Day 131 - Ecuador! Home to some serious JUNGLE, cloud forests, and the famous Galapagos Islands...

Yep yep, I now feel my life is in order again and can finally make a comeback to this blog with a bang!

Bit of a mission getting to Ecuador, the plane going from Sydney-Auckland-Santiago, where I had to find a flight to Quito. Tired and slightly smelly, I eventually arrived at 9pm approximately 28 hours after leaving Sydney, but after the time difference only lost 13 hours to travel! Checked into a cheery hostel called Crossroads, right in the tourist heart of Quito, an area called La Mariscal.

Shoe cleaner boy and cafe owner

I did have my suspicions about staying on the Mariscal Foch, a street affectionately described by my Lonely Planet as "notoriously bad for muggings and the like". However having now spent nearly 2 weeks at this hostel, I can gladly say things have changed since the last Lonely Planet inspector dropped by.

Absolutely loving the cheapness of Ecuador, my first night a great example: hostel room 3.50GBP per night, all you can eat Mongolian bbq 2.50, cocktails from 50p.

Old dudes playing cards in the park, this should happen at home more often!

I was lucky to meet some cool people straight away in my dorm room, and from breakfast the next day mostly ended up spending my Quito days with a couple of Aussies I had come across. My first day was mostly spent wandering around the city, with a good few hours spent people watching at the nearby park.

These two are brothers, we chatted for ages!

Incredibly interesting, young children play for hours with sticks and without parents, old people play cards on the concrete benches, and local men seem to compete to find the most public place to urinate. Up against a tree in the middle of a busy park seems a particularly coveted spot!

Departed Quito for my 6 day jungle adventure to the Cuyabeno on the 31st. The taxi to the bus terminal was probably my scariest yet, with the driver trying to ram another car off the road in a fit of road rage. Then he ripped me off. I wasn't up for arguing, he looked as though he might explode at any point! The bus terminal was the next scary place, talk about being taken out of your comfort zone! Had no idea where I was or what I was meant to do, but thankfully a policeman took pity and helped me on my way.

On board the motorised canoe

My first experience of South American police and it was a good one, WOO! The bus finally left at 9.30pm, taking me on a 12hr journey to the Cuyabeno River, next to the Columbian border. Not much to complain about compared to the return journey, although did experience the "no rush when stationary, no brakes when moving" approach to travel within South America. And a flat tyre (1hr to change). In fact, there was even a token sign in the bus that read "we choose security over velocity". Yeah whatever!

Spikey spider

Snake caught at night time - the torchlight reflects in their eyes.

Goldinger Spider, pretty big!

Arriving with a young Dutch couple, we were met by Romulo, our guide (only 19!) at the river bridge. We reached the river lodge after 15mins on a motorised canoe. Nice place, kept clean and without electricity of course! Because there were only 3 of us at the lodge, we requested to go as far down stream as possible, getting deeper in the jungle and hopefully seeing more. Actually, it turned out to be one of the farthest trips the family had taken - they'd not been that far in a year, so they all came with us! The group therefore included Romulo's father, sister and nephew.

It was a brilliant adventure, travelling about 15hrs downstream gradually. The list of stuff seen is huge, but included pink river dolphins, turtles, anacondas, tarantulas, monkeys and loads of birds & insects. And of course the famous caiman, a reptile similar to the croc, growing up to 6 metres. Coooool!

I couldn't care less about it, honestly....!

We went caiman spotting at night, using a torch as their eyeshine gives them away, just like the Discovery channel! I tried to catch one like you see on the tv, and failed brilliantly. We really roughed it, camping in the middle of nowhere one night, great fun. I felt well prepared with my 4-in-1 super concentrated shower gel/shampoo/dishwashing soap/clothes detergent I had bought!

There's an active volcano to the left, but it erupts around every 6000 years. The locals take their chance.

Came back to Quito for a day then went for a 2 day trip to the cloud forest at Mindo. Went with Anna, one of the Aussies I had met at the hostel, and had our own guide Eddy drive us around, really helpful. The cloud forest was stunning, so i'll have to put pics up.

Food was at Eddy's favourite restaurant in area...we didn't agree! Whole 'trout' (definitely not trout), cow hoof soup (as the name suggests, a hoof floating in bowl of liquid), lovely! Stopped off at a museum on the equator on the way back.

Saw a shrunken human head, pretty standard...and some cool demonstrations. One of the best was using a sink, where they showed us how water goes down the plug different ways just 1 metre either side of the equatorial line! And even stranger, the water just goes straight down when the sink is placed exactly on the line. It's also easier to balance and egg upright on a nail head on the equatorial line, and you aren't as strong there either. Weird!

After a couple more days in the big city of Quito, it was time for my...GALAPAGOS TRIP! One of the main reasons I had chosen Ecuador n the first place, I'd been looking forward to this bit for ages. Well, the whole thing was incredible, so much so that I think I'd have trouble describing it with any justice. Sooo, I'm going to tell most of the story in pictures. All I will say is that everything I had heard about the islands was true, and still I couldn't have been more impressed. The animals literally don't care about human presence, and seem to see us as little more than camera-clutching pests. The boat was way better than I expected, and the crew were top notch. The tour lasted 7 days...