Hotel Libertador Loja

... br>11/18/09 El 18 de Noviembre--major holiday<br>Ah, time for a couple more updates.<br> <br>Catamayo--about 2 hours from here.<br>Throughout the Loja provence in Ecuador you see the "Virgen de Cisne" everywhere. She is displayed with statues, and most taxi's have a card dangling from the rear view mirror with a picture of her on it. Ecuador's a 97% catholic country, and folks here are nuts about the Virgen.<br>Annually, a statue of the Virgen is carried in procession from ...

The cryptic heading relates to our first wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that 365 days have passed since I uttered those affirmative words to Mr. B. and I naturally wanted to celebrate the special date with suitable aplomb! All the romantic preparatory work took place: 1. plush hotel - tick, 2. scenic location (Loja) &#8211; tick, Mrs. Boote &#8211; tick! One outstanding box ...

... if we took the bus. The option most appealing was a flight from Lima to Cusco which took an hour whereas the bus was a 24 hour journey. We were already looking at an overnight 20hour trip to Lima by bus, so two of these journeys back to back was hardly inspiring. So that was what I booked, a Tuesday morning flight to Cusco and hopefully getting a bus to Agua Caliente later in the same day.<br><br>By the time we had finished it was 4pm, so we boarded a bus to Vilcabambe ...

... visit you can see why. Such a beautiful relaxing place, on the edge of the amazon, so lots of fresh air and water and no stress!<br>Spent most of the day lazing around, napping in the room, in a hammock and studying some spanish.<br>The hostel is out of town, but has a great view of the valley and a nice restaurant. So if you didnt want to leave the grounds of the place you wouldnt have to.<br>I had tea, played some cards and a few games of pool ...

... had rigged up back up music and he belted out tunes one after the other. I was close to tears. So nice. Then we all danced. Too much fun. In 2 weeks Napolean has a concert locally-he knows "Dooby Brothers, Rolling Stones and Eagles" songs. Too much fun.<br>31th and 31st at Timothy's for you local fans.<br><br>Misc: pics of Bruce with the world's best tamales-cheese wrapped in banana leaves for $0.80! and Jenice making soup-hard to see that chicken-knee she's ...

... used loosely). Who ever came up with the travel quote &#8220;Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination&#8221; clearly hadn´t made this border crossing. Getting to Vilcabamba, the hippy capital of Ecuador where Renee and I had decided to "find ourselves" (mainly some fresh coffee and Thai food) was going to be very interesting. <br><br>Ironically, while some of the biggest towns and attractions have tourist offices about as much help as a chocolate teapot, the ...

After two nights in Cuenca we head off again....we´re heading to Peru but decide to have one more stop before the border crossing. We jump on another bus, and are quite excited at the thought of only 5 hours on a bus....then we realise we´ve chosen the fastest bus in the world with a cowboy for a driver. We hurtle round hairpin bends, over take on blind corners and made the journey in less than four hours....pretty good going seeing as the whole journey is in the ...

So after the beauty of Cuenca and it{s shrunken heads, it was the start of the charge towards Peru. It is possible to go straight from Cuenca to Peru but we opted for the slighty more social stop in Loja. In 50 years time I don{t think I will remember Loja, but I may just remember the bus journey. We set off from Cuenca at roughly midday and were told it would be a five hour journey. Upto now ...

... hats. At one point we heard a loud squealing, and thought it was a local kid, but it was a pig being slaughtered. However, we didn´t manage to avoid the "best bit", the guy proceeding to use a massive flame thrower to scorch all the hair off to make him ready for sale. The heat also activated the still active nerves of the pig though ...

... it wasn´t raining as it would have been too deja vu-like from our car accident in Cambodia at the beginning of the trip! <br><br>You gotta love the border itself - we just wandered across with not a soul around. The only way anyone knew we had crossed was when we walked into a hut where an immigration/customs/policeman combo guy stirred into life, and told us to go next door to get checked out by a nurse for Swine Flu. Brad was actually recovering ...