bonnie & clyde

Trujillo is a nice little town, but not much to do, only to visit the nearby ruins, Chan Chan. We already saw quite a lot of ruins in Peru, but this one was different, as it was situated by the sea. It was a big palace built from sand, with nice images of fish and sea birds sculpted on the sandy walls. We went from there to Huanchaco, a little beach town nearby, but the weather was not that nice, so we went to eat some 'ceviche', the local fish dish, mmm
As you can see on the pictures in facebook the food here is not always that nice... but ceviche is great!
We drove further north by the coast, but the coastline is not as nice as we had expected. It is more a desert than beaches, and a kind of dirty, muddy desert. We arrived at Chiclayo, where we hoped to find a nice beach, but we only found an ugly fishermen's beach, so we went to eat ceviche again. We weren't very lucky with the beaches in Peru!
So we left Peru behind us and crossed the border with Ecuador!!!
You could immediately see the change in the landscape, a lot greaner, a lot more nature and banana treas, a really beautiful scenery! Ecuador is great, we are happy to see some green again and the people are very nice!
We first went to Loja, a nice city but quite dead at night. We nevertheless found a very good Mexican restaurant, it feels good to eat something else than rice, chicken and bananas! The next day we went to a natural park, but it turned out to be a little of a disappointment. We did not see any animals, and we were covered in mud up until our knees, and I had been so smart to wear sandals that day... So the hike was quite difficult, especially the descent. As we had just arrived in Ecuador, we did not realize that the weather has been really bad here for the last few weeks, it has been raining a lot, which is not normal for this time of year here. (they told us that afterwards)
We headed to Cuenca then, which is a beautiful city! Very nice buildings, cathedrals, churches and plazas, a lot of nice shops and a lively nightlife! The city is a bit more western, and so are the people. We visited a beautiful museum there, about the culture and history of Ecuador, it was really worth visiting!
At the moment we are in Baños, a litlle touristy Gringo town, but the scenery is great here! There is a huge volcano right next to this town, you can walk up to a certain hight, but not very far, as it is still active! 2006 saw the last big outburst, when all the towns nearby had to be evacuated, so fingers crossed...
They also have a lot of thermal baths here, with hot water from the volcano. We already went to two of these therms, the water is great, really hot, and it is in open air. It is really cheap but you have to accept the fact that you are stuffed in between tons of Ecuadorian people, which sometimes leads to funny discussions but is not very relaxing We will try again tomorrow, on a Monday it will be a lot more quiet, but only after our rafting adventure!