Well we started the trip today with the intention of getting to Los Frailes, an absolutley beautiful beach in a National Park. Slight problem being that, as it is a National Park, you can't sleep there - you have to stay three hours away and go up for the day. That, the fact it was a further five hours than the beaches we usually go to and we'd have to pay the National Park fee put us off enough to decide on just going back to Montañita. Ended up in the same hostel as last time and then went out in search of food which was very good although the waiter decided to sit down with us to take the order, forget us for quite some time and then admit to being 'so high' as ... read more

Well I'm past the halfway mark and realised I haven't actually written anything about where I work. When I say realised I of course mean am reminded of that fact at every possible opportunity by certain people who are stuck in England with nothing better to do than check my blog all the time! Ok, my week days are as follows - Adinea from 8.00am until 12.30pm followed by Tadeo Torres from whenever we get there til whenever everything's finished. Adinea is a disabled school about fifteen minutes walk from where we live in Cuenca. I have no idea how many kids there are as I'm still discovering new classes (One of which I walked in on trying to take a short cut back from the kitchens today actually) There is absolutley no rhyme or ... read more

Caught the overnight bus to Quito once again and actually managed to sleep for most of it which is always a good thing. Arrived and walked to our usual haunt of Coffee Tree for breakfast (or in my case chocolate cake and hot chocolate - I needed a sugar rush!) before heading off to find a hostal. Had to tour four hostals before finding one (two were full and two were expensive - a whole $8 a night!) Ended up in Centro del Mundo - a so called 'party hostal' according to the Lonely Planet but looked perfectly alright. Checked in and then split off into three groups to go on a re-con mission about Galapagos which we are determined to book whilst we are here as every travel agent seems to promise 'brilliantly cheap' ... read more

Well we actually have a weekend to spend in Cuenca instead of rushing off somewhere as Lyn from GAP is coming out to check that all our placements are ok. Had the morning off school as well on Friday as the teachers had some meal thing to go to for all teachers of disabled children in Cuenca. Really quite random but I'm not going to argue with time off. Lou and I headed into town to go to an internet cafe to call home before going for ice creams. Really starting to be a bad habit! Next we walked down to the river to find a Panama Hat shop which turned out to be a shop/museum/workshop/cafe so all good. Had fun trying them all on (although technically they are not Panama hats at all, they ... read more

Decided to be cultured and so met the chicas at Cafecito early morning to head off to Museo de Banco Central which supposedly (according to the Lonely Planet) is "the biggest and most absorbing" in Cuenca. Wandered around it for a while but was seriously not impressed by the art - Lou does better on photoshop. Outside was a lot better even though only four of us made it that far (the others sat on the grass for the hour and a half we were out there) with the remains of the Incan city of Tomebamba as well as a landscaped garden designed to show all the different scenery of Ecuador. Quite cool and I got a brilliant close-up of a humming bird! (I'm obsessed I know) before walking around the aviary (although Bel got ... read more