Don't drink the water: Ecuador

We have been in Equador for 3 days now. It began pretty crummy to be honest. The flight to Santiago was fine but when we got off and checked on our connecting flight to Quito we found there was a flight with the same number but it was going somewhere else and it was at a different time. We walked around for a bit and eventually found a LAN staff member to ask. Look at the board she said, so we thanked her and walked off.
After some more walking and a bit of stress we asked this guy with an information shirt on. He was equally as helpful. Eventually we did a few walk bys of starbucks to get their wifi code and found our flight delayed, so we presumed they had the flight destination wrong. Anyway the flight was delayed further and we spent the entire time thinking we were going to another city since that was on the destination screen the whole time.  It ended up our flight had a short stop in Quito before going on... We eventually made it to our hostel, after an airport transfer at 30kms under the speed limit. Day one down.

Thursday morning we missed breakfast at our hostel by like a minute so we headed out to find a sim card so we could contact Jill. Find a sim card we did, figure out how to recharge it we couldn't.  After finally getting some breakfast we went back to where we got the sim from and they spent 20mins trying to figure out why it wouldn't work too. Apparently sims in Ecuador are easy, guess we're just lucky. We found out we were saying 20 wrong too, we were actually saying "come here". After we had everything sorted we checked out and attempted to find out way to where google said the Paraguay embassy was. One bus that terminated before we got there and a three dollar taxi ride and we were outside a women's medical centre. Thank you google. After eventually giving up and deciding it wasn't there we went to get some hot chips. Apparently you can't just order chips though, you need to order a meal. Needless to say our meal came out with roast potatoes instead. We then walked a couple blocks to the shopping centre where we were to meet Jill and Linda. We were about an hour early and just sat outside before meeting them. We then hurriedly dumped 2 days worth of clothes in out small packs because it was decided staying 2 nights in Ibarra would be best. And then a taxi ride to the bus station and 3 hours north to Ibarra. Day 2 done.

We started off day three with amazing milkshakes made of local fruit before meeting Jill and her parents at the train for our day trip to Salinas. A settlement where there was a large community of escaped slaves who harvested sugar cane, cotton and salt. We took a town tour and headed back. That night I had my first bit of Ecuadorian cebiche, prawn type. Pretty good but I would rather corn chips with it instead of popcorn, haha. Day 3 done.

The markets went on forever

Today we took a bus to Otavalo for the biggest markets in South America. They were really gret, we bought so much stuff. I was on a total high, until the bus trip home, a 2 hour trip turned into 4, most of the windows didn't open and we were basically slow roasting in the sun. Needless to say I felt terrible tonight. Day 4 done.
Tomorrow we fly to the Galapagos early. I was hoping for some good sleep but the people downstairs in this hostel are super noisy, so maybe I'll just die of lack of sleep. I don't imagine I will have a chance to write again until after our boat tour.

Oh yeah, "don't drink the water, don't even brush your teeth in it"...