Blogs from Ecuador, South America - page 668

From Cuenca, we took a bus to Loja with Claudia arriving at about 8:45 pm. The weather had turned pretty crap by the time we reached Loja, rain and fog. We knew Vilcabamba was pretty close to Loja but were having no luck with taxi drivers who seemed to be quoting us a pretty hefty price. In the end we managed to bargain a bit with one of them getting a whole three dollars off the price!! We eventually arrived at a hostel that had been recommended to us, with a swimming pool and private lodges and great views called Izcayluma. We were a bit surprised at how deserted the place was with no people, bar or restaurant, but in the pouring rain we were in no mood to argue and paid the taxi driver. We ... read more

Ok, so after arriving from Baños we spent one night in Riobamba in a hostel called Los Shyris near the train station. We bumped in to Stuart, an Australian guy that we did the Guagua hike with in a restaurant that night. He was in Riobamba for the same reason as us, to do the Devil's Nose train journey to Alausi - sitting on the roof of the train. This is a train run pretty much solely for tourists and one of the few (maybe only) train routes still in operation in Ecuador. The restaurant that we met Stuart in wasn´t great so we warned him against it (a far from accurate lonely planet recommendation). Next morning he kept us two seats on top of the train, we got there for about 6am, a bit later ... read more

Ok bods, probably one of the more interesting ones I hope - if you like wildlife and beautiful islands, that is. So we departed Quito on friday 8th October so this is where I begin. Friday - getting there Flight to Galapagos Baltra Airport via Guayaquil, uneventful. Guayaquil looks a bit swampy (Ecuador´s largest city - Quito is the capital but a bit smaller), so quite glad we´re not stopping there at any point. On arrival at Baltra airport we took some cool pictures of the mysterious-looking volcanic island-rocks. Paid the $100 dólar park entrance fee and met our guide, the rather more senior and charismatic than expected "César", to take us to the good ship "Amigo". We took a bus for 5 minutes to a canal (the bit of sea between Baltra island and Santa ... read more

I was assigned by the company I work for to an audit in Colombia and Ecuador for 2 weeks, and the work was going to end a day before my 30th anniversary. I didn´t know if I was going to go back home to celebrate it with my friends and family, since I didn´t wanted to spend that day alone, so I thought... if I am going to be away from home on my birthday, I need to do something amazing, and that was the moment when Galapagos Islands came to my mind. I had one the the most incredible experiences of my life during that trip.... read more

Ecuador - 5 Weeks I spent about 5 weeks in Ecuador stopping at Guayaquil which was a dump, then Monteverde for a week in a hammock in this nice beach town. From Monteverde I went to Quito, which has some nice areas to visit. I spent several weeks in Quito as I lost my passport and had to wait for another one, during my stay here I saw some students protesting and I got too close and experienced tear gas although quite diluted. I travelled, via Ambato, to Banos another cute little town situated at the foot of the active volcano, Tungurahua, I climbed the volcano on foot but didn't make it to the top as the ash was quite intense, there were farmers brushing ash from the grass so the cattle could eat and one ... read more