Ecuador Christian

Update January 11, 2011: After Peru I went to Ecuador. From Mancora in Peru I crossed the border with a bus. This bus drive overnight was horrible, it smelled like shit, the road was bumpy and the bus driver was listening to music all night long. On the border I had to wait in a big line-up. After this bus drive Natalie from Australia and I hired a car in Guayaquil for 10 days. Our roadtrip started here!!!

Our Chevy

Day 1: Drive up the coastline to Salinas

Day 2: Salinas in the morning

All arround are this paper made statues, this is a custom here in Ecuador. On the night of the 31.12.2010 these statues are filled with fireworks and thrown into big fires to burn

We are following this custom. We bought a statue, her name is Pinguinito

Safety is a must for Pinguinito

We drove up to Montnita, a surfer village. Where we celebrated new year.

This is her food :-)

Before Pinguinito dies, we will have a great day together

The water is great!!!

Our last drink in 2010 while watching the sunset

Ciao 2010

Preparing Pinguinito for a big party night

Natalie with my swiss army knife

Dangerous our Pinguinito

The streets are full of people and everywhere is music and bars

This big thing will burn like crazy, but Pinguinito is very dangerous

It`s better for her with alcohol, maybe she can`t feel the fire than

More....

.....and more

12 o`clock new year!!!

Goodbye my friend

Burn Pinguino burn

Day 3: Up north to  the National Park Machalilla

Bananas fresh and wild....yummy...

Swimming in the lagoon, they say it`s healthy

Who`s that? Maybe a aboriginal....

Huh....

Our Cabaña for a night

Day 4: What a beach

Our two hitchhikers we picked up, in the end we stayed 2 days together

Still writing every day in my diary

An Aussie driving on the right side of the road...I`m scared

What`s that? Let`s try it...

Hmmmm....

We liked it!!!

Fresh Coco Helado

The land of corn...and there a worm in the corn :-)

The way locals travel

Looks better than in the beginning

Day 5: We are in the north on the beach by Atacames

What a strange plant

On the way, we stopped for a last meal on the beach

Mariscos y Pescados

Bananas or Platanos everywhere

In the middle of nowhere we found a Hostal

We were the only ones in the `whole resort`

Day  6: Jungle walk

Cacao plant

Penis tree :-)

Jane

Too hot and the sun so strong

What kind of drugs does this frog take

A big one

After the walk we swam in the fresh pool

I´m dreaming of Switzerland and of how cold it must be there right now:-)

Bread with dulce the leche

Middle earth 0º-0``- 0`

Again we drive up the Andean

Laguna Quilotoa a crater Lake in a old volcano, 3800 meter above sea level

Day 8: The crater looked very different in the morning

Paddeling on the crater lake

Later in the day we went to Baños (toilet) a village in the Andean with a lot of adventure

Swiss are all over the world :-) this I will check out for sure

There was Olma Brootwurscht  with Roeschti :-)

Day 9: Hiking up to the treehouse

The Virgin

There is a way but nobody uses it

Casa de arbol

And after a while we saw the Volcano Tungurahua ít´s active, but at the moment it´s quiet

Day 10: After a 6 hour drive we are back in Guayaquil. On the way the police stopped us because we drove too fast and we had to pay a fine. I offered the police man to take bribe money and than we could leave . It costs us 40 Dollars and this only 16 km before our destination!!! In total we drove 3000 km.

Over night I went to Quito for 3 nights

Government building

Roman brought me some Gruyere from Switzerland yummy!!!