Last stop of our journey: Ecuador

We can't believe it yet: tomorrow morning we start our journey back home - after over 10 months of traveling!!

We spent the last weeks of our trip in Ecuador; a great country! Landscape-wise, it is very different from Peru, everything is lush green, the roads are much better, the buildings have roofs. Everything looks more 'finished'.

We arrived in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, at the beginning of July. After just one overnight stay (which was enough - noisy, not so pretty big city), we continued by bus to Quenca the next day. During the 4-hour drive, we passed through endless banana plantations at the beginning, then through agricultural areas, and later through the mountains. Quenca is a beautiful old city (UNESCO World Heritage) with 52! churches. We strolled through the city often, admired churches and beautiful streets, made small hikes on the surrounding hills, relaxed in one of the many hot springs, or did a strenuous hike in the nearby national park.

After 5 days, we continued north to Riobamba. We were quite disappointed with this place, but not surprising after the beautiful Quenca. From Riobamba, however, we were able to do interesting tours into the surrounding area, for example, to the Chimborazo National Park with its impressive volcano. The return trip from here was a bit adventurous because there was no bus back to the city. Fortunately, a friendly local drove us on the flatbed of his pickup to the next village, from where we could continue by regular bus.

The ride on the historic train to the 'Devil's Nose', a rock where the train descended in spectacular switchbacks into the valley, was very interesting and entertaining.

To be continued - first we want to go and eat😊