Heading down the coast in search of sunshine we stopped at Puerto Cayo a fishing village and a tourist destination. There was a lot of fishing for sure with traditional boats hauling up catches onto the beach whilst dogs and frigate birds attempted to steal some pickings.

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Apart from a handful of local families there was no one there at all, a few half empty beach restaurants and that was it. The temperature was warm but as it was grey and over cast the beach wasn’t very enticing. We thought maybe it was quiet because of the winter season when sunshine is quite a rare commodity but we met an ex pat who said the only time it gets busy is New Year and Carnival, the other 48 weeks it’s deserted. We had a great rental house and we were joined by our very own dog family so the plan was to explore from there and hope for a spot of sunshine.

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Our plans were scuppered by Ecuadorean electrics. We woke up Sunday morning to a few strange noises, no lights and an ominous burning smell coming from the fuse box. We called our man in town who came round very quickly with his friend. They flicked switches inside and out but no joy. They rigged up an extension line to next door so that the water pump worked but as the fault was apparently with the transformer we would have to wait for someone else. Given that it was Sunday in S America we weren’t too hopeful and decided to call it a day at the coast. With a sad goodbye to our dog family (although we did feed them all our leftover food) we turned around and headed back to the Andes. The coast to the South is pretty, and it’s definitely quiet but the weather in August is grey and there are definitely better places to visit.

It is worth mentioning that when Geoff and Drew went horse riding in Canoa they passed a man doing some electrical  welding but instead of the welder being plugged into a socket it was connected to the external overhead power lines by 2 crocodile clips so its not entirely surprising they get the odd fault!

Ecaudor is known as the land of fire and ice because of it’s high mountain peaks, from Chimborazo at 6310m, to Reventador at 3562 with a range of others in between ( List of mountains in Ecuador )  plus an abundance of volcanoes. Mount Tungurahua erupted in 1999 and entered an active phase that has continued up to April 2014. In October 1999 more than 25,000 inhabitants from Baños and the surrounding area were evacuated. The government refused to let residents back in as it was deemed unsafe but they dealt with the problem by fighting their way back in, allegedly using farming implements as weapons and that was the end of that. Since then there have been a number of large eruptions, and evacuations, the last in 2014.

As well as volcanoes Ecuador gets its share of Earthquakes and Tsunamis. In April 16 a large earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 centered on the towns of Muisne and Pedernales in a sparsely populated part of the country. The regions of Manta,

Pedernales and Porto Viejo accounted for over 75 percent of total casualties although the shocks were felt as far away as Quito. At least 676 people were killed and 16,600 people injured. During our stay in Canoa and then on the drive here to Puerto Cayo you can still see the remains of the damage. Parts of roads simply disappear where repair work has been not been completed, there are half fallen houses and lots of single story 2 room concrete block houses which could be built quickly to rehouse those whose homes had been detroyed. There are signs everywhere pointing to evacuation routes in the event of a re-occurrence.

This is the Canoa Beach Hotel just after the quake and now.

Even further down the coast here at Puerto  Cayo there are quake damaged buildings just left as they were, abandoned with windows missing and roofs half collapsed.

There’s still a lot that hasn’t been rebuilt, we stopped over in the main city of Porto Viejo and had dinner in a makeshift restaurant (good tho) made from some kind of shipping container. It also makes it interesting trying to locate places as they often just don’t exist anymore despite what google maps would have you believe.

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In the wise words of Drew “it isn’t a holiday unless you go to the beach” (her other words of wisdom include the comparison between my ability to return Cara’s white shorts from muddy brown to a pristine white state as being akin to one of Jesus’s miracles).

So here we are at between Canoa and San Vicente a little way down the Pacific coast. We have a lovely little condo on the beach front with the delights of hot showers, a toaster and a stove which actually heats things up. Travel definitely enhances your appreciation for the small things. Added to this we are a little way out of town so a night’s sleep without partying locals or dogs barking to come in the door at 3am makes a welcome change.

Its not very sunny but it’s warm on the beach and plenty of surf for body boarding. The tide washed up some surprises last night, as well as some very large sand dollars, there was a large puffer fish and a whale skeleton.

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On our final day in Mindo we felt a rainforest tour wasn’t quite complete without zipping through the canopy suspended from 2 wires by a harness. Apparently they use a 2 wire system here rather than the 1 we have used before as a few years ago 1 broke and 5 people died! Geoff shared that little pearl of wisdom as we stood in line for the first of 10 zip lines (thanks for that!). It wasn’t scary although I did refuse the offer to travel upside down, a wise move given that when Cara did it she screamed “ow ow ow it really hurts” most of the way across and when Geoff did it he was walking like quasi modo for a shortwhile after together with a beautiful set of friction burns above his hips. The thing is with zip lines when you’ve done them once the buzz factor isnt there which I guess is why people do more extreme versions like flying face first across a gorge (see previous blog “a day of weather) . It was good fun though, the views were great and the 2 guides were very sociable working hard to make sure we enjoyed it.

Couldn’t resist a canine reference somewhere in here. We saw this sign everywhere in the streets in Mindo.

It translates as “he who feeds a hungry animal feeds his own soul”, what better reason for sharing your burger and chips with this lovely boy.

Today’s entertainment (as well as the obligatory waterfall walk) was a trip to the butterfly house.

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What an unexpected delight, inside butterflies in all shapes, sizes and colours fluttered around, frequently landing on you. If you didnt mind smearing a bit of squidgy banana on your hand then the big ones would step up onto your hand.

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The pupa came in all shapes and sizes, these shiny ones are found near rivers as they disguise themselves as water droplets.

My personal favourite was watching new ones hatch out of the pupa. They come out all squashed up and you could watch them slowly unfolding their wings and drying out.

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Lots of pics as Geoff took some beautiful ones and it was hard to choose.

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Time to leave Tena behind and make our way back up into the Andean Highlands towards Quito. What a day of views as we climbed 4000 meters, winding around the mountain roads, high into the clouds above the forests. In just under 200km the temperature dropped from 30°C to 4°C and back up to 24°C. There was the usual array of strange sites including a calf in a gas station.

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We stopped outside Quito to visit the Equator park. There are 2, the first with the original monument where the Equator was believed to be and the second a few minutes walk away where it really is (discovered with the advent of GPS about 18 years ago). It’s worth a visit, especially for us as we bumped into our friends from the raft trip in Tena.

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There are a few experiments to watch and try out to demonstrate that you are standing exactly between the 2 hemispheres, with a bit of smoke and mirrors thrown in. (check out Hanson from Zoolander in the foreground, yes he was for real!).

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The final destination was Mindo, a pretty little. Mountain town with a reputation for great bird watching. We have rented a funny house just outside of the town, the inside is decked out a bit like a ship with lots of dark wood. The internet is broken so we have just spent a hilarious evening experimenting with an old style record player, we’ve listened (and danced) to bad covers of Queen and Abba, some original Bee Gees and a first edition of the Sound of Music. Cara is now playing her recorder upstairs and as the sound of the Pirates of the Carribean theme pipes its way down through the floorboards for the 10th time I’m thinking maybe Wi-Fi is not such a bad thing.

As Ecuador is the land of waterfalls we couldn’t let the Cascada de Lata pass without exploration. As it was a national holiday most of ecuador seem to have had a similar idea. The walk up to the falls was steep, ankle deep in sticky slippery mud (Drew’s favourite) and as we got near the top where the track was single file there was a queue comparable to the road to West Wittering on a sunny Sunday. It was worth it though especially the swim in the natural pools half way back down.

A little further along the road is the town of Mishualli. It sits on the river almost at the edge of the jungle and today it was overflowing with a mix of tourists, ecuadoreans and tribal people enjoying the river and street festivities. Cara’s eyes were on stalks at the amount of nudity on display. She especially liked the body paint artists, painting jungle scenes all over the models body.

We wrote off the idea of rafting in Banos as too chilly so Tena was the place to do it. We chose  River People   as we had already stayed at Abbey’s (younger sister) place in Banos and knew they had a good reputation for safety on the water as well as good English – they originally come from Ireland. As with all things water related there is always too much or too little. The original plan was to do the Hollin River as it runs 38km through a gorge with little human impact. However 2 nights of heavy rain had turned it into a raging torrent so we had to do the more open and commercialised Jatunyacu river. Normally the rapids are class II  but the rains had turned them into class IV so plenty of entertainment. We did about 3 times the usual distance as the river was running so fast. Huge waves and so much fun. No photos as no camera but the lovely couple (more about them later) Alex and Frances from New York have promised to send Go Pro footage which I will add in later.

Highlights of the trip were:- great company, a lovely guide who managed to up end Geoff out of the raft, lunch, especially the home made chocolate cake and surviving being swept out of the raft in a big rapid with most of my dignity, if not my hairstyle, intact. Big thumbs up to Cara who is scared of rapids but managed to paste a smile on for most of the trip.

We were all a bit wiped out by the end of the day so we had a meal in town and then went for a wander with the locals in the park. Highlight here was Geoff and Cara hiring a tandem and attempting to cycle round the park.

Sadly I don’t have any pics of them in action but let me try and describe the scene as they set off  with Geoff on the front on a much too low saddle and Cara on the back waving her long legs in the air, shrieking as the bike weaved dangerously from side to side. At least 5 Ecuadorean families found themselves temporarily disabled with convulsive laughter whilst Drew and I alternated between hysterics and embarassment.

After a hectic few days we thought we should slow the pace down and spend the day chilling at the river beach. What we hadn’t taken into account was that the heavy overnight rain had erased the beach completely and turned the swimming holes into swirling, tourist sucking, whirlpools.

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Cara and I had a “refreshing” swim in one of the pools further up for “children and old people”. We managed to find some gold but not quite enough to pay for the bbq plantains and cheese we tried for a snack. The stall owner did his best to persuade us to try chontacuro (large larvae) skewers. Apparently they are great for colds, coughs and sore throats. We decided to pass!!

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Edible palm weevil larvae (Rhynchophorus phoenicis) from the Amazon

One of the upsides of travelling as we do, without a fixed plan, and our own transport is that you come across places that even the tour guides fail to mention. We saw a sign for waterfalls and after stopping to investigate found the most stunning hike up through the waterfall itself. There were rickety ropes to hold onto and pull yourself up with. An ancient ladder made from tree trunk and a lot of jumping from rock to rock as we crossed the river. Having failed to make the landing spot on one jump I decided to continue by wading through the river – its now over 24 hours later and my boots are still wet inside.

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We stumbled across Yana Cocha  half way to our next stop. It’s another rescue centre for monkeys and other local wildlife. The woolly monkey enclosure open apart from a moat surrounding it which allows great opportunities to observe and take photos.

After a 3 hour ride to Tena, a largish town on the edge of the rainforest, we arrived at Hostel Casablanca on the outskirts of town. Pretty basic accommodation but hardly anyone here so it looks like we have free rein over the kitchen (although looking at the kitchen more closely I can see there may be a reason why people choose not to cook in it!)

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A trip into town with a walk in the local park revealed some surprises – a free roaming and extremely friendly tapir and a troup of squirrel monkeys very used to charming anyone who passes by with their antics. Watch and enjoy, we may just forget rafting and jungke exploration in favour of monkey watching.

Drew with squirrel monkeys

Cara with squirrel monkeys