Last week and some statistics.

Hello all,

After a couple of months hereby the last update.

The last week in Ecuador we mainly relaxed. After returning to the mainland from the Galapagos islands we directly took a flight to Manta. Manta itself is a industrial city with nothing to do, because we arrived in the evening we booked a hotel nearby the bus station.

The day after we took a early bus to Puerto Lopez. After a 2 hour journey we arrived in the small village. Puerto Lopez is a fishermen villages but know by the tourists for the possibilities for whale watching. This was the reason for us as well. Because we were early we could sort out the plans for the day. After checking in at the hostel we went to the beach for the lunch and some reading in the hammocks on the beach. After the lunch we arrange the whale watching tour. We leave on small boats to watch the whales. The whales we will see are the humpback whales. In the summer months they pass the Ecuadorian coast to go to there breading waters. To see the whales is fantastic and was the last thing I (Tom) wanted to see this trip. But it has a side affect as well. Because all the tourist want to see the whales they move the boats almost on top of the animals, which is highly forbidden by there own rules.

After the humpback whale, still pretty cool to see such massive animals (the largest animal we have seen this trip), we decided to leave the village the next day.

The next day we left to Montañita. Montañita is going the be the last city for us at the beach, so that's the only place we have seen the days we were here. We did not wanted to do a lot, so after all those buses, walking and the obligation to see something we just did not do a thing. We even bought beach sets for playing beachball, Montañita is a village you can compare with Salou in Spain, a lot of bars and a very good nightlife. For the rest there is nothing to do, normally in this time of year the weather is not that good but we were very lucky and we had 4 fantastic sunny days. Because this was the last week of the trip we decided to spend the nights in a very nice beach resort on the beach.

After these days we took the bus back to Manta to catch the flight to Quito. Its just a short flight and in 25 minutes we are back in the last place of our trip. The last 3 nights we stayed in a Hospedaje, with a very nice family. Quito for us was really the last stop. The first day we went to Otavalo. Otavalo is know for the local (tourist) market, so guess what we did here......... Yes, this was the place for us to buy souvenirs.... So after a day shopping we arrived back in the hotel with backs full of souvenirs. The next day we decided to spend the day as proper tourists and walk around the city. Quito is a quite nice city not as busy and dangerous as Guayaquil but still after 9pm we had to take a taxi even if it was just for a 5 minute walking distance. The last day was very nice and relaxing, we spend the day walking around buying some last souvenirs and just enjoying the last hours in South America. For dinner we decided not to go for a backpacker meal but just go for a nice beautiful restaurant and have some wines and don't think about the backpacker budget we had..... :-D. After dinner we went for a drink with some dutch friends, we met during the trip, before going to bed.

The last day....... a day not to forget.

Last night we went to bed on time because the flight was supposed to leave at 5.30 in the morning. But, this you can expect, the flight had a 6 hour delay :-S....... So we had to spend 6 hours at an airport with nothing to do. So we read something, played some card games and went for a walk. After 6 hours we were in the plane and about to leave when the pilot said that we had a problem with the engine AAARGH. After another hour and half we left to Miami, but that was not the last thing...... Almost in Miami the pilot was there again with some new information........ due to weather conditions we had to wait a bot before we could land, so after a half hour above the airport we could land. Because we had a stop over in Miami, we had to check in our backpacks again and pass customs. Again we had to wait an hour before this all was over. After getting the luggage we had to run to catch the flight to London and finally we had some luck..... because of al the delay the plane was overbooked and we could fly business class back to Europe :-D.... Woohoo. So after a nice comfortable 9 hour flight we arrived in London where we found out we had missed the flight to Brussels :-S........ So we went to the British airways desk if they could help us. The next flight to Brussels would be in 6 hours bur we were able to rebook everything and fly to Amsterdam instead, still 3 hours later but rather that then 6 hours. So after a very long journey back home and 10 hours later we arrived in Amsterdam. Eline here parents picked us up, and an hour and half later we opened the door of our house.....

Home sweet home.

Some statistics:
- We visited 7 countries.
- We passed customs 27 times
- We had 34 travel days.
- The longest bus journey was 28 hours :-S
- We hiked for more then 400 km.
- We have been away for 134 days.
- We have taken more then 7000 pictures, still working on it :-S....

- We had more the 20.000 page views.

We really enjoyed our trip and we still think back of the time we had, but as well we want to thank you all for following us, posting comments and mails we arrived. We always enjoyed reading and hearing the stories from you guys.

All the best,
Tom and Eline