Novel contd....

This is about 3 weeks behind...... so you have to imagine this happening ages ago.... but hopefully I{ll get up to date ish soon!

Well, on the bus to Puerto Lopez and travelling around I got to see lots of rural towns and villages in Ecuador along the coast. Lots of houses made of bamboo, they had electricity and you could see tvs in a lot of them, but I was thinking of how different their lives must be.... Im sure there are many aspects about their lives that I couldnt even begin to understand, and that comparabily iv got so many more opportunities for education etc. but it really dosent mean that their way of life is bad, it looked like there was solid communities and Im sure very strong family units. Its funny how lives can be so different but I would hate to be thinking how much better my life is and how much more privilaged I am...where in some ways you just cant help but think that I am........

Well puerto Lopez is a small fishing village thats not very touristy, I think its popular because of its location and closeness to Isla de le Plata.. (The poor mans Galapagos, apparently its very similar to the galapagos, but only costs about 1/20 of the price to get there) But I relly really likeed it. We stayed in a really pretty little chilled out hostel. But Jenny, the girl that I was with felt sick the whole time we were there, so she missed out on most of it. The town was also really close to the national park machilla, which the island is part of, there was this really cool beach nearby called "Los Fryles" but we didnt have enough time to go to it. The people in the village were really nice and friendly and everyone said hello and wanted to talk to us, which was really cool. I met some columbian and Spanish people the night we were there and we stayed up listening to Pink Floyd till we got kicked out of the bar.
The next day I went to Isla de le Plata. It was compleatly different then I thought it was going to be, I thought it was going to be this lush tropical island, but it turned out to be all grey and not lush at all.... theres no fresh water on it, so when it dosent rain everything basicially goes into hibernation and looses all its leaves, but aparently when it rains, it does turn into this amazing tropical paradise....(just not when I was there) But it was still cool and it was partly the most amazing time ever and on the other hand I was wishing it was a lot shorter... I got to see some blue footed boobies and loads of other really rare birds and got to go really close to them and see thir babies and them sitting on their eggs..... I felt like I was in some national geographic vidoe or something....But after 5 hours of walking andlots of mosquitos I was definatly ready for snorkelling....
We got to see the most amazing fish, that you would be amazed at in an aquarium and even sea turtles... They all came really close and it was unreal to see them in real life in their natural habitat....
That night we decided to leg it to Montañita (total surfer town famed for partying) for the one night we had left before we had to be in Guayaquil to get my flight to Peru....but we missed the last bus so ended up getting a lift in the back of a truck for an hour (again) and nearly choked on the exhaust fumes.... but after a shower it was worth it when we got there. Althought it was midweek there was loads of things going on and we ended up partying with the Ecuadorian national surf champion and a few others from the team for the night!!
So after another rainy/cloudy day at the beach we headed to Guayaquil...... even though we only had less then 24 hours there it seemed like a really cool nice city. Compleatly different to Quito, its warm and on the coast and there is this really nice walk along the waterfront that is like a park with restraunts and shops and playgrounds, Im sure we probably only saw the fancy part of the city, but I would have liked to have more time there...
So anyway, I flew with LAN, for the first of my south america flights.... its a really cool airline and I would recommend it to anyone whoes travelling around south america. I arrived in Lima and got this crazy taxi driver (who I found out charged me double) brought me round all the bus companies to look for one that would bring me to Huancayo while telling me that god was my owner and I was only there because god had decided it...needless to say, I didnt entertain that crap for very long.... none would bring me to Huancayo that night so I had to wait till the next morning which was an expensive pain.....the bus the next day was better then any ryanair plane Ive ever gotten.... they gave you real food and had movies, (well one was bout a vollyball playing and diamond robbery stopping dog) but they did try... I thought that an 8 hour bus journey would be soo boring, espicially during the day, and I had loads of stuff to do, like study spanish (the time with Jenny wasnt very conducive to speaking spanish, but we managed a little bit) and to try and make some sort of plan or list of things that I could do in Peru.... But the sceanary was just so amazing, there was so many waterfalls and indigenous people walking up mountians to god knows where...... it was also finally sunny (in the mountains where its cold of course) so, that was the start of my time in peru....


Other Random Things...
I finished a book about an Iranian Lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, who won the nobel peace prise. Its one of the best books/stories/memoirs that Iv read and is an amazing story of an amazing and strong person and just goes to show that the way your life turns out is up to you and how you can choose your own path. I think that the problem is that most people just dont know their path yet...but hopefully we{ll find it

And Id just like to say that I had a great tiem with my friend Jenny, you meet loadsa people travelling, but I think that we are actually going to stay friends.... shes done a pretty good job at convincing me to go to San Francisco anyway! But weve done loads together and I know shes one of those people who is going to do great in what ever they do....Im really excited to be meeting her later today in Cuzco for a few days... woo woo!

so thats it for the moment
keep writing and leaving comments
kisses and hugs to everyone at home
hope its not too boring!!!