Chasing waterfalls

Once again I've spent the last few days getting a bit too used to spending all day in a hammock and neglecting this blog in the process. I've been to a few new places and actually crossed another border in the last couple of weeks so this might be a long one. First up: Baños. In the few days I spent there I think I did more 'activities' than I've done since I was in year 7 and we went on one of those adventure weekends.

The bus ride from Quito to Baños was drama-less and we (I'm currently travelling with Beth who I met in Quito:we both understand the importance of dessert after every meal so we get on well) arrived on a night with no trouble. It was dark when we arrived but it seemed like a small, safe town so we walked to our hostel- again no problems. The problems began when we encountered the guy on reception, who I would say is the rudest person that I've had the misfortune to meet so far. He asked if we spoke spanish, to which I replied my standard 'un poquito'. He then said, in spanish, 'why are you in Ecuador then?' and proceeded to tell us everything in very fast spanish, eventually asking in an incredibly patronising manner if we understood or did we need it in english too. I was so shocked by how rude he was that I defiantly said yes we understood (luckily Beth actually had understood it all) and off we went to our rooms. I don't understand this kind of person- why work in a hostel in a very touristy town if you don't want to speak to foreign people who may not speak the language fluently? Long story short, despite the actual hostel being pretty nice I wouldn't recommend staying at Great Backpackers Hostel in Baños purely so you never have to meet this horrible man.
Anyway, I did actually like Baños itself. It's a nice little town surrounded by green mountains and waterfalls and is probably the most touristy place I've been so far. Everything is catered to tourists- restaurants have english menus, more people than anywhere else I've been speak english and every tour operator/massage parlour (they're everywhere)/restaurant has someone outside it trying to get you in there. 

Last Friday Beth & I had a pretty adventurous day; our first activity was zip-lining. I don't think I've ever zip-lined before but for some reason I was pretty drawn to the idea, so we each paid our $20 and off we went. It was a lot of fun and definitely not as scary as I'd imagined, that is until the last line where both of us got stuck just short of the end leaving us dangling over a huge canyon. The woman who was taking us around the lines had to hook herself on and drag me back in, which was around the same time I decided to start wondering if I was covered for zip-lining on my travel insurance...but eventually we made it safely back to the platform. 

We continued our day by renting a quad bike to head up a mountain to 'the swing at the end of the world'; a swing hanging off a tree house which sees you swinging out into a canyon. I'll let you in on a secret though- the photos make it look so much scarier than it is. I mean you probably wouldn't want to fall off the swing, but actually the scariest part of the day came when I attempted to drive the quad bike. I thought I had it and then suddenly Beth was screaming "BRAKE BRAKE" and then we'd crashed into the side of the road. So the important things to take away from this story are 1) I should never drive a quad bike again and 2) so long as you pay up front they'll let you do whatever the hell you want in Ecuador- I think the people in the rental place were genuinely shocked we made it back alive. 

The next day we went a little less life-threatening and rented bikes for the day so that we could go on a waterfall route, ending at a huge one that they call the Devils cauldron. It was such a beautiful trip and I only nearly fell off my bike twice so all in all a much better result than the quad bike. 

The next day we decided to get the night bus to a little town on the coast called Montanita. Every traveller in Ecuador will tell you that Montanita is the place to be if you want to have fun- people liken it to places like Koh Phi Phi with its abundance of cheap cocktails (there's actually a street called Cocktail Alley full of people who will make you anything you want for less than £1) but with a better ratio of locals to gringos. I really liked the vibe of Montanita, and we met a lot of really cool people in our hostel. However I left the town with, no exaggerating, more than 50 mosquito bites. Bug spray was useless, the sandalwood sticks we burnt around the hostel did nothing- everyone was covered. 

We also had a little day trip out to a nearby town called Puerto Lopez to go whale watching which was so cool- they came so close to the boat and at one point I think there were 3 of them all swimming around us. Unfortunately I think I've come to the realisation that boats make me feel incredibly anxious- obviously we had to go pretty far out to find them and the water was so rough. I'm not sure what it is because I don't feel sick but I just feel so uncomfortable and spend the whole time thinking about when I can be on dry land again. Still, I'm really glad I went to see the whales seeing as I couldn't afford to head out to the Galápagos Islands on this trip. Please excuse how rubbish my photos are- I kept turning my camera off just at the wrong time!

I was intending to stay in Montanita all through the weekend but I decided I couldn't cope with the mosquitos anymore and so I decided to tag along with a group from my hostel who were getting a night bus to cross the border into Peru. I actually sleep on the night buses a lot better than I expected I would and so another uneventful bus and a couple more passport stamps later, I woke up in my third country. We're in a little beach town called Mancora being very bad tourists- we're at a hostel which is basically gringo central and encourages a lot of drinking and not much else. I'm currently entering my third hour spent in a hammock today trying to decide whether to go get an alcoholic slushie from the bar- it's a hard life sometimes. 

I'm not sure where I'm heading next- I think I'll just follow the crowd and jump on a bus wherever the group I'm hanging out with are heading. I've been out here just under 2 months now which is just crazy- I can't decide if I think it's going ridiculously fast or if it feels like I've been out here forever. I know one thing: it's been way too long since I last had Bovril. I actually think it's the thing I miss most (friends and family aside of course, you mean more to me than beef) and whenever I next know that I'll be staying somewhere for a while I'll be getting my parents to send me a jar or two. I hope you're allowed to mail Bovril. On that deep note, I'll draw this very long post to a close. 5 points for you if you made it this far!

Not feeling 22

So I've done the thing that all travellers manage to do at least once in their travels and got stuck in one place a lot longer than I intended to. After my mammoth day of travelling to Quito last week I was pretty happy to not have any plans once again and just be able to relax in one place, and I've had a pretty great week because of it.

Quito has definitely been better than I expected it to be- it has a beautiful old town area, a modern area with everything to keep us gringos entertained in the evenings and a few really lovely parks that I wish we had more of back at home. I went on a stroll the other day (it may have been a hungover 'must-do-something-with-my-day' stroll) not really expecting to see anything great and I happened upon a huge park full of families playing, market stalls with every sort of alpaca clothing possible, teenagers riding bikes and couples relaxing under the trees. The whole city is surrounded by the Andes meaning you can get some amazing views if you're willing to do a bit of climbing- or just take a taxi of course. Quito, as I thought too of Medellin in Colombia, is definitely the kind of place I can imagine living. 

In the end I spent a week being fairly chilled out, enjoying the view from my hostel (100% stay at Secret Garden hostel if you ever come here) and the company of other travellers. It was my birthday on Tuesday and I'd been stressing a bit trying to decide where to spend it; in the end a group of us who had been going out together all week decided to go to Secret Garden's sister hostel next to Cotopaxi volcano, which after 150 years of no activity started erupting a month or so ago. You might be right in thinking that's an odd choice of a place to spend your birthday, but actually the hostel wasn't in any danger zone and because less people were choosing to go there due to not being able to climb the volcano anymore, there was a deal on where you got your room, four meals a day (my kind of eating schedule) and unlimited alcohol for $38 a night. Oh and you always get unlimited banana bread too- there's a cake stand on the side which is constantly replenished over the day, so of course I averaged 6 a day while I was there. If my trip to Casa en El Agua was the closest I'll ever get to paradise, Secret Garden was the closest I'll ever get to The Burrow (Harry Potter reference #1). It was the cosiest hostel ever with open fireplaces in every dorm, amazing home-cooked food for every meal and ponchos galore. There was a jacuzzi, a giant hammock and 3 very friendly dogs named Milo, Daisy and Mash. I'm not usually a dog person but I think I need a sausage dog at some point- see below for a photo of Mash, who had a problem with storing fat and subsequently looks a bit like Dobby (Harry Potter reference #2).

And alpacas of course. I was told that the volunteers get to ride them but unfortunately this must have slipped their minds this time and I didn't get to see any alpaca racing. 

I think I made a pretty good choice of where to spend my 23rd birthday, though we may have taken advantage of the free alcohol offer a little too much- boxed wine in Ecuador isn't any better than boxed wine in England. 

Now I'm going to spend another night in Quito before heading south a bit to a place called Banos, which is the Spanish word for toilet. Maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up too much. Until next time, ciao chicas!

The tale of a border crossing

So I've got one country ticked off my list: Colombia is over and I'm actually very sad about it. I know I've said before that people have the wrong idea about the country but I'm determined to get the point across that it really isn't the scary place that I can guarantee you think it is.

I was, however, very worried about the border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador. Anyone you speak to has some horror story of a friend of a friend (etc) who has had some sort of trouble, whether it be the bus journey itself (general advice is never do it at night as bandits are known to board to bus and rob passengers, yes that's right I said bandits) or some issue with police on the border. In Popayan I bumped into a couple of guys that I met in Cali who were also wanting to head to Ecuador so I decided to join their plans- safety in numbers, especially when those numbers include two 30 year old men. Unfortunately for me their plans involved doing the first 8 hours in a minibus. Word to the wise: never take a minibus for longer than 2 hours. Perhaps in England where the roads aren't quite so bumpy and windy and the drivers don't have so much of a death wish, but never in South America. Much to my surprise, however, we got to the border exactly when we expected to (incredible seeing as Colombian time is a completely different concept to real time) and my bag hadn't been stolen from the back of the bus on one of the many stops we made in random towns in the mountains. After getting a collectivo (another minibus intended for about 10 people but actually transporting double that) to the border, a quick ten minutes of being stamped out of Colombia, walking across the bridge to Ecuador and gaining another stamp and we were done! No drama, no bandits, ni problema. 

We were feeling pretty good about heading straight to Quito so after getting yet another collectivo to the nearest town and wolfing down some fried chicken (all I'd eaten the rest of the day was a big bag of 'mega queso' Doritos) we jumped on another bus, ready for 6 more hours of travel. One viewing of Sleepless in Seattle (ultimate guilty pleasure film) and a few snoozes later we finally arrived in Quito, and luckily the hostel that I'd booked for the next night had 3 spare beds! At about half 2 I fell into what is definitely the comfiest hostel bed I've ever slept in, exhausted after 18 hours of buses. 

And that concludes my very uneventful tale of the border crossing- not the most interesting post but just to counteract the countless other stories on the internet which will scare you senseless. Now I'm chilling in Quito for the week before I head off to the sister hostel next to Cotopaxi volcano to spend my birthday hopefully not being swallowed by lava!