Journey to the middle of the earth

Our first port of call in Ecuador was Guayaquil - it's not a very touristy city but we walked along the pier which was lovely and wondered round a few interesting shops. A strange highlight of Guayaquil was our visit to a park where the trees were full of iguanas! Quite the sight. Not sure whether or not Guayaquil has a lot of 'Iguana road kill' but as there are busy roads close to the park it's a possibility :( Hopefully not!. We then took a bus to Banos in the middle of the country, hoping to go into the jungle from there but ended up going from Quito in the end; so our highlights of Banos were mainly food related (vegetarians look away now). We had a delicious meat fondue one night. Loved, loved, loved this :) and we tried barbequed guinea pig. It's spatchcocked, then has a spike inserted into it's nether regions before being barbequed. Despite seeing them cooking, complete with heads, teeth and claws, it tasted surprisingly good - a bit like chicken or rabbit.  |After Banos off to Quito and the jungle we go....

Iguana nestling in tree to sleep

 

It might not look appetizing...

...But it tastes good

Liz tries to decide if eating cute furry creatures is wrong

Our accommodation was in La Mariscal, an area which is party-central Monday to Saturday, but which is disarmingly quiet and a bit dodgy on a Sunday. One of the few times we felt on edge in South America... Our hostel was a bit like Fawlty Towers: If you asked for coffee they brought tea etc. Before we got too frustrated with them we took a 12hr nightbus to El Lago to start our jungle adventure. All was going quite well until the nightbus broke down at 2am on a mountain road with clutch failure and cooked brakes. Not a good combo on twisty mountain roads! After several botched attempts to fix it, the driver gave up. The bus company refused to send a replacement bus, saying they couldn't afford it, so it was left for the driver to flag down 2 buses going in the other direction, consolidate all the sleeping passengers into one bus, then turn the other one around for us to use. Despite having lost about 3 hours, we made it to El Lago on time, as our new bus drivers was Lewis Hamilton's latino cousin :) After a couple of hours in a minibus and a couple more in a boat, we finally made it to Cuyabueno National Park. Not a moment too soon..Phew!

3am chaos

We stayed in a lodge where the rooms had low walls made of bamboo with  the space above open to elements - and the insects! There was no electricity in the rooms- candles giving the only light. And the mosquito nets were very welcome as there were bugs and spiders galore. We stayed for 4 days, doing a night walk, a night boat ride, and various daytime rivertrips to see the animals. We spotted Cayman (little crocodiles, whose eyes glow bright red in the dark), turtles, toucans, pink river dolphin, 5 types of monkeys, pica, spiders, weaver birds and frogs, including one in our bathroom sink! We tasted edible bugs - a type of insect larvae that lives in a seed and tastes of coconut. It was pretty tasty actually :) We also tried our hand at Pirhana fishing - we both caught one, but they were too small to eat so after having a good look at all their teeth, we threw them back. When we weren´t looking at animals, we mainly spent our time swinging in the hammocks in the communal area. Overall, a great trip!

Only a little snake, thankfully

Making Yucca Bread

Man eating pirhana? No he's just holding it.

Whizzing along the river

Colourful jungle flower

And another

Peaceful river

Strange ape-man found swinging through the trees

Another colourful inhabitant

Not a great picture, but an amazing bird

Our Lodge

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Our trip back to Quito was long but thankfully less eventful, except for a captivating sunset over the cloud forest. Next day we headed off again, to Otovalo market - one of the biggest in South America, (but actually across the equator from Quito, in the Northern hemisphere). The animal market was fascinating. Pregnant Guinea pigs were selling for $7 each, and there was pretty much every other type of domesticated animal available too. (US dollars are official currency of Ecuador). There was also an enormous market for souvenirs and everything else you an think of. We bought a few Christmas presents - not live ones - and had some delicious spit roast pig for lunch.Yum yum :)

Young market-goers

Destined for the pot?

Liz enjoying  red banana

Some particularly popular guinea pigs

Bananas or various sizes and colours

When we returned to Quito again we finally got to explore the Old Town. It's beautifully preserved with wonderful architecture and one particularly stunning church called Iglesia de la Compañía. The whole interior of the church was gold leaf...spectacular! The whole city is built on a series of volcanoes, making it very hilly to walk around- thankfully taxis are incredibly cheap. Quito can be a bit dodgy so taxi's ain't a bad idea ;) We also went to the top of the hill overlooking the town and climbed up inside the statue of Virgin Mary to a viewing platform with great views over the whole city.

Quito's historic centre

Only photo we didn't take! As 'no photos allowed' in this real gold  leaf church!!!
It was truly beautiful and magnificent

The Large Virgin statue you climb to look over the city

On our final day in Quito we had an induction for our 3 week trip to Galapagos. A biologist gave us a really interesting talk on the islands, and we got loads of practical info to make sure we didn't get too lost. We met 2 of the three others in our tour group too, so we knew who to look out for at the airport at 6am the following day. Sooooo excited to going to the Galapagos!!!