North into Ecuador

You can quote as many statistics as you like, but there's always something a little unnerving about flying with an airline that had a plane crash only last week. OK, so it was a windshear and not a wing dropping off, but all the same.... We got to Piura, in coastal northern Peru, via Lima and Tumbes, with some fairly second-rate airlines; arriving in once piece was a relief but we were full of the junk food that only airlines know how to serve.

Northern Peru remains, to us, a mystery of pre-Incan cultures, big mountains and much fewer tourists - however, you can't do everything and some things (in Ecuador) we don't want to miss. We stayed for a night in Piura; it was warm, pretty friendly and distinctly quiet after the gringo-infested streets of Cusco. It was much cheaper (relief!) and the taxis tried not to rip you off (too much). The following morning we boarded a bus to Loja in Ecuador, and started the day long journey up to the border and back into the Andes cordillera.

Having heard bad things about the costal border crossing to Ecuador, we were pleasantly surprised by the speed and ease of it all at La Tina. In no time we were in a new country (quick check on the time and currency required) and winding our way around the mountain roads to Loja - usually regarded as the gateway between the Amazon and the mountains.

It was dusk when we arrived in Loja, and after a brief trip to the bank caught another bus to our intended destination of the day, Vilcabamba. This little Andean town has become a focus on the gringo trail - small, friendly, great climate.... and did I mention the hallucinogenic cactus juice? Hannah and I settled in an upmarket hostel, wanting a couple of days R&R before moving on. And so a couple of days disappeared in no time, lazing by the pool, relaxing in the jacuzzi, trying the different cafes, and catching up on lost sleep.

Vilcabamba seemed to have a high resident gringo population, but was a little short on tourists passing through. We saw plenty of dreadlock-bedecked twentysomethings plus not a few middle-aged hippies; all, we suspected, were stuck in the loop of cheap living and easily available mescalin (the active ingredient in the San Pedro cactus) and marijuana. This not being our thing (there's a whole syndrome named after sufferers of cactus/mescalin-induced flashbacks) we booked a 3 day horse ride with a New Zealander, described as "an good horseman, lots of experience".

On the trail

Our ride didn't start promisingly - 2 hours late, our guide reeking of alcohol - but off we galloped (yes, really) down the main road out of town. It was great fun, but murder on the horses' legs. We rode quickly, leaving the road then starting on a narrow trail that made it's way slowly up the mountain. Agriculture in the valley bottom gave way to scrub as we began climbing up to the cabin at the head of the valley, a short walk from the Podocarpus National Park. We arrived in time for a late lunch - I think we were faster than most groups - and relaxed in the sunshine.

Cowboy Pete

We had booked the trip on the promise of doing some "work" for our guide on the second day of the trip - it was half price, after all. So that afternoon we took off with his sidekick, Oscar, a nice lad who took us to the edge of the National Park on a series of barely cut trails. It felt like proper jungle exploring - just a bit - a we returned, damp and muddy, to the cabin to be greeted with tortilla chips, freshly squeezed juice, guacamole and.... vodka. It was from this point that the evening started to go downhill.

It was at this point, the evening deteriorated....

As Oscar was inside cooking, our guide gradually began to lose the plot. Drinking (amongst other things) was fair enough, but to excess was unprofessional, to say the least; sadly our host became rather the worse for wear and 4 hours later, by dinner time, we had had enough. Listening to the paranoid delusional rantings of a die-hard conspiracy theorist became boring, then a little disturbing. Keeping our guide happy with the required answers ("Yes, the world is clearly ending", "No, I don't think it was created in a laboratory in Nevada" and "Yes, it must have been aliens" in varying order) and then listening to the "There's someone in town who wants to kill me, he's going to come and kill me" speech was not our idea of fun and we didn't feel totally safe as we made a sharp exit after dinner. Never believe people when they tell you that they have been unaffected by the copious quantities of drugs consumed over a lifetime of hedonism - "I've only taken San Pedro cactus 17 times and look at me" just didn't cut the mustard.

The following morning we announced that we wanted to return toVilcabamba that afternoon, and that we would do a morning's hard work beforehand - which is what we did. Hannah saw a red mist descend and fortunately was nowhere near a machete when our guide said "This isn't really women's work", but after plenty of blisters and a small dose of sunburn, we returned to the cabin for lunch then departed. Oscar accompanied us, our guide wanting to stay and work with the remaining supply of vodka (honest...), and we were back down 3 hours later after more galloping (lots of fun) and with rather sore legs and buttocks.

Hannah bonding

We took a taxi back to Loja that evening, too tired to face the bus, and settled in a hostel in the middle of town with paper thin walls and noisy neighbours (it was only the TV....). Despite this, after an appalling Chinese (no spring rolls - would you believe it?) we slept well, and rose early the following day to get to the bus station to buy tickets for Guayaquil, Ecuador's second largest city and biggest port. The plan was to visit the botanic garden of Loja before leaving - the Podocarpus is endemic in the area and the only conifer present naturally in Ecuador - but sadly it was closed. We returned to the town centre for a wander around the lively, award winning Saturday market before our bus departed.

In the bus station I realised I had lost my Footprint travel guide - after a fruitless trip back to the hostel I pictured it, lonely and misunderstood, on the back seat of our botanic gardens taxi. Both Hannah and I had a bond with the dirty, well thumbed rages and I raged at my stupidity for losing it.

The bus journey to Guayaquil was long and hot, made better when we got the front seat with extra legroom, a breeze and a view (although seeing some of the overtaking made even me cringe). We pulled into the huge terminal in Guayaquil well after dark and with a certain, guidebook-less trepidation, asked for a hotel that I remembered the name of. Our taxi driver was friendly enough, and when the one place I remembered proved to be full, we moved a couple of blocks down the road and checked in to a cheap, well equipped, air-con hotel.

The centre of Guayaquil is working hard to become safe and tourist friendly; outside of this are regions that are not so salubrious. After venturing across the road for dinner (fast food chicken) we realised the reason behind our cheap hotel - it served "short stay" customers for the most part (a breathless, luggage-less couple checked in next to us). It suited us fine however, and the following morning we had a walk around the district (nicer by day) and a picnic breakfast in a park. Remembering the name of another hostel, we looked it up online and moved out to a suburb, where the air was cleaner, there were other gringos (with guidebooks!).

The new hostel was good- friendly, big rooms, great breakfast, and a menagerie of exotic pets including parrots, a macaw, and a couple of types of little monkey-things (technical term). That afternoon we headed back into the city centre, via the airport - we had been reliably (mis)informed that there were English guidebooks available there. In the centre, we strolled along the newly developed riverfront boulevard, and visited a small, central park that was full of iguanas- it was excellent. Dinner that night was another awful Chinese- there's a definite pattern forming here.

"OK, so I'll steer and you guys do the pedals....."...monkey things

The next day we devoted to botany and then shopping. First of all we visited the Guayaquil Botanic Garden - there was large orchid collection - sadly few were in flower- and many plant and tree species from all over Ecuador. Hannah was frustrated by the lack of labelling. We then went in search of a new guidebook; having found an English language bookshop (useless) we eventually made our way to a huge shopping mall where we found a bigger and better bookshop where, with much relief and Hannah's overwhelming joy, a pristine copy of the Footprint guide lay, a snip at $64 (s#@?!!). We treated ourselves to a film and fast food dinner (good and bad, respectively).

Iguanas in the park!

The morning after saw us catching a bus to Puerto Lopez, further north on the coast, from where we intended to go whale watching. Despite pushy taxi drivers and tour operators doing their best to take us places we did not want to go, we later found ourselves in a nice ("Surely not", I hear you cry!) Italian restaurant, looking forward to ourwhale watching trip the next day.

There she blows! (Humpback whale)

The whale-watching was great. After a slow start, we hit whale-watching gold when we saw two humpbacks performing a series of breaches (jumps) out of the water, only 30 minutes out of Puerto Lopez. There was a calf present too, also practicing it's jumps, and for a hour we followed and watched the whales as they grazed on plankton - they stopped jumping when we got close. It was a wonderful sunny day and we headed back inshore for some snorkelling. Hannah and I chose to sunbathe, albeit very briefly..... All I can say is, I KNOW I should have put suncream on, but it was 20 minutes, that's all.

Introducing.... Lobster Man!

The next day we had booked a walk in the nearby dry tropical forest, close to the national park in the area. Our guide was pretty knowledgeable (although the Latin-labelled plants pleased Hannah a lot more) but spoke only in fast Spanish. By the end of the walk, through pretty, scrubby forest then along a surf-punded beach, I was tired, feeling burnt (from yesterday), and just about run out of Spanish.

On the coast, near Puerto Lopez

We returned to Guayaquil today - guidebook carefully included -and back to our friendly hostel in the suburbs. The bus journey was long and hot (again), and so was walking around the streets of our suburb as we searched for sea-sickness tablets, ATMs and fast food (more! uuurgh.) Tomorrow we leave for the Galapagos- we have 10 days there, and are hoping to book a tour when we get there. The only challenge left is getting dinner tonight. Our fingers are crossed.....

Orchid in the Botanic Garden