Hotel La Casona Cuenca

SO we left the jungle on Friday 30th Oct - got the Puyo bus and then the Baños bus. There were a few of us leaving at the same time so we all went to Baños for one last night out :)<br><br>On Saturday morning we had to say our goodbyes to everyone, which was actually quite sad. We had some really good times in the jungle together and we´d been there for 4 weeks so we felt quite settled. We´ll hopefully meet up again with some of the london based volunteers (and also maybe have a few ...

... we were getting tired and we were discovering little bitey insects, so we eventually found a bus that would take our bikes and we caught it back up the valley to Banos.<br><br>That evening we caught the bus to Riobamba which left very late so by the time we got there on the bus it was dark. We met a group of eight people from the UK, Ireland and Australia on the bus, the first gringos we´d seen on the bus for a while, and we all caught a big minivan from the bus terminal to a hotel ...

... te nemen naar Piura in Peru (8u rijden). Van daar nemen we de bus naar Chiclayo (3u rijden). Het zal dus een lange dag worden... Ze hebben ons al gewaarschuwd dat het Spaans in Peru een heel stuk onduidelijker is dan het Spaans in Ecuador dus we zijn benieuwd of we ons plan gaan kunnen trekken... <br><br>Hasta Luego!<br><br>English version:<br><br>On Friday morning, we wake up at 5 AM to take the train from Riobamba to Alausi. It was a surprise to see the ...

... fault of course.<br>4) Repeat for 7 hours.<br><br>Thats about it. Lessons over, here's your licence.<br><br>And that was our intro to Ecuador! As you can see we did actually arrive and are alive. Our time in Ecuador is sadly a short time so we have only allowed a day for exploring Cuenca.<br><br> Cuenca is located in the Andes (2500m above sea level) and is a really pretty little city with countless ...

... They use these vehicles all over the island and I guess Toyota must have given a good deal. <br><br>En-route to our first stop we passed a tree house. It was a bit swiss family robinson with a rope bridge from the doorway but they had used corrugated steel walls, I couldn&#8217;t help feeling it would have been better using natural materials. We stopped at El Junco, a water filled crater. There was a 10 minute climb from the road up along a pathway which was partially ...

... as Cuenca truly is a lovely city, rather like Bath. It's not too large, affluent, mostly composed of nice buildings and full of trendy bars and restaurants. Still, I did start to get better and I decided that if I was well enough to stay in bed all day then I was well enough to sit on a bus for 10 hours in order to get to Peru. I had my doubts about how easy everything would be but I bade farewell to Ecuador with nothing more than fatigue and a sore ...

... it in, lined it with plastic and put the dirt back in before you could ask &#8221;what are they doing over there?&#8221;<br><br>Q Do you miss the US?<br><br>A: Folks yes, the place: No, not yet!<br><br>Q How&#8217;s the internet access?<br><br>A: Has been pretty good with one very sloooowwww day. Nice to be able to Skype you guys!<br><br>Q: What are you doing on your house?<br> A: We&#8217;ve painted the smaller of the two (3 bedroom apartments). Bought ...

... audacious manoeuvre when he took a left hand bend at great speed and almost hit a huge pile of rubble, only swerving to avoid it at the very last second!<br><br>It soon grew dark as we began our descent. A few hours later and we arrived in Cuenca. The bus terminal was small but pleasant; we got a taxi from right outside and were soon at our hostel. Even before arriving, just passing through the streets in the darkness we knew this was somewhere we would ...

... tower of terror now. i put a chair under the door handle and attempt to breathe thro the night. we make it though and in the morning leavechecking out wihtout the man who again says nothing to us. cool.<br><br>the second place we stayed at was great though aand we got see this great museum wiht a lot of cultural history and a ruin site, and gardens, and birds, one of the best museums i´ve ever been to. thne we walked around and say ...

... even the promise of cutting off peoples dre*dlocks for my r*st* wig could convince me to st*y. It w*s * bit like the hotel C*liforni* song, I couldn&#8217;t le*ve, liter*lly, I couldn&#8217;t find the w*y out. I spent h*lf *n hour trying without result *nd h*d to recruit the driver to help, who *lso couldn&#8217;t find it *nd ended up shoving me out the emergency exit *fter *nother h*lf *n hour. I *rrived b*ck to the hotel where shen*****ns were going on&#8230;..