Fast link to view images (W12 - W15 are new files * there are lots of new images* view W15 as slideshow) http://www.lazyblueskies.com/wp/wpg2-2?g2_itemId=9542&g2_page=2

Hi everyone

Laying back in a thermal spa pool heated only by a volcano, at night, in the rain, at 2000m above sea level, with a 300 foot waterfall crashing into a pool next to us has to be up there in the all time top things that we have done. The pools are as hot as any hot bath. You stand under the cascade of the waterfall with freezing water hitting you on the head with a force or, well a 300 foot waterfall, then you leap back into the pools trying desperately not to do the whole monkey bath thing (ooooh hah haah haaah) whilst waving your arms around above your head. All of this is done with very few western faces but a sea of classic indigenous Quichuan’s looking on in a confused manner.

The bus rides here are something to behold. 4 hour rally sessions racing around mountain paths in a small bus driven at brake neck speed by some old dude who has been driving for 2 days nonstop, with red eyes and a grin to match. We met some Canadian’s who’s bus hit a petrol tanker at 1am. No Police, No Paramedics, No AA Rescue Truck just a donkey and a 4×4 to pull the coach back onto the road, and yes the injured dude went to a local vets on the top of the donkey! We will not be travelling at night in Ecuador me thinks. I must mention that on these bus rides a bloke always gets on and starts selling stuff from the front in full on market seller style.

This trip we had, ready for this, a Viagra Salesmen!!! He showed pictures of Beavers (Penny W-J I can tell you I was in hysterics) but then he moved onto how it can improve the ‘male loving’ too and showed us pictures of male buttholes, ewww! He claimed that his natural Ginseng remedy could even cure cancer as well as putting an end to world famine, but I soon forgot all of that when he moved back to the detailed description of the female ‘working bits’….his photo looked just like a big black cat run over by a moped. The worst bit was that he handed out free samples to everyone but refused to give them to any of the Westerners! Finally, I got hold of one and swallowed it whole, it got stuck in my throat and I’ve had a stiff neck for 3 days now and have started to grow an impressive set of 34C’s  ha ha ha

This story is going to be a bit long but we are doing so much it is difficult to keep it short and wait until you hear about the humpback whales.

The geography here is quite something. We drove along the side of a volcano that let one go in 2006 and cut a vast swathe through the land like a hot spoon through melted icecream. The sides of these ravines and mountain side stretch up into the clouds some 1000m’s above! Everything seems to cost $1 here, cab rides, 2 Cokes, bags of fruit and hostels with double beds and great views cost $20 per night. Look at one of the first photos after the waterfall to see what a volcano does to the solid rock!

We had a bizarre experience with one of the last running trains in Ecuador. It’s called El Nazir Del Diablo, or Devil’s Nose to you and me. You rock up at the end of the line station at 05.45hrs dressed in all your warmest gear and purchase a leather seat cushion off a rather vocal bloke for $1 a go. I purchase two cushions (one for each buttock), then you mount up on top of the train. The carriages are box cars which no one sits in, you only have the roof as an option. You climb up a ladder and sit on essentially a corrugated iron roof, on said bum cushions, and then you wait, in the cold. As dawn approaches you watch the town come to life and the roads start to fill with taxi’s, people honking their horns at each other  and people going about their business. At about 07.00hrs the diesel engine five carriages up in front fires into life and plunges thick black smoke high into the sky, then the magic starts. It blows it’s whistle over and over waking the whole town. People come running out of their houses to wave and smile, dogs bark and children excitedly chase after the train shouting stuff. Looking back on it, I know understand what they were shouting. ‘You are all going to die, get off as soon as possible you mad crazy gringo people’!

Barely, five minutes into the five hour journey we come to a juddering halt. Yes, one of the 6 carriages derailed. Twenty minutes later and we are off again before, yes you’ve guessed it, we derail again. This continues as the scenery slides passed through small remote towns, on into steep valleys, river bends and abandoned mining towns. On about our 7th derail of the day it became obvious there was a ‘bit of a problem’ said the crisp and banana seller up on the roof who incidentally had no teeth whatsoever. Five hours turned into seven then eight and then nine. Finally we hit the canyon with the train teetering along the edge of about 400-500 feet shear drops to the valley floor and certain death. As we got to the bottom of Switchback Canyon, it became obvious on our 11th derailment that we had a serious problem. When derail 12 happened and we were stuck on a narrow ledge for 50 minutes whilst they tried to retrack the actual engine using rocks and crowbars we started to get nervous, very nervous. So much so that a group of us got off and saw just how bad the track was. All of the sleepers were rotten beyond repair and the track had completely buckled under the engines weight and circa 200 on the roof.

So we got off and hiked up the mountain. Yes, 2500m’s above sea level and we hiked up a steep mountain face. We now discover that it has only just been reopened after a ’serious incident’ of which no one is allowed to talk about. So  a five hour trip was actually 14 hours in the end! Everyone panned this trip as being incredible but the most dangerous trip ever that one day soon with kill everyone on board. You know when you read in the paper that a train in India crashes killing 200 people, this place will be the next. But it kind of makes you appreciate that South Western Trains may very well be a bunch of baboons but at least they get you there. Album W13 shows true Ecuadorian life shot from the roof of the moving train. I am personally stunned at the images I managed to capture, as I am sure you will be. Remember these are shot from the roof of a moving train.

We moved on to an 11 hour bus ride that took us to Puerto Lopez, a real backwards fishing village with just a few Cabañas (straw roofed huts). At 4am I jumped awake when I heard a noise in our room, and there sitting on my back pack was a mouse eating my Oreo cookie. I got up to remonstrate with the pesky varmint and got confronted by a cockroach. On closer inspection of the floor and table we had been infested my a million mini ants. The next day was spent in a new hotel cleaning, washing and drying everything we owned. Ewwwww, but hey that is what we are here to experience I guess as the hostel owner was like, ‘Ah Senior you normally get El Ratto and not El Mouso!

This next section is just beyond words really files W13 and W14. Isla De La Plata is known in Ecuador as ‘Poor Man’s Galapagos because you go there for $55 and not $3000. After a 90 minute powerboat ride covering some 48km’s being pushed by 2 Johnson 115 hps outboard engines the island looms up out of the mist. You really get a Sir Francis Drake feeling at this moment. We went ashore and within seconds were met by the local wildlife namely, Blue Footed Boobies. Now for those of you that know me well, the thought of a pair of Blue Footed Boobies was just too much. I got the feeling that the joke was a bit old but that didn’t stop me for a second trying to explain to the bemused tour guide all about a ‘pair of blue boobies’. The wildlife on this island was incredible. Turtles the size of wheel barrows, Vultures as big as big dogs, Manta Rays the size of lounge floor rugs and Sharks as long as cars!

Shortly after leaving the island we went in search of the Humpback Whales who breed in the area before heading for Antarctica and, just as we were about to give up, a jet of water shot a fifty feet into the air announcing the arrival of a pod of Whales, about 10 of them. Interesting fact, their numbers have dropped from 100,000 worldwide to now under 2500 in the entire world!!! We saw 10 of them including I am very happy to say, newborns. At anything up to 35 tonnes and 15metres in length they truly are one of the biggest things on the planet. In what was quite rough seas shooting was neigh on impossible but in true Lazyblueskies style, we got the shot, and we even got sequences of, are you ready for this…….I can hardly believe I am going to tell you this……ready? We shot and captured sequences of, Humpback Whale BREACHING and teaching their young to do it as well!!!! That essentially means a Whale swimming at full speed to the surface of the water from the depths and bursting out of the water some 15 feet before crashing back in again causing the biggest splash you have ever seen (Yes even bigger than one of Hobbit’s, Plumm’s or even Pash’s double front loops). The images speak for themselves. I was certainly Mr Popular on the boat, swapping email addresses with everyone who only had a small camera. One guy only had a disposable wind on camera. My Canon 100-400 IS USM won the day hands down.

Thanks to Reimer from Dock 11 in Tarifa (one of our site sponsors) we headed for a surfing town called Montanita where we just chilled out for a few days on a small beach. Days were spent eating Empanada’s (deep fried bananas, kind of like a banana and cheese pasty) mmmm and the evenings eating massive prawns washed down with ice cold beer all for $11 (ooh yeah that’s £6)

Whilst I am mentioning sponsors I must say that the snorkelling images would not have been achievable were it not for those clever boffins at Aquapac www.aquapac.net . Yes, that is a £1000 camera with a £600 lens stuck on the front of it that took those images underwater. Now that is what I call trust in a good piece of kit. When we got drenched in a rain storm all our documents survived thanks to the travel pouch. (Thanks again Tim T for the kit - Images speak for themselves.

Speaking of Galapagos we have cancelled our plans to go there. Mainly due to those idiots at STA Travel chopping $1300 out of our budget due to utter incompetence. But also it is a crazy system that they operate. Essentially, it costs between $350 to $500 return to fly there. Then you have to pay about $300 between you for passes. But the worst part is that you cannot get a cruise to where you want to go to. That’s like going to London and only seeing Westminster, yes it’s very nice and yes you get to see a lot, but there are many other places to go but the boats won’t take you there unless you go for the $3500 per person, per week First Class option. It seems that a 4 day cruise is only 2 days with two half day change overs and so on even with 8 day cruises being only 6 full days and one of those is spent on an island. So, reluctantly I will not be able to bring you anymore pairs of Blue Footed Boobies stories. But, fear not, we will go there for a month at some point in the future and island hop.

We are now in Peru by the way in Lima . That makes four countries in 37 days.

Hugs to everyone and welcome to the new batch of people that have signed up to get updates of our travels.

More next time on Banana Splits that involved a Banana being cut in half and plopped on a plate, and the fact that we have now covered a stunning, are you ready for this 194,059 steps and a total so far of 66 hours on buses on our month long trip so far!

Chris and Blondie x

COPYRIGHT - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED means exactly what it says. You will note that the quality of the images has been reduced dramatically. If you would like copies of images please just ask and do not copy from the albums. Low Resolution and Small Images are not what I want to display but I am having to do so for the time being. Chris.