Huacachina and Nazca

Having left Ecuador we hoped on a long direct 28 hour bus to Lima, Peru and then quickly took another 5 hour bus to the little Oasis town of Huacachina in Peru. The journey was made fairly comfortable in our Ormeño bus which had nice deep reclining chairs and included all our meals along the way. The journey itself was incredible. It seemed as soon as we jumped over the border from lush, green, tropical Ecuador, the landscape of Peru turned into an arrid, dry desert with rolling sand hills as far as the eye could see.

Huacachina, is an amazing little town just outside of Ica, in southwestern Peru. Picture the classic desert Oasis you would likely see on an Arabian movie and that is exactly what Huacachina looks like. Surrounded by high sand dunes, this little town is built around a small lagoon and surrounding by palm trees. It is so small there is literally just enough room for a few hotels, a couple of restaurants and of course an obligatory Internet place !!

We stayed at the El Huacachino based on a good tip from our friends Susan and Joost (thanks guys). It felt like a resort with its pool and outdoor bar where we didn´t need cash as everything was put ¨on our account¨. Great....until of course the final bill arrives!! When we first arrived we were determined to climb the huge sand dune behind our hotel to ¨get a feel¨ for the Oasis. An hour later, dripping in sweat, struggling to lift our burning thighs....we made it. It was certainly a lot more fun going down (just a few seconds) as this video will attest to...



One thing about the beauty and majesty of this place that draws the toursits is the chance to go dunebugging and sandboarding. We took a fantastic 2 hour tour that generally revolved around driving at ludicrous speeds over, up, down and around huge sand dunes ,with the occasional breaks to tackle some sandboarding. Our little group of 7 had 5 Canadians with snow experience so we of course thought that sand boarding would be pretty simple....WRONG. When you are using wooden boards with no edges and dodgy footholds, you spend more time eating sand than riding it.

Here´s Lyds proving the point...


Not all was lost though, we soon discovered by hill 3 of 10 that it was a lot more fun and WAY faster to ride the boards like a sled on your stomach. On the last gigantic hill I have no doubt that I was pushing high 70-80kms per hour !!

Flying down one of the smaller hills..


Taking on a huge dune in the buggy..


Unfortunately our little camera suffered a blowout from some wayward sand that has caused it to give up. No doubt a nasty repair bill awaits us in Cucso to have it fixed.

Here are some of our pics from Huacachina.

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Huacachina

After Huacachina we headed 2 hours east to the town of Nazca.

Nazca has become famous for the Nazca Lines. These are a series of geoglyphs located on a high arid plateau that stretches about 80 kilometers from the town. They were created by the Nazca culture between 200bc to 700ad by moving darker rocks from the desert floor to create long whiter lines and figures. There are actually hundreds of individual figures, ranging in simple lines to detailed hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fishes, sharks, and lizards. They are so big (some the size of a football field) that you really can only truly appreciate them from the air....which we did courtesy of a 30 minute ride in a little 4 seater plane. The lines truely are an amazing sight given that its safe to assume that back in 200bc, the Nazca people could have never seen their work from our vantage point !! We are also happy to report that despite some gut wrenching turns in our little plane, our breakfast stayed comfortably in our stomachs where it belonged.

Here are some pics from Nazca.

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Nazca

Touring the Galapagos Islands

So after a great few days seeing what was below the Galapagos Islands, it was time to spend a few days seeing what was above it. Through our ¨do it all¨ travel agent, Paddy, we got ourselves a great last minute deal on a boat called the Friendship. We´d read some mixed reviews about the boat, but the price was right and we´d heard that it was guaranteed to be mostly filled with young travellers. This was definately a necessity for us, given the amount of tour groups we had seen walking through Puerto Ayora that comprised entirely of elderly, mostly loud, American tourists. Not the sort of people you want to be stuck on a boat with for 5 days.

We were happy to meet our group and find that the 16 of us were all between the ages of 19-37. What was interesting about our gang was that everyone spoke English, however Lyds and I were actually the only native English speakers. The rest of the group came from Sweden, Denmark, Belguim, Germany, Chile and Switzerland. We lucked out with a great bunch of people, and particularly became buddies with Bert from Belguim and a young Scandanavian couple - Kasper and Viktoria. Our boat was as expected...on the lower end of luxury, but the food was unbelievably good, we had a really knowledgable tour guide, a great roof deck for tanning after post island visits, and most importantly we covered a lot of different islands. We also had a great time joking about how bad our boat was in comparison to the many 1st class boats that docked near us at each of the various sites, but always had a little smile and chuckle when we saw the people getting off them.

The 5 days were an incredible journey through these beautiful islands taking in the vast number of endemic (i.e. - not naturally found elsewhere) species that willingingly allow you to get up close and personal to them. Everyday our tour usually consisted of two Island land visits, and a couple of snorkelling trips.

The Islands are strictly controlled as far as where you can and can´t tred, so no matter where we went, you felt that the Islands were being well preserved. Indeed many of the animal species are fighting back through conservation programs after being almost wiped out by a lot of man introduced species in the early 1900s. Hearing that made us feel a bit better about the $100US they levy each foreign tourist at the airport on arrival for ¨conservation¨ (Ecuadorians don´t pay).

It´s hard to document such an incredible trip in words without writing thousands and thousands of them. The photos below give a good indication of all that we saw during our trip. Suffice to say we´ve certainly seen enough Iguanas to last us a lifetime(thousands of them), and been lucky enough to get so up close and personal to dozens of seals in and out of the water that seeing them now down at say Sorrento Rocks near Melbourne wouldn´t really be that special to us.

Here are some pics (actually a lot of Pics) from the 7 days we spent cruising through the Galapagos Islands.

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Galapagos Touring

Having had such a great time, it was hard to leave the boat, but there was still more to see !! When we got back to Puerto Ayora, we literally hoped straight onto another boat to spend a couple of days checking out nearby Isabela Island, which we´d heard great things about. Again we took a little all inclusive tour that our mate Paddi had organized. We were met straight away by our guide Dairo who took as on a whirlwind non-stop 2 day tour. Our rapid fire visit was spent - visiting a turtle breeding farm; checking out a Flamingo reserve (this proved quite sad given that now is not the migratory season for them, so in the whole reserve we saw....ONE Flamingo. Don´t worry, we still got a great photo !!); Horseback riding and hiking up Sierra Negra Volcano (Lyds got a young horse that loved to Gallop at just the slightest encouragement, while I got the old veteran who told ME when he would gallop (very little) and when he would just plod along at his own pace); snorkelling (white tip sharks, turtles and of course playing with seals); and a bunch of great meals and drinks at Dario´s beachside bar. All this and we got to do it all with two great brothers from Switerland (Flo and Sebastian) that we met straight off the boat.

Regretfully on getting back to Puerto Ayora it was time to say goodbye to the Galapagos and Ecuador in general. A 36 hour busride from Guayaquil to Ica, Peru was waiting for us and the legendary Maccu Picchu is just over the horizon...

Diving in the Galapagos Islands..

To say the Galapagos Islands are special would be an understatement. Within 24 hours of being here we knew that our originally planned 9 days would not be nearly enough for us to take in everything. Raul´s brother Pablo used to work in the Galapagos, so we were lucky enough to be referred to mate of his here (Paddy) who is a local travel agent and one stop shop. We quickly organised a couple of last minute boat cruises for a fraction of the price, lined up 3 days of diving and changed our flights to let us stay now for a good 2 weeks.

With our cruise 4 days away, World Class diving awaited us. The last few days seem somewhat like a dream as we have shared our days with Hammerheads, White tipped & Galapagos sharks, Manta and Sting Rays, Moray Eels, Sea lions, Turtle and Iguanas, not to mention hundreds of fish species. After three days of diving (two for me as I developed an ear infection the third day...sad but still a great day lounging on the boat) we can safely say that the Galapagos is an absolute MUST for any divers out there. We were also lucky to have met a great Dutch Couple (Susan and Joost) who dived with us for the 3 days and for 2 of the days we had the seas to ourselves. Good times, good times !!!

As pictures speak a thousand words I will say no more but leave you to the magic of what we witnessed under the waves our first few days in this incredible place.


If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Galapagos Diving

Here are a couple of videos as well...

A playful seal


Whitetip sharks chilling on the seafloor


Tomorrow we are off on a five day cruise to witness all the amazing creatures found above the sea...

Galapagos - First 30 minutes

Here´s a little video we took staight after checking into our hostel. This was the scene on the beach right in front of us....It´s going to be a great 10 days.

A few days touring around Northern Ecuador

After a great week of fun in the sun on the coast at Raul´s place in Manglaralto (Kamala Hostel), Raul kindly offered to take us on a tour of Northern Ecuador for a few days while we waited for our flight to the Galapagos. So we hopped a bus to Quito and headed to his parents place to pick up their car. Raul´s family was extremely welcoming and of course couldn´t let us leave without sending us off with a delicious lunch.

First on our agenda was a trip 2 hours north of Quito to the town of Otavalo. Otavalo is a beautiful little town set in a valley surrounded by 3 volcanos (Imbabura, Cotacachi, and Mojanda - just in case you were dying to know). The town in renowned around Ecuador for its huge market on Saturday (which apparently has been going on since pre-Inca days). Unfortunately we were there on a Wednesday, but there was still a pretty cool mini market which was extremely colourful and vibrant and there was still enough wares on sale to give Lyds a chance to try on numerous outfits and then finally buy something random that she really didn´t need (although she assures me she did). Another contrasting thing about the town was the people. Otavalo is largely indigenous, so it was amazing to see how the physical appearance of these Ecuadorians was so vastly different from their compatriots only 2 hours South.

Here´s some pics of our time in Otavalo...

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Otavalo

From Otavalo we headed south-east to a little mountain town called Papallacta. The drive there was spectacular as we passed through several quaint towns and small villages while driving and descending at heights of between 3,300m and 4,000m above sea level. The views were amazing and as we got to Papallacta the ecosystem began to transform from alpine to tropical jungle as we touched on the edge of the Amazon basin. The draw for this trip though was to visit the Papallacta Hot Springs. We spent a great few hours testing our bodily extremes as we jumped from freezing pools to scalding hot ones. The only downside was that the springs are funnelled into nicely tiled and filtered pools. Beautiful and clean to swim in, but it kind of detracted from the natural surroundings...

Here´s some pics of our time in Papallacta...

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Papallacta

From Papallacta we headed south to visit a Hostel run by a friend of Raul´s near the town of Machachi. The Hostel was a huge beautiful old converted farm house. The night we spent there was close to freezing (well it was probably about 15C, but for us that´s COLD !!). We had to contend ourselves with making it through the night with a few bottles of wine in front of an open fire while playing some classic games of Jenga. The next day we hit the nearby hills for a few hours of Horseback riding. Machachi is surrounded by 4 Volcanos including Ecuador´s 2nd highest - Cotapaxi (a climbers favourite apparently). We struck it lucky with a beautiful day for riding which enabled us to take in all the incredible views, as these photos can attest to...

Here´s some pics of our time in Machachi...

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Horseriding near Machachi

After Machachi we had a pitstop in Quito for the night to hit the town, and for Raul to take us to one of his favourite restaurants. As it was run by one of his cousins, so we were treated to an absolute feast. As this photo attests to, it also included the most ludicrous, yet delicious BBQ meal !! I skipped two meals after wolfing this down....



The next day it was off to the town of Mindo. Once again we took a spectacular drive through the Ecuadoran countryside to get there. Despite being only 80kms west of Quito, almost as soon as we left the city limits, the land and weather changed from arrid, mountainous hills and fine, partly cloudy weather to a deeply entrenched Cloud Forest, with a constant drizzle. Besides the amazing scenery, Raul wanted to take us to the Butterfly reserve in town. The Reserve was fantastic and allowed us to get up close and personal with the Butterflys. Unfortunately we were a bit late, but early every monring you can actually see them turn from their Caterpillar cocoon to grown Butterfly.

Here´s some pics of our time in Mindo...

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Mindo

Overall a fantastic and busy 4 days of travelling. Raul, we can´t thankyou enough for being a tour guide extraordinare and many thanks to your welcoming and generous family !!

The centre of the World....and some beach time !!

Although we loved Colombia, we certainly aren´t suffering in Ecuador... After our VERY long journey over the border, we were thrilled to find ourselves in the lap of luxury (relatively speaking) in Quito. Quito itself is a large city with a lot to offer, however we knew to go straight to the Mariscal-New Town area which as we discovered, is filled with fantastic restaurants, cafes, shops, and bars..... We were lucky enough to find a great little dirt cheap inn to stay at where the towels were fresh, the showers hot, the cable working and a balcony which opened up onto a quiet cobble stone street to let the fresh night breezes in. For two weary backpackers, this to us was the Four Seasons.

One of the highlights of our time in Quito was a trip to the actual Equator where you can stand with one foot in the southern hemisphere, and the other in the north. Doug was quick to point out that we were now finally in the same Hemisphere as Australia !! After the obligatory photo ops, we spent the day exploring the local museum and watching some traditional dances that were happening on site. An interesting fact about the Equator: On average everyone weights about 5lbs less when standing at the Equator than anywhere else in the world. We of course tested this out on an available scale and after seeing our reduced weights, went straight to a greasy restaurant for a guilt free hamburger and fries. Too bad they can´t funnel that energy into other parts of the world....


If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Quito

After a quick couple of days in Quito it was off to the beach. Raul, my partner at the orphanage, is a partner in a Hostel near a little town called Montañita (a great surfing town that seems to be pumping with energy 24/7). Our plan was to spend a week or so with him before heading to the Galapagos. When we arrived at Kamala we knew that it would be a tough place to leave. With everything from horseback riding, diving (Raul and his brother are both diving instructors), a huge pool, beach bar, volleyball net, TV room with hundreds of DVDs, and more...all directly on a beautiful white sandy beach, this place was one of the most inviting we have seen on our travels so far.

Add to that the fact that two of our other friends from the orphanage were also staying with Raul (Gabby, my second partner for the little boys, and Elena, Raul´s girlfriend who worked with the little girls at Casa Guatemala)...Kamala felt like a little piece of home, a wonderful break for two travellers who rarely see the same face twice.

The week was a great reunion for all of us as we filled our days with diving (4 great dives, 2 of which were the best night dives we have had so far), surfing, lounging on the beach, dancing till sunrise (Carnival weekend is huge in Ecuador too), and reminiscing around an open fire of our days at Casa Guatemala....Good times, good times.



If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Kamala