But wait, there is more!

Some more things for you guys to read!

Baños
After so much relaxing in Cotopaxi we decided that it was time to do something a bit more adventerous. Baños was the most logical choice. We didnt know much about the place except that everyone raved about how great it was.

Driving to Baños we were treated to amazing views of deep valleys and mountains. Eventually the road slowly curved towardsa massive volcanoe. The snow covered peak, the rolling clouds slowly caressing everything around them was really impressive. What we didnt realise was that Baños was perched right under this volcanoe. Interenstingly enough, there were signs all over the city, pointing out an escape route encase it erupted, which it does quite frequently. Last time the volcanoe stirred was earlier this year.

We stayed at an awesome hostel called Princessa Maria. It had big rooms, clean beds and amazing people working there (you know who you are). Ali and Rebecca decided to join us, so the 4 of us shared a room which happened to look out quite nicely over the daily market. What followed was 4 days of total glutteny. Our dinners were absolutely massive. A good example is when we decided to make pizza for dinner. In the morning we had made crepes, 26 to be exact, with all types of fruit and filling. Than for dinner we made 12 pizzas, loaded with all types of vegetables and chicken, between the 4 of us.

Baños was als great because of the night life. Being a small town, there was one street with a few bars lined alongst it. While they were all pretty good bars we kept to the ´Good Bar´ because they had great drinks specials. From salsa, 90´s music to great dancing and drinking, we had a good couple of nights. We also ran into a guy from Belgium that we had met on the Loop. This guy was quite easy to recognise as he was about 7 feet, beared and with glasses. It was amazing when his dancing style turned out to be ´jump jump jump´, those ceilings must have been really high.

Our time in Baños went by really quickly. We did quite a few of the adventure activities offered there. First day we went on a white water rafting trip. While it was amazing rafting down the massive river the highlight was definetely the little stop over. Everyone got out and carried the boat over boulders and rocks for 10 minutes to arrive at the banks of the next river. From there we went on foot into the jungle, into a militray base. Turns out our guide had friends there and we were allowed to see all the animals that the army had confiscated from traffickers. From snakes, jungles cats to small baby monkeys and a sloth, it was amazing seeing this little zoo in the middle of nowhere. We also ended up having lunch which we didnt realise was included in the price, so overall it was an amazing experience.

The following day we rented bikes and headed out of town towards a massive waterfall 16km out of town. While on the way there we stopped to do some zip linning. Its amazing how easy it is to bargain for things when its the low season. From $15 a person, we got it for $15 for the both of us. While mine zip line was quick and breath taking, Anna got stuck half way and  had to be pulled in by one of the guys. The zipline extended over a valley, flying over a river and a bunch of large rocks.

The actual waterfall was absolutely beautiful. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. A massive torrent of fast moving water, that exploded as it hits the rocks below. We decided that we had to go behind it, and after crawling for 5 mintues through a snaking little hole, we were behind it! The roar, the ferocity, its hard to describe, hopefully the picture captures it to a degree.

The next day was all about hiking. Anna and I spent the entire day trying to find a tree houses somewhere up on a mountain. After doing loops of the area, we finally found it but had to turn around because it was getting late. However, after talking to the guy that worked there, we found out that it was possible to camp there. We also found out that the volcanoe was acting up again as it had started spewing forth blue sulphur from the crater. When this happens, he informed us that loads of tourists come up for the night to pitch tents and watch eruptions at night. We decided that 

it would be a great idea to observe this phenomenon ourself. The next day we caught the bus up there and set up our tent. We were the only people there and though that atleast the guy looking after the place would stay behind, but he decided to leave at around 6pm. From that point onwards we were totally alone, a fire to cook our dinner, a massive volcanoe to our left and huge valleys in every other direction. It was a beautiful sight.

What was meant to be a little stop over turned into the place that we´ve stayed the longest at so far. We had an amazing time hanging out with everyone.
  

Cuenca 

After Banos we headed to Cuenca, which is Ecuador’s biggest southern city. We headed to a hostel that we had read about in Lonely Planet because it had a kitchen and was described as a “friendly family run place.” When we got there it was completely empty, since it is currently the off season for travel. But since we were already there, we decided to stay, even though the atmosphere wasn’t the best and the staff was a little cold. It left us not too excited about Cuenca because we had no one to talk to at our hostel, and probably because of this, we only ended up spending two nights in Cuenca. 


We spent our one day there going to a very nice museum about the various native cultures of Ecuador, which had a really cool collection of shrunken heads. When we weren’t at the museum, we discovered that Cuenca was famous for its ice cream shops, which served real ice cream instead of the cup-shaped homemade ice cream that we found everywhere else in Ecuador. So we indulged in that while wandering around Cuenca’s beautiful old district (nicer than Quito’s, we decided). Overall, Cuenca was just a brief uneventful stop, so uneventful, in fact, that Val keeps forgetting that we even went there. 

Vilcabamba

After spending so much time in Banos, we were itching to get out of Ecuador and onto Peru. But we had heard really good things about the little pueblo of Vilcabamba, so we decided to make that our last stop in Ecuador. We wanted to camp, so (once again) we ended up staying at a place that was a ways out of town. It was supposed to be a 12 minute walk from town, but ended up being about a 25 minute walk from town, which was a bit of a challenge with our enormous packs. But we made it and it was a nice enough place. We just spent two nights in Vilcabamba, because it was nice, but there was not much to do. We spent one day exploring the town, which only took about an hour because it was tiny. We went to a little zoo, and hung out in the plaza, and caught up one some internet necessities. Vilcabamba was a funny place because it was full of expats. There were tons of white hippy families who had settled there amongst the very old Ecuadorians. (Vilcabamba is located in a valley nicknamed the “valley of longetevity” because its inhabitants are famous for living for a very long time.) Our second day in Vilcabamba we hiked to a waterfall with some friends that we met at our camp site, and then hopped on a night bus headed to Peru.

On to country number three! 

Welcome to Ecuador!

Well, obviously blogging has not been our priority. So in an effort to at least start blogging
about Ecuador before we leave Peru, I (Anna) am finally going to contribute. If you all can´t
tell by writing style, this blog has actually been Val´s so far because I am too preocupied with
posting pictures on facebook to help him out. But now the beginning of Ecuador will be from
my point of view! Here it goes.

Quito

We started out our second country in its capital. Logical, right? This was actually only because we were forced to fly into Ecuador instead of enter by bus as we´d originally planned. It was a big annoying thing that started when we tried to fly into Columbia without having any proof that we were leaving. But it got sorted out, and we made it into Ecuador on a fancy brand new Avianca plane. (We got a meal, and our flight was only an hour and a half long!) We found Quito to be big, dangerous, and intimidating. But because we had a lot of errands to run and catching up to do, we ended up spending 5 nights there. And it wasn´t so intimidating after a while, but it was still big, and definitely the most dangerous place we´d been so far. Lots of petty crime and neighborhoods that were no-go zones. But most of our time in Quito was spent at the Mercado central (where we became regulars at a little old lady´s vegetable stand) buying tons and tons of cheap vegetables, and in our beautiful, empty hostel kitchen cooking elaborate meals. We ate every night on our hostel’s rooftop terrace with a view of the lights of Quito on the hills surrounding us. It was very beautiful. It was a good chance to rest for a few days and catch up on life with the free hostel internet. We did manage to explore the old town, which was very beautiful as colonial old districts go. Lots of tiny cobblestone streets and elaborate churches. And we got our first introduction to Ecuadorian food, which is cheap as anything, but mostly fried. In Quito you can find set lunch menus with two courses and a drink for $1.50. Amazingly cheap. But it would always consist of rice, potatoes, and some sort of fried meat. The novelty wore off after about two of them, and we went back to cooking our own lunches, which were full of veggies from our favorite market ladies.

The Quilatoa Loop
To sum up this trek with the words: stunning or beautiful would be limmiting yourself to its true inspiring nature. Not knowing what we wanted out of Ecuador, Lonely Planet suggested looking into something that looked rather complicated with all the bus travel and accomodation arrangements. The major complications were that there were no guided treks from town to town. One had to rely on a verbal map, "Take a left at the 2 big rocks". However, the Quilatoa Loop proved to be one of the highlights of our trip so far. It was also one of the first true treks that we've done on our trip, pretty much organized by us.

The loop traditionally starts from the base point, a small town called Latacunga. The locals have been dealing with tourists for a while and will not shy away from ripping you off; two tomatoes for a $1 anyone? From there the actual hiking begins from the Quilatoa Lake, with a 14hr hike to the next town of Chugchilian. From there its another 14km to Isilivin and another 10km to Sigchos. Yup, thats a solid 3 days of hiking and some of the best views in South America.

Latacunga

There isnt much to say about this town, its small, colonial and has 2 main hostels to choose from. We stayed in Hostel Tiana simply because we wanted to get as much information from them as we could about the loop.

We arrived on a Sunday, to the very last day of the very famous festival, La Mama Negra. We didnt realise that this was the festival so we were very confused to find the main square outside the church packed with people. From bands to children dressed as soldiers on horseback, it was a spectacular sight. We were baffled by the giant pig statues located all around the church. The pigs were sprawled out over a cross with chicken and guinepigs spiked next to them. Some of the statues had cigaretts, chocolates, alcohol or fruit taped to them. It was really confusing because it appeared that each of the major families in the town had there own statue. We later found out that these statues had to be walked around town from the church to the main plaza, 30 mintues away, up a hill. These statues weighted in excess of 20kg and had to be carried on the back of the unlucky member of the family; turns were taken.

We stayed and watched the procession. From start to finish, there were allot of bands, all dressed up and playing the same music. There were adults and kids dressed in creepy costumes running around blessing people by spraying lemon flavoured water all over them. There were also other guys in costumes running around, professing rhymes onto different people after which forcing them to drink whisky out of a bottle. The one remarkable thing is that everyone in the parade was either drinking on drunk. As refreshers, the band players would chug down on beer and continue there steady pace to the main plaza overlooked by the child saint Mercedes. 

In the end, our hostel wasnt very helpful. We caught the bus to Quilato in the morning and were on our way!

Quilatoa Lake

 The Quilatoa Lake is actually a lake contained within a crater. Getting there in the morning and getting out of the bus, we were welcomed by a desolate looking place. The main street was linined with hostels all offering rooms for $10 a night. However our destination was a place recommended by Lonely Planet called Cabans Quilatoa. From the outside it looked like an abandoned buidling, grey and really weathered. The otherside was a bit newer and beyoned that, the building was practically brand new. Our host, a really nice Ecuadorian showed us a very nice looking room with a massive and cosy looking bed. The offer of $25pp was far to high and with Anna's haggling skills we were soon settling into a nice room with a double bed, a private bathroom, a fireplace with dinner and breaky included all for $10pp! 

While we generally enjoy cooking for ourself because its heathier and cheaper, the hostels on the loop did not offer any kitchens. Instead it was easy to find a hostel for $10pp with dinner and breaky included in all the places that we were at.

The lake itself was beautiful. While it was an overcast day, the few rays of sunlight would reveal the emerald color of the lake. We decided that taking a kayak trip was the best way to really experience it. A minute after launching out my side started to leak. I stood in the kayak and called out the fact that it was leaking only to be replaye with "Its ok, it wont sink". So with saturated jeans and a cold butt we paddled the lake.

Chugchilian
The next day we got up early, had a hearty breakfast of eggs, jam, bread, oats and fruit and were on our way. While not having intructions on how to get to Chugchilian we knew that we had to go to the 2nd sandy patch that you could see from the restaurant overlooking the crater. That was our first marker. Luckily, just before setting out we ran into some people that we met at the hostel, we took pictures of there written instructions and the map.

We started off our hike by turning too early, the sandy patch that we came across wasnt the 2nd patch bu more like the 1 and a half patch. It wasnt sandy enough and because of that our directions from then on were pointless. However the best thing about this hike is that we started off high on the mountain so we could see our next target in the distance. Guyama is a little town, a half way marker to which we made our own way and were greated nicely by the farmers living around there always asking us where we were going. The journey consisted of walking down one mountain, to the lowest point and then hiking back up another mountain. The entire time we could see or atleast knew where our final destination was.We made it to Chugchilian in the estimated time of four and a half hours.

We stayed at a place called Hostel Cloud Forest, a really nice hostel where we also had to haggle the price of our room. There rooms were really comfortable and the hostel had written directions of how to get to the next place, Isilivin.

Isinlivi
The hike to Isinlivi was probably the most beautiful hiking I have ever done. We crossed deep ravines, mountains and a deep flowing river. Our directions proved easier to follow this time around but it still took us the estimated time to get to our destination. Our initial plan was to stay at Hostel Llululama, at $18 a night it wasnt our first choice but we were made to believe that there was nothing else. Arriving in Isilivin, we realised that across the street was another hostel, for $10 we recieved a cosy room with all the food and got to support a local family. That night we had dinner in there house, got to know a bit more about the area and generally felt better about hanging out with a local family.

The town had an amazing look out and generally looked like it was prospering.

Sigchos
The hike to Sigchos was supposed to take only 3 hours. Our directions and the map to follow those direction did not match all that well. We ended up taking the wrong turn and had to walk through farms, side of deep valleys, crawl under barb wire to finally make it to our end point, four and a half hours later. The hike was amazing but the town itself was not all that picturesque.

The highlight of the whole thing was really the hiking, so beyond saying that it was amazing, its kind of hard to describe that all we did was walk allot. We recommend that everyone should do this hike as the people that we met and the views that we enjoyed were completely worth it.

Otavalo
Anna again. Val wanted to do the Quilotoa loop because he loved it so much. (Not that I didn’t
– but he was adamant.) But now I get to do Otavalo, which I loved! After the Quilotoa loop,
we spent a night back in Quito, and then headed north to Otavalo. Otavalo is famous for its indigenous market, which attracts visitors from all over South America, as well as tons of gringo tourists. We decided to camp while we were there (thinking frugally, as always), and Lonely Planet mentioned a nice place slightly out of town. Slightly out of town ended up being 4 km up a big hill, but we took a taxi and managed to get there without too much effort. The place was beautiful – it had a view of two huge volcanos, and all of Otavalo. We camped on a grassy hill overlooking the valley, and had the dorm kitchen all to ourselves because no one else was staying in the dorms.

On Saturday, we headed downhill on foot for the market. We had been mentally preparing for this market for a while, and had researched (by talking to Ecuadorians) how much each item should cost. The whole bargaining culture was new to us, and we were determined not to get ripped off. So we came into the market on a mission, and knew exactly what we wanted to buy. Our preparation ended up being very successful. We first wandered the market, checking out the possibilities. The place was enormous – pretty much the entire town was full of booths. They sold everything from clothes to electronics to live animals. Since we weren’t interested in buying a cow or a cuy (guinea pig – a local delicacy) we mostly hung around the crafty area. Finally, after watching for a while, we made our first bargaining attempts. Our first purchase was an alpaca sweater for me, which we managed to get for $15, down from the original $30 asking price. Success! We continued on, and ended up with bags full of alpaca socks, hats, jumpers, and scarves.

A good day. Finally, after we’d gone on our shopping spree, we ran into our friend Carla, who we had done the Quilotoa loop with. We convinced her to stay a night in Otavalo with us (she was planning on going back to Quito) at our cozy hostel. Then the three of us headed to the food part of the market, and filled up even more bags with veggies, meat, and quinoa to cook for dinner. This time we hitched a ride up the hill in the back of a truck, and spent the evening cooking ourselves a massive dinner. Carla shared her cooking knowledge with us (she was from Hong Kong, and had a very different style of cooking to us) and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal together.

We stayed two more days in Otavalo because it was so peaceful and relaxing. We spent these days hiking around the hostel and reading books. We finally left four days later, bundled up in cozy alpaca clothing and thoroughly relaxed.

Cotopaxi
After Otavalo, we returned to Quito to the hostel that had been our base in Ecuador. When we went to Quilotoa and Otavalo, we left half of our stuff at this hostel, which made traveling so much more comfortable. Even after sending a 5kg package home our first day in Quito, we still had WAY too much stuff in our backpacks. We have yet to see anyone with bags bigger than ours, and traveling is such a pain with such huge backpacks. It is mostly caused by our camping gear, which saves us enough money to be worth the hassle. But even though we know this, it doesn’t stop us from complaining about our big bags. Anyways, after Otavalo we decided that we wanted to see Cotopaxi, which is the huge volcano next to Quito. It is a perfectly shaped volcano, and looks oh-so-inviting from Quito. We were trying to decide between visiting it on a day trip from Quito, or staying at a hostel that we had heard about from a girl in Otavalo which is right outside of Cotopaxi national park. In the end, we decided to splurge and go to the hostel because we could camp there. Camping was $20 a day, including 3 meals. This may not seem expensive, but considering we usually pay $4 a day to camp, and can feed ourselves for about $4 a day, this was a bit steep. But sometimes splurges are necessary, and this one was definitely worth it.

To get to the hostel, we had to get special transportation from their sister hostel in Quito, because the place was so remote that you couldn’t get there on public transportation. It took us about 2 ½ hours on little dirt roads before we pulled up to the hostel, which was surrounded by farm land and mountains. We immediately loved the place – it had a cozy public area with a fireplace, couches, unlimited free tea, coffee and hot chocolate, and three cuddly dogs. We set up our tent outside, and as soon as it was up, it started pouring. We
couldn’t see the mountain because of the clouds, so the hostel looked like it was surrounded by green meadows leading into the mist. Our first day was just spent chatting with the other guests, drinking lots of tea, and reading our books. For dinner, we all sat at a big long table together. It felt so luxurious to have a dinner prepared for us, and it even came with dessert!

Our second day we woke up at 6am to see the views. (It tended to be cloudy during the day, so to see the hostel’s amazing views, you had to be up at sunrise)The view really was as incredible as they claimed. Cotopaxi was huge and right in front of us, a perfect snow capped cone. That day we decided to go to Cotopaxi. We couldn’t afford to actually summit the mountain, so we decided on a trip to the climbers lodge (elevation 4800m) and then mountain biking down. The trip didn’t actually involve much hiking (just about 400m from the parking lot to the climbers lodge) but because of the elevation, it felt like a real work out. At the lodge, we played in the snow (Val made his trademark snow kangaroo) and had some hot chocolate and banana cake. Then we headed back down to the parking lot and got on the bikes. Biking down the mountain was so much fun for about the first 45minutes, but then it started pouring rain. By the time we arrived at the park entrance, we were soaking wet and covered in mud. But after a hot shower, dry clothes, and a hot lunch at the hostel, we were as good as new.

The rest of our time in Cotopaxi was very relaxed. (If you can’t tell, we had a pretty relaxing time in Ecuador in general). We ate the delicious food, read two books each, chatted with the other guests, and made use of the hostel’s jaccuzi. And enjoyed the views – our last two days were sunny and beautiful, so we got to see the full view that the hostel had to offer. (From the front porch you can see NINE volcanos.) We made some friends at Cotopaxi who we ended up traveling with for another week or so, but that will be described in the next section on Banos!

Colombia in a nutshell

Well, it has been almost exactly a month since we left Colombia. While internet has been hard to come by, its mostly the time that it takes to write an update that is really annoying. However, we felt that it was necessary to update the blog now before we enter Peru. The next update will talk all about Ecuador and our general experiences.

Tayrona National Park
So we left our blog at San Gil. From this point onwards the weather go much hotter the further north we went. We spent sometime in a little place called Taganga, a small fishing village over run by tourists. While we didnt particularly like the sticky, humid, hot and scummy feel of the place, we met allot of people that loved it. Spending weeks on end partying and diving is not unheard of. However our next destination from Taganga is still one of our favourite places, Tayrona National Park.

Besides offering crystal clear blue water and white sandy beaches, it had amazing hikes and palm trees galore. To get to our camp ground we had to hike for an hour into the jungle with all of our camping gear and food.We stayed in a little placed called ¨Don Pedro´s¨, who we got to meet. We decided to camp and are still debating whether it was a good idea or not. The thing about Don Pedros is that the sleeping are is located deep within the jungle. It appears that a large meadow was cut out where a hut and a bunch of hammocks were placed. Camping was great meaning that it was quite and without distraction however the nature of the camp meant that there was not wind. The tent soon became an oven and quite unbearable to sleep in. While the hammocks sounded more appealing we found out later on that they played host to a number of flea colonies. Anyway, we spent allot of time just laying on the beach, soaking in the sun and eating delicious chocolate bread made at a local bakery. However, we did do some exploring. Deep in the jungle, just off the coast, an hours hike up virtical slopes, we reached an archeological site. The small city was built deep within the jungles and was well planned, with stone work and a large central road. The houses themselves were made from straw but the bases were all stone. In all, we loved our time in Tyarona; the people, the nature and the endless supply of coconuts simply laying around everywhere begging to be eaten.

Cartagena

From there our next stop was Cartagena. Arguably one of the most beautiful places in Colombia, it was also the best destination to go island hopping towards Panama. Our time in Cartagena was spent exploring the old town, a part of the city that had been walled in to protect it from further pirate attacks suffered in the 16th century. The walls were littered with cannons and towers. Behind the walls, away from the ocean was the tiny but quite tidy old town. Lots of churches, hotels and restaurants. On my opinion, it was one of the most  beautiful cities that I have been to. We stayed at a family ran hostel called Hostel Viena. It had air conditioning, a good kitchen, cheap and was only a few minutes walk from the old town and supermarkets. 

As part of our stay in Cartagena we had to take a tour to the mud volcanoe. It was literally a 30 meter volcanoe sticking out of the ground. The mud itself flowed deep in the earth, about 3km from the top of the crater. While laying there, not being able to touch anything solid underneath you, the occasional bubble from the depth of the earth would float up, exploding in bits of mud. It was an amazing experience, followed by one of the best lunches that Ive had in South America yet. Grilled fish with coconut rice  is definetly the winner so far. We did the tour through our hostel so we highly recommend it!






 Salento

While we heard many amazing things about Medellin, we decided to give it a miss because there were other things that we desperatly wanted to check out before our flight out of Colombia. So, the 26  hour bus ride eventually brough us to our favourite little town, Salento, deep within the Coffee Region.  We stayed in ¨The Plantation House¨, a hostel owned by a British guy called Tim. While totally fluent about all things coffee and Spanish, his Spanish accent itself left much to be desired. The hostel was great, a brand new kitchen and a working coffee farm to explore. The kitchen always had hot coffee that one could replenish their cafein needs on. Salento itself was a quite little town; a small central plaza and really nice people. We did a day trip to Cocora Valley, a 30 min drive from the main plaza. As it happens, a parade celebrating world war 2 era style jeeps is held in this town every year. The valley itself was phenominal; towering palms (reaching heights of 120m or 360 feet), rolling hills and an ever changing landscape. The day spent walking around and taking in the site was one of the most peaceful to date. The ride back to Salento involved squeezing in 12 people into a tiny tiny jeep where four of us had to hold on to the back of the jeep and sway with the corners. Salento was the perfect place to relax and break up our journey, not to mention become thoroughly addicated to coffee.

Buga

Our next stop was meant to be Cali, but the travel bug had other plans instore for us. We caught the bus to Buga, a small city not mentioned in the Lonely Plant (yeh, we´re going rouge). Buses didnt actually stop at Buga unless directed. As it happened our bus driver missed all the exits and upon our urging that that is where we wanted to go he dropped us off on the side of the highway, saying ¨Catch a taxi¨. The charm of Buga layed with our little hostel offering a break from all the sugary bread and weak tasting beer. The hostel owner, a cool German guy had owned the place for half a year. His specialty and what drew us to this place was the fact that he made his own sour dough bread. But not only that, he also brewed 3 different types of beer. The splurge was made all that much better by the fact that the day that we arrived in Buga was marked as the last day of a 10 day religious pilgrimage that occurs once every seven years. But not only that, that very same day, Colombia celebrated the day of ¨Love and Friendship¨, a South American equivalent of Valentine´s Day (which they also celebrate). So our trip to Buga proved to be very entertaining with lots of fireworks, jesus statues, love hearts and delicious bread.

Cali

Finally we arrived in Cali, the place that lived at night and was our way out of Colombia. We quickly found that Cali didnt offer many touristy attractions worthy of checking out during the day. Actually, the city itself felt rather gloomy and dirty during the day and not all that welcoming. Gladly, that is not the attraction of Cali. We stayed in a place called ¨Jovitas¨. A cool hostel offering free yoga and salsa lessons. Strangely or uniquely enough, it also had a gym. It was run by Adrianna, a really sweet Colombia lady that looks after all of her guests. Going out in Cali was an amazing experience. Watching the Colombians dancing quickly made me realize that I have a long way to go before I can say that ¨I can salsa¨. The footwork and the skill from all those dancing was outstanding. The music was also great, with a few breaks where the dj would play all the 90´s American favourites, strangely the crowd knew all of them and would sing along. For those that want to improve on their salsa or just have an amazing town meeting real Colombians, Cali should be the number one stop. So it wasnt that surprising when we met a whole bunch of people staying at our hostel with the same story saying that they were meant to be in Cali for only a few days which had turned into weeks.

That is a quick summary of our time in Colombia. It hasnt been proof read!

Our next update will hopefully involve more descriptions and will talk all about Ecuador!

Until then, ciao!

We´re bad at blogging

Here we are in Baños, Ecuador, and it´s been a month since we posted last. Oops!

So, this will be a quick wrap up of Colombia. It was great.

Beaches, humidity, really tall palm trees, and salsa dancing. So goes the first month on the road.

Yes.

lets eat some more...