Ali Shungu Mountaintop Lodge Otavalo

Off again, and this time the taxi driver was chasing a bus that had actually left the station, which we just managed to get (we are yet to wait even one minute for a bus in Ecuador!). We arrived at the south terminal in Quito three hours later. It was huge and brand new, even more impressive than an airport - trouble is it is so far south of the city that we had a 45 minute taxi or about 3 buses to get to the ...

... beside themselves with terror and pain. I wanted to buy them all and let them free. However this is the locals lively hood, without it most of them wouldnt survive. I sat on the bank for a while watching all the bartering and how they go about checking the health of the animals etc...and out of the corner of my eye I saw a sack running along the ground, it was full of guiene pigs trying to escape, as horrible as it was it was a very funny sight. <br><br>After a ...

... Niamh to share although there were plenty of seats and so they had their own seats. About 3 and a half hours later we were dropped off, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Buses go right passed Otavalo on their way to Quito, and the bus stop is a good 25 minute walk into town. We tried to flag down a taxi to no avail and so walked with our very heavy rucksacks. We arrived, sweaty and very tired, in the centre of town where the famous Otavalo craft markets were still in full swing, to ...

... I guess there would be something entertaining about it.<br><br>Sunday saw a very early rise... we were woken by the sound of the chopping of wood from about 5am in the morning. Since we were up anyway we got up to watch the sun rise and I had a bit of a nosey around the family´s massive garden - it was at least 1 acre full of fruit trees like lemons, oranges, mandarins, wildberries, tamarinds, and also corn, potatoes and barley. It didn´t take too long for me ...

... is not finding what you want, but getting out without stuff you can't identify and didn't want in the first place! It's all so gorgeous you want to take it all with you! The second building houses small shop spaces which are filled to the brim with common local grocery items - grains of all kinds, flour, sugar, toilet paper and paper towels, seasonings, wooden matches - you get the picture. Here is where you also find the butchers and fishmongers - beef, pork, poultry ...

... the corner, the man suddenly appeared from around a building. (¡dun dun dun!) Our eyes met. &#8220;Oh, we decided not to stay here tonight&#8230;&#8221; I said. &#8220;Why?&#8221; the man asked intently. &#8220;Because we wanted to stay somewhere closer to the center of the town,&#8221; I said, sticking with my plan. &#8220;Okay, esta bien&#8221; the man said with a cold, hard stare. &#8220;Gracias a usted,&#8221; I said, as I began walking away with Ania ...

... walked for over an hour, but we didn&#8217;t reach the south side of the lake. Not knowing where the campsite was, we bushwacked again to a slight valley in the mountainsides that looked like it might be a little more out of the wind. We pitched our tents. After we had our tent up, we noticed a pair of large raptors nesting on the cliffs to one side. They didn&#8217;t bother us, and we didn&#8217;t seem to bother them. <br><br>It got cold, dark, and windy quickly and we ...

... I returned with a bag of frozen juice, which worked just as well. Eventually, the police arrived, and it was decided that the owner of the car should be responsible for any medical costs incurred by the accident. The driver never re-appeared. We climbed into the police truck with the two car owners, the father of our gochildren, and another friend of the family. At the hospital, where another family friend, who lived in town and had been notified of the ...

... angehalten, der uns bis zum Kratersee Cuicocha gebracht hat. Der See ist vulkanisch entstanden und man kann in einer Tageswanderung einmal herumlaufen. Die Aussicht auf die umliegenden Vulkane ist wunderschön und wir haben einen strahlend blauen Sonnentag erwischt. Zunächst ging es eine Schotterstrasse entlang, bis wir an einen dunklen Nadelwald kamen. Von dort aus geht es immer weiter am Rand einer Klippe hoch über dem See entlang ...

... folded her arms and yelled:<br> "Yo, Alberto! Yo, Alberto! Come take a look what this white boy just asked me."<br> <br> Alberto, a Latino man with a shaved head, goatee and gang tattoos would have come out the house and said:<br> "Yo, you steppin´on my territory, homes. Why don´t you back up and quit disrespectin`my old lady, esè!"<br> <br> Alberto´s fellow gangsters would have then appeared and pistol whipped me into submission and then ...