Hotel Carvallo Cuenca

... from the big hike anyway. The next morning we caught the only bus back to Latacunga at 6.30am and rescued our big backpacks from the hotel, which had kindly minded them while we took only our small ones for the two days &#8211; much easier to hike with!<br><br>From there we caught a bus to Ambato where we changed buses for Banos about two hours away, where many Ecuadorian tourists head for their holidays. <br><br>We checked into a nice little French-style apartment with a private ...

... leven blijkbaar van de landbouw. Niet landbouw zoals bij ons nu, maar meer zoals 70 jaar geleden. We hebben op een rit van 3 uur welgeteld 1 tractor gezien, de rest waren primitieve werktuigen. <br>Halverwege de rit zijn we gestopt in een klein dorpje waar de vrouwen kraampjes hadden waar ze lokale drank- en eetwaren verkochten. We hebben onze eerste empanadas gegeten, gevuld met kaas :-). Ze verkochten ook nog een drankje van maïsmelk, chicha, dit hebben we ...

... grown stronger as the tide came in. This disturbed the sand and when I went in for a last swim with the turtles I found that I could barely see half a metre. This bay is obviously best visited at low tide.<br><br>We walked back into town passing briefly by the soccer stadium. I took a last look in and found a good spot for some photographs. I noticed as well that there was a running track around the pitch.<br><br>We headed back to the harbor front. Jody was keen to take ...

... planet that seem to not exist anymore. We decide to try some hotels near a lovely square and put our bartering skills to use.....we manage to get 1 dollar off two double rooms.....bargain! Phil and Alex arrive and we head for dinner which is quickly followed by bed.<br><br>Cuenca is a beautiful, very colonial looking city. We spot 7 churches from our balcony so decide to have a look around one. After Phil and Al finish ...

... people from the hostel set off in search of a hat. We found quite a large shop with a really good range of hats and we had fun chatting to the owner and looking around their little museum. We even asked to see the most expensive hat they make... $500! And these are sold for over $2,000 in London! A nice, finely woven hat for sure... but not quite in my price range. For lunch we sampled what appears to be the local delicacy that is seen everywhere ...

... the whole wheat bread for the town! <br><br>Q: What can you put on your bread?<br><br>A: There&#8217;s butter, or peanut butter (raw, ground without salt), or marmalade, or honey! It goes really great with soup too. The butter tastes different from the butter in the states. One gal here hates it. It reminds Bruce of butter his mom would make from their cows. It's got it's own taste!<br><br>Q: What&#8217;s that sound?<br> <br><br>A: Horses hooves&#8212;a few ...

... us and went and got a sandwich.<br><br>Our bus was at 3.15pm; it looked utterly banged-up but was actually ok from the inside. No air-con though, and it was really humid. After a bit of a mix-up with our badly-printed tickets, we ended up having to sit right at the front of the bus. This gave us a great view of the road ahead (good times), but made us a hell of a lot closer to the ever-present danger of dodgy traffic (bad times). Once we'd got out of the ...

sooooo plans have changed, we were supposed to go to montanita, a beach town but after hearing how it is completely grinolandia, as they say, we have opted for cuenca, where we just arrived today after a like 9 hour journey and our 3 days in the jungle, the jungle wasnt all we expected as far as wildlife and cultural insight, but we did get to hike in the crazy muddy wet jungle, jump in a aterfall, play with some kids, do some blow darts ...

... went on *nd on *nd on *nd on *nd on. She w*s pr*cticing her English on us *nd *t one point even our own tour le*der got c*ught trying to esc*pe. I tried to esc*pe but the pl*ce w*s like * bloody m*ze. After lunch we went to *nother site, the temple of the sun *nd moon. Given my now sunburnt shoulders I m*de * purch*se of * horrible t shirt egged on by w*lrus only to find this section of the tour w*s underground. Ag*in kind of interesting *ll the ...

... l*ud en*ugh. As she n*ted the inf*rmati*n fr*m my receipt *n h** l*g I n*ticed that I had been charged S/1 m*re than any*ne else traveling that entire day. The w*rds "**************ing" and "ass-rap**s" w**e added t* my whisp**s. <br><br>C*me back at 8:00AM. Y*u can take that bus. <br><br>I returned at 8:00AM t* find the *riginal guy th**e...the manag**...wh* assured me th**e was, in fact, a bus departing at 8:00AM and that I was c*nfirmed ...