Hello,
Right I am now technically in Peru, but I will write about that in another entry under the heading Peru and just do up to leaving Ecuador here. Iīm glad people find my spelling entertaining, it adds extra excitement to reading the journals, apparently in one of my stories I had a flying volcano - sounds very thrilling!!!
So I didnīt stay in Guayaquil for another night as I had done all my siteseeing by mid-day, but I have to say I like guayaquil although I seem to be the only person who has been there that did. It was really cool, in the evening there was dancing and music along the Malacon and eat really good fish (have I all ready said this, oh well never mind) and then the next day I went round an area called the Piņas which is an area that has been all renovated, mainly for tourists so it is full of little shops and cafes, but it was nice cos i was there so early that none of it was open and there were just the odd locals transporting huge crates of drinks and food up like all 400 steps and the odd school kids necking and so forth, views from the top were fantastic. It was weird cos this area had used to be like run down almost shnaty area and it was only a very small area that had been redone surrounded by a wall, with pretty archways in it, all very picturesque, but if you looked through the archways it was strainght into shanty towns, dust tracks small tin houses etc, the area was so out of place in its surroundings.
So after there I walked down to a park in the centre of town, where there are metre long iguanas just lazing about in the sun, living there whole life in this oasis of green in the middle of the city, and it isnīt exacty a large park, it was fantastic.
So at midday I up and left for cuenca, which deserves its title as on of the prettiest cities in Ecuador. Its got a population of 417,000 people and is the 3rd largest city in the country, but has still got all its colonial buildings, cobbled streets, whitewash, the riobamba river running through it and some very small inca ruins right in the middle of it - Very nice. The festival of Corpus Christi was on when I arrived, maening fantastic firework displays in the main square, like huge towers covered in fireworks made by each church group and the crazy cows which are tow guys runnign arround with what look like paper mache cows covered in rockets running up and down the crowds launching sparks at everyone, wicked fun, although my flease is now more burnhole than flease!! but the squeals from sections of the crownd when a firework found a target deffinately it added to the excitement, it was wicked (aargh turning in to an american!) OOH and the sweets - lie everywhere you turned there were just stalls and stalls, like whole streets of them, just piled high with every type of sweet, toffee, sweet breads you sould think of, they looked incrediable. So the big disadvantage of crowds is obviously the posibility of getting ones bag slashed, as some nice dude did to my ecuador bag, inorder to get to my wallet. But all credit to him other than the whole bag slashing he was very conciderate, the ony card I had in my wallet was my open water divre card and I realised something had happened when i looked down and saw and open water diver card by my feet, and I was like "hmm thatīs interesting, hat a strange thing for someone to loose" so I bent down and picked it up, turned it over and it was mine, and I was like "Hang on a minute, how did that get there?!?" so no real harm done, only lost $10, but big hole in by bag, sob, am still carrying it round with me, will get in fixed sometime, but in the meantime an excuse to buy a new bag, YEY!!!!
So yeah, after that I went back to the hostel to pick up some money and was, Iīm going out, was having a great time, not gonna let it ruin my evening. So I did just that, and met some great ozzies and a British girl, ended up dancing very bad salsa till about 3 in the morning and then upsetting my hostel but expecting to be let in at that crazy time in the morning!.
The next day was the start of the stummack bug, fun fun fun. Not too bad at the moment, but just spent the day wandering around town and went to bed early - not evry exciting in travel journal terms but hey hoo.
Next day more of the same, although in the evening I went back to El Cafecito (cool hostel, lots of gringos - really need to finds some locals to talk to and practic my spanish!) and met lots of people, which was fun so very sensibly with a stumamck bug, ended up drinking lots of beer and going out! oh well it was fun played pool (again) met up with the ozzis from before who were ment to be gone but they had also been struck by stummack bugs and were hence staying put for a few days Met an American guy, who claimed to be an ozzi cos he had lived there for 7 years, who seemed nice, turned out to be a little creepy, but nothing i couldnīt handle, and once again had to be let into the hostel about 3am, donīt think they liked me very much, hee hee.
hmm getting long again, not gonna miss anythng out. Sunday was siteseeing day. getting up nice and early to go and catch the Devilīs nose train, which is a train, you can sit on the roof of while in winds its way along steep cliffs and canyons, all very beatiful scenary till it comes to a river bed and a big hill/ountain called the devils nose, although I spent agaes looking at it and see no reseablance to a nose!, still very cool, and oh so touristy, like I donīt think ther was a single none gringo on it. Apparently it often derails as a matter of course and hen you have to stand around while the train dudes winch it back onto the tracks, but unfortuantely that did not happen for us, i know, I should be please, but being on a derailed train would have been cool!!! hmm well maybe not! On the way back we stopped at some ina ruins, like apparently the most important inca site in ecuador, very cool. Argh cmputer about to die on me, will continue this soon...... TBC
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