Following the sun...

...not so much. We have taken shelter today in the Internet cafe from a torrential downpour of rain and hail, not to mention some pretty wicked thunder and lightning. It seems to be a thing here in South America- gorgeous and hot during the morning, and then amazing storms in the afternoon. At least it´s consistent, so we know when to be inside. Anyway, we are now in Cuenca, which is the ¨colonial¨city of Ecuador which means it has tonnes of amazing architecture, and lots of museums. The hostel we are staying in is on the 6th floor and has great views of it all. We are right beside the New Cathedral, ¨new¨ here means that construction started in 1885. The Old Cathedral, across the street, was started in 1557. Since we last wrote we have moved from Baños to Riobamba, and then here to Cuenca. We had stopped in Riobamba to ride the train down El Nariz del Diablo- the Devil´s Nose. Most of the railway in Ecuador has been washed away over the years, but they maintain the Devil´s Nose as a tourist attraction. You get to ride on the roof of the train, but the whole ride was pretty anticlimatic. We ended up sitting on the roof for over 4 hours in the baking equatorial sun and for most of that time the train wasn´t even moving. The highlight was when we derailed, the cars of the train had to be decoupled, and about an hour of work was done on the track before we started off again. Either that, or when the American tourist threw candy down on to the tracks for the little Andean kids who dashed out infront of a moving train to collect it... Overall the experience was a bit touristy and disappointing. The unexpected highlight of Riobamba was our mountain biking excursion down the side of Volcan Chimborazo. We started at 8am, driving to the first refuge of the volcano (4800m) and then climbing to the second refuge (5000m). It is an 800m walk (200m vertical) that takes about 30 minutes, if you´re reasonably fast. Climbing to the actual summit is for expert climbers only, and has claimed many lives over the years. If mountains were measured from the center of the earth (rather than sea level) Chimborazo would be considered the tallest mountain in the world, dwarfing even Everest by 2000m. It´s all about the equatorial bulge! This also makes the top of Chimborazo the closest point on earth to the sun. Anyway, after we did our climb we got on our bikes and rode 35km down the mountain- mainly off road, through beautiful landscapes, a tiny little village, past Inca ruins and many angry dogs, and more. We stopped for lunch at the Inca ruins where there was nothing and nobody except two Andean women tending their cows and alpacas. We drank from a natural mineral spring where the water is carbonated! It was really untouched and amazing. Except for the fact that we couldn´t sit down, and could barely grip our handle bars after about 20km, the day was one of our favourites so far. Our two guides were awesome, and gave us tons of information about the area´s history and people. One of them, Rodrigo, has climbed Chimborazo 38 times- he says he would have done it more but he doesn´t want to get bored of it... We left Riobamba yesterday and took a 6 hour bus ride to get to Cuenca. We haven´t done much here except wander around, but that´s fine with us. We need a break from all this work ;) We may stay here another day to do more of nothing, or head out tomorrow to Machala which is on the coast before heading down to Peru. We are still waffling on heading to the Galapagos Islands, but the cost will be about $1500 each, which is way out of our budget and we´re on opposite sides on the issue (guess who´s on which side...). So far we´ve been living on $40US per day, for both of us so $3000 for a week is a lot to stomach. Tonight we are going to have a home cooked meal! This is the first hostel we´ve been in with a communal kitchen, so we´re going to take advantage of it. We´ll see if we remember how to wash dishes... That´s all for now- Hello to everyone back home! Cam and Kristin.