My final weeks in Ecuador...

It´s hard to believe its been a month since I´d arrived in Quito as the time really has flown so effortlessly ... I love Quito more and more every day, and Ecuador is so beautiful. After Peru, Patagonia, Argentina.. all places I loved, I wasn´t expecting to be so thoroughly blown away.  (BTW, I came across an Ecuadorian film ¨Qué Tan Lejos¨that´s very popular here and also won a few prizes ... see it especially for its great landscape views of the country http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0951297/)

I´ve only a few more weeks remaining here though. With my limited time and budget, I won´t be visiting the Galapagos afterall, and am heading to the Cuyabeno Reserve in the Amazon instead. Purchased my 4 day/3 night trip with Neotropic Turis today and am leaving on an overnight bus for Lago Agria on Sunday. I´ve heard so many wonderful things about Cuyabeno, can´t even believe I´m spending next week hanging out in the Amazon rainforest.  You can read about more about Cuyabeno and the lodge where I´ll be staying here: http://www.neotropicturis.com/index.html

The plan after Cuyabeno is to begin making my way south and fly to Argentina from Guayaquil (though flights at the moment are looking prohibitively expensive).  I´ve been in touch with one other solo woman traveler, Emily, through Couchsurfing and we might try to meet up somewhere along the way, possibly in Baños or Cuena. It will be good to have company on some of those long bus rides, and it´s also nice to be working with someone to coordinate an actual plan (for all my high falutin´solo traveling ways). 

Thus, my itinary at the moment looks as follows:

• Today - Sunday 3/7 @ 11 pm:  Quito (hang out, visit El Centro, museums, etc etc)
• Monday, 3/8 - Thursday, 3/11:  Cuyabeno Reserve
• Friday, 3/12: Layover in Quito ;) 
• Saturday, 3/13 - Monday, 3/15: Hiking at Lake Quilotoa in the Andes, and hopefully staying at the Black Sheep Inn (http://www.changemakers.com/es/node/20809)
• Tuesday, 3/16 - Thursday, 3/18: Baños
• Friday, 3/19 - Monday, 3/22: Cuenca
• Tuesday, 3/23 - Friday, 3/26: Villacamba (still TBD! Or else straight to Guayaquil from Cuenca)

The plan may change again and dates may be condensed depending on what happens when I arrive at each place, but I´m feeling pretty good about it so far. We shall see.

Besos.