Ecuador Inc. Special Feature: The Jungle Blog

 Ecuador really did have a hard act to follow. After our stint in Mancora we were  all so chilled we could barely lift our bags. Or do up the top button of our shorts that had been slung to the side of the room for a few days. The border crossing was little hairy. Due to aforementioned over-indulgence (we think it was food poisoning from a chocolate brownie cheesecake), Eva had been out of action all day and despite perking up in the evening enough to stomach some plain rice, there was a bit of a passing-out situation at the border. She exited Peru but failed to enter Ecuador before slumping against a wall in the border office, and therefore, blacked out in what can only be described as No Man's Land. Nothing a KFC at Guayaquil bus station can't fix though! Determined to squeeze in as many destinations as we could before Meg's departure, we headed straight back to the Pacific coast to surf town, Montanita. With one night only in town we really did not cause a raucous. We did, however, sample the region's best sushi and took a wander through the cocktail stands that our travel-tired selves couldn't quite stomach. After a morning of hitting the waves, or shall we say, the waves hitting us, we regretfully packed our bags and headed to Quito in order to figure out Meg's onward movement. It was at Quito bus station at five in the morning that we realised that her journey was never destined to be land-bound. The bus service to Colombia wasn't a safe endeavor to be done solo, so we all rejoiced when Meg booked a flight for two day's time. It also meant that she would be present for the formal friend-swap: Meg for Sophie.

Luckily Soph came baring a trip classic: the zip up hoody, so the transition wasn't as painful as it could have been. What was painful was Ecuador's idea of a tourist attraction. Mitad del Mundo, or The Equator, was slightly disappointing to say the least! Aside from the fact it is not technically the equator- they got the measurements wrong when they set up the museum- the randomness of the over-priced restaurants and insect museum was just a bit laughable. Ha ha ha- let's get the forty minute bus back, shall we?! First, a snap.

A very meaty goodbye dinner and poetry recital, Meg's last night encompassed the trip as a whole. We ate, drank, laughed, played cards and talked until we couldn't keep our eyes open any more. Unfortunately, Eva couldn't even open her's again to wave goodbye to Meg the next morning and awaited Anna's return from the airport to hear all about the early morning send-off. Safe in the knowledge that there was less of a chance that Meg was being involved in a border drug cartel, the new trio took the bus four hours south, to Banos.

Nestled between mountains, Banos is some of the best Ecuador has to offer. Essentially, the Bath of the Americas, it excels on adventure where it perhaps lacks in finesse. The baths, with a dramatic mountain-view, were pleasant until masses of kids started clambering through our legs and an old man passed out at the edge from the heat. We followed the trail through the area saddling again, matching bikes which, with an incline that toughened our thighs, led us through waterfalls and to look-out points over the valley. See left, the calm beer following a kilometre zip line which Anna's ear drum still hasn't recovered from. Yep, Eva's definitely still afraid of heights.

Horse-riding plans cancelled partly due to headaches from lively gringo bar but mostly due to foul weather conditions, we made our way back to Quito in order to start our next adventure. Killing time between picking up all our tickets from entrepreneurial, gillet-sporting Dante, and the night bus to Lago Ario, we saw a more colourful side to the capital. We splashed out on dinner in infamous street La Ronda among people far richer than us, and were serenaded throughout.
We arrived to Jamu Lodge after a ten hour night bus, a three hour wait over breakfast, a three hour mini bus transfer and a three hour boat ride. When the torrential rain relented towards the end of the boat ride, hundreds of butterflies began to spread their wings and monkeys jumped out from their hiding places. This time, travelling so far really had brought us into another world. The first canoe trip, with our guide already bird-calling from the tip of the boat, was just a taster of what we were to expect from the three days to follow.

Aside from tonnes of wild-life spotting- the majority of our time was spent aboard the canoe, meandering through the Amazon- we spent an afternoon with one of the many village communities along the river. We made yuca bread from from plant to dough with the abuela of the community, and ate it with our somewhat grated fingers alongside homemade fish broth and pineapple jam. We also paid a visit to the local medicine man: Tomas the Shamen. He described his lengthy trips on ayahuasca and then asked for some volunteers for a demonstration on pain-relief.

Clearly, there was nothing better for Eva's lower back pain than a vigorous whipping with huge forest stinging nettles! A boat ride back full of concern over the lumpy effects of the treatment, we made it in time to catch the river dolphins on their trip upstream and spent our last night swimming whilst the sun subtly set over the lagoon.

We were very sad to pack up all of our damp belongings from the lodge because however much we had seen, we wanted to stay so much longer. And, we were nervous about the damp smell spreading through our bags on the long return journey. Just a pit-stop in Quito for a bag of breakfast goodies, we hopped on the next bus to Otavalo and all agreed the past day of travelling that we'd been dreading could have turned out a lot worse. An evening diet solely of cocktails and guacamole, we hung out our gladrags on the terrace of our hostel that already felt more like a home.

Otavalo is famous for one thing: the Saturday market which, with bags of souvenirs left to buy, we were not about to bypass. Unfortunately, we couldn't pocket the cages of puppies and kittens also for sale despite the fact our hearts were melting more than our sun lotion in that early morning heat. A sufficient amount of dollars spent, we were satisfied to continue up to Colombia with quite a bit more extra weight over our shoulders and something amazing ticked off the bucket list: the Amazon.