Downhilling on Cotapaxi

Hola Amigos

We successful made it back to Quito on the night bus in what seemed like a very long 10 hours. Tomas, one of our travel companions hung out with us for the day. We are staying at a hostel in New Town for $7 US a night, it is pretty cheap over here. We got breakfast and lunch together in awesome cafes called Toffee and Coffee, and The Magic Bean. Chilling out and relaxing was the order of the day which was good because as I said we were all pretty tired from the bus ride.

I had my first online interview for the MDBA last night in a internet cafe. I think that it went alright, most of the other people in the cafe could hear me as the connection was not that great but I will keep an open mind about my chances.

We had farewell drinks for Tomas last night, 2 for 1 before 7pm which was fun. Mohitos all round. Then we met up with Clint from our Amazon tour and his new friends for more drinks and dinner at Alladins, which is named after the DIsney movie which I think is awesome!!!

Today we went mountain biking down Cotapaxi, the highest, active volcano in the world although it currently has snow on its peak. We were driven up to 4500 feet to start and you could say that it was a bit cold (actually very cold). Diago was the name of our guide, he was pretty cool, proud of his country, the national park and loving his mountain biking which made for a really fun day.
We had some straight and up hill sections also which made for hard work at altitude but it was really rewarding at the bottom.

Tomorrow we catch a plane at 10am Quito time to the Galapagos Islands, this will mean that we are out of internet range for about 8 days but will have some awesome stories to share at the other side.

Ecuadorian Amazon Experience Bueno

Hola,

This is my first official blog from South America. We just returned from a trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon. We had to fly out of Quito to Lago Agria, a flight we almost missed as we were allocated Gate number 0, later learning that it was not a gate that we boarderd from but instead a bus on the tarmac so it was a close call. Also all the screens only displayed when the flights had been closed not when they were boarding.

Once at Lago Agria we got in a mini bus for like a 2 and a half hour bus trip, meeting two other Aussies in the process, a really friendly and fun couple from Perth called Clint and Naomi. A 4 hour boat trip then followed to get to the national park where the primary rainforest. Our boat was basically a long canoe with a motor at the back, we had seats to sit on, pretty cool but 4 hours causes numb bums.

Our huts were pretty cool, Bron, Jane and I shared together. We meet two germans, Tomas and Johan, and an american, Steve when we arrived, they had extended their trip as it was quite a trek to get there, we flew from Quito to Lago Agria, I am currently waiting for an 8 hour night bus to take us back to Quito, that is how the others arrived making it like a 20 hour trip to get there.

On our first night we went for a jungle walk to look for insects, we saw a scorpian spider, tarantulas (we had one residing on the front of our hut for the four days), fruit bats and other ones that now escape me. It rained for our day jungle walk, which meant that we were walking in like 2 or 3 inches of water and mud in gum boots, fun was had!! Riberto (Ribert´s Spanish name) had his photo taken with his cousin, an Amazonian tree frog, which we got to hold, we were shown different plants and their practical uses by our guides Paula and Messy. I closed my eyes and had a millipede placed in them and proceeded to drop it. We tried sour cane, lemon ants and coconut grub, which is an insect larvae that tastes like coconut.

Additional activities included piranha fishing, most people in the boat were successful and about 3 got their dinner, Bron & I just feed the piranha, unsuccessful cameon hunting, but we did see tucans, scarlet macaws, king fishers, vultures, red dolphins and monkeys (howlers & squirrle).

Yesterday we went to a house and made traditional yuka bread. They had a pretty tame monkey that liked Jane. While we had lunch it sat on the shelf above her and played with her hair.

As we are pushed for time that is all the Amazon experience we could have for now. Like I said we are on our way back to Quito waiting for the night bus. Last night we had a farewell fiesta with the guides and crew, it was mucho fun!!!!! There was singing and dancing and flaming pineapples.

We have two quietish days back in Quito before we fly to the Galapagos, which all the awesome guys on our Amazon tour said has been the highlight of their holidays, so next post will be in about a week or so with awesome stories of our Galapagos adventures.

Slight delay........but time for a convention

Hello,

So my South American Expedition has been delayed a day due to the Sydney LA flight being too full. Tomorrow I will fly out of Canberra to Melbourne and then onto LA, Houston, and then finally arrive in Quito some significant amount of time later.

Today I have been double checking everything....making sure that Ribert is comfortable and I have everything that I could think of that I need. (for those of you who do not know who Ribert is, he is my travel companion that my fabulous work colleagues gave me for my adventure - featured in the adjacent picture :)).

So as a start to my blog I thought I would fill you all in on my weekend road trip to Supanova 2010 Sydney - a pop culture convention with Roz & Ange :). Yes as most of you know I loves my television and movies but this convention was evidence that there are many much more die hard fans out there than me, to the point that even Roz, Ange & I were scared....

Other than loads of awesome costumed fellow convention goers, we saw Charisma Carpenter - who plays Cordelia in Buffy & Angel, & Kendell Casablancas in Veronica Mars, Summer Glau - who plays River Tamm in Firefly & Serenity & Cameron in Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles, two awesome voice actors Travis Willingham & Laura Bailey from an Anime show called Full Metal Alchimest, they were super entertaining, and Lou Ferrigno - who plays the Incredible Hulk in teh television series in Q&A sessions.

Unfortunately Eliza Dushku (plays Faith in Buffy & Echo in Dollhouse) wasn't Q&Aing until Sunday so we had to stalk her from behind her autograph line for a photo.

Here are some photos of our experience at the convention to get us all though to my arrival in Ecuador (as I am still working out how to label pictures on my blog it will be a challenge to all of you to work out who everyone is :)).