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Alandaluz Hosteria
Gorgeous view from our bamboo hut balcony So here we are entering week 3 and we are now in Banos which is a fairly large town in the central highlands. However we intend to move from here in the next day or so and head back up towards Cotopaxi and the Quiltoa Loop.
Since our last report we have been to an area called Manabi that is on the west coast of Ecuador pretty much bang in the middle. We stayed at an ecotourism resort for a week that was right on the beach called Alandaluz (www.alandaluzhosteria.com). It was gorgeous and we were in a thatched hut situated on a hill above the beach so the view was magnificient. We shared the thatched hut with our hilarious Spanish instructor Manuel who was on a par with the fawlty towers persona! The deal was that we would have 20 hours tuition and then trips to the local area around that and hopefully be fluent at the end of the week. Unfortunately thats not the case and though our Spanglish has imporved we are still far from fluent. Manuel (who didnt speak much english) was trying to teach us grammatically correct spanish when we didnt even know what the
Isla Del Plata
Blue Footed Boobies courting! words meant that he was using. Our spelling really isnt going to matter but being understood is! It got a little frustrating even though we explained to him what we wanted to learn, he seemed to know only one way to teach and couldnt really adjust the lessons to accomodate our needs. Nevermind, we did pick up a little bit and Im sure it will come to us easier as we go along (I hope)!
Aside from the frustration of not learning quicker we had a great time as the hostal was so nice and the trips were really good. We visited a few different beaches, one of which is in a protected national park called Machalilla which was gorgeous. The best part though was definitely Isla del Plata (poor mans galapagos)! It was quite a bumpy 90 minute ride out in the boat but well worth it. We had a guide who took us on a 5km trek Machete trek around the island (there is one the other side but you dont get to see as much). Although we didnt get to see any sea lions we did spy some sharks and sting rays playing in the surf and
Isla Del Plata
Nemo´s cousins! an ickle turtle. We literally stepped over blue footed boobies, frigates and 2 albatross nesting on eggs! After all that we got to go snorkelling as well (not where the sharks were thank god) and saw some amazing coral and multicoloured fishies which I have no clue what they are called whatsoever! It made up for the fact that we are not going to the galapagos - we did find a tour that was a great deal but they wanted all the money that day and we could not physically draw that much out of the bank! Paying by card they add a whopping 12% and that would have made it not a good deal so instead of spanking all our funds in our first month here we get to relax and not worry about doing some really good stuff later on.
Our first overnight bus journey both to and from the coast was nowhere near as traumatic as I had predicted - thats as long as you dont look out of the window and realise that there is no road just a dirt track that the coach driver is using as rally practice! Hoever this wasnt nearly half as
scary as the bus journey to Tena! We arrived back in Quito from the coast on Saturday 20th and as Quito is not that nice we hopped straight back on a bus (yes we werent to fresh) to Tena which is in the Oriente (jungleland). This was by far a more scary journey so much so that when I woke up from dozing off early on into the journey Lee would not let me lift my head to look out of the window! He said it was better off if I didnt see so naturally that made me want to look more - OH MY GOD! You travel through mountainous land to get to Tena which isnt all that high up itself but the roads are not paved and there are numerous landslides to deal with that new roads develop literally overnight! And to boot it was bloody pouring down - thankfully this made the bus steam up so that you couldnt see the sheer drops down from the tyres or the wooden bridges built for horse and cart being loaded with 3 buses, 2 cars and few bikes and a monkey all at once! Just think about that next
Amazonica National Parque - Tena
Ickle Lion Monkey oh oh ahh ahh ahh! time you eat bananas! Cos thats right whilst driving down the mountain the driver thinks he's in a race and overtakes asda´s supply for next week........
Once there Tena is an amazing tropical cloud forest. It also so happens to be the center for kayaking and rafting in ecuador so I (lee) was happy! Our first day was spent walking in a wildlife park which we thought would be really good. It had some impressive animals however seeing them caged ditracted from the whole experience somewhat. The nicest thing we learned in Tena was that the locals outside of Quito are so friendly and it made such a nice change. It definitely put us both at ease a lot more. Day two saw us booking onto a rafting trip which allowed me to kayak along side the raft (or under it rather, the guide wasnt so good)! The day was pretty good altough the trip is made by the group and lets just say they were not the most enthusiastic bunch, so i felt a bit sorry for vicky in the raft.
After all that energy expenditure it was time for some R+R (its a hard life) so the next
day we booked into a retreat in the forest. Our room was a bamboo hut on stilts next to a clean mtn river, bliss! Time spent walking and swimming just chilling out was nice especially the local kids who joined us in the river and took a shine to Vicky (or her white legs which one girl wouldnt stop stroking and said that she was as white as a chicken!).
The next day we got back on the bus and came to Banos. There is an active Volcano here and the town was on red alert up until 2005 and apparently it is spitting ash currently but it is always shrouded with clouds so not much to see. Its very touristy and lots to do and again the locals are really friendly. This is out of the jungle and back into the mountains. We have done almost all there is to do apart from a few treks as Vicky has been a little ill so I am now starving her until she is better and we can do stuff again! We got up at 6.30am on thursday and visited one of the local thermal springs - absolutely fantastic! Boiling hot
to freezing cold and mingling with all the locals (we were the only gringoes up at that time). On friday we decided to tackle some hiking without a guide but the maps arent good and obviously nothing is signposted so of course we got lost and walked around in the middle of a mountain for 2 hours before backing up down the same track we had started on! All was not lost we did manage to see loads of gorgeous waterfalls, 2 quite big and popular and did get some great photos which we will share with you when we can get the damn computers to recognise the camera (any suggestions?)! Anyway we are both good and hope you all are to and will be in touch soon xxx
P.S guinea pig (a delicacy here?) tastes like turkey except for the little feet which are crunchy..........
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Clown the second!!
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game on
Looks superb. Don't know how this works but I thoguht i'd write something anyway... Heeello all of lee and vicky's friends, how are you? If we all chip in a little bit and hire a big boat it would be cheaper than a flight to go and see them.. what d'ye reckon?