Beijing Royal Palace Apartment Ibarra

... in front of them (perhaps so they could sit next to us), What are their intentions? What if they are robbers? They’ve been glancing at us frequently. Oh man, why did I listen to them? Okay, God, I need your help here. Two men. Pretty strong-looking and sneaky too. Please protect us and give us wisdom.” Ania and I began devising plans about what to say to these men… Let’s say we are going to meet our husbands in Otavalo…let ...

... the bus terminal for a good hour and a quarter. Now, Rough Guide describes the terminal as "full of unsavoury characters", and its definitely not wrong there. There were a lot of urchins, and we found ourselves accosted every few minutes by people begging or trying to sell us their unappealing wares, ranging from peanut shaped ornately-decorated neck pillows to a random carved wooden llama and, for ****īs sake, a single 8GB memory stick - the bloke had blatantly just nicked it it from ...

... it, and also a main street that had seven stone crosses found throughout it. There were plenty of little restaurants and we also passed a massive vat of peanuts cooking in sugar….heavenly smell. We went into a convent that sold Jesus wine and biscuits…we skipped the holy communion stuff but did get a nougat biscuit thing so still ate some flesh. Wrong?
Went to another convent where the nuns sell face creams, health medicines and snacks. They are not allowed to see us, and ...

... where to go, thanked him before proceeding to find someone else to ask for directions. Only after coming across Calle 6 de Diciembre, did the puzzled look the waiter gave me make sense..

We were somewhat creeped out by our hosts and accommodations at Hostal Titisee so we moved one street over to stay our second night at Hostal Galeria. Our main objective of the day was to visit La Mitad Del ...

... modern buildings and buisness needed to support the city. On one shifty feeling morning, we went to the teleferico, which is a gondola that travles to the top of a nearby mountain. Near the top of the mountain we ran into a extremely nice Ecuadorian family enjoying the day. The daughter, who for the record was extremely good looking was sporting a vintage Davvy Crockett hat, her dad, a dallas cowboys jacket. She was nice enough to ...

... day. Not at much for the first few days just acclimatisin to the altitude (about 2850m) but were not sick at all fingers crossed it stays that way. Collected the tickets for the Galapagos cruise today, saying Catriona is excited would be the understatement of the century but il have to say it is excitin of all the people weve met who say they went there they say it was easily the best part of their whole trip. Went on the telirifico today ...

... the charming old part of town and climbing to the tippy top of the beautiful Basilica. This involved multiple stairways and a few rickety metal ladders, with the reward of a 360 view of the city and a bit of vertigo. Quito is a strange mix of old and new, with the fanciest "gringolandia" area we've seen yet and a very party vibe (which, a little spooked by robbery ...

... bus ride t* h** neighb*rh**d. We meet s*me *f h** friends and they pr*ceed t* sh*w me ar*und the m*untains. We hit a few t*wns, then t* an inactive v*lcan*. G*t really c*ld up th**e, ears p*pping, headache, wh*le thing. S*, *n the way back t* the bus st*p, h** friend sees a little pickup truck parked next t* s*me dudes h*use and we st*p th**e. He is angry, inspecting the truck, saying it was in an accident. I didn't kn*w exactly what was g*ing *n, didn't care ...

... interest and respect. And it`s not even that. It`s the woman who works in the cafe where we were having breakfast and a little girl walks in, one of many dirty faced children that wander the streets trying to sell chewing gum and lollies, and this woman just draws her away from us, talks to her and gives her a lolly. But she is one example. Maybe we were spoiled in Perucho at the farm when we got to meet all those wonderful people - it`s definitely the people ...

... all the jobs were being filled with foreign volunteers. He was in no position to offers his services for free. I took his details and sent him on his way with an inflated sense of hope that maybe, just maybe I knew someone in immigration to look the other way. I didnīt have the heart to tell him that things work so differently in Australia. He seemed so desperate. His wife was scared of Australians. "Look" he said, "there really nice"...... already preparing her for ...