Blogs from North, Ecuador, South America - page 225

I returned to The Old Town in Quito with a strong feeling of achievement. The Galapagos cruise that had been weighing on my mind for so long had been a huge success and was safely “out of the way”. With three days remaining, I could look back on my entire trip and see an amazing run - not one bad day came to mind. I was also excited to be going home, something that surprised me. I had an energy building inside me that I wanted to get home and focus. I felt a little weird about this final half-week. I had always pictured a seamless transition from the island beaches to the airport but instead I had a few days to fill before my flight (back) to Buenos Aires, and home. Checking in to The ... read more

We left Quito early yesterday morning and set off for Mindo which is in the Cloud Forest. We stopped on the way to visit an Orchid reserve and had a walk through the sub tropical rainforest where we saw some lizards and birds. We then made our way to Mindo Gardens which is the lodge where we stayed right next the Mindo river, which was about 6 kilometers from the nearest village along a dirt track. We had lunch in the restaurant whilst watching a selection of Hummingbirds feeding just outside the window. In the afternoon we went to a Butterfly breeding centre and saw Butterflies at all stages of development. Later on we visited another cafe where we saw some different species of Hummingbirds and a Parrot. Today we were woken at 5.30 am to ... read more

Arrived in Quito 1 hour late, not bad after 21 hours travelling. Flight okay, met the rest of our group at the airport, 10 of us in total we are the youngest!! Hotel very impressive views over a valley looking at a snow covered mountain. Just had a very nice bowl of Chilli and now looking forward to a good nights sleep before getting up at seven tomorrow morning. Looks like being a very busy 3 weeks. We'll try to upload some photos tomorrow.... read more

well it´s been an eventful week and a half for all in ecuador and quito especially so why not discuss it in blog form I thought. There were sporadic demonstrations in the streets of quito the past few months, but it all started to heat up a week and a half ago whilst I was asleep early ready to get up and go to visit the valley of the volcanoes (as it is known) 2 hours to the south of quito. Whilst I was asleep a state of emergency was temporarily called by young lucio guittirez (the president of ecuador) until the US stepped in and said dont be silly, and then it stopped again. Meanwhile I was soon off on my way to see quilatoa a volcano that has a lake inside it, which was ... read more

The week after I attempted to climb Cotopaxi we had a change of people in the house. A new girl Molly arrived on Wednsday. Molly is from Acton, and has the same birthday as me, October 5th (we will both be 19), and we are the same person. We have a lot of fun doing goofy things and going out a night. On Friday, Jessica left and a new girl got here, named Katy. She is from Austria and is 27 years old. On Saturday we went to old town, I have already been there, but it was fun. There are really old churches and it is really beautiful. On Saturday night we went dancing with a friend who owns a hotel here and some of his friends from the US Embassy. These are typical Americans, ... read more