Our initial plan was to leave Ayampe behind us on Saturday, but during our stay we heard several persons talking about an island called Isla de la Plata. The island is know for its birdlife, it is even called the poor mans Galapagos for that, so we decided to stay one more day in Ayampe in order to visit the island that lies 40km outside of Puerto Lopez, the closest city north of Ayampe. We had already visited Puerto Lopez earlier for some shopping, it is a small town with a lot of fishermen and whale tourists, and also the closest supermarket to Ayampe. Our hostel booked the trip for us and we set out from Ayampe early on Saturday morning. The weather was even grayer that usual, and it was drizzling, but we were hoping ... read more

We have just arrived to Ayampe, a small fishing village were we will stay the next weeks for a two week long crash course in Spanish. Even though we have managed to get by without basically knowing any Spanish, we feel we will get out more from our time in South America with some basic knowledge of the language. Ayampe should also have one the best beaches in Ecuador for surfing, and we are planning to also try to learn to surf during our time here! On our way north from Chiclayo we went through several cities, Piura and Mancora in Peru, and Guayaquil in Ecuador. There are not that many buses going from Peru to Ecuador, and we didn't feel like taking any chances, we read several warnings about tourists being drugged while taking an ... read more

After an all day long bus ride from Lima to Trujillo, and arriving 2h late when it was already dark, we were happy we asked our host to arrange a cab to pick us up. He actually came himself as his taxi driving friend was unavailable, and even gave us a small sightseeing on our way to the apartment. We had our own small apartment this time to the great price of only 9€ per night, and this was within walking distance of the centre of Trujillo. The bed was good, and wake up service was included in the form of the honking of cars that started at about 8 AM in the morning. In Peru honking seems to be an artform. Honking is of course done like in Finland, when someone is doing something dangerous ... read more

Our last stop on the west coast of North America was LA. On one hand we were expecting the glamour of Hollywood, and on the other hand a city with long distances where you need to have a car to do anything at all. In order to not have to drive too far to see the glamour part we found ourselves an accommodation in East Hollywood, a few miles from the stars, footprints and the Chinese theatre. Alexander, our host, used the proud name "Gemini Manor" for his house. It was a house filled with collected oddities, made even more into a labyrith by Alexander renting out every available space so that you needed to circle around certain rooms. We had our own bathroom, although the bath tub was filled with a clown and a creepy ... read more

We arrrived to LA by bus and continued to the airport for lodging and for pickup of our rental car the next morning. We had planned to drive north from LA to visit some national parks, but due to an unfavourable weather forecast we changed our plans and went for sunny San Diego instead. We had initially reserved 3 nights in San Diego via airbnb, but already when we saw Gaslamp quarter, the shopping and restaurant district of San Diego, we started to think about extending our stay. The city had a really relaxed atmosphere with well preserved buildings and lots of nice stores and restaurants without being overly touristy. After our brief first look on the town we continued to our sleeping place where we were entusiastically greeted by our host Mark, and especially by ... read more