Hosteria La Andaluza Riobamba

... morning to catch the train.<br><br>There is not much to see in Riobamba itself, although there are many mountains to trek around it and of course the train ride nearby. So finding a nice restaurant was a little tricky... However, we found a gem from our footprints guide, which told us it had 'good meat'. That was an understatement, as the meat was just delicious... again we were eating in the dark with candles, think this could be ...

Got up at 5.30am to get the train at 6.30am with about 50 other gringos...the beginning of the journey was very picturesque, with some stunning scenery. we got to alausi about 3 hours into the journey. from there we continued onto the famous "devils nose" descent...<br><br>it{s difficult to report back accuratly on the whole thing, as our impression of what we were about to do was totally off track (bata bing bata boom). we imagined some kind of ...

... police could clear the prostesters and the burning tires off of the road. Once this was done it was just back on the road bobbing and weaving around large rocks and tree trunks, just another day on the road in Ecuador. From there I thought it would be clear sailing at least until we caught some traffice. Boy did we ever. While passing through a town so small that if you blinked you missed it, we ran into a barricade and an angry mob all the way ...

... the black went down that the game was over, but evidently not. We even got to a stage when there were no balls left on the table, not even the white, but the chap still thought the game was still on. Thankfully Alex had had enough and that was that.<br><br>Anyway, after out successful day rafting we were looking forward to our next adventure= Canyoning. Canyoning is apparrently abseiling down waterfalls. Sounds great doesnt it+. ¿apologes for the ...

Hola! Dan and I are in Banos, world famous for the hot springs and outdoorsy adventures. Sorry ´we´ve been out of touch for a few days! We were at the Secret Garden in Cotopaxi (highest active volcano in the world according to my friend Phil) with our new found friends Lina, Phil, Andreas, Khristy, and Sean. The hostel can ...

This morning I headed down to Riobamba to meet one of the girl's from the Columbia trip and her boyfriend. We had planned to catch the Devil's Nose train ride on Friday morning, a reputedly scary train ride up to Nariz del Diablo that involves lots of hairy switchbacks. You used to be able to ride on the roof, but this has been stopped now following the death of two tourists! Unfortunately the tickets had sold out, but the hotel manager ...

... hat es das Boot nicht komplett umgedreht, so konnten wir wieder hineinklettern um wieder Kontrolle über das Boot zu bekommen. Ich war vielleicht 30 sec im Wasser aber einer aus unserer Gruppe hat es immerhin unter das Boot geschafft und eine ist irgendwie fern ab vom Boot getrieben. Ob es an unserem Guide lag oder ob wir irgendein Kommando nicht richtig verstanden haben, haben wir nicht mehr herausgefunden. Wir mussten das Boot allerdings über ...

... our brakes would hold and, after a while, stopped off to admire the view. There are numerous waterfalls spilling down into the central river valley from the surrounding mountains and some of them are rather impressive.<br><br>After the first stop came quite a hairy moment... We had to go through a tunnel. On bikes. With no lights. Or helmets. It was possibly the scariest thing I've done so far on this trip as, although the tunnel was not particularly long, there was a bus at ...

... so we can spend a couple more days here and then head up to the market in otavalo (about 2 hrs away) and quito is our home base before going to the galapagos on sunday morning (yay)<br><br>Quito is pretty sketchy at night so we´re confined to rock throwing distance from our hotel (hence the blogging, we´re at an internet cafe 2 doors down). both taxis we got today in quito tried to rip us off but thankfully now we know that nothing costs more than 2 bucks and caught on to the ...

... gruene Wiesen bis<br>hinauf - aber ich war solche 'Wege' nicht gewohnt. Am Nachmittag noch<br>Relax und Kaffee, am Abend am Kamin und dann Abendessen.<br>Es war<br>schoen, nicht einfach nur Gast zu sein, sondern wirklich willkommen zu<br>sein, und uberall dabei sein zu koennen. Ausserdem hatte man einen<br>herrlichen Ausblick aufs Tal (die Hacienda lag auch auf 3300 m), nach<br>oben leider nicht so sehr, da natuerlich wieder Wolken waren.