Blogs from Ecuador, South America - page 17

Our final stop in Ecuador. We were joined by fellow travellers and friends Marg and Ted for a week in the very charming small city of Cuenca. It was a pleasant change from the hustle of Quito. We walked everywhere we wanted to go and now seem to be acclimatized to the altitude. Cuenca has lots of ex-pats. 10 000 former US residents and plenty of Canadians. Those we met seem very happy here with the slow pace of life, very affordable cost of living and the mild year-round climate. Next stop, Lima Peru.... read more

Now we have an experience to rival our Galapagos trip. Although Ecuador has just 2% of the Amazon Rainforest it is the most bio diverse region. The La Selva area has over 600 varieties of birds, 7 types of monkeys and countless varieties of trees, plants, insects and other assorted creatures. I have adopted collages as a way of grouping some of the experiences we crammed into our days at La Selva. Each day started at 5.30am and wound up shortly after 9pm with us collapsing into bed!... read more

I am struggling to find words to describe our Galapagos experience. It is something we have wanted to do for many years; now it is over but we have unforgettable memories. After months of research we decided on a "10 day" cruise aboard Yolita 2. !0 days is really 8 days and 7 nights aboard! The rest is getting to and from the islands. Our guide, Omar Medina, was absolutely superb. He was with us every minute of every day. He guided snorkelling and land based activities. In the evenings, he provided additional information and showed brief videos to enhance our experience. He made a video of our 7 days aboard and provided us with a copy. If you look at the agenda for one of the days you'll see not much time was wasted. Typically ... read more

We decided to make an effort for Christmas this year, so have rented a nice, modern apartment in Cuenca for a month. This is the city that we hope to move to later this year, so we have been enjoying exploring the different neighbourhoods and experiencing some traditional Ecuadorian Christmas and New Year celebrations. For the first week in Cuenca we stayed in Tortuga at an overlander campground - well, driveway - run by a very welcoming Ecuadorian family. It's a tiny little place and can squeeze in about 4 small vehicles at a push, but Miryam and Richard were so kind and friendly that we felt at home right away, and I especially enjoyed befriending their sweet 9-year old daughter Romina. We were also able to meet up with our friends Jen and Kyle, the ... read more

Up earlier than usual at about 04:35 as the boat had re-started on it’s way presumably to Daphne Major for a scheduled last activity circumnavigating the volcano island. I couldn’t get back to sleep but we both got up at the scheduled time of 05:45 to go to the top of the Nemo I to watch the birds. At 07:00 was the usual breakfast before last minute packing to have our bags ready by 08:00 for the transfer to shore. We bid farewell to Christof and Nicole, Florian and Miriam who were staying on the islands a bit longer and the rest of us hopped on the airport bus. We had a fair bit time to kill so we all did some last minute gift shopping before boarding our 10:08 flight. We were the only ones ... read more