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Christmas and New Years on the Beach
One of the most stressful decisions on this trip so far has been where to spend Christmas and New Years. Trust me, after only having to worry about street maps and whether this bus is actually going to where I want to go, I had to think long and hard on how to approach this dilemma. …
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To the Pacific Coast – No Photos Edition
It’s been a week with no internet access from any of the hostels since I left Otavalo, and today I sit in an Internet Cafe quickly getting used to the Spanish keyboard layout. So what’s been happening this past week and what I’ve been getting myself up to. From Otavalo it was a short bus…
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Lakes, Condors and a Bit of Walking
Tonight is the last night in Otavalo. What was to be a 5 night stay turned into 7 nights. For most people this would be a week longer than planned, but when you’re surrounded by the Andes it’s hard to just walk away and say yep I’m done here. There’s just something so serene looking…
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Otavalo and a Waterfall
A two hour bus journey from Quito leads to the town of Otavalo, famous for this Saturday markets. There’s a lot more than just the markets that make this town great, there are no less than four volcanoes surrounding the area, three lakes and several small villages. It takes some hiking to get around (or…
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4100m and the Middle of the World
The TeleferiQo is an amazing cable car that takes you up 2.5km along the volcano Pichincham, making it one of the highest in the world. The summit is another 3 hour hike that I decided wasn’t the brightness idea to attempt. Even at this height the altitude was taking some getting used to, and I’m…
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Don’t Do Typhoid Pills and Public Transport
Because I’m such a giant baby when it comes to getting stabbed with needles, the option for the Typhoid vaccine in pill form was a blessing. I was already sacrificing my arms with Hep A/B and Yellow Fever jabs, so it was a little hard to pass up an oral vaccine that lasts two years…
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Quito, Cultural Capital of America
As fate would have it, I’m in Quito at the time it’s going nuts wrapping up the year for being the Cultural Capital of America for 2011. It’s been non stop entertainment, and even now at 9pm there’s a swarm of people marching the down street outside the hostel banging drums and generally being noisy!…
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Welcome to Quito, Ecuador
The one thing you read about arriving in Quito is give yourself a couple of days to acclimatise. The city sits 2850m above sea level, and yep do you notice it. Mainly it’s just being short of breath, but after 5 days of being here it’s no so much a problem anymore. That there to…
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SYD -> LAX -> ATL
Well it’s certainly been an interesting flight. I’m now in Atlanta staying in a hotel for the night. I wasn’t planning on having to get a room here, instead just crash out in the airport. The US has some weird checkin/out policy and I ended up having to pick from about 50 airport hotels to…
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