Hop hop on the bus again. We were planning to go to Machala a place just a 4 hours bus ride. The border crossing went smooth and convenient. And another stamp in our passports. I was looking out the window and checked the road signs how far it was, all of a sudden I didn't see the sign of Machala. In my best Spanish I asked the ticket man if we were almost there. Lucky there were some other tourists who could translate his answer. It turned out we missed the intersection to change to another bus (which we didn’t know) and now we were on our way to Guayaquil, The most horrible city we have ever seen, but it was already late so we had to stay the night. We found a place near the bus station (which was huge and felt more like an airport.) Early up to head back to the bus station, to make a new plan and grab a bus up North. We ended up in Riobamba, a lovely little town which had a great bakery with yumm truffles.. The next day it was poring rain and I heard good things about Banos. So back to the bus station to go to Banos. Behind the bus station there was the most interested market we have ever seen. First we bumped in to a guy with a few big milking goats, and you could get a fresh warm goat milk straight from the tit.
And a bit further the locals were selling all their fruit and veggies, but also heaps of animals (a life) from ducks to chooks, cats and dogs, Guinea pigs and heaps more. It was amazing! On top of our bus, boxes of chooks got dragged on to it, to make the trip to Banos as well.
Only a 2hour ride and we arrived in Banos. This was the first time we experienced that the bus was in time. From other travellers we heard about a nice hostel with a kitchen! So we could cook our own meal...especially James was craving for mash potatoes and cabbage with meatballs. We headed to the market to buy fresh veggies and again it was amazingly cheap. A meal cost about 3-4 dollars pp but cook your own even less.
The people in Ecuador are really friendly and a lot original dressed. Banos is a lovely small town which has heaps to offer in activities way. We decided to rent some mountain bikes and rode through the hills for about 20 km. Beautiful scenery on the way, and again you could do adrenaline activities like jumping of a bridge..mm a bit to scary for us. At almost the end of the route we found a trout farm, were you could catch your own fish and they cook it for you. This was heaps of fun, we let them cook one fish for lunch and we took 2 back to the hostel to make our own dinner. Very tasty fresh fish and for the 3 fish we paid only 8 dollars.
The next day we booked bus tickets to go further up North to a place with the name Otavalo and a again the bus was in time at destination.
We booked in in a hostel with a fireplace..really nice at night! The next day was the big market day, people from all over the area comes to town to sell their animals ans handy crafts..really dangerous for a women with money in her pocket...(I spend way 2 much ;-) ) But good fun, we also visited a 'El Condor' a place where they saved wild birds of prayer included two massive condors. Very impressive and they also had a interesting fly show with a few big birds.
We ended up in the north of Ecuador to cross the border into Colombia, where we are going to catch a flight up North to Cartagena.
The border crossing was very informal and we had to cross a bridge (walking) to be in another country. New money again and of course we got ripped of big times...
We enjoyed Ecuador a lot, the country is so much smaller then Peru, so we didn’t spend much time here but it was great!!
