Blogs from Centre, Ecuador, South America - page 101

Saturday 14th May 2005 : To Chugchilan Early breakfast. Taxi at 0800 but we need to stop for cash as the Black Sheep does not take CC. As we are closing the taxi doors all the staff from the B&B are on the doorstep waving us off. Taxi driver very obliging. Drops Deb and I in town centre and will pick us up further round the one-way system. We try three ATMs before we can get our money. Pile back in the car. Off to the bus Terminal Terrestre. The approach roads are being rebuilt, it is a nightmare. Queuing near a pile of sand and some railings he asks if we would like to get out here - no ta, I’ve no idea where we are. 5mins later we drive into the car park as ... read more

Hi! Don't have a lot of time right now and haven't really thought this through, but given the current state of affairs in Ecuador thought I'd better write a few lines to let you know I'm safe! Got back from the Galapagos on Sunday (more on that later!) to read in the paper that Ecuador was under a State of Emergency. Then an hour later to read in a different newspaper that it had been called off. Either way there had apparently been riots in the streets, calling for the President to step down due to corruption scandals, etc, the usual South American political shenanigans. Didn't notice anything other than a lot of cars horns all night, but nothing unusual there. Either way decided to leave Quito asap and next morning came down to the relative ... read more

Salut tout le monde, suite au dernier petit message je crois que je me dois de vous donner plus de details. Nous sommes a RioBamba depuis maintenat 3 jours. Et oui... Alors, je tiens tout dAbord à mentioner que la bière ici ne coute pas plus cher quA Quito et quElle est toujours aussi bonne. Ceci est le petit appendice de mon courriel pour le Club des Champions. Ne vous en faite pas!! On garde la forme. Plus sérieusement, RioBamba est une jolie ville remplie encore une fois de gens sympathiques et souriant. Depuis notre départ de Quito cest le Carnival dans tout lÉquateur. Carnival qui dure en moyenne deux semaines et qui, groso modo, consiste à déambuler dans les rues et lancer des bambas, de la farine, des oeufs et du truc qui pue en ... 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

I am now in the little town of Banos in Ecuador. As you would imagine, Ecuador is extremely lush and green and beautiful (and wet!). As soon as we crossed the border from Peru, the scenery changed from dry barren sand dunes to lush banana plantations by the coast, and cloud forest when we climbed in altitude. A couple of days ago we did a famous railway trip called the "Devil's Nose Railway", so-called because of the way it winds and double backs, and hangs precariously on the edge of a mountain. The best part is that you get to ride on top of the roof! The last two days have been pretty eventful as we went on a trip to the Amazon rainforest. It took about 5 hours to drive there, and on the way ... read more