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Day 94 - Saturday 3rd December - Return to Quito We got back to Quito in the afternoon. We had booked in to the Marriott hotel for a couple of nights of luxury (incase we hadn´t already had enough on the cruise!) The 6th December is a big holiday in Quito and there were lots of celebrations over the weekend in the lead up. (Apparently 6th itself is quite quiet and peaceful; everybody is partied out by then.) There were lots of Chivas driving around with music and lights blaring out into the streets and people dancing away during the evening. Once we had settled into our room I tried to upload my photos from the Galapagos Islands as I was keen to have a back-up as soon as possible. I managed to successfully transfer them ... read more

Day 85 - Thursday 24th November - Banos and Alausi The morning was spent looking around the town of Banos a bit more, including a visit to the church where we had been told there was a display about the town but actually there wasn't all that much to see. The highlight of the morning was a lovely cafe we found for breakfast. Banos is a nice town but I preferred Mindo. Around about lunch time we were on a bus to Riobamba. The journey to Riobamba took us past Chimborazo, the highest volcano in Ecuador. Unfortunately it was covered in clouds, but you could still see the base of the glacier. Our bus dropped us off in quite a random spot in Riobamba, which is where we had to change buses to go to Alausi. ... read more

Yesterday I had my last Spanish lesson meaning that I will soon be hitting the road again. I've very much enjoyed my time in Quito and have mixed feelings about moving on. I'm excited about the places that I'll be visiting over the next few weeks, but I've begun to feel quite at home here and it'll be sad to leave the new friends that I've made. Here's what's been going on over the last couple of weeks or so. Wednesday 2nd November - Day of the Dead This day is a holiday in Ecuador but we still had school. This year the President decide (rather at the last minute I think) that people would be given two additional days of holiday so that everybody could have Wednesday to Friday off. Apparently this was to try ... read more

Tuesday 4th October - Friday 7th October - Staying with Nerys and Peter After a lovely time driving around New England and soaking up the sights of the Fall colours, I spent a few more days with my parents staying with their old friends Nerys and Peter in Ithaca, New York. Nerys was my mother's bridesmaid and it is the second time my parents have visited them since they moved to the US a number of years ago. We received a very warm welcome and I was persuaded to stay a day longer than I had planned. We arrived at about 5pm and spent a pleasant evening catching up and settling in. The following day we had a slow start in the morning but did eventually make it out. We started with a quick drive around ... read more

Here's the next instalment of my year of adventure - picking up where the last blog left off. (12th September was such a long time ago - definitely need to catch up a bit!) Day 12: Monday 12th September - From Washington to Halifax This day was always mainly going to be about travelling as I hadn't been able to find a direct flight from Washington to Halifax so I went via Toronto and it basically took all day. However I made it a bit more interesting by taking the most bizarre route to the airport. (I flew from Baltimore so it was quite a distance from Washington). I ended up taking the metro out to the suburbs and picking up a bus from there - which was the cheapest way to do it but not ... read more