My
3 weeks in Ecuador
My
3 weeks in Ecuador
Our
route: We landed in Quito before going to the jungle (see also jungle2) for a few days, then back to Quito and
heading off to Banos, (near Puyo) before we experienced the Devil's Nose train journey and visited Cuenca. After
returning to Quito we went to the market town of Otavalo, just north of Quito then returned to
the capital to fly home.
A lot of people asked me: Why Ecuador? Well, here's how it began. Around New Year time 2001, i was watching a program on the BBC called Andes to Amazon, and the jungle looked amazing, and I remember a particular feature on the Huaorani tribe in Ecuador. At that point however, I had no idea i'd ever go there... Then one night in my room, back at uni, whilst getting annoyed with my uni work i went through a copy of The Guide, a brochure made by STA Travel, and decided I wanted to go somewhere over easter. I saw a small feature on ecuador which reminded me of the TV program I saw, and decided to make a few enquiries. So I looked up a few websites, and noticed what a fantastic country it appeared. Incidentally, this was around the same time as the Galapogos oil spill which put Ecuador in the news for a while and got me more interested. So from reading a few websites, I decided Ecuador was worth a visit.
But I did not go alone. First of all I managed to persuade Dave, my house mate. He wasn't keen initially because of the cost, but I pointed him in the directions of the websites I knew about (links) and he became just as excited as me. So we went out to Thomas Cook and booked our flights, managing to get them for about £450.
Lisa, a mad northern lass who I also live with had shown a slight interest in this, and having seen that me and Dave were definitely going, got even more interested. She managed to persuade a girl in her course, Sarah, and they then went and bought flights. Unfortunately they couldn't get on the same flights back so were due to spend an extra couple of days in Ecuador, which didn't cause a problem.
So that was it. Four Brit students due to fly out to South America with about a sentence of Spanish between them. It was the start of an exciting adventure featuring illnesses, piranhas, derailed trains, a street robbery, alcohol excesses, alligators, near-death experiences and much much more...
