The children of the sun

We spent five days in sunny Mancora which is located at the coast of Peru. Mancora is famous for having year round sunshine and it is popular among surfers. Our hostel was also filled with aussie surfers :) We don't have a lot to write about Mancora as our main occupation there was chilling in the comfy hammocks :) The town itself is really small and cute with tiny cute restaurants.

Relaxing in the hammocks

Our main occupation for five days

Our hostel in Mancora



Mancora beach


After five days of sunbathing and hammocking, we left for Montanita, another surf town by the coast in Ecuador. We only stayed there for two days as the weather was really crappy (which we thought was really weird as Montanita is located really close to the equator). Our plan B was to go to Riobamba and take the "dangerous" (riding on the roof of the train with great views) train ride called Nariz del Diablo but unfortunately there were construction work along the railway so we were not able to do it. We learned this after arriving in Riobamba when we were buying tickets for the trainride. Our plan C was to go to a town called Banos which luckily was only an hour away from Riobamba. In Banos we rented mountain bikes which Lili really enjoyed (not!) and Katja got to learn new sides of Lili :) We ended up cycling steep uphill for an hour before we realised that we had taken the wrong route. We only realised it because Lili was complaining and threatening to turn around and cycle back to Banos. That's when she decided to ask a guy behind us (the uphill was so steep that the guy's motorcycle didn't even manage to drive uphill and he had to walk)  if this was the right way to the waterfalls :) We were supposed to take the ruta de las cascadas, which is 22 km long. Luckily we managed to find the right route eventually and went to see nice waterfalls and even took a ride on a cable car. The right route had  no steep uphills and it ended up being a pleasurable ride that even Lili enjoyed. :) The next day we went white water rafting. We had never done this before and the woman who sold the tour to us said it was good for beginners. We later found out that we were going to do level four rafting. :) According to wikipedia level four is hard: "Grade 4: Whitewater, medium waves, maybe rocks, maybe a considerable drop, sharp maneuvers may be needed. (Skill Level: Whitewater Experience)".
Our guide was totally insane! He joked around with the other guide (we were two groups rafting at the same time) and ended up kidnapping a girl from the other boat after she fell into the water. :) We really enjoyed rafting even though the safety instructions scared the shit out of us at first. We might do it again in Asia (if we find a place that looks safe enough). In the evening we had the best pasta dinner we have had so far here but unfortunately Katja started feeling sick after dinner and ended up spending the night in the bathroom throwing up :( We were both silently hoping that it would just be a one night thing as we really didn't want to visit the hospital again!



One of the waterfalls on the ruta de las cascadas

Lili cycling (we had helmets but this photo is staged, no worries moms)




We couldn't take any photos ourselves so this one is borrowed from wikipedia



We took a bus from Banos to Quito. We visited Mitad del Mundo which apparently is not even located at the real equator (!), it's 240 meters away from the real line. Pululahua crater is located near Mitad del Mundo so we ended up going there as well. The crater is the other one of the two inhabited craters in the world. It looked kind of boring beacuse it was basically just a little village in a valley, but we had a really enthusiastic guide who made us climb up a mountain and taught us about the medicinal plants in the area. We also spent a day strolling around in the different neighbourhoods in Quito and had ice cream made out of tropical fruits, the place was supposed to be a heaven for ice cream lovers (that is for Lili) but we didn't feel it was that special. We also spent one afternoon trying to find brownies (we needed some comfort food after a horrible pasta dinner which didn't taste like anything) which turned out to be mission impossible because the only dessert ecuadorians eat is ice cream or horrible pastries.



Lili standing on both sides of the hemisphere

Mitad del mundo



Our private tour of the crater (our guide was supposed to take a photo of us and the crater but you can see the result:) )