Av Suzz
Av & Suzz Joined: February 21st 2007
Logged in: February 23rd 2011
Logged in: February 23rd 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Monobloco fans!
Well, just to finish off our blog in style, we thought we'd let you know how our first few weeks back home have panned out...... Av managed to get himself employed as an electrician within a couple of weeks of being home and is thoroughly enjoying his new career. HMRC R.I.P!! Suzz has found herself a Finance Managers position with a small, recently established company much closer to home and has been there for 4 weeks now. Our trip already feels like a distant memory as we've settled back in to life in the UK like we'd never been away. Finally, on a trip to the town of Hitchin a few weekends ago, there was a World Music Festival on and who should be head-lining but the Samba band, MonoBloco, who we'd originally seen back when ... read more
Dinner at the top of Hotel Quito
Having left the jungle early in the morning, we arrived back in Quito with most of the day still to spare. However Suzz was feeling pretty tired from the tour so decided she'd spend the day snoozing by the pool at our final hotel - Hotel Quito. Unfortunately the planned day of relaxation was "slightly" spoilt when it was discovered that the hotel lies directly under the flight path of the airport and attemping to have a lazy day lying by the pool also involved frequent interruptions from planes roaring overhead, landing gear down, coming into Quito International Airport!! Fortunately there's a curfew from about 10.30pm to 6.30am so we weren't kept awake all night long too. The hotel itself was lovely, with a fantastic bar & restaurant on the top floor with stunning views over ... read more
Welcome to the Jungle!!!
We´d both been looking forward to our trip to the jungle so it was quite easy to wake up early for our journey to La Selva our jungle lodge, lying deep in primary rain forest of the Ecuadorian Amazon Jungle and on the shores of lake Garzacocha. The first stage involved a short flight from Quito to Coca in the east of Ecuador. Arriving at the departure gate of VIP Airways with our streamlined backpacks we were through check-in, security, passport control and at the departure gate in under 5 minutes! In actual fact, check-in, security and passport control were all one person and were all housed in the departure lounge - VIP a pretty small operation, but great service nonetheless. After initial delays due to the temporary closure of Coca airport - a daily ... read more
Plaza Independencia
After a slightly less hair-raising bus journey we arrived safely in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We´d been recommended a place to stay, Hotel Internacional Plaza, but on checking-in we discovered the room wasn´t that great - lets just say it was a modern hotel, but around 1920! So we decided we´d only stay for one night. Having dumped our luggage in our room we then headed straight to the tourist information office. However, when we arrived at the address given on the map we'd obtained from our hotel we discovered the office had moved. We tried asking a local, but he just pointed in the opposite direction and garbled some Spanish at us. Not understanding a word we headed in the direction he was pointing and, surprise surprise.......we didn't manage to find it! With ... read more
Enduring this 7 hour journey was a true test of courage! We´d read many a story about nightmare journeys but assumed that these were all slightly exaggerated, until we encountered the bus ride to Baños. A hair-raising journey over the mountains, where the bus drivers raced each other along the mountain roads, overtaking each other round corners with sheer drops of hundreds of feet below. The conductors hanging out of the side doors egging each other on as they overtake! Absolutely insane! To top this we were thrown off our bus at our "scheduled" stop at the entrance to a roundabout for a quick change of bus any Formula One team would be proud of! A short, less stressful bus ride later we arrived in Baños, relieved and glad to have survived. We checked in to ... read more
Cuenca: Main square
After an arduous journey, in which we travelled by local minibus from Mancora to Tumbes and then by local bus from Tumbes (stopping to change bus in Machala), we finally arrived in Cuenca absolutely exhausted. Having done our research on the town prior to our arrival we knew where to stay - Posada del Angel - which didn´t disappoint - a great place in the heart of town. With not much daylight left we dropped our things and headed out to get our bearings and for dinner. It wasn´t long before we were back in the hostal with Av suffering mildly with altitude sickness - nothing a good night´s sleep didn´t fix. With only two nights in Cuenca we wasted no time in seeing the sights. Apart from being a lively, colourful city, Cuenca is ... read more
Our room with a view
With our last night bus journey finally over (Hurray!!) we arrived in Mancora bright and early (6.00am) and lwere iterally thrown off the bus straight in to the hands of a baying mob of tuk-tuk drivers! After holding them off for a while we were finally approached by an unusually polite and patient "tukkie" who took it upon himself to make a number of recommendations as to where we should stay. However, Suzz had seen a place on the internet which looked pretty nice so we decided to take try here first. However, on arrival it seemed a bit pricey so we decided to take the "tukkie's" advice and off we chugged to another place which was way, way out of town. In the end we went back to the first one, Buena Vista apartments, ... read more
Huaca de la Luna
We arrived in Trujillo bright and early (7am) and whilst at the bus terminal deciding on our accommodation we were "greeted" by the usual predatory taxi drivers. After mentioning our choice of hostel he informed us that this was not a good place to stay and that he had a much better option. After offering his suggestion he promptly disappeared...strange, but we were glad of a little peace so thought nothing of it as Lonely Planet is often way off the mark when it comes to classifying accommodation. Anyway, before long another cabbie appears and after offering our second choice he tells us that this place no longer exists - hang on a minute, there´s a pattern developing here!! Realising that we would get nowhere with our choices we agreed to go with the second ... read more
Welcome to Cuzco!
When we arrived at the bus terminal in Cuzco we were mobbed by taxi touts trying to get our custom. After getting a couple of seconds in which to check the name of the hotel we'd been recommended we finally got in a taxi and were completely ripped off by being charged over 3 times the going rate (as we later found out)! The recommended hotel (thanks José!), Cuzco Plaza I, was lovely and we were given a very nice room with a view over the city. Of course, our main reason for being in Cuzco was to visit the world famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. We originally intended to do the 4 day Inca trail but were disappointed to find out that even with three months advance notice there were no permits available. ... read more
Goodbye Bolivia, Hello Peru
Leaving our Bolivian tour guide behind in Copacabana, we boarded our next bus which took us to the border crossing for Peru, where we had to walk from one country to the next before getting back on the same bus, and onto the town of Puno, located on the north-west side of Lake Titicaca. Arriving in Puno, we were met by one of the tour company´s representatives - a very friendly little old man called Lorenzo Rojas - who ushered us into a taxi and took us to the hotel we would be staying in for the next couple of nights. Our first priority was to obtain some local currency (Peruvian Soles), having only had about the equivalent of 5 pounds in Bolivian currency to change at the border, so we took a short walk ... read more
