A few Ecuador snaps

Our birdguide, Andres Trujillo. His birding skills were amazing and was, without doubt, the best guide we have ever had. He worked tirelessly helping us find and identify the birds, out in all weathers (believe me, we had rain like you cannot imagine). He was fabulous and such a lovely, kind person. We would definitely recommend him and will certainly take another bird trip with him in the future. 

Bananas - served with every meal, good job we like them ! 

The water pump on our first van failed after a couple of days and we had to wait an hour for a replacement. A stroll round this small town, in the middle of nowhere, and we came across this random cake shop. Iridescent icing in 30 degrees of heat, hence the fridge.  

This was the strangest town and felt and looked like we were in a 1960's commune. All the shops were silver / craft and all run by westerners. The square was surrounded by organic coffee and food shops, all looked to be run by hippys. I spoke to a couple of men sitting next to us in a cafe and they had come from Manchester to do 'hands on healing' 5 years ago....and they were still there. Lovely people, lovely place and I did buy a pair of earrings !  

Our birding gang, Sandy, CA, Simon and our good friend, Jonny Barnard of  Altiplano Tours 

A picnic in the road ! Good times.

All the lodges we stayed at had hummingbird feeders like this one. Birds never stopped visiting the feeders. It was unbelievable watching the hummers feeding all day with no fear of humans whatsoever. One of those moments in our life that we will never forget. 

We went to Peru for about an hour, walking from Ecuador into Peru, and added a couple of birds onto our Peru list !  Here we are at the border.

Simon enjoying his coffee at the hippy cafe. The coffee everywhere was lovely and we brought quite alot back with us. Freshly ground for us and a fraction of the price.