splarah
Splarah Joined: February 3rd 2007
Logged in: May 18th 2011
Logged in: May 18th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
View over Cusco
After a whole month of travelling, I seem to have been brought back to earth with a bump. I'm back in Quito, living with my evil stepmother of a madre, and suddenly everyone is leaving Ecuador. I have four days left to go, and everything seems strangely surreal.As you can imagine, a month of travelling is quite a mouthful, so I'm just going to give you the highlights and some nice piccies to look at.Imogen and I left Quito the day after returning from our Galapagos trip, and couldn't help wondering just why we were travelling south just as Ecuador hit Summer in glorious style. The first stop was a town in southern Ecuador called Loja, where we took the plunge and got ourselves a haircut. Loja is about ten years behind England with hairstyles, so ... read more
Postcard viewpoint
Obviously I'm cheating a little bit by backdating this entry by more than a month - but it has been a very busy month. Unfortunately it turns out that in my absence travelblog has managed to lose half of my entries due to some sort of server crisis, so for those of you that have forgotten, the last time I wrote I was all packed and ready to fly off for my well-deserved and long-awaited trip to the Galapagos.The Galapagos islands are mostly well known for Darwin's research there on finches and evolution and the like, but he was only there for two weeks, and spent his time conducting "experiments" like flinging iguanas by their tails and so on, so I feel that after my eight-day experience, I am very much as enlightened as him. The ... read more
Zumbahua Saturday market
I'm afraid to say that this may be my last blog in a good long time (unless I decide to write one in the next few days, just for fun). I now have three days left at work (because there are no classes on Friday, as per usual), before I set off on the long-awaited and much-delayed Galapagos trip, in first-class, luxury-liner style. Wahey!... read more
The broody clouds of Tena
We're now two weeks into June, and I'd like to congratulate everyone in Britain for being able to enjoy much better weather than we're getting here, slap bang under the Equator. The days start out with so much promise - blue skies, brilliant sun, lovely and warm - but sometime after lunch it's as if the weather just gives up and throws it down with rain. EVERY DAY. Although everyone promised that the rain would stop the minute we hit rain, it now looks like we're holding out for July (when I won't be here) for the REAL Ecuadorian Summer.... read more
El Parque Nacional de Cotopaxi
I'm afraid this won't be a very exciting travelblog, because I didn't do anything particularly exciting this weekend. To be honest, I'm really writing this to prove that I have indeed travelled, at last!... read more
Fed up
url='/Videos/3403.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3403.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Lickingurl='/Videos/3409.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3409.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' hospitalroomtouring This time it really has been a VERY long time since I last updated my blog, but I really do have a very, very good excuse. It's true I haven't been travelling for about a month, and in fact I've barely left my appartment since April. But I haven't just been dossing around or anything, - oh no! In fact, I've gone undercover in the most dedicated fashion, just to bring my devoted readers an insight to the little known netherworld that is the Ecuadorian health system. No stone was left unturned, no clinic unexplored, and no doctor uninterrogated in my grand quest for the truth. This is my inside report on the Great Ecuadorian Hospital Tour, May 2... read more
The beach to the left of me
Apologies to anyone who thought that my prolongued silence meant that I had actually fallen off the face of the Earth, but a set of rather unfortunate circumstances meant that this is the first time I've been able to get near the Internet since over a week ago...... read more
Quito girls in Baños
url='/Videos/2874.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2874.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Firethrowing Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, because I have just completed what was probably the most perilous weekend that I will have in Ecuador, for various reasons. To name but a few: proximity to the erupting volcano Tungurahua, bridge swinging, night-time chiva rooftop riding, walking across a bridge that was only made for five people, high above a huge waterfall... All good fun!... read more
Outside a culturally important museum in Cuenca
If there are some random errors and typos in this entry, it's because over the past three days I have spent about 18 hours trying to sleep on coaches, and the other night I got relatively little sleep after a rocking (and slightly illicit) party.... read more
Aaaaargh not a beauty pageant!
url='/Videos/2730.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2730.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Well... This Friday I participated in what was quite possibly the stupidest, most random and unexpected activity since I've been in Ecuador. In fact, it was probably one of the most surreal days of my life.... read more
