1. Where the devil have I been?
I entered Ecuador, the final stop on my South American journey, on Friday 6th November and spent my first night in the country enduring the most painfully epic of all epic bus journeys (see no.20). I then found myself in Baños, a town whose name translates literally as either Baths or Toilets, you decide. Still feeling more than slightly ropey after the hell bus, I decided the best method of recovery was to abseil down some freezing cold waterfalls, go on a nice big bike ride and treat myself to a massage…and it worked! Feeling pretty much totally human again (largely thanks to the fruit juices and banana bread at Casa Hood café), I left Baños and headed for Quito, the capital of Ecuador and second highest capital city I the world
(after La Paz in Bolivia). After hearing a few too many nasty stories about criminal activity in Quito, I was pretty glad just to make it to the hostel without being robbed, kidnapped or smeared with human faeces (seeno.14)! But I didn’t hang around long. The next morning I took the (very) early bus to Otavalo, home of the largest and best craft market in Ecuador, to make some seriously unnecessary purchases and catch a bit of cock fighting. Then it was back to Quito for a quick trip to the equator and an early night in preparation for a full day of flights that would eventually lead me to Belize in Central America.
2. Most memorable meal
Not a meal that was in any way memorable because of the quality of the food (my Aloo Saag was distinctly average), but instead for the overall experience. After arriving in Quito to discover that the Ecuadorian national football team had a World Cup qualifying fixture that very evening, we did a quick recce of the area near our hostel, looking for a decent bar with an appropriately large screen. Hungry from travelling most of the day, we popped into a nearby Indian restaurant for a quick curry before the game started…at least that was the plan. The restaurant had its own big TV and once we had placed our order the tables started to fill up as more and more people decided a curry house was a perfectly normal place to watch live sport. By the time our meals arrived, we were sharing our table with two other groups of people and so many new customers had arrived the restaurant owners were bringing out beer crates from the back for people to sit on! We physically couldn’t have left if we had tried. So we embraced the restaurant football experience, changed into our $5 fake Ecuador shirts purchased earlier and ordered another beer. Unfortunately Ecuador lost. Although the crowd’s reaction to their team scoring a consolation goal to make it 2-1 in the 93rd minute was ecstatic! It’s probably a good thing they’ll never make it to the World Cup finals because the fans wouldn’t be able to handle the excitement!
3. Photo of the week
Happy to have survived abseiling down the waterfalls, whilst rocking the helmet, wetsuit, nappy harness look!
4. Best bargain
My best bargain this week signaled the end of a year-long search for the ultimate chunky knit winter jumper. I spotted it hanging up at the back of a stall and it was love at first sight. A woolly outer layer with a hood and jazzy wintery pattern around the middle. Combined with a super soft fleecy inner lining for extra warmth and comfort. It’s just a shame I didn’t find it until 2 days before I flew to Belize, a country in which it is too hot to wear a t-shirt most of the time!
5. Immature moment of the week
The law according to me officially states that if you visit the equator, silly photos must be taken. So here they are…the lunging photo is an homage to my Inca Trail group, the plank is for my sister and the drink driving test is for mum’s reference just in case she feels like cycling to a pub again anytime soon!
6. Favourite sign
Whilst waiting for my breakfast to arrive on my first morning in Baños, I tried to familiarize myself with the surrounding area by studying a map on display in the café. To my great delight, I found that the town boasted everyone’s favourite family friendly attraction...an animal prison (or Zoo)!! Well it is a fairly accurate description I suppose.
7. Biggest fashion crime
It is a well known fact that no-one (apart from the odd professional surfer) looks good in a wetsuit. That’s just one of life’s disappointments, and I’ve come to terms with it. But being forced to combine the wetsuit with plimsols, a helmet & a harness which resembled a giant nappy is surely a breach of human rights?!
8. Crappest souvenir / tourist attraction
The only serious competition for this title this week came from a waterfall near Baños. It was described on a faded sign as "The 8th wonder of the world", 
which turned out to be a somewhat misleading description as everyone there was left wondering what they were supposeed to feel wonder about! But nothing can come close to the overwhelming crappiness of this certificate congratulating the recipient on visiting a line on the ground. I just can't understand why Bill Clinton didn't ever take it home with him!
9. Best view
Maybe I've been too spoilt lately, but I definitely didn't feel that this week was ever going to become famous for its abundance of spectacular views. Apart from some brief glimpses of a volcano on the way back from Otavalo (which I wasn't quick enough to capture on camera), the prettiest view came during my bike ride down the road between Baños and Puyo. Waterfalls littered the roadside and whilst the skies were still clear, the valley twisted and turned far into the distance.
10. Div of the week
Here are a few things which don't help to get rid of a persistent snotty nose and sore throat:
Lack of sleep, sustained periods submerged in cold water / wearing wet clothing, physical exertion, high altitude, long bus journeys.
And here are a few things I did after waking up with a bit of a cold:
Surfed, sat on a bus for 12 hours, didn't sleep, abseiled down 5 waterfalls, refused to go down below an altitude of 1800m above sea level, cycled for an entire morning, stood under a waterfall for photographic purposes.
That is why I am a div.
11. Dodgy moment of the week
During my South American travels there have been many situations in which knowing a little bit of Spanish is plenty to get by. Some examples include ordering a meal, 
finding a hotel room and catching a bus. Unfortunately there have also been a number of occasions for which a very basic grasp of the local language is really not enough. The best example of this that I have come across so far is attempting to abseil face first (something I'd never done before) down a 20m high vertical waterfall by following the instructions of a man who speaks no English! I understood quite a few isolated words and actions, but "he said something about your left hand and the rope" is not particularly helpful when preparing to take your first steps over the edge.
12. Motto of the week
"I'll fit it in somewhere."
This is what I had to keep telling myself everytime I made a new unnecessary purchase at the amazing Otavalo market.
13. Magic 8 ball adventure of the week
I decided to treat myself to a massage after all that hard work surfing, walking down waterfalls and cycling through the valley. And in Baños I was spoilt for choice. So much so that I had to call on the magic 8 ball to help me make my final choice...full body massage with facial, foot massage, reflexology and a pedicure all for $20...or a chocolate massage for the same price. The 8 ball chose the chocolate and about 15 minutes later I found myself covered from head to toe in what is best described as warm chocolate sauce. Looking and feeling like a character from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory (save some food for later Augustus!) it was a struggle not to drift off into dream land as the sweet aroma drifted into my nostrils and the soothing sounds of Lady in Red on the panpipes filled the room. An interesting experience to say the least!
14. Average Bristol Stool Chart score
Again, no dodgy poos for me this week, but I do have an interesting (and quite gross) poo related story to share instead...In the days leading up to our visit to Quito, many people we met on our travels had horrible stories to tell about crime in Ecuador's capital. Apparently everyone knows someone who was robbed in Quito! But by far the worst story I heard (and this came from more than one source) was concerning a particularly grubby method of mugging. In the Lonely Planet guidebook it gives a warning about undesirable people who squirt mustard, ketchup or some other condiment onto your clothes as you are walking along. They then pretend to be helpful, point it out, and try to help you clean it off, before legging it with your bag. However, since that was written it seems that tourists in Quito have wised up to this trick so the criminals have had to change their approach slightly by swapping the everyday table sauces for something a little more shocking. And yes, that's right, they chose poo. Human poo! Totally wrong in every way. One girl we met had a friend who was terrified of having a turd smeared on her clothes, she wore a waterproof (and presumably poo proof) jacket for her entire stay in Quito!
15. Soundtrack to the week
Ecuador (Sash!) - Obvs.
Waterfalls (TLC) - We abseiled down them, slid down them and stood under them, but definitely didn't chase them!
I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas) - The song that was playing as we boarded the death bus to Baños. Oh the irony!
Insomnia (Faithless) - The result of the death bus to Baños.
Lady in Red (panpipe version) - For the chocolate massage memories.
16. Favourite snack of the week
The Ecuadorian equivalent of Cadbury's animal biscuits, these "Galapogitos" are supposed to resemble the various different species found on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Unfortunately the thick layer of chocolate and generous application of hundreds and thousands made it pretty much impossible to uncover each animal's identity. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. So far I have established that one of them looks vaguely like a fish, but that's the best I've got.
17. Favourite person of the week
Although Sophie may resent me for saying this because she believes he is a book exchange dictator...Ray Hood, the owner of Casa Hood cafe in Baños should definitely be highly commended for his warm chocolate and banana bread (even better than Angela's rfom my last blog) and wide selection of mixed juices. He also turns his cafe into a mini cinema every afternoon and shows a film for free, which is cool. Ray and Angela should totally get married and open a mega cafe together!
18. Best game invention
Here's a good idea for a game...all you do is find two feisty cockerils, attach long metal spikes to their ankles, wind them up for a while, then make them fight each other by pecking and kicking until one of them can't get up anymore. Oh no, hang on...I just remembered, that's cock fighting and its a horrible, barbaric idea, banned pretty much everywhere...but not in Otavalo! We had to go and watch, purely for the experience. And it was worth it just to see one cock owner's celebratory forward rolls which followed each of his wins!
19. High point of the week
Although I have abseiled backwards numerous times, until this week I had never been given the opportunity to try it head first. I didn't expect that my first attempt at this totally unnatural activity would be down a 20m high, completely vertical waterfall gushing with freezing cold water, but sometimes you've just got to take what you're given. So I stood on the edge of the fall and leant forwards whilst attempting to follow the Spanish instructions provided by our guide. After a tentative start I soon found my rhythm and walked down the waterfall for a slightly less tentative finish. The feeling of relief and achievement I felt as my feet touched the horizontal ground soon turned to envy as I heard a whistle from above and turned around to see the guide literally running head first down the waterfall. No-one likes a show off! (Have a look at the video of my face first abseil if it was uploaded properly.)
20. Low point of the week
So last week I apologised for yet another horrific bus journey story...but I'm afraid its more of the same again this week. But it's a justifiable moan because, although it wasn't our longest journey, the bus trip from Mancora in Peru to Baños was surely the most painful. It all started with the lying ticket seller in Mancora who wrongly informed us that the bus we had booked would take us all the way to a town called Ambato, arriving at around 6am, at which time we could easily hop on a local bus for the remaining 45 minute ride to Baños. This was total lies. Our ONE bus to Ambato somehow turned into two seperate buses with a taxi ride, a shambolic border crossing and a whole lot of confusion in between them. As we boarded the second bus (which actually would take us to Ambato) we were told that it would arrive around 3 hours earlier than we had been told, at around 3.30am! But we were promised that we would still be able to catch a connecting bus to Baños at that time, and we didn't really have much choice anyway, so we sat down and made ourselves comfortable. The comfort didn't last long for Soph as she had the misfortune of sitting in the aisle seat where she soon became the victim of some indecent leg groping by the 9 year old blind girl with exceptionally long arms who occupied the seat in front of us. Soph found this amusing for a few minutes...I was still laughing an hour later. But all our smiles faded a couple of hours into our journey as a seemingly impossible number of people boarded the bus at one of its pick up points. With no spare seats, the new passengers were forced to sit in the aisle (about 10 of them) or stand in any available space at the front of the bus (3 mums and their children). One of these passengers (a woman with a very young baby) decided that the gap between Soph's legs was one such available space and settled herself in there, whilst doing her best to avoid sitting on Soph's lap every time the bus driver applied the brakes. Poor Soph's journey got even worse when she clambered over bodies to the toilet (with no light, paper or water for flushing/washing hands) at the back of the bus, only to find on her return that the mother and baby had stolen her seat while she was gone. Not mean enough to make someone stand on a bus for hours holding a small child, Soph found herself a little space on the floor, made slightly more comfortable by the blanket donated by the very grateful young mother. So I counted myself lucky to still have my seat, even if it was between a woman who liked to breastfeed (a lot) and a window which dripped and rattled. That was until the baby started crying. It cried,then it wailed, then it screamed...and it never stopped for more than the time it takes to almost drift off to sleep. At around 3am, after zero minutes sleep, the bus screeched to a halt on a dirty looking road in a deserted town. The conductor shouted "Ambato" and myself, Sophie and 2 other tourists were literally dumped on the pavement and left there to fend for ourselves. With nothing that resembled a bus stop anywhere in sight, we stood by the side of the road, looking helpless and hoping that someone would come to our rescue. After five minutes or so, a dubous looking bloke in a pick up truck pulled over to tell us there were no buses to Baños until 6am, but he could give us a lift there for $20. The price was high and something about the driver told us not to trust him, so we sent him on his way and crossed our fingers that he was telling fibs. A few buses destined for Quito went past and after some very vague directions from the bemused conductors, we established that the buses to Baños stopped on the other side of the road. So we waited. And eventually a bus approached with a sign saying Baños in the windscreen. We breathed a sigh of relief and waved our arms triumphantly to flag it down...but the bus didn't stop. Then as we watched it drive away, devastated that this nightmare journey still didn't seem close to ending, the brake lights suddenlty came on...followed by the reverse lights! And the driver, who was obviously daydreaming when he passed us, reversed about 200m back up a main highway to pick us up. So at 4.30am, after a relatively pleasant 45 minute ride to Baños, we walked to the nearest hostel that would open its doors to us, climbed into the cheapest beds available and slept until the afternoon.
