Hello from Quito!

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Hello from Ecuador!



Sorry for the delay in posting this blog, was trying to post this last night, but the Internet was down.



Picking up where we left off last time...



We set off on the Inca trail on Christmas Day, with a 5:30am wake up call. The first day was relatively straight forward, with only an hour of steep incline (the rest was fairly gentle). Matt: Perri was sick (we think altitude sickness) from the start and at times questioned whether she could continue, but she soldiered on like a trooper. As part our tour, we were fortunate to have had Porters carrying 6kg of our luggage - we were in constant amazement at the speed and strength of these guys! Some even ran up hills wearing sandals with 25kg on their back! We had 2 fantastic guides who helped make the experience a wonderful one with their humour and knowledge. Day 1 was done after about 6 hrs. We felt so spoilt to have had our tents all set up for us as we walked into the camp site. With that, we had a quick dinner and went to bed. Day 2 was the hardest day, but we survived! I was feeling much better by that morning. The day involved 5 hrs of climbing up a steep mountain. The highlight of the day was reaching 'Dead Woman's Pass' at 4125m above sea level - was such a relief when we got there! At the end of Day 2, Matt had a game of 'Spoons' with the non English speaking Porters which proved to be a barrel of laughs!! Day 3 saw us climbing and descending through the infamous cloud forest. Was a lovely day taking in scenery (which included a number of spectaluar ruins) without the huffing and puffing of Day 2! At this point we should probably mention that we were so lucky to have had amazing chefs on our trip - we were fed like Kings! Day 4 we woke up at 3am to start our journey to the amazing Machu Picchu. Matt woke up with a headache which wasn't the best start to the day, but recovered reasonably quickly which was great. Words can't describe how spectacular Machu Picchu was - will show you photos when we return! We had time to explore the amazing man-made site before catching a train back to Cusco.



The next day we had a day to explore Cusco on our own. We visited a chocolate factory where we learnt how chocolate is made - we were pleased to find out that it comes from a fruit... Must be good for us right?! Among other things we also explored a local market, saw another Inca ruin and visited a try-hard 'Christ The Redeemer' statue - didn't come close to Rio's! We both agreed that Cusco has been one of our favourite cities.



The next day was a travel day with a flight, bus and boat ride to the Amazon Jungle. It was time to pop the anti-malaria pills, apply inches of insect repellant and wear long shirts and pants everywhere regardless of the high humidity... Fun! We arrived in the Jungle late in the evening and went on a Night Walk where we saw all sorts of weird and wonderful critters. At one stage we were asked to turn our torch lights off to 'listen' to the Jungle sounds... Was fun until a fruit bat flew very close to us! Nothing dangerous, just scream-worthy!! With that it was time to head to bed with the mosquito nets!!



The next day we went on a Jungle Walk where we saw all kinds of Amazonian trees and plant life including the 'strangler tree' and the 'walking tree' - who would know that trees could be so physically active! We also saw a huge tarantula which I was happy to move away from quickly. We also learnt that the Amazon has Funnel Web Spiders (we all thought that they were only in Australia). We saw many other bugs including massive bullet ants, bats, butterflies, spiders, stick insects, monkeys and others.



After the walk we came back to a yummy lunch and then participated in optional activities in the afternoon. Matt climbed a huge tree (where he smashed the record-very proud of himself) and I went to a local fruit farm where Ming (a fellow tour member) and I sampled tropical fruit and walked around the huge orchid. We even fed the monkeys bananas (well dropped them on the floor as we weren't going anywhere near them!).



That night it was New Years Eve. To begin the night we went on a night boat ride in an attempt to spot Caymans. We saw a couple but the water in the river was higher than usual which apparently makes it hard to see them. When we returned we again had a lovely dinner prepared for us. We spent the night playing cards, dancing, listening to our guide play his guitar and enjoying everyone's company. We won't forget our NYE, it's not often that you're in the Amazon Jungle to welcome in a New Year!



On the first day of 2013, we left the Jungle early for another travel day back to Lima where we had our last dinner with the tour group. We went to a beautiful restaurant situated next to an Inca Ruin and enjoyed reflecting on a wonderful 3 weeks together. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at an ice-creamery called 4D where we indulged in the best ice-cream of the trip so far. We met great people on the tour whom we hope to keep in touch with.



After leaving our tour group we had 2 great days exploring Lima by ourselves. We were so lucky to have stayed in a friend's amazing apartment which looked over Miraflores beach. It was absolutely beautiful and we feel so fortunate and spoilt to have stayed there. On our first day back in Lima we explored some more local markets, walked through and took photos of some beautiful parks on the beach and explored Miraflores. During the evening, we drove to 'Downtown' to watch a spectacular water fountain show. The next day Matt finally had a chance to go para-gliding over Miraflores beach which he loved! From there we went to Downtown again to explore the sights there (because apparently it's not the best place to walk around at night). We watched the changing of the guards at Government Palace, had a tour of the local Municipality building, saw some churches and explored San Martin Square and Plaza de Armas. Matt enjoyed a Toblerone McFlurry which was delicious. After seeing Downtown we made our way back towards the apartment stopping off at San Isidro where we saw a huge park with so many olive trees which apparently are guarded so no one can pick them! We also went to another small suburb called Barranco which was a place positioned on the beach. We also had dinner in Barranco later that night. We had a great couple of days in Lima.



The following day, we headed to the airport to fly to Quito, Ecuador where we have now been for 2 days. We both thought that Quito would be the part of the trip where we would take it easy and have some rest, but that hasn't been the case at all and we have loved that! On Saturday we jumped on a bus which took us up north to a town called Otavalo. Saturday's are 'market days' in Otavalo. When they say there are loads of stalls set up, they aren't kidding! We spent 2 hrs walking around the market and we didn't complete it all but it was fun. After exploring the markets, we hired a taxi for 4 hrs who took us around to some of the sights in greater Otavalo. We went to two amazing lagoons, one in the centre of an extinct volcano's crater. We also visited Parque de Condor which housed many hawks, eagles, owls and of course the great Andean condors. We then went to an indigenous community called Peguche where we saw a lovely waterfall and went to the cleanest public bathrooms we had ever been to on our trip! From there we went back to the bus terminal to catch a bus back to Quito.



Yesterday we visited the 'Old Town' of Quito. We did a lot of research and managed to find our own way there without falling back on the safety of a $4 taxi! Annoyingly a lot of the old town goes into hibernation on a Sunday so a lot of sights and shops were closed. Nonetheless we enjoyed venturing around, taking in some magnificent architecture and museums among other things. Late in the afternoon we went and visited Quito's pride and joy, "The Virgin of Quito", which is a massive statue of the Virgin Mary that sits atop a hill, overlooking the entire city. The views were amazing and the structure quite impressive (its height is similar to Christ the Redeemer in Rio). We got to climb the statue and take some great photos of the cityscape. From there we made our way home by bus again and enjoyed dinner at an american BBQ restaurant.



Today we are off to the 'Mitad Del Mundo' (Middle of the World) which is where the compass reads 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude. We are also going on a sky tram up to 4100m above sea level which offers spectacular views of Quito's mountainous landscape.



Tomorrow we meet our new tour group for our Galápagos Islands adventure which we are very excited about. Not sure if we will have internet on the Galápagos Islands but will blog again as soon as we can. If we don't blog, see you back in Perth in a couple of weeks!



Hope everyone's well.



P & M xx

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