When Simona and I decided to travel through Peru and Ecuador together, we promised each other to rush through Ecuador. We both wanted to get to Colombia as fast as possible but neither of us wanted to skip it. I guess it felt easier to go fast if we were doing it together and of course it's always nice to have someone to share experiences with.

We left Cuenca late and arrived in Guayaquil very early. From there we had to change buses, but the next bus didn't leave until three hours later. When we finally got on the bus, we were both really tired and all we wanted was a bed each. Four hours later, when we arrived in Puerto Lopez, we still felt tired but I guess we felt a bit better. We took a tuktuk to our hostel, which we paid to much for, and then had a quiet morning before trying to figure out what to do in Puerto Lopez.

The town itself is not very nice but we decided to do a tour to Isla de la Plata, which is advertised as "Galapagos for the poor". It was a nice day trip, I wouldn't compare it to Galapagos (even though I haven't been there) but it was beautiful. We saw a lot of blue footed boobies, some sea turtles, Angel fish and a few other kinds of birds. Worth the US$ 30 we spent on it.

Since we didn't really enjoy Puerto Lopez that much, we didn't feel like we had to stay there longer. Simona also forgot her towel in our previous hostel and Anna and Annabel brought it to Montañita, where they were staying for a bit. We decided to go there to meet them. The hostel in Montañita was quite cool. We were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, with mosquito nets around them, in a loft. It was also very cheap, which made everything better. Me and Simona only stayed one night and we didn't have time to do much more than having a walk around and enjoying some really good crepes!

We moved on the morning after to go to Latacunga, which is close to Laguna Quilotoa. It takes about 2 hours to get to the village of Quilotoa by bus and the lagoon is just next to the village, in a huge crater. We got so happy about not having to hike. You can do a hike down to the lagoon and you can also do one around the crater, but we were just really happy with the view from the top. When we were heading back to the bus, which only leaves ones a day, we got told that there was no bus. That was a lie, though, to make us take a taxi instead. They didn't fool us. That time at least.

Our next stop was Quito, where we planned to stay for 3 nights. 3 nights is not a long times, but for us it felt like a long holiday. Being able to stay in the same bed for 3 nights in a row! How luxurious doesn't that sound? To a rushing backpacker, it sounded amazing. We checked in to a hostel called secret garden, which is in the old town. It was a great hostel with a lovely view up at the rooftop bar. It's also a very social hostel and we met some really cool people!

Our first day in Quito, we went on a free walking tour to get a hint of what to see and do later. The walking tour also had a great offer that day. We could go to "the middle of the world", or the equator, for 5 dollars in a minivan. So we did. We drove to this museum that is located on the equator. We made some experiments, took some photos of us standing on the equator and we also got to learn about some indigenous tribes of Ecuador. It was all very interesting and I guess one of the coolest things about the museum was that they had two real shrunken heads. I'm pretty sure that not to many people I know have seen one of those so it felt quite special even though it was also a bit scary and disgusting.

We decided to do some sightseeing on our own, together with Kat and Marcus who also stayed in our room, the next day. The first stop was the Basilica. A huge church located on the border between new town and old town. The people of Quito voted about building this church and it is mainly financed with money from the community. A strange thing about this church is that it will probably never be really finished. The people think that if they finish the church, the judgement day will come. It was beautiful and we climbed the condor tower to have a great view of the city! We were not disappointed.

Our next stop was a tunnel market that is located under another church. It's quite cool to walk around in the tunnel system and we found a lot of beautiful and weird things down there, including statues of people having sex, but it is way to expensive to buy anything. After a great morning it was time for lunch and then the three girls went to a shopping mall...

The third day in Quito was quite short. We checked out in the morning and then went to see the Maria statue, that is located on a hill in the middle of the city. It was a great view, even though the statue itself is really ugly. After this we went for some lunch in a local restaurant, were they played live music, before it was time for me and Simona to leave Quito.