there, also had to shower first, and many of them were really making a meal of it!

So, after a quick dowse, we headed for the Hot Pool. Though only 1 metre deep, the 35 degree heat was fantastic, and very very soothing on itchy bites.

We stayed there for about 20 minutes then we moved on to the cooler pool. This one is much larger, but is also cooler, but not cold.

After some 20 minutes in this pool, we decided to try the cold pool, but after going ankle deep, we changed our minds and went back to the Hot pool, before drying off and coming home.

The Canadians who had warned us against bathing at the weekend were WRONG! We had a really good time, and, although the pool was full, it was plain to see that all of the locals had had a good scrub before entering the pool themselves.

For those of you who are interested, the pool opens at 4.30am until 17:00, then again from 18:00 to 23:00 hrs. Cost is $1.60 per adult. ($2 for the evening session).

Ecuador 4 - The Jungle

John&Lynnette — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:22:23 CDT

Well, we survived The Jungle - but only just.

Michael, our pet tour operator, had told us to be at the tour office at 8am, so after going on the abortive volcano sighting tour, we retired to bed.

Up early, washed and dressed, we arrived at the tour office at just before 8 o´clock in the pouring rain, complete with shower proofs etc, to find the office closed, with no sign of life. After waiting for 10 minutes, we decided to go and get a bit of breakfast. Which we did, all the time keeping an eye out for the office opening, which it did, shortly after 8.45am.

First thing we were told was to get fitted for a pair of wellies each, along with the others who were also going on the trip with us. we were also each given a poncho, to keep us dry, apparently.

Of course, Lynn couldn´t get a pair to fit her properly. Trouble was, for her feet size, her calves are too big, so in the end, she had to roll the tops of the wellies down to get her feet in!

Next, we were loaded in to the mini-bus. Four lads from Chile, a young local-looking lad, a Canadian (named Carlos, and who looked both very Spanish, and very fit), and his Ecuadorian girlfriend, and ourselves.

After the usual introductions, our guide, Tony, told us the plan. First, we were going to Puyo, where he would visit the market, and buy our provisions, then we would be visiting a monkey sanctuary, then lunch. then a visit to a spectatcular watertfall and swimming, then a ´canute´ trip to the Indian village where we would have dinner, go on a cayman hunt, then retire for the night.

Puyo turned our to be a fairly big town by Ecuadorian standards, and we were told to return to the mini-bus on 30 minutes. Lynnette and I opted to go for a coffee and a coke. Both together cost 80 cents!! There the young local-looking lad cams in and asked us in a strong English accent if we had any idea how long before we had to return. Once we got over the fact that his English was so good, we discovered that he WAS English, a geography student from Leeds, called Richard.

Anyway, although it was still raining, we headed back to the mini'bus, and off for a short drive to the monkey house.

Boy, were they mischivous fellas! Loads of photographs later (including one of them monkeys peeing down Lynnettes leg), we headed off once again to lunch.

Our guide took us to an Indian village, where we sat down to a meal which he prepared. It was delicious.

By this time, the rain had al but stopped, and we were in The Jungle. Tony told us to get ready for a 2 hour hike, and to take our swimming gear with us.

There followed a long trip through the jungle, up hill and over some very rough, wet, muddy terrain, through streams of almost calf-high water.

It was worth it, once we arrived at the waterfall, we were greeted with a maginificent, 35 metre (100 feet) fall, which ended in a deep pool.

Within minutes, we were all in our gear (except for the Carlos and his girlfriend), and in the icy water. It was too deep for us to stand directly under the waterfall, so Lynnette and I had to tread water, whilst the sheets of cold water battered our heads and shoulders like bullets. IT WAS GOOD.

After 30 minutes or so, we had to get out (oh how the stones hurt the soles of our feet), and once dried, we heeded back to the village to collect our belongings and prepare for the ´canute´(canoe) ride to our village where we would eat and stay overnight.

As you know, the previous day we had gone white water rafting - well I can tell you, the canoe ride felt much more dangerous!

We were packed into 3 canoes, and off we went down river. My god, what a frightening experience. These canoes were dugouts, and had been patched in several places, but still leaked like sieves! I expect most of the journey bailing water out, as it was coming in through various small holes, but the driver seemed oblivious to the white water that he kept steering us through - and no life jackets.

After a journey which seemed to last for hours, probably (25 minutes in all), we turned into a small inlet and beached the canoes. Once loaded with our stuff, we hiked for a further 10 minutes to a waiting pick-up truck which drove us to within a couple of hundred metres of the village we were staying in.

Again, we had to load ourselves with all the stuff we would need, and hike there.

we were allocated a hut, where we graciously allowed the couple to have a seperate two-bed ´room´(no doors), whilst Richard, Lynnette and I shared a three bed space. All the beds had mosquito netting, but there was no electric lights, and the huts are on stilts so we had to climb these. The toilet and showr sheds were 50 metres away - and again no lights.

we had a break for an hour or so to get settled, then we discovered that there was a bar so we went there. The four lads from Chile had already found it, so we spent a pleasant hour or so talking to them.

Then it was dinner. Again, prepared by our guide, it was excellent after the hiking/swimming we had done.

The cayman hunt turned out to be a bit of a let-down, as they had decided to stay indoors, but nevertheless, we say many insects, including tarantulas and other spiders, rhino beetles and other predators, so missing the cayman wasn´t such a problem. Our guide was very knowledgable about the wildlife.

By the time we got back, it was just after 10pm. We were issued with torches and it was time for bed - but we were told to check the room for spiders and others nasts before retiring.

The hut was by the baks of the Rio Negro, so we were lulled to sleep with the sound of the river rushing by.

Up at 8am next day, we decided to forgo our usual shower routine, as these were cold water only. After breakfast (which was interrupted by the arrival of several small wild monkeys, and other assorted animals, including a pair of parrots, we then set off for a three hour hike up a moutain to a viewpoint. That was tough.

Lynnette and I were by far the oldest in the group, but, although we were slower than the rest, we eventually made it to the top for the magnificent view. Lynn and I had decided to forego the wellies in favour of our hiking boots which afforded much better grip and support, but it was still tough going.

It took a good hour and half to descend again, and then we had to pack and then load up the mini-bus with all our stuff, before heading back to yet another Indian village to see them make the crafts which they sell. The Chilean boys were quite shocked to be greeted by several young girls, all with babies. Our guide told us that these girls were all 15 years of age, and they could expect t have had 3 children before reaching 17. After buying some items from them, (all very very cheap), we had a pleasant half an hour learning to use a blow-pipe, the usual means of killing meat for these villages. Then to Puyo, to see a Balsa wood factory, and the to try the local sugar cane alcoholic drink.

A two hour drive saw us back in Baños by 8pm, where we got a pizza, and had a hot shower before going to sleep - it was soooo good to be clean and back in our comfortable double bed!!.

Day off tomorrow (Thursday)

Ecuador 3 - Baños

John&Lynnette — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:37:05 CDT

Well, we arrived here safely in Baños - a resort town, which, as it´s name implies, is like BATH, full of natural springs, which are heated courtesy of a local volcano, which last erupted in August 2006. Sorry, but I can´t spell the name.

we tried to get into the Hostel Planta y Blanco, but it was full, so we went next door to Hostel El Eden. Great to have a double bed again!

We intended to have a couple of days óff´, but after a wander around the toewn, we came across a tour agen called Michael who invited us to book a waterfall tour for the next day (Saturday). we then went for dinner and a tour of ´Bar Street´. Prices here are almost embarassingly cheap for plentiful good food, and for alcohol of various types. we ended up in the Jack Rock Cafe Bar, a Hard Rock Cafe lookalike, without the high prices. A few drinks later, and a short walk home around 10.30pm. Baños feels very safe, and we were happy to be out at that time - but glad to be back in a double bed.

Saturday, 12 July - we had our first breakfast at the Volcano Hotel. Although there was a menu posted outside it turned out to be a fixed price, all you can eat buffet, which at $4 seemed pretty good value.

we arrived at the pick up point at 10.30am and we were soon off on our tour, along with a bus-load of tohers. We were the only gringos (again). One of the first stops turned out to be Bungee Jump Bridge. We watched with envy as several people ´took the plunge´and leapt off the bridge attached to nothing more than a couple of stretchy ropes. Several members of óur´party also took part. After calling at several magnificent waterfalls, we arrived at the most impressive one. We walked (descended) right down to the bottom to experience a waterfall shower, but my, it was a long way back up!

Sunday dawned and we decided to go and book our next few days adventures with Michael, our tour agent of yesterday. We started with a quad go-cart for two hours in the afternoon, followed by an evening trip to see the volcano ´glow´. before picking up the cart, we decided to have lunch - this being Sunday, we felt that a Roast was in order. Of course, being Ecuador, the roast in question was Roast Guinea Pig, with Potatoes in Peanut Butter Sauce. The meat was very lean and succulent, and we have pictures of both the ´Before´and Áfter´plate to prove it! Hopefully, these pictures and more will appear on this web site soon!

We picked up the cart - the aircon was excellent, being both open topped, and open sided, but with no power steering, suspension or hand-brake it was hard going. Eventually we arrived at St Martins Point, a couple of miles from Baños. we spotted a cable car going across a deep ravine and decided to give it a try. Little did we know that once across the ravine in the cable car, we were expected to zip slide back. OK, we could have come back in the cable car, but the guide talked us into zipping back. we have done this before (Go-Ape with Liam), but never from so high, and for so long! But boy was it good. Next time, we are going to FLY SLIDE back. This involves having the harness on your back instead of your front, so that you have nothing to hold on to, so you FLY back down!!!!

Once back, we dropped off the go cart, and headed for a quick meal before going on the Volcano trip - this was total washout, as, although we joind the bus at 9pm, and headed up the mountain roads, the cloud cover was simply too much to see the glow, and the governement restricts how close you can go to the volcano because of the danger from toxic fumes. WASHOUT.

So, it is now Monday, and we are up early as we are going white water rafting. we have a quick (but excellent) breakjfast at the Planta y Blanco ($2.50 each), and head off to catch the mini-bus.

We are with a party of 6 French students, who despite it being there first time too, showed no evidence of nerves at all.

Shock number one was getting into our wet suits - those things are tight, and neither of us have the sylph like figures of the young students.

It seemed pretty easy, and great fun as after our safety briefing, and training (10 mins), we lifted our boats up onto our heads and headed for the water. Twenty minutes in, and several kiñometres down the river, we were feeling pretty confident about doing it. i had just said as much to Lynnette when suddenly the boat shot up 90 degress in the air, and all five of us (two French girls, Lynnette, our guide and I) hurtled into the deep water of the Rio Negro. God, it seemed a long way to the surface! The guide got himslef back in then pulled Lynnette and the two girls in, leaving me for a few minutes whist they sorted themselves out. Finally I was back in the boat, and we carried on. One of the girls had hurt her back, but thankfully there were no real injuries. Anyway, we still had a good 40 minutes to go, and we were moving at a rollicking pace through the turbulent water.

Despite our soaking, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. we travelled about 10 kms in the hour we were on the river, splashing through a lot of rough water, and getting very close to some rocks. But we had great fun.

Once we were on land, we changed, and dried ourselves off, before having lunch and heading back to Baños.

Tomorrow we head for the Jungle!!!

Ecuador 2 - Latacunga

John&Lynnette — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:56:09 CDT

Hi there. Well it´s 6th of July and we have journeyed to Latacunga, where we will be staying for a few days. It´s a base really, as we expect to have a couple of trips out of town.

First impression isn´t great - everywhere is closed, but at least we have our hotel booked - so we get a taxi to the Hotel Cafe Tiana. Oh dear, not great. We thought we had booked a room with a private bath, but it tuns out they don´t have any rooms with a private bath, and most of the rooms are dorm rooms. Second problem, the doors use padlocks which is Ok if you are leaving the room, but you can´t lock the door once you are inside, so we didn´t feel very safe, nor could we leave anything in the room, because even if padlocked the doors could be pushed open, as could the windows. We decided to get some lunch, and after a bit of a search we found a chicken place. And right next door was Hotel Los Alomos. We asked if they had a room with a private bath and they did!! We checked in, then hastily retrieved our bags from the Taina and moved in - the only problem was that it was a twin-bedded room - but we moved the beds together (we are newly-weds, you know).

It was a struggle finding anywhere to get an evening meal (it was Sunday) but we did come across a travel place so we booked a trip to Cotopaxi for the next day. Cotopaxi is a high mountain (5100 metres) with a glacier top. The trip was fabulous, with great views as we went through mountains.

Our guide, Ramiro, took us to 4500 metres where we parked the pickup, and we set off for the Refuge at 4800 metres. I´m afraid the altitude took it´s toll, and before we had walked more than a few hundred metres up the slope ( I expect we got to altitude 4650 metres), we were both exhausted. The two others in our party, being younger and fitter than us, carried on, but we couldn´t. Back to the car for us.

The following day, we set off on a two day moutain trip to see Quilatoa, another volcano, which had last erupted in 1797. In the crater, some 300 metres below the rim, was a lovely lagoon. We walked a quarter of the way around the rim, but because of time constraints, we were not able to go to the lagoon. It would have taken us only half an hour or so to descend, but at least two hours or more to get to the top again, and time was against us. The weather was wet and quite cold. We then had a fairly dangerous drive to Chilatoa, where we were staying the night at the Hostel Cloud Forest - though a small room, at least we had a double bed again! (www.hostelcloudfores.com).

At the hotel, we met Susan, a travel writer, ( read her blog at http://selizabeth83.livejournal.com , more interesting than ours probably!), and Lacey and Brandon, a couple of newly-weds. Lacey is an actor based in Chicago, where Brandon is a freelance theatre production manager.

The first night, the local children provided the entertainment with traditional dancing

Like many others, this hotel has an ´honour´ system for purchases from the bar - you simply fill out a form in your room, detailing what you took from the bar! Doubt if that would work well in this country. Anyway, Susan asked us to share her $10 bottle of wine, as she didn´t think she could drink it all by herself, and we were happy to oblige, and reciprocate, with our own bottle!!

Lacey and Brandon had to get an early truck (4am), so they went off to bed early. Susan was catching the milk truck at 9am, so could stay to help us finish off both bottles.

We had a 3 hour horse trek through the mountains booked for the following morning. WOW, such great scenery, and not half as heart stopping as the Mexican horse trek, though of course Lynnette couldn´t get the stirrups short enough for her little legs.

Once we had lunch, we returned to Latacunga. Only problem with the Hotel, was a damned dog that barked half the night! (And the fact that the hotel staff seperated the two twin beds every day, and we had to keep putting them back together!)

Thursday was market day in Sasquilli, a town a few miles away, so we had a bus ride there.

Friday 11 July and we left Latacunga for Baños - a resort town a couple of hours way.

Ecaudor 1 - Quito

John&Lynnette — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:11:18 CDT

Well we arrived safely in Quito, after a bit of a palaver with Immigration when both leaving Mexico and entering the US. As I related in the Mexico blog, we didn´t get our passports stamped on entering Mexico because there were no border guards in Tijuana. Nor did we get exit stamps for leaving the US, and our original entry visa was intact. Boy, did this cause a problem! When we were at the departure gate to leave Mexico, the guard there checked our passports before allowing us to board the plane. She seemed very puzzled by our lack of entry stamps, and called a colleague, who in turn called another colleague. As we were the first in the queue. This was beginning to cause a problem with the other people waiting to board. Of course, no one there could speak English until eventually someone arrived who could- the fact that this was a sub-machine gun toting, fully uniformed person did worry us slightly. For some reason they all thought we had entered Mexico illegally, and it wasn´t until Lynnette remembered that she still had the bus tickets from San Ysidro to Los Mochis in her bag that they finally believed us, stamped our passports and allowed us to board.

Once we were on board the flight to George Bush International was uneventful, but of course on the plane we were told that we did not need to complete a visa waiver form because our prvious visas, issued only a week or so before, were still valid. WRONG!! There was a great deal of alarm and despondency amongst the US border guards when they realised that not only had we not completed visa waiver forms, we hadn´t handed in our EXIT visa form on leaving the US - so their system was telling them that we were already in the the country, so we couldn´t be let in again! Bizarrely, even though we were transitting to Quito, we still had to go into the US first (unlike any other airport, where international transits don´t usually have to go through immigration to enter the country, then through imigration again to exit).

However, again after calling a supervisor, and going through the same sdtory as we had with the Mexican authorities, we were allowed through - though it took over an hour an a half for that stage of the journey.

GBI airport for us, was a disaster. we tried to phone ahead to Quito to confirm our hotel arrangements, but the phones didn´t work - we kept getting a voice saying Érror 56´or Error 41, but no explanation about what these codes meant, or how we could correct whatever the problem was, so we decided to email instead - again usual problem, plenty of wi-fi hot spots, but no where to use a proper PC! Took us ages to find out how to get to use a PC, but eventually OK.

Uneventful flight to Quito, and we were through customs, collected our bags, in the hotel and in bed in about an hour!!

First impressions were that the streets were deserted- OK, it was afyer midnight, but when the taxi pulled up outside the hotel, he beeped his horn, but he wouldn´t get out until an armed security guard popped out of a little box situated just outside the door. He verified that we had a reservation in the Hotel San Francisco de Quito, before calling the night manager to let us in. In the mean time a small gang of youths had appeared from nowhere and were watching us all (the driver, the guard, Lynnette and I) very closely indeed.

However, Quito Old Town is a lovely place (the New Town is just a new town, could be anywhere).

We booked a tour on 2nd July and took in a number of cathedrals, the Midi del Mundo (centre of the world) and saw the Quito Angel up close, as well as going on the TelerifiQuito, a 2.5km long cable care which takes you up to over 4700 metres above the city - great views. During this trip we met Steve and Melinda, a couple of Mormon missionaries, and Doonal, an Irish lad travelling on his own. At one point, we had an Englishman, (well Lynnette), and Irishman, (Doonal) and a Scotsman (thats me) in the cable car, swaying about making jokes about who was going to jump first!!

The following day we changed to Hotel Chicago on the border of the New and Old Towns. Was a much better room and a better atmosphere too. More people in it to start with, and we met Igor, a young Swiss man.

A word of caution - Quito has lots of security guards, mostly armed, and for good reason. It is a dangerous place, especially at night. We were never out after 9pm, and more usually back in the hotel by 8.30pm. We just felt too much of a target.

Sadly, on our last day in Quito (5th July), Lynnette was targetted by a youth who ran up behind her, and snatched the gold chain she had around her neck. Fortunately, she wasn´t hurt, but was quite shaken up. Though not priceless, the gold chain and dragon charm had some sentimental value - so be warned. Although I counted 9 armed guards in the immediate vicinity within a few minutes of the robbery, none of them saw a thing or took any action to stop the youth running away.

Anyway, tommorrow, Sunday 6 July, we head to Latatunga