Peru to Ecuador

After Cusco, I didn't really spend much time at all in the rest of Peru. I passed through a town called Ica, from which I got a short taxi ride to Huacachina. The taxis are called mototaxis and are exactly what I know as tuk-tuks from Sri Lanka, small rickshaw like things that beep their horns way too much. Huacachina is apparently South America's only desert oasis. Yup, I didn't realise that S.America had an oasis either. But it's really quite a sight. 

 That day I got a dune buggy tour which drove us around the dunes to see the sunset. We also took sandboards with us to slide down some of the bigger dunes. I think that sandboards are pretty much just snowboards that you have to wax before you use them. Having said that, I've never been snowboarding... So I could be wrong in thinking that snowboarders don't wax their boards, though it seems a bit pointless.

 From Huacachina I went to the capital Lima. Lima was not my favourite place, it's big and loud. I was only there for a night, so took a walking tour around the city. We went in a lot of churches... The guide said that Lima has 44 churches. The interesting thing is that they are all connected by an undergrund network of catacombs, where worshippers used to pay to have their bones buried. However, and this is the weirdest part, the tunnels were actually created to flee from pirates. No joke. The churches were centres of massive wealth in the form of gold and jewels, so when the old pirates used to land in Lima, the priests would flee in the tunnels with all the valuable goods. Remarkable.

From Lima I had a series of pretty rubbish bus journeys, the travelling totalled up to nearly 40 hours with all the stops. I finally arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador. I have no pictures of Cuenca, because I was only there a few hours and a few hours was enough for me. It's not the most inspirational city. I carried on to the small adventure town of Baños which is where I was until yesterday. Baños is a really cool place, set in the Ecuadorian jungle. I got speaking to a rafting company who invited me to go and paddle with them yesterday! After a really great morning on the water, the boss asked me if I wanted to work as a safety kayaking in the afternoon (an offer which I obviously accepted). It was great to get back into the swing of working on the river, especially since Ecuador is the country in which I hurt myself.

Doing some more paddling in Ecuador and loving every second

Today I am back in Tena, Ecuador. I say 'back' because I was here 5 months ago with the boys from back home, that time in a sling... Tomorrow and hopefully the day after I've been invited to do some more paddling, this trip is fast becoming a South American kayaking adventure. I'm not complaining.

Back to Tena. Same place, different circumstances