Gavs on Tour: Ecuador

When we touched down in Quito, the capital of Ecuador we immediately loved how nice all the people seemed to be. They were all really friendly and it was so refreshing! We had fairly calm first evening at Finn McCools...oh yeah, we loved that Irish pub!! But the second night was rather a different story...after we explored the Old Town during the day, we hid Ladies Night at the local nightclub fairly hard. Only girls were allowed in before 10 and it was free drinks until then, thank god we got there at quarter to and not beforehand. This is the night Shauna lost her memory card, only a small indication of the alcohol consumed. But we were so gutted because we had some awesome pictures from that night.

After a much needed day of feeling sorry for ourselves and nursing hangovers we went to the official equator. It was pretty cool, as was the children's playground that we spent far too much time in!

Ridiculous wonky glasses!

On the Saturday in Quito we made the 2 hour trip to Otavalo in the Highlands where there is a huge market filled with indigenous people and lots of local crafts stuff for sale...giving Shauna a chance to stock up on some Alpaca jumpers seeing as she is missing the opportunity in Peru. Unfortunately there are no pictures from the market because of the huge number of beggers (normally 50 year old men who only came up to our waists!) coming up to us in the market, we didn't think it would be a very good idea.

From Quito we moved onto Baños. Its a really cool town high up in the mountains where you can do loads of outdoor activities. At last some exercise!! So on our 1st day there we hired mountain bikes and took on the challenge suggested by our lonely planet guide of a 60k "descent" to the town of Puyo. However as we have found quite a few times the lonely planet tends to be slightly inaccurate and descent might have been slightly optimistic!! After a fairly unenthusiastic start it turns out Miss Foster Gregg has found her calling and she is a pretty determined cyclist (Dad you better sign her up for OLSG), Shauna on the other hand became less and less enthusiastic as the hills got steeper and provided much amusement to look back and see her pushing her bike up the hill with her wonky helmet bobbing on her head.We didn't make the full 60 but managed 50km before we had to get on a bus to head back before the bike shop closed.