So other activities I’ve been up to recently. Although I’m back in Quito at the moment and about to leave for the Galapagos Islands tomorrow, I’ve spent the last week travelling round central southern Ecuador. Firstly to a small town called Guaranda that was good to chill out in for a couple of days but otherwise not fantastic, oh but it is the cheese capital of Ecuador.

The second part of the week was spent in Riobamba where I went on another train ride which included a de-railment, not unusual apparently and when you see the state of the track and wagons we were riding on top of you can see why. On Thursday I mountain biked down Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador.

I also saw a volcano explosion near Riobamba. It was only steam but still I’ve never seen one before so I was pretty impressed if not a little concerned, but like the train de-railment, it’s a regular occurrence.

I’ve also been to Mittal Del Mondo, the middle of earth, the main monument was pretty unimpressive but the unofficial museum and actual middle of the earth was far more interesting including an example of a shrunken head!!

The official monument is actually in the wrong place thanks I think to some French scientists who got there sums wrong. With the aid of GPS the unofficial museum has the actual site of the equator.

I´ve been learning Spanish for a few weeks out in Quito, the first week in town and the second out in the country staying with a family.

In Quito Darwin Suntaxi was my teacher, he’s the guy in the picture with me. He was a great person and super teacher. We did stray off the curriculum a few times with some well chosen phrases that might come in useful in more social situations.

The village I stayed in was interesting and again I had a great teacher in Marlene. In the afternoons we visited some local towns and attractions including South America’s largest retail park!!! Paid for by the US and largely stocked with US goods at prices most Ecuadorians couldn’t afford, in fact in some cases more expensive than London. I also spent a moring in a local school where the children were excatly the same as those in London but the resources were dreadful.

Marlene also took me twice to local cementaries, not sure why. At one the tombs were more like houses.......see the picture.

A few more pictures of the train ride and walk near Cotopaxi which isn’t actually the highest and most recently active volcano in Ecuador, more of that later.