The highlands, Scotland by Kev
21. august 2025, Skotland ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C
18.8.2025. Today we are travelling again. Not as far this time though. A couple hours drive and we get to Nairn, a smaller place than Stirling, just outside Inverness. We can't check in just yet, so first up, shopping. We bought some supplies for the next few days. Once that was packed in front of the kids, we headed to our new stay. After a small amount of confusion, be it ours or GMaps, we found our new apartment. Down a driveway, past a house to a small looking block. We opened the door and walked in. A hallway that led past the first bedroom, the kids, with a double bunk bed. Just past that it opens up into a small yet comfortable living area and small kitchen. Past that we find our bedroom and the bathroom. There's a back door, leading to a greenhouse area out the back. Table and chairs, reclining chairs, bigger oven and fridges. The best yet, grape vines growing through the rafters with bunches of grapes hanging down. We're thinking that this will be a nice stay. We settled in and found that the owner had left a few things for us. Coffee, cokes, wine, beers and some kitkats. Dinner was made, the shower works great, now off to bed.
19.8.2025. We're off to see Fort George today, a fort that was built after the battle of Culloden, to resist any further Jacobite uprising. Fort George is the mightiest artillery fortification in Britain. Its canons orientated towards land for a Jacobite invasion. Later more canons were added, aimed towards the water fearing a French force. Neither of these came, so the fort was never tested in battle. It is still used today, with an active garrison there. I enjoyed walking around the fort, looking at how it was set up to defend itself. We visited the museum there, and the cafe, just for coffee. We walked the outside wall and saw dolphins swimming not far from the shore. Pretty sure we have seen dolphins on every continent now. Once we were done visiting Fort George, we headed back towards our next activity. We'd kept it a secret from the kids, they knew we were doing something, they just didn't know what. They were very surprised to find out Mel had booked an hour of archery for us. We met the guys running the show and got kitted out. Bows and arrows for everyone. First up, the practice area. This was to teach the very basics and make sure our gear was good. I did not know that there were different arrow lengths, Emma's were quite a bit shorter than mine. This is so, at full draw, the arrow still sits on the bow, but is also not too long. “Tuned” to the person. After the practice area, we moved on to the first target area. A place full of foam rubber animals and dinosaurs. The next, an area full of zombies and finally a place full of dragons and trolls. At the start, Emma was not so sure of themselves. The instructor with us, Alan, was fantastic with Emma, and the rest of us. It did not take long for Emma to build her confidence and really start to enjoy themselves. By the end of the hour, we were all hitting our targets. It was great to see the kids fit the arrow, draw the bow, aim, and hit the target. Then the smiles. It's something we won't forget anytime soon, and I know we'll do it again at some point. We chatted to Alan for a bit afterwards, luckily he didn't have another group. He told us about a few typically Scottish things we need to try. A certain fudge and an orange drink. We thanked him again and made our way back to the apartment. Tonight I made rice, vegetables and haggis. Both regular and vegetarian haggis. Both delicious, but I still prefer the real deal. Can't beat that offal for taste. No leftovers, unfortunately.
20.8.2025. Today we're off to Culloden, the site of the last battle between the Jacobites and the English. We walked around the field, where they marked out the positions of where the two armies had stood before the battle. There are standing stones with clan names, showing where men had died and been buried. It gave me an eerie feeling, walking amongst the stones, knowing that where I stood, hundreds of men had died in less than an hour. After our visit to the field we went into the museum. We watched an older bloke demonstrate how the Highland charge was countered by the English troops, up until then it had been devastating to the English troops. The charge involved knocking the enemies weapon away with a shield then striking with a raised sword. The English countered this, by not attacking the man in front of them, but the man next to him. When his arm is raised to attack the person beside you, he is left vulnerable under that arm. We learnt that the battle of Culloden had lasted less than an hour. With the Jacobites badly beaten and retreating hastily. It was to be the last battle between the English and the Jacobites, and the last pitch battle to be fought on British soil. Once we had seen enough of the museum, we headed into Inverness for a look around. We first visited a second-hand bookshop, called Leaky's Bookshop. A big shop that specialises in buying and selling second-hand books. We just went for a look, but with my mob I knew that wouldn't be enough. Mel wanted to live there, we settled with the kids getting a book each, and Mel taking a few pictures. After the bookshop we had a walk. We walked along the Ness River, which flows from Loch Dochfour, at the northern end of Loch Ness, and runs through Inverness. We visited a nice little chapel and then an island in the river. After all the walking we headed back towards the part of town near the bookshop. Went to a supermarket and got some cheap dinner. Mel had found a pub called Hootenanny’s, that had live Scottish music. We got there and found out it was fully booked. We weren't allowed to even stand at the bar. Against Scottish law to have kids in there without getting them food apparently. We walked to the next pub, same deal. We got to another pub, which had some room. We said we just wanted some drinks and they were ok with that. We sat down and I got some drinks. There were two blokes up on the stage, both with guitars. We sat and listened, and enjoyed our drinks. The music was very good, they played some of their own songs, before doing some covers. The singer had a tremendous voice, and the other guy was incredible on the guitar. Together, they entertained the crowd very well. In between their sessions, an older guy got up and entertained us. First break he told us some old Scottish folk tales. The next break he showed us how to fold and fit a kilt. The final break we were there for he showed us some of the weapons and clothing of the Jacobites. We had to leave, it was getting late. It was a great night, with fantastic music and a great atmosphere. We headed back and went straight to bed.
21.8.2025. Today we're headed to Urquhart Castle, which is built right beside Loch Ness. This was an interesting visit, as it's the only castle we've visited so far that is in ruin. I like castles, and ruins of castles. The castle went through a lot of changes throughout its history. I enjoyed walking around the old castle and trying to imagine how it used to be. We learnt that right beside the castle is the deepest part of Loch Ness, at 227 metres deep. There's quite a few boats out there full of tourists, and I can imagine there are more than a few phones at the bottom. We went up to the visitors centre and had a look around. We watched a short film about the castle and bought another magnet. Afterwards, we drove to a Cairn. A big circle of rocks that is a burial. They believe it is the grave of a very important woman from around 4000 years ago. Thousands of rocks stacked up with a tunnel entrance. There used to be a cap but it was removed some time ago. There are standing stones surrounding the site. We sat and ate lunch nearby, enjoying the countryside. On the way back to our stay we saw some Highland cows, the big wooly ones. We stopped at a place, they had three of them. They even posed somewhat for photos. After that, back to the stay where the kids blogged. Dinner was made, I'm happy to have a kitchen, be it a small one.
22.8.2025. Today we're going for a drive. Across the Highlands to see a train. Not just any train, the train they used in Harry Potter. We arrived to find all the car parks full. Well what now? Let's keep driving up the road a bit. A bit past the place, we found a car parked off the carriageway, that's what they call a highway here, and decided to do the same. I got as far off the road as I could, we locked the car and walked back. Mel was a bit worried we weren't going to get there in time, so we pushed hard on the hike. I love the surroundings in Scotland, and this place is no less gorgeous than what we've seen elsewhere. We came around a corner and there was what we were looking for. The Glenfinnan Viaduct. Quite a few people, sitting around waiting for a train too. I wasn't too happy with the first spot we came to, so I pushed on. Emma came with me. I got to another spot, and there were more people here. I found what I thought was a good spot, up a bit higher, with a bush in front of me so no one can stand in front of me. I took a picture and sent it to Mel. Bloody internet not working here. I'll call Mel, see if that gets through. Nope, that didn't work. I was complaining about the lousy internet to Emma, when she calmly asked if my data was on. With my data now on, my picture went through to Mel and I called. Mel and Andrew both came over and agreed, this new spot was better. We waited about 15mins, then we heard it. The train came around the hill opposite us and onto the viaduct. It stopped halfway, for dramatic effect I think, then blew its whistle and chugged up the hill, to pass in front of us. It was pretty fun to watch, but they must have taken a lot of shots for the movie as the viaduct is not that long and there is an entire scene. After that we headed back to the car. Andrew and I ran a lot of the way. We got back way before the other two. So we pee’d in the bushes. As soon as we'd finished the train, which had been stopped at the station, came past us. We waited a bit more, and noticed some wild blackberries. After checking to make sure they weren't wet, we tried a couple. Andrew said his was sweet and juicy, mine was a bit on the tangy side. From being a little under ripe, I assure you. After the train we had another hike to do. This one led to a waterfall. The kids loved the hiking today, we noticed Emma seemed a lot more comfortable with her body, and even led the way for a while. We had to take our shoes off and walk through some shallow water at one point, bloody cold. We did some rock hopping at the bottom of the falls, then headed back. The kids had played a bit in a drier section of the river on the way in, and had started to build a dam. On the way back out they built some more. If we had more time, we would have let them do it for hours. As it was, we had a two hour drive back, and it was already getting late. We had a nice drive back, before doing the nighttime routine.
23.8.2025. Today we're off to another Highland games! This one is the Glen Urquhart games, held near Drumnadrochit, not far from Inverness. We watched the piping event, young bagpipers doing their best. We then made our way to the main grounds to watch the heavyweights compete. This year is different, as it is the first time there is a heavyweight women's competition. Both the men's and women's competitions were great. Everyone got into it, cheering all of them on, and we all enjoyed the spectacle. The women's comp was won by a 16 year old, who has a huge future in front of them. In between all that, there were running events, high and long jump. The kids got treated to strawberries and cream, and we all had a really good day. We drove back, had a relaxing afternoon, knowing that tomorrow we head for our next destination.
KevLæs mere
The highlands, Scotland by the kids
22. august 2025, Skotland ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
On the 18th we drove to Nairn, it is another place in Scotland. It wasn’t that long of a drive. When we got to the place we did some shopping and then went to the hotel and slept.
On the 19th we took a 15-minute drive to Fort George. It was a nice fort, very highly protected, there were huge ditches, there were also lots of cannon placements. But other than that, the fort was a pretty nice fort, the place was well taken care of, half the wall was facing the sea. There was a museum about the army, we looked around, it was mainly just history and stuff they had. After that we went to the edge of the wall and we read that you can see dolphins in the water if you’re lucky, and guess what, we did. There was a bunch that like every ten seconds, they would pop their fin up, it was awesome. After that we went to an archery thing. We were going to shoot fake dinosaurs, zombies and dragons, it was actually pretty fun. I did well, dad was the best though. After that we went to the hotel and then did some blog, and went to sleep.
On the 20th we went to the battle field of Culloden, the battle of Culloden is a famous fight between the Scottish and the British, over who should be the monarch. Many battles were fought before it, but this battle was the last and one of the most important, the British won, and the Scottish got defeated. Here is a better and longer explanation, the army of the Scottish was called the Jacobites, the Jacobites wanted prince Charles to be king, but the British wanted George 1 to be king. So what to do over it, have a peaceful discussion, nah, kill each other over it, that sounds more like it. The Jacobites captured lots of British strongholds but by the time they got to the battle of Culloden they were very tired, so they got defeated in less than an hour. When we got in it had a bunch of memorial stones to remember the soldiers, there were also some flags to mark where the Jacobite front line was and where the British front line was. They had a cairn, a cairn is a formation of rocks that is human made, it is often a burial place. The place where they put most of the dead British soldiers is still unknown, after that we went to Inverness. We went to a huge book shop that had lots of second-hand books, I got a book and so did Emma. After that we went to a cathedral and looked at it. We then went to a botanic garden, it was really cool, but then we figured out it closed at 4:00, it was 3:59, (or something close to that). After that we went to a pub that had some music, it was cool, than we went home and went to sleep.
On the 21st we went to a castle called Urquhart castle. It took a while to get there but the drive was worth it. It was on the banks of the loch ness, I looked for the loch ness monster, I didn’t see it, sad. Urquhart castle is actually a ruined castle, it has a long history, now I will tell you a short version of its history. Historians believe a wooden fortress was there as early as the 5th century, but in the 13th century the English built another wooden fort there. Then in the 14th century the clan of Urquhart captured it and built the one we can see today. Urquhart castle went through many sieges by the clan of MacDonald. When we got into the area we saw a ginormous trebuchet, it was like ten meters high, there were also some huge rock balls. When we got into the ruins, we looked around, there were lots of brick walls that had just crumbled and only bits still remained. There is a big tower that is still partly up, it was five floors up but now only the first three are safe to go on. There were really tight spirally staircases and I said, “if I was the owner of the tower I would get wider staircases”. They had a place where there was a circular base of a little tower, the tower was a place to keep pigeons, if the king wanted pigeon meat their butler could just pop down and bring him up a pigeon. After that we went to the car and drove to a big cairn. It is a big burial place, it looked really cool, l there were like a ton of rocks piled up. After that we went to see some highland cows, they were big and hairy plus they had huge horns, after that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 22nd we went to see the Jacobite train. It is the train that they use in Harry Potter, here are some facts. The train started in 1984, it became famous in 2001, the reason why it is called the Jacobite train is because the Jacobites had a big impact on the country and they just named it that way. We saw the train on the viaduct, the train stopped in the middle of the bridge but then it started up but this time blowing lots of steam, it was really cool. After that we went on a hike to a waterfall, there was an area before the waterfall that there was a little bank made out of rocks. Me and Emma made half a bridge across, we would have finished it, but we didn’t have enough time. When we got to the waterfall I made mum nervous by jumping from rock to rock, it was really fun (it was fun jumping from rock to rock and annoying mum). After that I chucked some rocks into the water and then I found another path to another place closer to the falls, I played there and it was even funner. After that we went to the car and drove home.
On the 23rd we went to Glenurquhart to see the high land games. It was really cool, and plus it was way bigger than the one at Stirling. This one was hosting the first world female heavy weights championship, there were some really strong female competitors. We mainly watched the heavy weights, it was cool, one of the people threw the hammer over 100 feet, that made it an unofficial world record, and they were only 16 years old. It was awesome. After that we listened to some bagpipes and then we went back to the car and went home.
On the 24th we drove to a place near Edinburgh and that's where we are going to stay for three nights (everything inside Edinburgh was booked or ridiculously expensive).
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 18th we drove to Nairn. Then we did some shopping.
On the 19th we visited fort George. We visited the museum inside fort George. We had to find Lego people on the way. In the end we found all of them and got rewarded by a sticker and a lollipop. The fort was well protected. It had big ditches that if you ran off you would break a bone. They also had a lot of canons. It is a strong fort. We saw were the army lived. We also saw the clothes they wear. It is all made of stone. Then we saw dolphins. They lifted their fin now and then. After that we went to an archery place where we shot targets. I did pretty well. Mum did ok, Andrew was good, but dad was the best. We had an hour there, but it went so quick. I really enjoyed it. Then we came back and did blog.
On the 20th we saw where the battle of Culloden war was fought. There was a lot of flowers on the field. One of the sides were called the Jacobite’s. The other side was a British government force. The British won. I did not like that many soldiers died there. Why do people have to fight? Why can’t we all live in peace? In memory of all the soldiers who died, please join me in a moment of silence. You can keep reading when you are done. Ok. Then we went to inverness. We went to a book shop. There were little rooms filled with books. I found a book I liked, and mum and dad bought it for me. It is called the boy in the dress. Then we visited a cathedral. There were little mice hidden in the cathedral and we had to find them all. After that we walked along a river. Then we went to the botanic gardens. There were lots of pretty plants. My favourite flower was a dark purple one. It had four or five petals. Then we spent the evening at the pub. There was nice music, and I read my new book.
On the 21st we went the Urquhart castle. There were facts we had to find and at the end we got a sticker. We saw old buildings. There was one thing that I really liked. There was a place where pigeons could nest in and after a bit, they would eat the pigeons and its eggs. There was also a place where you could just hop off a boat, walk up the hill and get in by a water gate. I also want to tell you about the Loch Ness because the castle was built on it. people say that there is a monster called Nessie that lives at the bottom of the Loch Ness. It is often described as large and has a long neck. Some one saw it and then they tried to find a name for it. They thought of calling it monster fish or sea serpent or dragon. They ended up calling it the Loch Ness monster. Then we saw a cairn. A cairn is a pile of rocks put there for a reason. It is usually a marker or a burial mound. When we were driving back, we saw highland cows. They are very hairy and big. They have pinkish grey tongues.
On the 22nd we saw the Jacobite train. It is the train in harry potter. It was a long hike to get to a good spot. On the bridge the train stopped then it started again and started letting smoke out. Then we hiked all the way up to a waterfall. We walked through hills that were green but had purple flowers. Me and Andrew jumped around on the rocks. Some were slippery but others were not. You had to cross a frizzing cold river if you wanted to get to the waterfall. I really enjoyed that day a lot.
On the 23rd we went to the highland games. I liked it but most of it was the same as the last highland game. The only things different was that woman were allowed to do heavy weights and there was bag pipping. One thing that really impressed me was that a sixteen-year-old competed. She won the hammer throw and shotput. She also won the heavy distance throw. We think she broke a world record, but it didn’t count. There was no official there. Her name was Juliet Ramsay. It was special because it was the first world female heavy events championship. I liked that women were allowed to compete in the heavy events.
Now we are to some place near Edinburgh. I hope to see you there.
Emma (very nearly 9 years old)Læs mere
Edinburgh, Scotland by Mel
24.–27. aug. 2025, Skotland ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C
Hello everyone,
We are still in Scotland for one more stop. We are in a little town near Edinburgh, called Armadale. We wanted to stay in Edinburgh, but as there was the Tattoo festival and the Fringe festival, prices of accommodation were through the roof in the city, so we stayed a bit on the outside. This is only a 30-minute train ride into the city, so no issue at all.
We drove from Nairn to Armadale on Sunday the 24th, stopping at Perth to meet a friend of ours, Alexa. We caught up around lunch and it was really nice to be able to do so.
We also drove past the Kelpies: 2 big statues of horse’s head. We said we will stop on the way back and we completely forgot about it and took another road. So we only saw the Kelpies while driving past. Lesson learnt: when you can do something now, do it! You never know what the future will be!
Then we got to our place: a mobilome, pretty well done and comfortable. We settled, did some schoolwork and some food shopping as usual.
The following day we went to visit Edinburgh castle. The castle is in the middle of the city and dominate it from the top of Castle Rock (a volcanic hill formed around 350 million years ago). There has been a castle on Castle Rock since the 11th century, but it has been rebuilt several times, due to fire, destruction and other issue of being a royal castle. Historians identify 26 sieges of the castle over the 1100-year history, making it the more attacked castle in the UK.
There is a lot to see there. Several museums of different army company, the crown jewels, the royal appartements. There is also the one-o-clock gun, which is being fired every day (except Sundays) at 1pm. It was originally done to help the ships knowing what time it was, and it kept going even when it wasn’t needed anymore as a tradition. It was a good visit. Another place where a lot of history happen, I always love those places.
Andrew said he really like that caste, one of the best, but he likes all the castles in Scotland.
After that, a little pleasure for Kev and I. We visited a distillery. I thought it was something to do when in Scotland. We found one in Edinburgh, called Holyrood. This is a new distillery which open in 2019. They make whisky and gin. We had an explanation of the terminology, of the process to make the drinks and visited the place. We obviously tested some samples. It was pretty good! We decided to stay at the bar to try some more (within reason of course!). I like the pitted whisky best. It tested smoky and I enjoyed it a lot.
Emma said they liked to see what ingredients they put in to make the taste and smell (we let the kids smell the drinks. Not drink them obviously). Andrew liked the small still where they distyle their basic alcohol with all the tubes.
Every good thing has an end, so we had to go at some point and walked in the streets of Edinburgh to get to the train station and back to our place. It was a great day.
The following day and last full day in Edinburgh, we saw the street which inspired Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter book. It is very pretty, with house and shops with a lot of colours (not as much as Burano in Italy, but still!). Emma really like the street with all the colourful buildings and could see that Diagon Alley was based there.
We visited the Dynamic Earth Museum. It was extremely interesting. It was about the formation of the universe and the earth. It was very interactive and made fun with videos on big screen in rooms with moving floor to simulate earthquake, or an elevator/timetraveling machine, a 3D movie about the different climates, a room so cold about the poles with a giant piece of ice in the middle and more! The last room was a planetarium with explanation about some constellation and pictures taken by the Vera telescope in Chili: you probably saw some of those pictures on the Internet, but they were on a massive planetarium screen and it was amazing! The information in this museum was fun and interesting for everyone. I really enjoyed this museum and I think the kids too. We stayed in there a lot longer than originally planned! When we were finished it was peeing down outside, but luckily they had a restaurant onsite, so we ate there and by the end of our lunch, the rain had stopped. Lucky. We kept on with our adventure.
Andrew like this museum because it went from the start of the universe until now. He liked how interactive it was (not too much to read). “The planetarium was great as they made it funny and they talk about the constellation, what they thought about them and what the Greeks thought and called them.” was one of his comments.
Emma loved how interactive it was and their favourite room, was the one with the earth that showed how the tectonic plates could move and the screen that showed all the earthquakes.
The next place we visited was the museum of childhood, a free museum, which is a plus. It had toys, stories about how people’s childhood was 70ish years ago, a small history about the evolution of school over the last 100 years or so, some clothes… There were a few toys the kids could play with, it was a nice museum.
Emma liked to see what kids in the past use to keep themselves entertain. There were so many cool toys to look at. “I could have stayed there forever just playing with them” Emma said.
We also visited Ste Giles Cathedral, which is beautiful, especially inside. It is very gothic, as it has been rebuilt several times, as often. The windows are amazing, the ceiling is incredible with details, there is a massive pipe organ. I wish we could have heard it! Andrew found a screen that was giving information about the architecture of the cathedral with quiz on it after. That boy loves facts and quizzes! So he did it all. I read with him first, but then I had enough of information, but he kept going and said he got all the answers right! It was no easy read and I am amazed on how well he is retaining information (when he wants to!)
We saw the statue of Bobby Greyfriars, a dog who according to the story, in the 19th century, stayed on its owner’s grave for 14 years. The story has been challenged many times and we’ll never know the true story but now, that dog has a statue that millions of tourists come and pat the nose!
After that, we jumped back on the train and got back to the mobilome and pack again! We are moving again!
I really enjoyed Edinburgh. I wish we had more days there. It felt like a city with a lot of history and a lot to visit, but also a young and creative energy, originality and fun. I loved that city and really hope we’ll be back one day. This was one of my favourite stops so far.
See you Scotland, we had a great time here and I am sad to leave you. I hope to see you again one day.
MelLæs mere
Edinburgh, Scoltand by Kev
24.–27. aug. 2025, Skotland ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C
24.8.2925. Somehow I slipped 900 hundred years into the future while I was asleep. Or that was a mistake that I just rolled with. Anyway, travel day again today. Bags packed and loaded up. We're a bit sad to leave this stay, as it was really nice. But adventure waits for no one, so we're off. We got to our new stay, which is not quite Edinburgh, but close. Edinburgh was booked out, unless you had a butt load of money to blow, which we don't. So Mel found a mobile home about a 30min train ride outside of Edinburgh. It is surprisingly roomy inside. A large living/dining room. A pretty big kitchen, with a gas cooktop, I like gas. A shower and bathtub. Kids had their own room as did we. Pretty bloody comfy for a few days. Mel and the kids blogged this afternoon and I went to the local supermarket. Supplies for the next few days secured. I made dinner later on, had a few more local beers and spent a nice evening in Armadale, Scotland.
25.8.2025. Now back in my own timeline, we got the day started early. We hopped on the train into Edinburgh, had a bit of a look around, and went to the Castle. The Castle is built on top of a dormant volcano, they didn't know that at the time, but we do now. Another impressive castle, with lots of sculptures and architecture to see. I do like fortifications, and looking out over the landscape. Maybe I would have made a decent King, looking down upon my subjects. Probably not. The kids led us around the place with a map, and we listened to a kids audio guide on Mel's phone. We walked to the highest point and looked around. We sat there and had our lunch, while waiting for 1 o'clock. What happens at 1 o'clock everyday? The One o'clock gun! It is fired at 1 o'clock, so sailors could set their timepieces accurately, to better help them navigate the ships. They have radar and GMaps and stuff now, so the gun is merely ceremonial tradition now. Still it was pretty cool. Unfortunately I missed it, thinking I still had a little time, I rubbed my eye at the same time the gun fired. At least I got a video of it. We finished our visit then headed to something a little different. A distillery. This is more of a dad thing, but we all enjoyed the tour. We met our tour guide, Joel, and got started. He hit us with some basic knowledge, then we moved on. We saw the big vats where they make the wort from grains, then pump it into the fermenters. We were shown different ways of preparing the grains. Sometimes, to dry the grains out, they use peat, a type of “fossil fuel”, dug up from the bogs around Scotland. It gave the grains a nice smoky flavour, which transfers though fermentation and distillation, to infuse the Whiskey. Mel especially liked the peated whiskey. We had a few tastes along the way, and afterwards we bought a tasting tray of 4 whiskeys. We walked back to the train station, enjoying the fresh air and exercise.
26.8.2025. Today we're going to a place called Dynamic Earth, in Edinburgh. A museum of sorts, with lots of info about the world and how it all started. With fun and interactive things for the kids. We learnt how the earth's tectonic plates shift and what happens when they do. We went through a series of immersive videos of how the universe started, and how the suns and planets formed. It taught us how mountains are formed, how melting glaciers helped form peaks and valleys. It was a thoroughly entertaining visit. We had planned on finding a supermarket afterwards for lunch, but it was peeing down, so we had lunch there. Once the rain stopped, we ventured out again and wandered over to The Childhood Museum. Lots of old games, toys, clothes and home movies. Some that brought back memories for Mel and I. We had more of a hill all through the city. We found a dog statue with a very “touched” nose. The bronze was shiny. They love their dogs here in the UK, taking them everywhere. We saw heaps of dogs at the Highland games. I couldn't imagine having Guinness with me, on a leash, for 6 hours or more. Actually, he'd probably love all the attention. We had our last look at Edinburgh, then walked back to the train station.
KevLæs mere
Birmingham, UK by Kev and Mel
27.–29. aug. 2025, England ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
Hello from Birmingham,
We drove here from Edinburgh on the 27th of August (where does the time go?!!!). We stopped here to cut the drive from Scotland to Worthing, where we are going next to see Kev’s family, so we are only staying one full day here. When we arrive, we had a look at the city, which seems to be multicultural and young. The centre has a massive museum, but it was too late for us to visit it. We walked in the centre, where we chased statues of bull, hiding everywhere in the city (we found at least 7 or 8 if I remember correctly!) The city looks nice with a fair bit of art around: statues, new buildings and old mixed together… We also saw the Black Sabbath bridge, made for the band of the same name which started in Birmingham in 1968.
We had dinner at the pub next to our hotel and watch a bit of tv before bedtime.
The next day we went to the Warwick castle and it was brilliant! The castle has a long history of battles and peace time. It was first built in 1068 by William the conqueror. Obviously, parts of the castle were demolished and reconstructed during the following centuries. It was left in ruin during 16th century and when Fulke Greville was granted the caslte by King James I and converted it to a country house, but then more wars started again and fortification were added. Every century since its creation (except the 21st century) the castle saw major building works and adaptation.
It was sold in 1978, by Lord Brooke to the Tussauds Group for 1 300 000 English pounds to the great uproar of his father, who spent his childhood playing in the castle and after 374 years of ownership by the same family (the Greville family)
Nowadays, it is a great entertainment place. They have several live action shows, which are really well done. The first one is about the trebuchet! Andrew is obsessed with this kind of thing, so he was very happy. During the show, they actually launched the trebuchet and it is really cool to see! The projectile flew pretty far! This is the world largest working siege engines! How cool it was to see it in action!
The next show was on horses. They were recreating the white and red roses war. I have to admit it was a bit complicated to follow as they were talking and explaining while running around and fighting. But it was great fun to watch: there was sword fighting, jousting, tricks on horses, music and loud explosion! What’s not too like! It was a well put together show and we had great fun watching it.
The last show we saw, was falconry: several big birds of preys were flying around, some pretty low and past just above our head. While there was a story, there were also explanation about the birds. Again a well put together show. This one was my favourite.
Then we visited the castle, which has a lot of weapons and armours and rooms with furniture and wax figures depicting the weekend parties hosted by the countess of Warwick at the end of the 19th century.
There is room explaining different time of the history like the kingmaker area, where you can see Richard Neville preparing his army in 1471, with wax figures and set up showing how the preparation were being done.
Overall this was one of our best castle experience. It was fun, entertaining and educational.
This is a must do if you are in the area.
After a full day of fun we got back to our hotel, got sandwich from the supermarket for dinner and a bit of gaming on our computer and bed time as we are on the move again the following day.
This will be our last stop in the UK. We are on our way to Worthing in the south of England to visit family.
See you there,
Mel
27.8.2025. We packed the bags, then packed the car. We're off again, this time to Birmingham, back in England. Driving in, we realise it's a big city. Roads and cars going everywhere. With help from my navigator, we got to our destination. We don't have an apartment here, just a room at an Ibis. So we're a bit cramped again. Paid for parking at the hotel, that makes it easy. We brought our bags up to the room, then went out into the city. Mel loves big cities, and this one was a winner with them. A big mixture of old and new. Old stone buildings with new glass and steel sky scrapers next to them. Trams running through, fountains and sculptures, both old and new. We ventured into a Warhammer store, where Andrew had a quick lesson in the game's dynamics from a friendly guy named Dan. We walked past the “Black Sabbath Bridge”, where there is a tribute to all the members of the band. Birmingham is where it all started for them. Right next to the bridge is The Brasshouse, a pub selling “Black Sabbath” IPA. Now I'm not usually one for an IPA, but I had to have a try. Was not disappointed, as far as IPA’s go, it was about the best I've had. We walked back towards the hotel, stopping at a pub called Shakespeare's for a Guinness and dinner. Back to the hotel.
28.8.2025. Today we're going for a little drive. Out of Birmingham to a town called Warwick. There's lots of things at Warwick, but what we're there for is the castle. Once inside, we walked around getting our bearings. Found a “try archery” place where the kids had a go. We walked a little past that and saw the trebuchet! Across the river and a fair bit away, but still huge. We sat and waited there for the show to start. It was a good show, dialogue, small explosions and to end it, they fired the trebuchet! We then walked across the river, towards the next show, past the trebuchet, which only got bigger as you got closer. The next show was a jousting show. Actually it was a lot more than just that. It had people in armour, knights on horses, Squires and a descriptive story about the battles of the roses. The red rose of the Lancaster's, and the white rose of the Yorkies. The rise and fall of kings, and finally the joining of the two houses through marriage, to maintain peace. Then some trick horse riding, smoke and streamers. Another quality show. The next show was back on the other side of the river again. So we headed back over and found a spot. This show was called “The Falconer's quest”. A story about a guy who would see birds of prey brought back to the skies of Warwick Castle. Lots of birds, from Hawks to a Condor. They had them flying low over the crowd and zooming up to catch food thrown in the air. Another really good show. We had an eagle fly straight over top of us a couple times. If you reached up you could have touched it. By now it was after 1 so we started our visit of the castle itself. There was the usual assortment of armour and weapons hanging on walls. Paintings and sculptures here and there. We visited the water wheel, which they used for a long time to grind up the grain for flour. At some point they even used it to pump water into the castle. Later it was converted into a power station, the wheel driving dynamos to power the castle. We climbed the stairs up the rampart and walked around the castle, through the towers and back down. Last visit was a maze, with things for the kids to find. We lost our two in there for a bit. We wandered back to the car and made our way back to Birmingham. Grabbed some dinner at the supermarket, played a little and read a little, then bed. Off again tomorrow.
KevLæs mere
Birmingham, UK by the kids
27.–29. aug. 2025, England ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
On the 27th we drove out of Scotland and to Birmingham. When we got there we went to our hotel, put our bags down, and went out to see the city. The bit we went to had lots of art, there were mainly just sculptures, all of it was really cool. In the area there were also statues of bulls that were about a meter long and were all coloured different, my favourite was the one that looked like a half-unwrapped Milka chocolate bar. After that we went to a pub and I got a giant burger, then we went home and went to sleep.
On the 28th we went to a castle called Warwick castle, it is a castle that has lots of cool stuff around it, when we got there we went to watch an archer fire some arrows, it was interesting. Then, when we kept walking I saw it a giant trebuchet, it is the biggest trebuchet in the world, it weights 22 tons and is 18 meters tall. We waited a bit and then a show started that had the trebuchet, it was about a fake army was coming and the actors who were protecting were doing stuff all the while the trebuchet was loading, at the end of the show they fired the trebuchet and the ball went flying like 200 meters, awesome. After that we went to a jousting arena, there was another show where they were showing a battle with only a few people, there was fighting and jousting, very cool. After that we went to yet another show, this one they had lots of falcon and eagles, the birds would fly really close to everybody. They even had a Peregrin falcon, they made it dive and it was awesome, then they let out a condor (I don’t remember the full name). It was so big, it was the biggest bird in the show, it swooped really close to the people at the front. The last bird was a bald eagle, they’re beautiful animals, then to make it even cooler they let all the birds out and they were flying around. After that we went to visit the castle, it was really cool, the castle had big walls (we walked across the top), then we went to a maze that was based on the horrible history books, (I am a big fan of them). In the maze there were stamps that we would have to collect, plus there where facts about different eras of time. Me and Emma ran around hiding from mum and dad, it was fun. After that we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 27th we drove from Edinburgh to Birmingham. Then we walked around the city. Had dinner at a pub then went home.
On the 28th we went to Warwich castle. Warwich castle has fun activity like archery, a maze. It was a horrible history maze where time was messed up and we had to get stamps. Me and Andrew found all the stamps and we put time well again.
A show where they were fighting on horses. That show was my favourite. There was a small grey horse that I really liked. There were other horses that were black, white and brown. They were showing what happened in one of the wars that was near Warwick. There were two sides. White rose and red rose. We were in white rose. We had to cheer white rose.
There was a trebuchet as well. Then we saw a show where they showed us birds of prey. There were lots of big birds. Some of them were flying really low. I had to duck if I didn’t want to be hit. It was really cool.
Then we visited the castle (all the stuff I just described was on the outside of the castle). It had lots of weapons and armour. The worst thing was that there was a dungeon. If you read all of our blogs, you would have read about a London dungeon and how it terrified me. I don’t even know why they want a dungeon anyway. We didn’t do it because I knew I wouldn’t like it.
We saw where royal people would dine. It was a fun day.
On the 29th we drove to worthing to see dad’s family.
Emma (9 years old in one week)Læs mere
Worthing & Stonehenge UK by Kev and Mel
29. aug.–3. sep. 2025, England ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
Hi everyone,
We are in Worthing, in the very south of the UK.
We drove back from Birmingham, drop the car at Gatwick airport and Kev’s uncle, Don, came to pick us up.
Worthing is where some of Kev’s family lives, so we are going to spend a few days with them.
Our first evening was spent catching up with everyone over a few glasses of wine (and a few whisky), probably a few too many according to the headache and stomach-ache I had the following day.
Andrew and Emma meet their second cousin, Olivia (daughter of Brad who is Kev’s cousin). She is almost 3 and a firecracker. The kids were a bit shy at first but quickly got over it and played well together.
The next day was an easy one as I really didn’t feel like doing anything. We rested in the morning. Toward lunch, we drop Kev and Andrew at the cricket where Kev’s cousins, Glenn and Brad, spend most of their Saturdays, playing cricket. Emma and I, went with Mandy (Kev’s aunt) to see and ride her horse, Millie. Emma is very interested in horses at the moment, so she was delighted to be able to ride one! And she did great. She was a bit anxious at first, but got comfortable pretty fast.
We caught back up with the boys at the cricket and watch with them. The kids and Kev did a bit of cricket on the side and I think they had fun. I was still not feeling the greatest, so I was happy sitting and doing nothing!!! Then the rain came in and the game was cancelled, so we head back home for a relaxing evening.
On Sunday the 31st, Andrew went with Mandy to do some bellringing. Mandy is part of a group who ring the bell of a church and Andrew wanted to have a look, so he went and had the chance of having a go at it! If you want more information, go read his blog as I think he will give details about it. Mandy said that he was a proper gentleman and was very polite and interested and asked questions. That doesn’t surprise me! Andrew love hand on learning.
After that both Andrew and Emma went for a horse ride. Andrew was less comfortable there. He likes animal but not too close! Emma loved it!
In the afternoon, we went on the sea front in Worthing with Mandy, walked around the pier, had a few ice-creams, the kids and Kev did the Ferris wheel. This one was way to open for me to get in it! I don’t like height, especially when I can feel wind on me! The kids got new clothes from Mandy and Don and Hilda (Mandy’s mum). Those kids are spoilt everywhere we go where family is! After that the kids played on the beach, throwing rocks in the water, finding shark eggs (empty ones) and just having fun. They could have stayed there forever I think!
Monday, we went to visit Stonehenge. Kev visited it years ago with his sister Bec and had great memories of it, so he wanted to go back there. Apparently, it changed quite a bit: now there is a big visitor centre, with a souvenir shop, a restaurant, a museum (not massive but still). They have reconstruction of what they think the houses looked like back then.
Stonehenge is one of the most famous English monuments. Its construction started around 3100BC, and over the next few millennia. Proof of prior construction/use of the area, dated from 8000BC. It seems this area was used for funeral purpose. Nobody can know for sure why this area and exactly what it was used for, and the mystery add to the attraction of this place.
Some of the stones of Stonehenge are 4 meters high. They have some idea on how they move such huge pieces, and all of them require ingenuity and a massive human power.
The place is now full of tourists, but as you can not go too close to the rocks, you have a lovely view of the whole monument. I am glad we went there. Originally it was not on my to do list (not sure why), but it was incredible to see and imagine how people with limited tools manage to create such an imposing monument.
As Stonehenge is close to Salisbury, we went to visit the cathedral there as well. This cathedral has the tallest spire in the UK, 123 meter tall, and has been built in the 13t century. The kids got a map with things they had to find, which is fun as we learnt fun and interesting facts. For example, this cathedral used to have a toe of a saint that people use to pray to. They also have a custom: when a new boy joins the choir, his head is being lightly bump several time on a stone of the church, but I wonder how lightly they do it, as there is a proper dent on the rock!!!
If you are in the area, this is worth a visit.
We finished the day with a big get together at the pub. There was 12 of us and we had a great time.
The next day, we visited the Arundel castle and its garden. It was raining a bit, but a bit of water won’t stop us! The gardens were beautiful! Truly beautiful; the creativity of the gardener of this castle is amazing. If you go there and you only have time to see one thing, do the gardens!
The castle is still partly lived in, inhabited by the 17th Duke of Norfolk and his family (in between other accommodation I guess!). It is possible to visit the part of the castle, which are incredibly well preserved and decorated. The library has 10 000 books in and there are 10 000 more in the personal library! Can I just live there for a few months please!!! I loved the place. This was a great visit.
In the afternoon, Emma did her last ride on Millie. She tried trotting, but it was a bit hard!
We had our last dinner with the English family and promised to try to see each other soon!
On the 3rd of September, Don drove us to Brighton, and we took a Brighton to London train.
At King cross we went to see the platform 9 and ¾ and had look at the Harry Potter shop, without buying anything. The kids were amazing as they understand why we don’t buy things there, but I know part of them wanted to, but they didn’t ask anything and just enjoyed visiting the shop. They are so wonderful.
We hopped on the Eurostar and were on our way to our last stop in our European tour: back to Paris!
See you there!!!
Mel
29.8.2025. We got up and drove to Gatwick airport to drop off the car. Good old uncle Don picked us up, and we headed to his place in Worthing. As soon as we walked in it was cuddles all round. From my aunty Mandy and her mum Hilda, and the dogs. We caught up over some drinks. Later in the evening my cousins Brad and Glenn came round, and we met Brad's wife and daughter, and Glenn's partner. A big BBQ was had, too many drinks were had, but it was really good to see everyone again, and meet new people.
30.8.2025. Woke up a bit shit and knackered this morning. Too much whiskey last night, and beer. Luckily I didn't have any wine. We slobbed around all morning and had breakfast closer to lunch. After that, Mandy dropped Andrew and I at the Findon cricket club. We turned up just as Bradley got out and was walking back to the clubhouse. I found Don, who was scoring the match, then Andrew and I found a chair outside and watched. Glen was still in, and doing ok. When they stopped for drinks, we went over and had a chat with Brad. Met a couple of his friends and gave Glen some encouragement. Meanwhile, Emma and Mel had gone with Mandy. To do what? Well to ride Mandy's horse of course. Apparently Emma loved it, and wants a horse more than ever now. Mel and the rest of them turned up. Brad gave us a bat and a few balls, and we had a muck around in the nets. The first innings finished while we were having a crack, apparently Glen had done well and finished not out for 41. They had posted a lowly 127, but some were confident they could defend it. There was some rain around and Brad told me that's what he was hoping for. During the break, the rain was on and off. It cleared a bit, the covers came off and the teams went out for the second innings. Only for it to start raining again. Eventually they called the game off, so we sat in the clubhouse and chatted. Later, back at Don and Mandy's dinner was had, then bed.
31.8.2025. I woke up feeling much better this morning. After breakfast, Mandy took Andrew “bell ringing” at the local church. Andrew was really into it, rang some bells and had a look at them right up the top of the church. He spoke with all the other bell ringers and asked them questions. When he finds something he's into, he really listens and hangs off every word. They came back, and now it was Emma's turn. Where do you think Mandy took her? That's right, horse riding. Andrew went this time too. We found out after that, it's not really his thing. He likes horses, just not riding them. Emma on the other hand, just cemented her love of horses. We talked some more, had dinner and made our plans for the next couple days.
1.9.2025. This morning we're up early and off to pick up a hire car. We're heading to Stonehenge today, a place I visited back in 2001, when I first came to England. It has changed a lot. Not the rocks, they're still the same. The rest of the place has changed. I remember turning off the road and driving up to Stonehenge with my sister. We parked close, and had a short walk over to it. Today however, as soon as you turn off, you go into a big parking lot. We found a spot and walked in. We got our tickets, thankfully half off because of the Scottish membership thing we bought. There's buildings here now. A museum, toilets, shops, a cafe and a little recreated village. Nothing like how I remember, like everything else where you can make money off tourists, they jumped at it. The museum was small, but interesting. We got some info before seeing the real deal. Outside there is a shuttle bus to take you the 2klm to the site. We decided to walk. Along the road first, then you can walk through some fields. I remember the first time I saw Stonehenge, I felt a weird sensation I couldn't explain, something mysterious. This time however, that same feeling was not there. I was still very happy to look upon these stones again, and to marvel at people's ingenuity from thousands of years before. The people who have studied Stonehenge believe that it was arranged to line up with the sun and to show the middle of winter. There's evidence of feasts nearby, and they believe people would gather at midwinter to celebrate the ending of winter. It was not the end, but it was the time when the days would start to grow longer and some warmth would begin to return. There are other sites all around the place, mounds full of cremated remains. Other sites have been found with animal bones and what they believe are “garbage” pits that would have been used for celebrating and feasting. Stonehenge has been dated to 2500bc (4500 years old). On our way out we stopped and read some of the info boards around the place. I can't remember all that we read, and I didn't take a photo of the info, though I wish I had now. I read there was a spot near here, where they had found the remnants of wooden posts in the ground. These were dated at 8000bc (10000 years old), showing that the area had been used as a site of ritual for much longer than previously thought. Little information is known of this, and I look forward to learning more as it comes to light. On our way out, we stopped at the shop, as you do. Another magnet was purchased and we tried some mead. Neither of us had had mead before, and they had three to test so we did. The original was nice, there was a chilli one which was even better and a blackberry one as well. All good, highly recommend having a crack at mead if you get the chance. I will definitely have a go at brewing it when home. After Stonehenge, we drove to Salisbury to visit the cathedral there. It is not the biggest cathedral, internally in the world, that's Saint Peter's in the Vatican. But it is pretty bloody big. It also has a huge spire(Britain's tallest), standing at 123m. The kids did an activity inside, which highlighted the fact that, because of the immense weight of the spire, the columns inside the cathedral had twisted under the weight. When you looked up while standing beside the columns you could really see it! Was kinda unnerving, and made me wanna get outta there. Realising that the tower has been standing for hundreds of years and that it was very unlikely to fall on me did little to help. Inside we saw the world's oldest working clock and the best-preserved of the four surviving original Magna Carta copies. A document that was created in 1215, stating that nobody was above the law, not even the king. Brought about by a bunch of barons who were not happy with the very unpopular at the time, King John of England. By now it was getting late, and we had a dinner at the pub to get to. We hightailed it back to Worthing, quick change of clothes and then followed Don to the pub. A couple of Guinness and a meal, only a couple as I drove. All the family were there and it was good to see all of them again. The kids are great, and play with their not quite three year old, second cousin once or twice removed or however that works, I don't know. The kids took Olivia out into the playground with no worries, and played games at the tables. It was a nice evening, and a nice chat, though with a long table you don't get to talk with everyone as much. We said goodbye and drove back. Had a couple of whiskeys when we got back and went to bed.
2.9.2025. We're headed for Arundel Castle today. A castle that is both open to visit(for a price) and still occupied by the 17th Duke of Norfolk. It was a bit rainy but that didn't stop us. We walked around the gardens, the castle wasn't open yet. We saw swans in the pond and other birds. We saw so many different types of plants and flowers, my favourite were the heliotropes. A beautiful small blue flower that to me, smelled like sweet vanilla. I was tempted to grab an apple or pear from the orchard, but I resisted. There were fountains and pools with fish. A fountain with a crown floating on top of it. Kids loved that one. Then we went into the castle. We did the keep first, where the kids got to do some dress up and fight each other with wooden swords and shields. I was waiting for that to go badly, but it didn't. After the keep, the castle was open and we went in there. Lots of the usual stuff, weapons and armour decorating the place. We saw the room that was redecorated for the Queen's visit in 1846, the 13th Duke internally remodelled the whole castle. This was for a 3 day visit! Lucky she didn't stay for a week, the whole town would have had a makeover. On the way out there was a shop and a cafe, no surprise there. We grabbed some lunch, reasonably priced sandwiches, and headed back to the car. We dropped the hire car back and walked to Don and Mandy's. When we got back, Emma and Mandy went, wait for it, riding Millie the horse again! More chatting and a nice last dinner together, before bed.
KevLæs mere
Worthing & Stonehenge UK by the kids
29. aug.–3. sep. 2025, England ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
On the 29th we dropped the car we rented at the airport and then we got picked up by dad’s uncle, Don. We went to Don’s house, and we met dad’s aunt, Mandy, Mandy was pretty nice and then Olivia came over, Olivia is me and Emma’s three-year-old second cousin. She likes running around a lot (especially if one of us is around), we saw some other people from the family and then we had barbecue dinner it was very yummy, and after that when we finished dinner we went to sleep.
On the 30th we woke up and went to walk the dogs (there are 3 dogs). Mandy took us up to a nice hill and let the dogs stroll around, and then Mandy mentioned that they had a horse and Emma instantly wanted to ride on it. When we got back me and dad went to a cricket match and Emma went to ride the horse (her name is Millie) Don was keeping score on the cricket game, it was cool. After that we went back to the house and went to sleep.
On the 31st I went with Mandy to a church because every Sunday she went up with a couple of other people to ring the bells, I went up and it looked really cool. The way they did it was, they would pull it down really hard and the bell would swing upside, there are six bells and they go in an order from 1 to 6 (1 is the highest and 6 is the lowest) but sometimes they would call something like “5 to 3” and then it would go from 1,2,3,4,5,6 to 1,2,4,5,3,6. I could tell the people have been doing it for a while, when they had a break I got to go up and look at the bells, they were really big. Then when I got down I got to ring one of the bells, it was heavy. They also had a big clock mechanism, and it was really cool. After that when I was coming down from the staircase I heard the pipe organ it sounded nice, then I went home, and Mandy took me and Emma to ride Millie (I didn’t like it that much). Then we went down to the beach got some ice cream and then went to a big Ferris wheel. After that we went home and slept.
On the 1st we went to see Stonehenge, dad said it changed a lot, there were two buildings at the entrance, one was the gift shop, and one was the museum. We had a look at the museum and then went to see the thing we came here to see, Stonehenge. When we got there it was really big, the stones were placed there hundreds of years ago, it’s amazing what they did (and without all the technology we have today). After that we went to the Salisbury Cathedral, it is a very big cathedral and it has the biggest spire in the UK, the spire is 123 meters (404 feet) tall. To make it even cooler I will tell you that the Cathedral is built over water. The reason it is built on water is because there is lots of little rocks in the bottom that can move around and wear it out but the water holds them still so they don’t move around. After that we went to a pub with lots of people from our family (there a lot of family members around here), we played with Olivia a bit. After that we went to the house and went to sleep.
On the 2nd we went to Arundel castle, we first visited the gardens they were really pretty, but there were two gardens that I liked the best, the Collector Earls gardens and the walled garden. Both of them had wooden carvings and beautiful flowers, one of the flowers smelt sort of like curry. Then we saw a wooden fountain that had a big jet of water that was shooting up and it was so strong it was holding up a crown, there were also lots of cool shells around it. Then I found another beautiful flower and it smelled like a lovely vanilla, it is called heliotrope. After that we went into the keep, but on the way there, there was a room that had some swords (wooden swords) and shields, me and Emma battled each other, it was fun. After that we kept walking to the keep and when we got there it looked really cool, the walls where pretty high and it looked awesome. After that we went to the palace and there were lots of rooms, there were lots of stuff that where very fancy, I really liked it. There was a library that had 10,000 books but there was another library, and it was the duke’s private library, it also had 10,000 books. Some of the books looked pretty old, there where so many of them. After that we went back to the house and Emma went for a ride on Milley, then we went to sleep.
On the 3rd we took a train to London and then we took the Eurostar to Paris.
Now for the grand finale…
The end!!!
😊
Andrew (10 years old)
Hello this is our last stop in England. Hope you will enjoy it.
On the 29th we dropped the car off, then uncle don picked us up. We were staying with Don and Mandy for five days. We had a barbecue dinner. We played with Olivia who is our 2nd cousin. It was cool.
On the 30th I found out that Mandy owned a horse called Millie. I fed her and I got to ride her too. On this trip I have grown a big liking for horses. We dropped dad and Andrew off at cricket first though. Then dad, Andrew and I played cricket, and I got hit in the head by the ball.
On the 31st Andrew went bell ringing and I got to ride Millie again. I love the feeling of being on a horse. After that we went down to the ocean front. Me and Andrew found lots and lots of shark eggs. We weren’t sure they were shark eggs, but dad googled it and said they were. Then we had ice cream. After that we went on a big Ferris wheel. I enjoyed staying with Don and Mandy a lot.
On the 1st we went to Stonehenge. Personally, I just think that they are a bunch of rock stacked up. Each rock is about 13 feet high, seven feet wide and they weigh about 25 tons. Then we visited the Salisbury cathedral. Did you know that in the medieval time people would pray to a part of a saint if they were sick. The spire on the Salisbury cathedral is so big that it makes the pillars bend. The largest seat in the cathedral is for the bishop. The seat is called the cathedra which is why the place is called the cathedral. Then we had dinner at a pub with all the family.
On the 2nd we visited Arundel castle. It had a beautiful garden. There was a wildflower garden and a rose garden. There was one flower that I really liked. It was called Heliotrope. It smelt sort of like vanilla but sweater. There was a hedge that looked like rocks stacked on top of each other. The branches were cut very well. In the castle we got to try on shields and swords. In the end me and Andrew were play fighting. Then I went for a ride on Millie.
On the 3rd we took a train to London and then the Eurostar to France. I can’t believe we finished the UK already.
Emma (9 years old minus a few days)Læs mere
Our thoughts on the UK
2. september 2025, England ⋅ 🌧 18 °C
This is it for the UK for us this time. I love this country. I lived here in my twenties and I loved it then and I still love it now. I love the English houses, the pubs, the culture, the music, the landscapes…
This time we spent more time in Scotland and it is such a beautiful place to be. I really enjoyed the Highland games. I love that history and customs are being kept alive but also evolve. The fact that we saw the first word championship for woman heavyweight was amazing. The nature in the UK is always more or less present. Even in London, flowers decorate so many pubs and houses. And history!!! Castles, forts, museums everywhere!! That is something I will always enjoy. The Dynamic Earth Museum in Edinburgh was extremely well done, interactive and interesting. This is what I think, museums should become: fun place to learn things!
Edinburgh was a surprise for me. I really want to come back there. There is so much to see!
Madame Tussaud in London was way better than expected. The magical hill in Stirling, where nature was creating the ideal place to let our imagination go wild (fairies, pixies and other magical creatures, I know you were there, somewhere!). I enjoyed the archery experience, even if I wasn’t the best at it! The Jacobite train was another thing on my “I really want to do list” and I am so glad we did it… Basically everything we did, I enjoyed!
The only negative point is how expensive everything is here. We also saw a fair bit of homeless people, which again, in rich countries, feel even more wrong as we have the mean to end that, and not enough is done I think.
To sum up, the UK for me was amazing and I wish we could come back soon!!!
Mel
Here is my opinion in a summary of the UK. It is a beautiful place(especially Scotland), with rolling green hills and mountains. Fortresses and castles to visit, lochs and rivers to explore. We've met some very nice people here and had some of our best stays(especially Scotland). I have also seen that there is still homeless and the poor, so there is still work to be done. Unfortunately the UK has not been kind to the bank account, as the pound buys twice as many dollars. I have still had a fantastic time here and would love to come back, to visit more places(especially Scotland). It was great to see my family again here in the south of England, something I don't get to do often. Something I would like to do more often, but distance makes it hard(I understand Mel more and more). The weather surprised me, I got sunburnt here. I had some fantastic dark beers(especially in Scotland) and had some really nice whiskey(from Scotland). I enjoyed my time here and will miss it. Though I am sure we will be back, I just don't know when.
Kev
Now I will tell you my summary of the UK, I have liked it a lot, London was really cool, there were lots of cool shops (M&M shop, Lego shop, Haleys). Stirling castle was amazing and there’s a little hill that is beautiful to (it’s one of my favourite places in Scotland). The highland games are awesome, truly awesome, if you’re in Scotland at that time of year you can’t miss it. Fort William looked cool, I liked it (if you’re there look out for dolphins), Urquhart castle was also really good. And the Jacobite train is good if you’re a fan of Harry Potter (but if you aren’t it’s still cool). Edinburgh has lots to see (too much to see), Birmingham was cool, lot of stuff to see too. Warwick castle is a must see, it is in the top three of my “coolest castle I’ve visited so far list” (not that I have a list). And last Arundel castle, it was really cool (but expensive) the gardens were beautiful.
Andrew (10 years old)
Now I am going to do a small text about what I thought of the UK. I liked how much nature there was in some places, especially Scotland. Most of the castles were interesting. If you are looking for a place to go, I highly recommend the UK. The UK is beautiful. There are quite a few houses but not enough to beat nature.
Emma (9 years old, finally!)Læs mere
Back to Paris, France by Mel
3.–14. sep. 2025, Frankrig ⋅ 🌬 24 °C
We are back in Paris!
We are here because a certain someone (Emma!) wanted to have their birthday in Paris with their French family!
We arrived on the 3rd of September at the beginning of the evening, found our place, had a quick shop to buy pasta and cheese, then dinner and bed to get ready for the big day the following one.
Thursday the 4th of September, Emma turned 9!!! Halfway through childhood… That is going way to fast! Emma has grown a lot since the beginning of the gap year! She is still a child but on her way to becoming a pre-teenager. I am so not ready for that!
We started the day with cuddles, lots of them. Then pain a chocolat for breakfast. Our first stop of the day was the Illusion Museum, which was fun: it had lots of optic illusions, brain teasers and games. We had fun there. We finished a bit earlier than planned, so we walked around the area a bit, waiting for the time of our second stop of the day. It was lunch time, and we went to “l’auberge de Nicolas Flamel”. It is considered the oldest house in Paris, built in 1407, by Nicolas Flamel, a rich ‘bourgeois’, who may or may not have been an alchemist. He commissioned this house after the death of his wife, Pernelle: the ground floor was reserved for trades and the top floors for the poor. They could live there free under one condition, saying one “Ave Maria” and one “Pater Noster” for him and his wife every day.
Nowadays, there is a restaurant on the ground and first floors, owned by Alan Geaam, a star chef. I picked this restaurant, as Emma says they want to be a chef, and this place is renowned for its innovative cooking. We loved it there!
The food was delicious: creative, fun, colourful, so good! For the exact details of what we ate, you can go to Emma’s blog! The atmosphere was great and the service impeccable. We were made very comfortable and got told some of the history of the house. Every dish was explained to us. It was amazing. I truly loved the experience. They even asked us if we wanted to see the kitchen as I mentioned in my booking that Emma wanted to be a chef, but Emma got extremely shy when we went in the kitchen. The restaurant organised a small extra desert with a candle on it. Those touches were so lovely.
After this delicious meal, we went onto a treasure hunt. We had to pick up a bag with a book full of codes and pictures and clues and some tools to helps us. Some clues had to be found on the monuments and building in Paris. We had a map to follow which took us to 6 stops in the centre of Paris. It took us around 2 and a half hours to do the whole thing. We got a pin each when we successfully came back to the first spot with our final answer.
We finished the day at a karaoke for a couple of hours, singing our hearts out.
It was a marvellous day and a very special birthday. As I said to Emma, we can’t do that every year though!!! We made amazing memories.
The following day, we relaxed a bit and did some blogging. In the afternoon, we meet up with Celine, Thomas and their 3 kids. As always, even if they don’t speak the same language, the 5 kids get along so well, chasing each other, running together, building lego things and inventing games. It is always a pleasure to see Celine and Thomas and we are always sad to leave, as we never know when is the next time we will see them again.
On the 6th of September, we picked up my niece, Manon and her boyfriend Nathan, who came for the day in Paris. We visited Paris together, walking along the big monuments: the Pantheon, the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadero, the Champ Elysee… Paris is so beautiful, I will never get tired of it! It was great to spend the day with Manon and Nathan.
In the evening, we had dinner with those 2, my brother David and my uncle Franck and my aunt Bego for Emma’s birthday. This was the one thing Emma asked for: during the gap year, she wanted to do her birthday, with the French family, so we did. Emma picked a brasserie where they do banana juice, as it is one of Emma’s favourite and we had trouble finding it anywhere else! We had a great evening, chatting and catching up. It is always great catching up with the French mob and it fills my heart.
On the Sunday, we went to Asterix Park! It was a great day. Andrew is an adrenaline junkie and wanted to do all the massive rollercoasters, which Kev was very happy to oblige! Emma and I are a little more reserved on that side. We did a few (the less scary one) and even those were a bit scary! Emma pushed herself and even if she was scared, she was very brave and tried thing that were outside of what she would normally do, but she was also very capable of saying this one is too much, I’m not doing it! We were very proud of her!
We did water ride and got wet (lucky it was warm), we did quieter ride and enjoyed them too. It was a great day and again, more happy memories where made.
The only negative side were the waiting in the line: maybe next time we will take the skip the line tickets!
On Monday, we had a quiet day. This is what we are going to do this week, as we are trying to save a bit of money for the rest of the trip, and catch up on planning and schoolwork.
So on that day, we did Emma’s birthday interview: every year I asked the kids the same questions around their birthday and video the answers. I love listening to their answers. Emma this year, talked a lot about her brother, horses and sushi! When I asked Emma what she was proud about, she said: “my brother” and when I asked what she loved about herself, she said: “Me! And my personality”. Yes Emma, we love it too!
Then we spend the day blogging and resting.
Tuesday was more schoolwork. Then we walked in the park near where we stay, called La Villette. This is a ‘modern’ (more constructions than trees) park built around a river, where I used to go when I was a teenager and it was nice walking around.
We finished the day with a board game night, which we haven’t done for a while.
Wednesday was planning day for Kev and I, while the kids mixed blogging, schoolwork and reading books. We managed to book all the way up too beginning of December: Ecuador and Peru accommodations and plane tickets and tickets for Machu Picchu are booked! Yeah!!!
Thursday was a family day. Afternoon with my brother David. We went to put some flowers on my mum’s grave together and spent the rest of the day chatting and walking in the Park George Brassens, which I didn’t know before. It was a lovely one which a small lake in the middle and garden of herbs and overall a nice atmosphere.
We finished the day at Franck and Bego for dinner where we had a fantastic time, eating delicious food and having simply a wonderful family time. I didn’t want to leave! I looked at the time at some point and realised it was past midnight and we had to go! We ordered an Uber and went back to our place with 2 really sleepy kids!
Friday we sent some of the things we have been carried around for a while without using them and also the ‘few’ magnets we bought since the beginning of the trip. Our bags should be a bit lighter now!
We caught up for a coffee with my Dad and said goodbye as we are leaving in a couple of days.
Emma got a haircut after that: back to one of the haircut I love: half shaved on one side and long on the other. It suits her very well.
We spent the evening with Ben and Malika and their 2 beautiful children. Ben is a friend of mine from my teenage and young adult years (I don’t have too many of those!) and it is always nice to catch up. We had a lovely time and too soon, it was time to say goodbye again, which I really don’t like, as I never know when we will be back again.
Saturday, we changed some euros to US dollars, as it is what is used in Ecuador where we are going next! I always like to arrive with some local money already in our wallet, as by experience, ATMs at airport are pretty expensive. We had lunch out and came back to our place to rest and relax and played some video games. We have to have some lazy days!
Sunday the 14th of September is our last full day in Europe. We went for one last visit of my mum’s grave, did some blogging and spend the afternoon with David.
I went to have a couple of beers with Celine, catching up just the 2 of us, as we use to do many many years ago. Always a pleasure and one of the thing I miss the most when I am back in Australia. As always, I had to say goodbye again. Saying goodbye sucks.
Goodbye France! It was a pleasure catching up with all our friends and family. I love visiting France as it is a magnificent country with a lot to see. We did a bit in June when we came first, but there is so much more to do and discover. I loved visiting the ‘chateaux’ in the Loire area. Family and friends time were amazing. Catching up with everyone like we only saw each other a few weeks ago is always a pleasure. I will miss everyone and I wish Australia wasn’t that far from everywhere (Can someone move tectonic plates, or invent teletransportation, one or the other?).
I love Paris: yes there are a lot of people, and you are packed in the underground and there are buildings everywhere, but this was my first home and it feels comfortable and familiar. And Paris is beautiful, with so much to do. I think I will always miss it.
France is such an interesting place to see: history, art, fun and interesting places to go. The food is delicious: we love the simple sandwich baguette and also brasserie meals, simple but delicious. The experience at the Nicolas Flamel restaurant was amazing.
France we will be back… not sure when though.
Tomorrow we are on our way toward our next adventure: South America! We are starting in the Galapagos Island, which is going to be amazing!!!
We will see you there.
MelLæs mere
Back to Paris, France by Kev
3.–14. sep. 2025, Frankrig ⋅ 🌬 24 °C
3.9.2025. We got up, had some breakfast and packed our bags. We said our goodbyes, and Don drove us to Brighton so we could catch the train. We got train tickets and hopped on the train to London. We arrived, and waited. As usual we are very early, but that's better than being late. We were late for the Eurostar once already and it cost us a small fortune, not happening again. Our time came, we went through passport check and security, then boarded our train. I wasn't all that happy to leave the UK, but we had to go back to France for Emma's birthday, and of course to continue our trip. We got to Paris just before 8, and headed towards the metro. A couple shortish trips and we were at our new stay. We noticed a franprix (supermarket) near our stay. We dropped off our bags and headed back there to grab some pasta for dinner. That's it, dinner and bed, day done.
4.9.2025. IT'S EMMA'S BIRTHDAY!!!!! YAY!!!! Today started with snuggling the birthday girl, followed by a trip to a boulangerie for breakfast. Mel, as always, has outdone themselves, in regards to organising things. We hopped on the metro and headed towards an Illusion museum, YAY, Emma loves museums. This one was on the smaller side, but there was still fun to be had. Eye and mind trick stuff that started to give a headache, a spinning walking platform that really did my head in, and some games stuff to really mess with ya melon. Emma was very happy to work out a puzzle, that becomes a pyramid, from wooden blocks. Next? Well now it's time for lunch. We walked to our next stop, a building in a small street. Apparently the oldest building in Paris, and the home of Nicolas Flamel, renowned French alchemist. It's now a restaurant, a somewhat expensive one, but not completely out of our range. I think we had 6 courses, all small, but by the end no-one was hungry. There was a glass centre piece, with what was obviously a “philosophers stone” in the middle of it. What we didn't know was that it was actually butter. All the food was delicious, Andrew even ate cucumber, and that doesn't just happen, that's a miracle. We talked with the very friendly staff, and it came up that Emma wanted to be a chef. We were then invited into the kitchen to meet the head chef and staff. Andrew got to eat a zucchini flower stuffed with fish. He gave me a taste, bloody good. Then we got a photo with everyone. At the end, when we got our dessert, Emma also got an extra with a candle to blow out. Mel had mentioned that it was her birthday when booking. It was poached peach and vanilla cream, and while I didn't try it, Emma said it was fantastic. Emma offered, I just declined. All in all, it was a very nice experience. Next up was another short walk over to a place that sells games. More importantly, games that have you walk around parts of Paris, looking at landmarks and working out puzzles and riddles to find clues and answers. Another great activity that both kids really enjoyed. I enjoyed walking and watching them. Trying to work out the map, finding things on buildings and working out the answers. Mel would put the answers into an app they downloaded, with the hopes of a reward at the end. It occupied us for around 3 hours, and took us to some nice parts of Paris (near the shop). What do we do to finish the night? Karaoke of course! Emma loves to sing, and once locked in a small room by ourselves, so do the rest of us. We had an awesome evening singing and dancing with each other. Two hours flew by in no time. We made our way back to our stay, and we stayed up and watched some tv. Emma said she had a really good day, I know I did.
5.9.2025. We spent the day blogging and planning the next part of the trip. Throw some food in there somewhere and a few coffees. In the evening we made our way over to meet Celine and the kids at a park near their home. The kids played, and Mel and Celine chatted. After that we went to their place, ate pizza and talked a lot more. The kids can't talk to each other, but that never stops them. Kids games are universal, and improvisation a necessity. We said goodbye and headed back on the metro.
6.9.2025. After breakfast, we headed for the train station at Gare Montparnasse to pick up Manon and Nathan. They have come over for Emma's birthday. We spent the day with them, walking around Paris. Got sandwiches and ate them sitting in a park, then walked around Paris some more, visiting the Arc de Triomphe and walking along the Champs-Élysées. We stopped in the afternoon for some refreshments at a brasserie Mel used to visit a lot. After that we made our way over to Emma's favourite brasserie for dinner, the one that stocks banana juice. Decent food, some nice drinks and plenty of conversation. Emma got a couple nice small things and a little bit of money as gifts, and afterwards we went back to our flat. As Manon and Nathan are staying with us, all 4 of us crammed onto the sofa bed. Not very comfortable, but it worked.
7.9.2025. Mel got up early with Manon and Nathan and walked them to the metro. Mel came back with breakfast from the boulangerie. Soon after that our uber was here to pick us up. Where to? You might ask. Well, to Asterix Parc of course. Once inside we looked around a bit before the gates opened. Andrew bought some coins with Asterix, Obelix and the dog on them. Once inside we first did some water rides, that's what I want first up, to get wet. There's a fair few people here, so we had to line up for the rides a bit. We did a couple we all wanted to do, then Andrew and I lined up for a rollercoaster. The Toutatis! You go up, almost over the big drop, then go backwards, up a big ramp. Then you get accelerated back down and up over the big drop. This isn't just any drop, it goes back underneath itself, so you're kinda hanging upside down a bit. Andrew and I were the front two people. When you lined up, you could choose where you wanted to be on the rollercoaster. Andrew said if we're gonna do it let's be at the front, so that's what we did. The view was pretty cool and it was a different experience going over the top, a little bit past straight down. We built speed quickly and raced around corners and through corkscrews. 45min of waiting and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Would 100% recommend. We did a few other smaller rides, then Andrew and I lined up for another rollercoaster. This one does 5 loop the loops and several barrel rolls. Once again, we waited. But it was worth it, I was a bit worried Andrew might be stepping too far over the line. But as usual he surpassed my thinking of his limits. We then did another ride Mel wanted to do, yes another water one. It was fun, and I really didn't get very wet. Unlike a guy across from me, he got soaked. We then went on another rollercoaster, all 4 of us. Emma was doing ok, but then it changed and went backwards. She got chucked around a fair bit and that freaked her out and she got a bit upset. We did a few smaller, calmer rides after that, before deciding we would go on the oldest ride here, Zeus's something or other. I can't remember the name, but it was celebrating its 35th birthday. Oh yeah, it's also made from wood. Even though you have seen lots of people ride it, that's still a little unsettling. Emma said they didn't want to do it, but the line was long and she changed her mind a dozen times while getting closer to it. We watched it, thinking it's not that fast, she'll be ok. At the last point, while we were lined up to hop on, she said “NOPE”. Mel told the lady organising the people and when the ride got here for us to have our go, Mel and Emma just walked through the car and kept on going out the other side. Are you sure Em? We're not lining up again. “YEP”!. Andrew and I got locked in, a very snug fit. We left the main area and headed towards the climb. We were going pretty quick up the climb and for a while, how big was this drop? We saw on our way up we dropped down through an open mouth. We went over the top, and dropped! Holy shit! Flat stick we went through this mouth, over a hump just out the other side. I know why they secure you in nice and tight, it felt like you were gonna fly out going over the hump. Then around a corner at break neck speed, back over I don't know how many humps and turns and twists. All the while it's rattling like mad, my eyes had trouble focusing. It seemed to last longer than all the previous rollercoasters. Finally it came to a sudden stop, and the madness had finished. I know I swore a fair bit, Andrew may have learned a few new words. I checked on him. He's ok, just dumbfounded by what we just went through. To sum it up in a few small words, I would say, brutal, exhilarating, chaotic and exhausting. Not what I was expecting. We thought, oh for sure they have made rollercoasters more thrilling now than they did 35 years ago. I was wrong. Yeah maybe it didn't have any loops or barrel rolls, maybe it didn't go backwards at some point. It didn't need to. From start to finish you had to hold on and got chucked around and rattled to pieces. I think the first thing I said was, “I'm glad Emma didn't do that”. We settled down with another slower ride. Emma and Mel got an ice-cream, while Andrew and I lined up for one more go on the rollercoaster that went backwards. It got picked as the app said it had the shortest line. After that it was 7pm, we'd spent the whole day here. We went out and waited for our uber to pick us up. The kids fell asleep a bit on the way back. We grabbed some pasta from a small place that was still open for dinner, then we all hit the sack.
8.9.2025. We started the day the way we have been for most of this stay, Mel went and got breakfast from a boulangerie. The kids then blogged some, while Mel and I planned and booked more of our trip to South America. Well Mel mostly, I sorta sit there and grab coffees and remember to make lunch. Mel and Emma did Emma's birthday interview, a traditional Mel has done for every birthday for lots of years now. Afterwards we just slobbed it for the rest of the day, finishing the night with boardgames.
9.9.2025. French breakfast again, then the kids got some schoolwork done. We planned a little more, then I pretended to get some blogging done. We went for a walk through La Villette, a park area not far from us and where Mel used to spend a lot of time when they were younger. I enjoyed the walk and just being with my family. When we don't have to be somewhere or have to do something. When we can slow down and just be together. I get that we're not in Paris often, so we try to cram in as much as possible. I have enjoyed myself while I have been here. I do like having nothing to do as well. So the kids can just play, and we can talk if we want. I know Mel has a lot going on with being back here, plus all the planning that still needs to happen, plus other shit that comes up. I know they would like to move back here, and that it weighs heavily on them, knowing we will be leaving soon. Sometimes I think, why not. Why shouldn't we live here? I used to have the answers, now I don't know what to do. I don't like being around this many people, all the time. I also don't want to leave behind family and friends. Something Mel did when choosing to stay with me, so I feel selfish. I wish the world was smaller, and that France and Australia weren't so far apart. I do feel that I would always be running somewhere here, and would have less time with my favourite people. Time is something I can't buy and can't replace. So it is extra special. I'm happy to be spending all of my time with my family this year, but that can't last. For the moment we're still doing our trip, so I'll enjoy that the best I can for the time it lasts.
10.9.2025. Today was not very exciting, for the kids at least. They blogged, Mel and I booked tickets to Machu Picchu. So that was kinda cool. We have almost everything booked for South America. That's pretty much all we did today.
11.9.2025. The usual morning, bit of a sleep in, French breakfast then blog and plan. In the afternoon we met up with tonton David and we hopped on the metro. When we got off, it was peeing down. We ran for the closest brasserie and grabbed a coffee to wait out the rain. The rain slowed and we ventured back out again. We walked through some parks, saw ducks and other birds. We came across a herd/flower garden in the park and enjoyed smelling everything. We couldn't pinpoint what was making a nice smell we all thought was a little like curry, though we tried. After that we walked over to Franck and Bego’s, Mel's uncle and aunt. We chatted, had some drinks and a lovely dinner cooked by Bego. Andrew loved it, lots of meat. Before we knew it, it was after midnight. We better get back to our stay. David hopped on a tram and we booked an uber. A quick trip home and straight to bed.
12.9.2025. Despite our best efforts, we've collected more stuff than we were supposed to. So two boxes, one 7kg the other 3kg, are headed back to Australia(mostly magnets). I haven't repacked my bag yet, but I'm sure it will be a lot easier now. I made pasta with pesto for lunch, still better than anything I got in Italy. I have become very fond of pesto Rosso, which is basil pesto with tomatoes in it. Really bloody good. In the afternoon we went back to Emma's favourite brasserie and met with Jean for a coffee and to say our goodbyes. Emma obviously had another banana juice. Afterwards we went for a bit of a walk, looking for a hairdresser. Emma wants to get her hair cut, why not. After a long and exhausting search, about 20min, we settled on one. Andrew and I had a quick walk then sat down at a brasserie for a beer. Which just happened to be right beside the hairdresser. When Emma was finished, they came next door. Mel grabbed a wine, I gave Em a compliment and ordered another beer. It was starting to get late-ish and we had somewhere to be. We had a long stop at ALDI to get some nibblies, bloody slow service. We made it to Benoit and Malika’s a little later than planned, but still in time for dinner. Mel has known Benoit since they were teenagers, and they always keep in touch. We had a nice evening, meeting their new baby and seeing how much their son has grown in three years. Of course it got late quickly, that's what happens when you talk. We walked back in a light drizzle, brushed our teeth and went to bed.
13.9.2025. The usual morning again. Today we are looking to exchange some money to US dollars, because that's what they use in Ecuador. We found somewhere that could help us out, near Gare du Nord. Only they don't take international cards, great. Off to the ATM, then back to the exchange. $1000 secured, which won't last long as we need to pay for all the accommodation in cash, but it's a start. We found a nice little brasserie for lunch. Andrew and I had steak, Emma ordered something out of the ordinary for herself, lasagna! Change it up a bit you know. After lunch we looked for a new small carry bag for Mel, as the last one has karked it. We found one they like and headed back to the apartment, stopping on the way to grab some pasta and chicken for dinner. Which was a huge success, the kids destroyed everything. We watched a movie, Hotel Transilvania, which had them cacking themselves. Time for bed.
14.9.2025. Today we didn't do much. Breakfast, then another visit to Mamie Chris. When we got back everyone was blogging. Despite having time this week we still haven't managed to catch up on our blog. We stopped for lunch then back into it. In the afternoon, David came over for a visit and to drop off some waterproof jackets. We think we're going to need them in South America. He stayed for a while before we said our goodbyes. Mel went out for a drink and a chat with their friend Celine and I made dinner for the kids. We're all packed and somewhat ready for our next stop, the Galapagos islands.
KevLæs mere
Back to Paris, France by the kids
3.–14. sep. 2025, Frankrig ⋅ 🌬 24 °C
On the 4th it was Emma’s birthday, we started the day by having a nice breakfast and then we went to the first thing of the day, an illusion museum. There were lots of cool illusions, and it was really interesting, after that we went to a restaurant. the restaurant we went to is in what they consider as the oldest house in Paris and the restaurant is called Nicolas Flamel. It is called that way because when Nicolas Flamel was alive he lived there, the restaurant is famous for the way they present the food, mum ordered a course that had 7 dishes, first bite, second bite, starter, main meal, cheese plater, desert and second desert, yummy. On the table there was a fake philosopher stone (because Nicolas Flamel is known to have searched for the philosopher stone). Now I will tell you what we had, first bite was a little thing that had zucchini at the bottom, and a zucchini cream with a delicious fried zucchini at the top. Second bite was one of my favourites ones because it was delicious and because when we got it served the waiter took the glass case of the philosopher stone and said, “your butter” and it was true, when we cut into it, it was butter. Second bite was a nice still slightly warm brioche and with it there was a beautiful cucumber sauce, it was the only time that I ever willingly ate cucumber, it was yum. Starter was some black berries on grilled leak with some different sauces around it, this one wasn’t my favourite. Next one was the main meal and there was a small-ish piece of meat with a really nice gravy and another sauce too, there was also a nicely fried butternut pumpkin piece. Desert was a thing that had Meringue and ice cream and sugar, it was really good. The last thing is second desert, and it had some little jelly things and biscuits, they were a nice finisher. After that we went to a place where we got to go on a treasure hunt thing and solve clues and stuff, we got to walk all around Paris, it was really fun, and we saw some cool stuff. When we got to the end we got a badge and then we went to Emma’s last thing, it was a karaoke place, we had quite a lot of fun there, they had some snacks too. We sung for a while and then when our timer ran out we went back home watched a movie and went to sleep.
On the 5th we did blog for most of the day and then in the afternoon we met with Celine and Thomas, mum and dad talked (they always do), while me and Emma played with the other kids, Theophile, Heloise and Timothe. We played with them for a while then we went home and went to sleep.
On the 6th we went to the train station to pick up Manon and Nathan, they came here for a family dinner for Emma’s birthday. We went to a park with them and then we went to a brasserie with other people from our family and we had dinner there. Tonton David (Uncle David in English) gave us a little packet of 50 mini bombs, me and Emma got on each, when we walked back we used them all as quick as we could, when we got home we went to sleep.
On the 7th we went to Asterix parc, it was really cool the first thing we went on was a water ride and it was pretty fun, we went down a big drop and there was squirting water. After that we went to another water ride but this one was bigger and we were in a log, we went down an even bigger drop, it was awesome, and then we went on a ride called la trace du hourra, and it is a roller coaster that has no rails it just rolls really fast and it is really fun, there’s lots of drops and other stuff. Then we went on Toutatis, its another huge roller coaster that had a big thing where you go up really high and then you go down fast on the other side, it was my favourite one and it’s the most famous roller coaster in France. After that we went on another roller coaster that is called Pegasus express, it went forward and was pretty fun and then it went backwards, fast. And then guess what we did next, we went on another roller coaster that was called Goudurix and there were five loop-de-loops, it was really cool. Then we went to Tonner 2 Zeus, it is the oldest and roller coaster in Asterix parc, and it was still made out of wood, there was an enormous line. When we were right at the front of the line and then Emma got to scared and bailed out and Emma made the right choice. It was the roughest ride yet, it was the roughest ride I’ve ever done in my life, Emma’s got scared on other rides then this one would have terrified her, but even though it was rough it was awesome. After that, the park was going to close soon so me and dad went to line up for the Pegasus Express one more time and we got in just on time. After that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 7th we did more blogging (boo) and then I went to sleep (yay).
On the 8th we did more, BLOODY, SCHOOLWOK!!!!!! And then slept.
On the 9th What did we do more schoolwork. Then, after that we went to walk on the Villette, it was nice, then we came home and did a board game night and then we slept.
On the 10th we did more blog and then went to sleep.
On the 11th we did stuff in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to see Tonton David, mum talked to him and then we went to Frank and Bego’s place, adults talked while me and Emma watched TV. It was past midnight when we left, then when we got home we went to sleep.
On the 12th we did more stuff in the morning and then we saw papy jean, we talked (I mean mum talked) to papy jean, then we went to mum’s old school friend Ben, we stayed there for dinner and then we went home and slept.
On the 13th we didn’t do much all we did was just go out to lunch and then we went to a place I know as the bed and then we went to sleep.
Now this is a sum up on France, it’s been nice to see family and Asterix parc was fun, I’ve seen people I’ve never seen in my life, I liked it, now to sum up this sum up, I’ve liked France altogether.
Andrew (10 year old)
On the 3rd we took the Eurostar to Paris. We settled into our new room.
On the 4th it was my birthday. It made me feel happy and sad. I was happy that I was nine, but sad that I was halfway through childhood. We had a French breakfast. Then we went to an illusion museum. There was stuff that showed you can’t always trust your eyes. There was a bridge that had stuff spinning around it and you could walk through it. it looked like you were spinning so your body pushed you over to one side. It was cool. Then we went to a really expensive restaurant called Nicolas Flamel. There was a first bite. Which was all zucchini. There was fried zucchini, raw zucchini and other types of zucchini. I didn’t like that one too much. Then we had our second bite which was fermented cucumber in cucumber sauce with a nice warm brioche. The brioche was delicious, and the cucumber wasn’t bad either. In harry potter someone is called Nicolas Flamel and he had a stone called the philosopher stone. It was said to make you live forever and guess what. There was a fake philosopher stone which was actually butter. Then we had our starter which had cheese at the bottom then onion, blackberries and blackberry mayonnaise. I made a combination with the onion, blackberries and the blackberry mayonnaise. It was good. Then we had our main meal. Me, Andrew and dad had a delicious medium rare steak. Mum had a dish with carrots, sweet and sour mousse, peas and apricots. Mums looked nice. Then we had cheese. There were four different types of cheese. Then we took a trip to kitchen. It was cool getting to watch the chefs. I was a bit shy. Andrew tried a fish filled flower that looked good. I was too shy to try it. Then we had dessert. It was a cake that had four layers. One was pure sugar, one was ice cream, and the third one was méringue, but I don’t remember what the fourth one was. It was one of the best cakes I ever had. Mum had told them that it was my birthday, so they had prepared a cake for me. It was poached peach with vanilla cream. THAT was nice. Then we had another dessert. There were fruit cakes and some biscuits. Yum. Then we went on a treasure hunt around the city. We were back in the first world war. We had to find clues that would help us find out the secret weapon of that war. The secret thing wasn’t really a weapon though. It was actually a machine that helped save people’s lives. It was a really fun treasure hunt. Then we went to a karaoke place where I sung my throat out. It was so fun. I really enjoyed singing. They brought some food and drinks, and my throat was aching after we left. It was the best day ever.
On the 5th we blogged all morning and went to meet Celine, Thomas and the three kids, Theophile, Heloise and Timothe. We went to their place, and I tried my first ever quill (it isn’t that hard to write with a quill). It was really fun there and I did not want to leave.
On the 6th we picked up Manon and Nathan. Then we walked around Paris with them. My back got sun burnt because I was wearing a dress that was not sun safe whatsoever. Then we had dinner with the French family. David gave me sunglasses, money, fifty miny bombs each (Andrew and I) and a bracelet. I got another bracelet from tata Manue and Marie-Claude. When we were going home, me and Andrew used all fifty of our bombs. It was fun to throw them and watch it explode as it hit the ground.
On the 7th we visited Asterix park. we got there before it opened so we explored the Gaul village a bit. There was a boar toy, and I asked mum if I could have him and mum said maybe later. When it opened there was a big rush to get in. we did lots of rides and I am very angry that I let my inner self roam free. There was this ride called the Pegasus, and it was terrifying. It started going forward then faster and faster, then it stopped in a little house. Then started going backwards really fast. When the ride stopped, I had tears in my eyes. It was a really fun day. When we were heading to an ice cream place in Asterix park we saw a shop that had a boar, and I got one. I named him blacktop because he has a black fringe. When mum was waiting to get our ice creams, I saw a show were there were romans, and they would get someone from the crowd to beat one of romans. There was also a stadium where you could see people jumping off high boards and land in a pool.
On the 8th we did blog and my birthday interview.
On the 9th we did schoolwork then walked on the La Vilette. We played on some playgrounds. After that we had a boardgame night.
On the 10th we did blog while mum and dad planned.
On the 11th we spent the afternoon with David and then had dinner at Frank and Begos place. Me and Andrew watched some TV and ate lollies. We got back home around 1 am the next morning.
On the 12th we sent a post box back to Australia. Then we saw Papy Jean in the afternoon. Then I got my hair cut. I got one side shaved and the other long. Then we had dinner at Bens place. There were two kids. One was nine-month-old, and the other one was three. We played with Solal who was three and when we were leaving, he seemed tired.
On the 13th we changed euros into American money. Then we had lunch at a restaurant. I got lasagna.
On the 14th we visited Mamy Chris’ grave. Then we blogged. Then we spent the afternoon with David.
We are going to the Galapagos next. See you there.
I really enjoyed having my birthday in France. France is a beautiful place and the French are really good cooks.
Emma (finally 9 years old)Læs mere
From Paris to the Galapagos, Ecuador
15.–16. sep. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
Buenos dias!
We are in Ecuador in South America. New continent for us!
This blog will be short but I still wanted to write it to help if some of you want to go to Ecuador and especially the Galapagos Island, as we discovered some things that can be useful.
Monday the 15th of September, we woke up early, got in the Uber I booked the day before. No trouble getting to the airport, we arrived nice and early as usual. And that was a good thing.
We went to check in our bags, but no, first we needed to print our boarding passes and tags to put on our bags first. It is not done by the people working there anymore, we had to do it ourselves at a machine. As we checked in online beforehand, I sometimes wonder what is left to do by the people working there, but anyway.
We print everything: the boarding pass are on thin paper and we will find out that some of them won’t work properly as it is not well printed but well.
We finally get to the counter to check our bags but got told that we need proof that we will be leaving the country. I had read about that, and I, naively, thought that having booked accommodation in Peru and having our flight from Peru booked would be enough… well it is not. They need a proof that we have a flight or a bus leaving Ecuador. Crap! We get away from the line and jumped on our phones to try to book a bus leaving from our last place in Ecuador to our first place in Peru: we were planning on booking it when we got there, but we are now desperately trying to get tickets online, except that we found nothing online. Nothing at all. I have to admit: I got extremely stressed and probably got pretty rude to the kids and Kev, as I really struggled with those kind of situations. I’m sorry guys! I start looking a plane tickets and find some from Quito to Lima (which is not at all what we are planning on doing) but at that point, I didn’t care. I bought them with the cancel anytime option and we’ll figure that out later.
We get back in the line to check our bags and this time, we get through, showing our tickets to leave Ecuador.
From there pretty easy: regular flight, around 10 hours. The kids watched so many movies, me too, I slept a bit, Kev too. We get headaches.. normal plane things.
We got one stop in Bogota, Colombia for a couple of hours, then onto our next flight for Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We arrive at the airport pretty tired, Emma especially (she fell asleep in the second plane, but it was not long enough). We got though passport control pretty quick. We got a taxi picking us up at the airport to take us to an hotel nearby.
We arrived and the kids get excited as there are llamas and alpacas in front of the hotel! That is cool! It was around 6pm, local time, which means something like 11pm in France where we came from, so we are tired. We ordered some food to eat in our room. Emma falls asleep before we got to order food, so we let her sleep. She’ll eat tomorrow.
While waiting for our food, I jumped online to cancel the plane tickets we bought in the morning and found out that yes, you can cancel anytime, but you lose the extra money you paid for that option, which in that case was $437 (aussie dollar). Great. I’m sure there was a better thing I could have done, but in the panic of the morning, I didn’t think about anything else.
We ate our food and jumped in bed. We need to get up early the next morning to get our plane to the Galapagos!
Wake up around 5.30pm, as the taxi is picking us up at 6am. We arrived at the airport, got through security with no issue. We found a place to have breakfast: it is expensive, but it is in an airport, so we knew that.
We knew that when arriving in the Galapagos, we will have to pay 200US$ per adult and 100US$ for each kids as an entry fee to the Galapagos national park. Kev was looking at that again on his phone for some reason and came across something else we needed, which we didn’t know about. Something called TCC (or TCT in Spanish), this is Transit Control Card. It needs to be done online before taking a plane to the Galapagos. And here is the panic mode again. I frantically get onto the website on my phone (which by the way, I hate doing this kind of things on, as my finger can not type on a phone, I’m much better on my computer). I entered all the information for the 4 of us: name, passport number, address, email, phone, where we stay in the Galapagos, for how long, ticket number of our entry flight (you know the 12 numbers long one), ticket number of our leaving flight (another 12 numbers long one), who my second cousin third time remove is… (I’m kidding for the last one!). When I get on the payment page, because of course you have to pay for that as well (20US$ each), I entered the wrong card number and press back (like a newby) and… I had to do all of it again…. I cried, I won’t lie! I entered everything again and we get our email confirming we have our TCCs! Yeah… I’m exhausted!!!!
But well we are good to go. I wolfed down my food that is now cold in front of me and we go to the gate to get into our plane, finally on our way to the Galapagos.
To sum up, if you want to go to the Galapagos Island, you need: a proof you are exiting the country (plane or bus ticket leaving from Ecuador), your TCC which cost 20US$ to do online beforehand and when you arrive on the Island, 200US$ in cash (no card payment) per person (100US$ for kids under 12 I think).
See you in our next blog, in the Galapagos!
Mel
15.9.2025. Up early and make sure everything is packed. Downstairs to an uber waiting to take us to the airport. We got there nice and early and found the flight details on the big TV board thing. It was time to check our bags so we lined up for that. The guy said in French to Mel, have you got your boarding passes yet? No, that's why we're lining up. So at the airport in Paris, you have to go to a machine first, where you print out your own boarding passes and luggage tags. Fine, let's do that. That's done, let's line up to check our bags. The guy asks Mel, what's our flight number out of Ecuador. None, we plan on taking a bus to Peru. Oh, do you have the number for the bus? We can't get on our flight until we give this guy a bus number. Right, let's book a bus then. We get out of the line and move aside. Then we start looking for bus companies in Ecuador that can take us to Peru. There is a few, but none that book that far in advance. A little bit of panic is starting to set in now. Mel had the idea to just book flights that we can cancel anytime. At least we will get to Ecuador. That move worked, but we later found it would cost us close to $500 to cancel. Anyway, we lined up again. This time the guy says your bag is oversized. What, these bags have been all over the world and this has never been an issue. Now we're starting to get pissed off. Turns out it's because of the straps, once again, never been an issue before. All we had to do was take it to the oversize counter, so no real big issue in the end, just more frustration. We got on the plane, and 10 hours later landed in Bogota, Colombia. Had a quick changeover and we're on our way to Ecuador. We landed in Quito, the capital. It was about 5pm local time and our next flight wasn't until 9 the next morning. We weren't going to spend that long in the airport, so Mel had booked us a room at a hotel near the airport. We taxied to the hotel, booked in and paid. I pointed out to the kids that there were Lama's or alpacas over in a pen. Once we'd dropped the bags they went straight out to have a look. I ordered some dinner for everyone, except Emma, she was already asleep. Not long after we were all asleep. The next morning came quickly. We hopped into another taxi we'd organised the day before and headed back to the airport. This time it's a short flight, out to the…. Galapagos Islands!!! 2 hours later we landed in the Galapagos. Off the plane and head over to customs. No need to check our passports, though it wouldn't have surprised me if they did. The only thing they checked for was that we had filed for the TCC, the transit control card. Not a physical card, no no. Something once filled out and paid for, you just download. That was another $80usd we hadn't planned on spending, but there you go. Move slightly to your left and talk to the next person. Pay the $600usd national park entrance fee, $200 each for Mel and I and $100 each for the kids. There was a breakdown of where all that money is supposed to go, I can't remember all that. I do remember it saying that 40% of it is meant to come back to the Galapagos to help with its conservation. We would later learn from more than one guide, that basically none of it comes back to the Galapagos. Almost all of the money stays in Quito. After the airport, we hopped on a bus to the ferry, $15. The Little ferry, $1 each, took us across the water, around 200 metres and dropped us off on the other side. Where we hopped on another bus to take us to Puerto Ayora, the town we're staying in. We walked for 20mins from the bus stop to our stay and checked in. Not completely happy with what we got, it's not as exactly as advertised. Mel mentioned it to the owner who later came back and gave Mel the password for the faster wifi, yay! It has a decent shower and 3 double beds. An outside eating area and kitchen that we thought we had to share but is apparently all ours. So we have a fridge, stove, coffee machine and microwave. We're here for two weeks, so we're hoping to unpack and set up a bit, but there is basically no drawer space or cupboards, so the bags are sitting on the ground as we have done all year so far. After a bit of a rest, we went out and saw some of the city. We saw our first sea lion and our first iguana. Then we decided we would grab some food at a cheap restaurant for dinner. It cost us $20usd for dinner, it was cheap, it was simple, but it was tasty. Back to the stay and into bed. The whole trip was only a bit more than a day and a half, it's now the 16th, but because of the rotation of the earth it took a lot longer. We went back in time 16 hours or something like that. Anyway, we're knackered.
KevLæs mere
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador by Mel
16.–22. sep. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
Hello from the Galapagos Island,
We arrive here on the 16th of September and we are staying for 2 weeks.
We landed here from Quito, paid our $US600 to be able to enter the Galapagos national park, which is pretty much the whole of the archipelagos. On entrance, it was written that 40% come back here to help with preservation, but we later learned that it has been a few years since any money came back from Quito to the Galapagos. I was happy to pay to help preserve the place, I am not so happy to pay whatever the government in Quito think is better.
We got out of the airport, jumped on a bus which took us to a small canal, jumped onto a boat to get to other side of it then another bus to arrive in Puerto Ayora, the main town of the Santa Cruz island, where we booked a place to stay.
We found our place. It is not quite what we expected, but it will do. As we are staying here for 2 weeks, I wanted somewhere where we could empty our bags a bit and have some space. In the description it was saying a living room and a separate bedroom, which is not the case. We have a big bedroom with all the beds in it but no separate living room. There is an outside area but it is shared with the rest of the place. The kitchen is also outside and pretty minimal. Well, we will adapt!
We settled and then went to have a look at the town. We are on Santa Cruz, one of the main islands of the Galapagos Islands.
A bit of information about the Galapagos Islands: they are located 900km west of the mainland in the Eastern Pacific and are right on the equator, with the norther islands being in the northern hemisphere and the southern islands in the southern hemisphere. They are volcanic islands and the group consists of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets. They are located on the Nazca tectonic plate and are moving with that plate toward the east at a rate of around 6cm a year. They are also located over a magma chamber which explain the number of volcanos of the area.
There is no proof of indigenous life in the island. The lack of fresh water probably explains why nobody lived there permanently. Ecuador claimed the Islands in 1832 and encourage people to start living there. Prior to that, those islands were mainly used by pirates. It was also where Charles Darwin in the 1830s, got more proofs for his theory of evolution. He stayed here for a few weeks and studied the birds and the difference between their beaks, how they evolved to adapt to the type of food they could find. There are a fair few things that are called Darwin something here (streets, bird, flowers…).
After settling in we went in town, called Puerto Ayora, to have a look around. While walking here, it is very common to see a lot of wildlife. Sea lions, Iguana, birds are part of the everyday life. Sea lions resting on a bench is a common sight! Iguanas are everywhere warming up on the ground or rocks. That is pretty cool to see. The town is lovely. The shorefront is touristic but still nice to walk around. There is a lot of painting on the walls, fountains with tortoise and sea lions sculptures. When walking on the pier, you can see sarks, turtle, ray in the water… Overall a nice place to spend some time. When you get away a bit from the touristic area, you can see how the people live here. Most of the houses seem to be still in construction. We found out later, when chatting with one of our guide, that people don’t like banks, so they don’t borrow money from them: instead they save a bit, when they have enough to do something on their house, they do it and wait to save more to keep adding. That explain why a lot of the house are looking that way!
For dinner, we found a small restaurant with simple but tasty food, for $5 each.
Wednesday morning, we did some schoolwork as it has been a while!! It is getting harder and harder to get Andrew and Emma to work. I’m not sure how well it is going to go when we are back to regular school. We’ll have to see!
Then we went to the closest beach and had a splash around. Andrew and Emma practiced snorkelling as we booked a tour for the following day.
On the beach, people are sharing the space with sea lions resting on the white sand. The water is a beautiful blue and the contrast with the black volcanic rock is amazing. The landscapes and colours are fantastic.
After our swim we went in town to do some grocery shopping and we stopped at one of the bar to taste a few local beers and play some board games (I always have a few in my bag).
Relaxing evening and bed not too late as we are starting early the next day.
Our first tour in the Galapagos. We are going to Santa Fe island. This is a smaller island east of Santa Cruz. We took a boat for around one hour to get there. Emma loved the waves! We did three different stops around the island. I’m not going to lie, the water was cold! It is not the best season for swimming, but as we are here, we’ll do it! I think the water was around 18 degrees, so a bit of a shock when you jump in! Emma had a small panic attack when she jumped in, as she didn’t like the feeling of the flippers. I did not handle it great (I was struggling to adjust to the cold and did not manage to keep my cool, pun intended), Kev did a much better job and Emma swam with him for the rest of the tours in the Galapagos. We saw a lot of animals: lots of colourful fish, some sea lions playing in the water, turtles, it was great!
The kids did the first snorkelling, but Andrew doesn’t do well in cold water, so I brought him back to the boat before the end of the first swim, a little bit later Kev brought Emma back to the boat as she was too cold to! Then they didn’t do the second swim as they didn’t want to get cold anymore, but still manage to see some fish and sea lions from the boat as the water is pretty clear. They came back in the water for the 3rd swim and saw the turtles.
It was a great first tour and we enjoyed seeing all the animals.
Friday the 19th of October, we did a bit more schoolwork and blogging, then went in town to book more tours for the rest of the 2 weeks. We found a tour agency called Evolving tour, owned by Andres. We booked all our tours with him as they are good value and he seemed well organised (more than the last one).
In the afternoon, he took us to the tortoise breeding centre located on Santa Cruz. Most of the big Island have a tortoise breeding centre, as the introduction of different animal over the last 400 years have damaged greatly the population of tortoise. For example, goats were introduced and started eating a lot of what the tortoise were eating, leaving very little for the tortoises. They managed to remove that threat in the 2000s and it now not a problem, but the damage was done. Rats, pigs and cats are still an issue. When tortoises are under 6 or 7 years old, their shell is pretty soft and this is when they are the most vulnerable. This is why people, find the eggs of tortoise and keep them safe. The tortoises grow for the first 5 to 7 years in the centre and then, when their shell is strong enough and there is less risk for them to be eaten by something, they are released in the wild. They are always release on the island and near the place the egg was found. They are marked a different colour, depending on where they were found.
We saw some tiny little not even one year old tortoises and a few very old and massive ones. The old ones are there, as they were found here and use to being hand fed when they open the centre. Those won’t be released, but all the ones born in the centre now are being release in the wild as they are moved into almost wild area when they get older and know how to find food.
I love the face of the tortoises: they are cute and funny, and it looks like they are wondering what the hell are you doing here, taking pictures and looking at them! They look wise for some reason, maybe because they move so slowly and look old. I’m not sure, but I love just watching them.
In the evening, we found our favourite restaurant. It was delicious and cheap! Andrew and Kev ordered ribs with rice. It was massive and even Andrew couldn’t finish! Emma got chicken kebab type thing and she loved it. I got some cooked banana and some veggie kebab that was delicious!!! There was also a very lovely and adorable dog, which sat next to us (hoping for food obviously, which he didn’t get). Emma called him Peyes (for Puppy Eyes).
On Saturday the 20th, we saw more adult giant tortoise. We went with Andres to the El Chato Ranch. This is a private land where they dig to have water for the tortoise and have the right condition for them to hang around. The tortoises are free to come and go. The day before we saw mainly baby and young tortoises, but this time they were big one! They can live up to 200 years old and weight up to 250kg.
Each island has different species of tortoise: they all adapted to the difference in the food where they live; for example, where the food is higher in the tree, the tortoises shells is more like a saddle back to allow the neck to stretch higher. Where the food is lower to the ground, the shell is more closed and rounder. There are other differences, but those are the easy one to see. All the species are either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable, with a few species now extinct.
We also visited a small lave tube. As I said before, the Galapagos Island are volcanic, but they are not explosive volcanoes. The lava flow slowly, which cause the outside to cool down, but allowing the lave inside to keep flowing, which create lava tunnels.
After that, we went to visit Los Gemelos (the twin craters) located in the highland of Santa Cruz, which are sink holes formed after some massive lava tunnel collapsed over a millions years ago. It is now two big ‘craters’ full with lush vegetation and where you can spot some endemic (only seen here) birds. I really enjoyed this walk: the main colour here is green! Everywhere, some moss and lichens on the trees make the scene fairylike. This was a lovely tour.
On Sunday, we did mostly nothing! A rest day! We did took a walk in town, found another cheap but delicious lunch. And that was it for the day.
Monday we went to Isabela Island. This is the biggest island of the archipelago. Isabela Island has six volcanoes on it and 5 of them are active.
To get there, we took a ferry for a couple of hours. Then when we arrived, we jumped on a smaller boat to get to the Islote Tintoteras, where we walked around to admire the volcanic rock formation and see the marine iguanas, warming themselves on the rocks. There are a lot of them! We saw a small channel of water where a fair few sharks like to rest as the water is nice and warm there.
After that it was snorkelling time! With a bit of hesitation, as we know the water can be cold, we all jumped in the water. The water was definitely warmer than a few days ago, which was a nice surprise! We saw more colourful fish, turtles, sea stars and more.
We got a lunch in a local restaurant and then went to see another tortoise breeding centre.
We spent the evening at one of the bar/restaurant on the beach. The kids played in the sand, throwing coconuts up high in attempt to break them and built castle with the pieces of it.
Kev and I enjoyed a couple of cocktails while watching them.
The following day, we did a hike on the Sierra Negra, one of the volcanos of the Island. Sierra Negra is considered the second biggest caldera (this is the opening of the crater): it measures 10 km across from north to south and 9 km from east to west. Its last eruption dated from 2005.
The view from the top is magnificent. On the ridge of the volcano, you can see beautiful greenery and at the bottom, you can see the black volcanic rock. The colours here again are striking. You can see the different lava eruption, the darker the more recent. We keep going pass the volcano to go see the Volcan Chico (which means little), which is a fissure on the cone of Sierra Negra. You can see some previous lava eruptions coming for there as well. The west part of the Sierra Negra volcano is very lush with a lot of vegetation. The east side having had the most recent eruptions, seem like another world: black and grey rocks with very little vegetation. While walking, I was taking all the sights of this amazing landscapes. This is truly an experience. We walked for 9km to get to a point where you can see all the volcano of the island. This is an amazing view. I tried to take a picture of it, but it doesn’t look anything like you see in real.
We walk our 9km back and were very happy to see our bus to take us back to our place.
After a bit of rest, we went back to the beach area for a couple of cocktails while the kids still full of energy (I don’t know how!) played on the beach.
Wednesday the 24th was our last day on Isabela Island. We did one last snorkelling tour. After a 40 minutes boat trip, we arrive on another part of Isabela Island, called the Los Tuneles (The tunnels). This is another type of volcanic rock formation, which created lots of small ‘tunnels’ or bridges. We snorkelled near this area and saw a lot: sharks, ray, turtles, plenty of fish. We went in different type of environment: clear water and mangroves area where the water was a bit murkier.
Andrew was very lucky to see a seahorse and the guide took a picture of it as it disappeared quickly when the whole group arrived to see and move the mangrove it was holding onto.
We also went for a walked on Los Tuneles, to see blue footed boobies, birds with bright blue feet very common in the area, nesting. We were lucky and saw a chick one day old.
It was a perfect way to finish our stay on Isabela Island.
A couple of hours of ferry and we were back on Santa Cruz.
Easy evening and movie night.
Thursday was a resting day, with some blogging and a nice walk in the town. We went back to our favourite restaurant for dinner and Peyes was there too, to the kids’ delight! And mine and Kev too, this dog was so cute!
Friday we visited one more Island. We did a day trip to San Cristobal Island. This is the easternmost island of the Galapagos and also the oldest one. I wanted to go there to see the crater full of fresh water, which is the only one in the Galapagos. Unfortunately, when we arrived there, after a pretty rough 2 hours ferry ride (both the kids got sick and I almost did), our guide Andres told us the weather was not good around the crater and the visibility would not be good.
We decided to go see one the beach on the other side of the island with white fine sand, sea lions and beautiful blue water. After that, more tortoises, then lunch in town (delicious and cheap!) and then a walk in the town. It was a short tour and I was a bit disappointed not to see the crater, but well, you can’t control the weather! 2 hours of ferry back, a lot smother this time, and we were back on Santa Cruz.
We came back right on time to see the parade to celebrate the lobster festival! Dancers, floats with beauty pageants in it, people dressed up as lobsters and of course music. It was fun!
We did not stay for the beauty pageant, as I found that outdated but we had fun watching the parade.
Saturday 27th of September: I started the day with a massive migraine so I was out for a good part of it. Kids did schoolwork and then Kev took them in town, to play on the playground they like. Turn out there was a lobster and beer festival there, with stand selling cheap beer and food.
I rested a bit longer and joined them in the middle of the afternoon. We tried some beer and some lobster.
My favourite was the ceviche (a type of cold soup) with shrimp and lobster in it. It was delicious. The kids had sushi, which made them very very happy!
Sunday is our last full day here. We did some blogging and had one last walk in town.
It was a lovely break, with a fair few resting, catching up on school days but also amazing adventures, seeing animals unique to the Galapagos and breathtaking landscapes.
It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to come here, and I don’t regret it. It was expensive though, and we are very fortunate to be able to do that.
Tomorrow, we are flying back to the mainland, back to Quito to discover the rest of Ecuador.
See you there.
MelLæs mere
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador by Kev part 1
22.–24. sep. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
16.9.2025. We arrived! It felt like it took forever, but that's not true. I already covered the first day in a previous blog, so that's it for today.
17.9.2025. School work!! Kids are super excited! After that we went out and booked a tour for tomorrow, then found a supermarket and got some supplies. In the afternoon we stopped at a little beach and Mel and the kids had a swim. The kids practiced snorkeling for tomorrow. Afterwards we walked along the front again, stopping at a bar for a local made stout and a few games. We wandered back home and had dinner.
18.9.2025. Today we're off heading out on a tour. We don't really like tours, but there's not much we can do about it here. You need the gear and a boat to get where you want to go, so that's it. The sales lady told us we would be getting a two stop tour. First stop would be to do a hike on Santa Cruz, followed by snorkeling at Santa Fe island. Well that didn't happen. The boat took us straight out to Santa Fe, where we did three different snorkeling locations. The first spot we dove, we saw lots of fish. Schools amongst the rocks on the bottom. Some sea stars and bigger fish. Emma freaked out a bit, which is kinda understandable for a 9yo. She did not like the flippers and wanted to get rid of them, saying they are too heavy. Going from practicing in half a metre of water to proper snorkeling in 3-4 metres of water is a big step. I'm happy that she stayed in the water with me as long as she was holding onto me. We had wetsuits on, but it was still cold. After 10-15 mins or so, Mel took Andrew back as he was shivering badly. He missed the bigger schools of fish, though I don't think he cared. Emma stuck it out with me a bit longer, though she took some convincing. She finally got me to take her back to the boat, and when I returned to the group it was time to go back. Apparently I missed the only shark we saw, oh well. Back on the boat they had tea and coffee waiting and some snacks. We tried to move to the next spot, but one of the anchors was stuck. A couple of the guys were diving down to “unstuck” it. Took a few minutes but we got moving again. Our next stop was in a small area with a few sea lions. The kids chose not to go back in this time and stayed in the boat. We got close to some of the sea lions, the big males are a bit intimidating and they move so fast in the water. It was fun to see them swim around us and one had a playful chew on the guide's flippers. We saw more fish and some choral. When we hopped out they had lunch ready for us. Fish in a creamy sauce with salad and rice. We moved over to what would be our last stop. Here we would see sea turtles, maybe sea lions and possibly sharks. After a small amount of convincing, the kids got their gear on again and came in with us. Andrew said he didn't like the flippers, they make it hard to swim. You wouldn't think so after seeing him swim back to the boat when he'd had enough of the cold again. He was like a human torpedo. He lasted a bit longer this time and got to see a few turtles. Emma stuck it out with me for the whole time. She was more comfortable this time, but still wouldn't let me go. Once again, understandable for a 9yo with little to no experience in snorkeling. Andrew was fine, he seemed perfectly capable of snorkeling by himself. He just doesn't do cold for long. After that we went back out into the open water for a bit and trolled some lures. Their aim was to catch something for tomorrow's group to eat. That didn't happen, nothing hit a lure. We then made the trip back to Santa Cruz. We walked back to the tour operator and dropped off our wetsuits. Mel talked with the lady and said that we didn't get the tour she had offered us. There was no hike, just snorkeling. The lady seemed to be taken aback, but what other reaction was she going to give us? They said they would talk with the tour group, but that won't help us. We had a really good day, but it wasn't what we were supposed to be doing all day. We have since decided we won't be back to that operator for more tours. We were all stuffed. Hot showers all round when we got back. I cooked some dinner and we went straight to bed.
19.9.2025. I ran out to get some eggs and bread for breakfast, then schoolwork for the kids. Since we were sick of looking at the walls in our room, we headed out for a look around. We were planning on booking a few more tours, and we had seen a local place advertising tours the day before. It had been closed that day but was open now. We went in and we're greeted by Andreas. We learnt that he was a local to the Galapagos and had been a tour guide for 20 years before starting his own company. He had videos and photos of his tours to show us and organised a three day itinerary for us. Five tours all up(one a small one to a tortoise breeding facility here on Santa Cruz), two islands and all ferry tickets included. Plus a hotel with breakfast for two nights on Isabella island. We could not have done it better, or cheaper, ourselves. We were happy with the outcome and are looking forward to our first tour, the tortoise breeding facility, this afternoon. We went back to our stay and made some lunch. We met Andreas later at the tortoise centre and went in. He gave us some background info on the Galapagos and Charles Darwin. We learnt of the two types of cactus here, the prickly pear and the candelabra. We can tell the difference now. He went on to tell us how introduced species, and people have been the worst thing for the Galapagos and its tortoises. Introduced rats and cats eat the young tortoises. Pigs dig up the nests for the eggs and goats had to be culled as they ate everything, there was no food left for the tortoises. We went into the centre where we saw tortoises of lots of different ages. They go out and find the new nests, did up the eggs and bring them back here to hatch. When the tortoises are 6-7 years old, their shells are hard enough to withstand the rats and cats, so that when they release them. We got to see some tortoises that were very small, only a year or two old. There were some that were very big, saddle back tortoises. These ones were here because at one point they were either hurt or were pets and couldn't look after themselves in the wild. So they'll spend their lives in the centre. Andreas told us they are already 100-150 years old, and they can live to around 200. They have some time here. He mentioned that, since tortoises are so long lived, that if a released tortoise has a long healthy life, they will surely outlive the people that cared for them. You end the tour by visiting lonesome George, the last tortoise of his kind from Pinta island. The belief is that these tortoises were hunted to extinction. Lonesome George was found on Pinta island in 1971, and was brought to Santa Cruz. No other member of the species could be found, so the species died with him in 2012. He was taken and taxidermied, to be brought back and put on display as a reminder. It is a sad way to end a tour. It's also a reminder of our ability to completely ruin something without thinking of the repercussions. After this we said goodbye to Andreas, and had a walk through the Charles Darwin centre. A small museum with a gift shop! As they don't get any funding from the government, we bought a couple things as the proceeds go to help keep the place open. After our visit we walked back along the shore front. We found a bar, the Santa Cruz brewery, with local made beers. I had a porter with vanilla, ok but not the best. Mel had a white stout. Dunno how they did that but it was good. Mel only gave me a small taste. After that we walked back to our stay, then headed to a small restaurant a couple of blocks away. The food was delicious. Andrew got ribs, and when they came out his eyes nearly popped out. I don't think he has ever had that much meat on his plate. I had a mixed skewer, prawn and fish on it along with some onion and capsicum. Some chips and a pile of rice. A nice spicy creamy sauce and salad. We had, I think, our best feed on the island so far(including what I cooked).
20.9.2025. Today we're off again with Andreas. This time we're going for a drive to a tortoise farm. Originally they had wanted to farm other things, but there was a problem. The tortoises. They wanted to get rid of them, but according to Andreas, the local government said no. Look after the turtles and we'll advertise for tourists to come and see them. Well it must be popular because Andreas says they are buying the property next to them and opening the tortoise farm further. During our walk we got pretty close to some huge tortoises. They scare easily and hide themselves away in their shell. You hear a hissing sound. They collapse their lungs to allow their head and front legs to get further into their shell. One of them did it 4-5 times while we were close by. I figured we better move on so this guy can catch his breath. We walked until we came across some lava tunnels. We then entered some tunnels through where they had collapsed. Once we were finished with the tunnel and tortoises, we headed back and checked out the gift shop. Yep a gift shop, they are everywhere. Mel grabbed a tortoise magnet and some old Ecuadorian money for Andrew, then onto the next thing. Andreas took us to what they call the “twin brothers”. Two craters formed by volcanoes and lava millions of years ago. We walked around the first, then crossed the road and walked around the other. It's pretty thick forest, so I can imagine coming across these huge holes in the ground would be a surprise. After that we got dropped back at our stay. We grabbed a couple of things for dinner from the shop and had a lazy evening while I cooked dinner.
21.9.2025. Today we blogged, lazed about and gave each other crap. People were starting to get hungry so we headed out for a walk. We stuck to the back streets a bit, heading towards a place I found the other day. It's closed, oh well. We kept walking and found a small place that just had a couple of locals eating. Eh, why not? Simple yet well cooked food. They didn't have a vegetarian option, but looked after Mel by making them a salad with lettuce, red onion and avocado. Apparently it was pretty good. We had food and grabbed a beer. Once finished we thanked them and kept on walking. We came out onto the end of the shore front and went out onto the piers for another look. We then stopped for icecream before heading back towards our stay. We stopped on the way, there's this old fella here selling something out of his push bike on the side of the road. When I saw it was cakes, I thought why not? We grabbed a banana cake, which seemed to make him pretty happy. Once back, dinner was had and cake for dessert. Early to bed as we're up early tomorrow to catch a ferry.
22.9.2025. Up early and off to the jetty in town to catch a ferry to Isabella island. Two hours later we were at our destination. We met up with a tour guide Andreas had organised for us. With the guide and some more people, we got back onto a smaller boat and headed out for our first tour. I know we have said we don't like tours and we like to do things ourselves. That is harder here in the Galapagos. You can't enter a national park without a guide and while you can snorkel at some places, the best places need a boat to get to. We took a short boat ride and spotted some blue footed boobies on the way. We stopped and hopped off on another part of the island for a walk around. We saw some iguanas and were told about some of the different types of rock and algae. We walked past a shallow “crack” that had Galapagos sharks sleeping in it, 26 we counted. The walk continued until we got back to the boat where we hopped back on. We then slipped into our wetsuits and went snorkeling. Emma once again wasn't happy when she first got in, but I soon got her convinced to stay in with me. It was a bit warmer than our first trip, after the initial plunge it was pretty nice in the water. We snorkeled for around 45 mins. We saw lots of fish, turtles and some choral. Once Emma is in and looking at stuff she's perfectly ok. Though she didn't actually do any swimming herself, just hung onto me with one hand and got dragged along. It was nice to share that with her to be honest, and I was happy to have a big sucker fish clinging to my side. Once the snorkeling was done, we all hopped back in the boat and they took us back to the port. Where we hopped on a bus and headed into town for lunch. We got dropped at a small restaurant and had soup then a main. It was pretty good. After lunch we were all herded back onto the bus. I say bus, but it's really just a small truck with seats built in the back for tourists. This time we're off to another tortoise breeding facility. We had a tour through the place, checking out lots of different ages and sizes of tortoises. The same as the facility on Santa Cruz, this breeding centre is essential for the survival of the tortoises, since almost no tortoises survive after hatching because of introduced species such as rats and cats. They also had large, old tortoises. These ones would never be released as they were “pets” and would not be able to fend for themselves in the wild. Once we had concluded our tour, the bus dropped us at our hotel, “hostal” they call them here. We dropped our gear off and had a nice shower. After that we headed out to have a look around. There is more beach here, some people say Isabella island is the most beautiful island here in the Galapagos. We wandered a little bit, then found a small bar/restaurant right next to a playground in the sand. Mel and I sat and had a couple of drinks while the kids had a play. I tried a couple of beers brewed here on Isabella and Mel had a crack at a cocktail. It was nice after a day in the sun to sit and relax. By now it was getting dark and we were getting hungry. So we ordered food right where we were. Andrew tried octopus for the first time, cooked in a garlic sauce, he loved it. I got a massive pile of chicken and rice, which was delicious. Andrew gave Emma a try of his octopus, Em reckons the taste is good but not the texture. We walked back to our stay and hit the sack, getting picked up early for our next activity tomorrow morning.
23.9.2025. Our hotel stay comes with breakfast and a lady came knocking early to get us. The language barrier didn't stop us from understanding her meaning, “follow me”. We followed her to a small restaurant on the other end of the block. There was another lady there waiting for us. We got some chopped fruit, followed by toast and eggs. A cup of coffee and some juice. After that we went back to our stay where we got picked up at 7:30. Today we're off to Sierra Negra, a huge crater in the middle of Isabella island. Around 30mins in the back of the “bus” and we were at the starting point. It was cool and misty but we still put on some sunblock as the guide said it would get sunny at the top. We were all given a lunch bag with a sandwich, juice box, a mandarine, biscuits and some nuts. All this went into my backpack for later. We set off on our hike, 7klm to the top of the crater. It was nice going, there was a mist wafting down over us from the crater and everything around us was lush and green. As we got closer to the top, the sun poked out and it did indeed start to warm up. Jackets came off and hats went on. We reached a peak where we stopped for photos and a look around. We looked out across this massive crater, 10klm in diameter, green around the edges and black in the middle. Steam rising up from the side we had walked up along, my guess is that's why it's so green on the side. We didn't stop for long as we had more hiking to do, up to a covered area where we ate our fruit. Then down the other side of the crater to a smaller crater called “volcan Chico”, small volcano in the native tongue. This side has seen the most recent eruption, 2018 if I remember correctly. The crater doesn't erupt like an explosion, it sort of oozes lava out. The time it oozed out down the outside, the guide said Isabella island grew 2klm after that one. Here we started the next part of our hike, down the side towards volcano Chico. As you look around you see collapsed areas from many years ago and the newer part that is still very black. We walked past huge holes in the ground where gas blew out. The guide showed us different rocks and even stomped on the ground in one spot. We could hear it was hollow underneath and echoed. Hopefully that part wouldn't cave in on this day. We got to the end of the path, up a steepish climb to the top of a rock formation. The view was special, we could see all the volcanoes that made up Isabella island plus more. There were spots where the ground had cracked and blown up. The older lava flows were being reclaimed by growth, the newer still very black. Now it was time to head back. We made our way back across then up to the covered area to have our lunch. I walked over and had a pee in the bushes, on my way back I saw a spot with benches. This spot had the best view of the crater, dunno why the guide hadn't taken us there. There was a British guy walking around, I told him go over there the view is the best. We were getting short on time so we headed back. The walk seemed to take longer to get back then to get there in the first place, maybe because we were wearing out. The guide kept suggesting that maybe we didn't take the kids all the way, that maybe it would be too hard for them. I told him, don't worry about them, they'll do it better than you mate. I wasn't wrong, the kids had done harder tracks than this just maybe not quite as long. In the end they smashed it. We were all happy to get back on the bus and made our way back to town. We got dropped off our stay. Straight into the shower obviously, then rested and rehydrated a bit. Afterwards we went back down to the beachfront and had a walk out to the rocks and up a platform. The kids played in the sand and water, while Mel and I went and found a different place to have a drink. I don't normally go for cocktails, except a whiskey sour, those I like. Since this place didn't have any local beer, a cocktail it was for me. Something red in colour with 4 different shots in it, yeah that'll do. The kids eventually got bored playing with the water and came back to the playground equipment. Then came and annoyed us. Time for dinner I guess. We ordered food there, Andrew had octopus again, grilled this time, he says it's better. We ordered pizza, yep, pizza. We're on Isabella island in the Galapagos and we ordered pizza. It was pretty bloody well done actually, though they said something went wrong with our second pizza, which means burnt, so we had to wait a bit longer for it. As an apology we got offered another drink each. Oh alright then, if you insist. Emma and my pizza was the burnt/late one. As you could imagine, Emma was chewing on the table by now. Once it arrived it was gone. We headed back to our room and went to bed. It was a long but very enjoyable day
24.9.2025. Today we went straight to the little restaurant for breakfast, then headed back again to the hotel for pickup. Back into a bus and off to the pier. We got onto another boat and headed out for what the locals call the tunnels. A huge lava flows from millions of years ago. A lot of it has collapsed now, creating tunnels and bridges. Ideal for snorkeling and exploring. We made a quick stop on the way at a place called union rock. A pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere, that many animals use as a resting spot. There were pelicans, boobies, sea lions and even an iguana on the rocks. Once to our destination, we went straight into snorkeling. It was quite a bit shallower here in places and we had to slide over some rocks to get through. We saw puffer fish and sea slugs, a few sharks resting in tunnels and even a decent sized stingray. He took us into a mangrove area to try and see a seahorse. It was pretty murky and people disturbed the one seahorse that was found. Naturally it hid and most of the group didn't get to see it, Andrew did so he was something. The guy said several times not to touch the mangroves and just float, but as always, some people don't or can't listen. I have seen plenty of seahorses in aquariums, so I wasn't too disappointed. Still would have been cool to see one in the wild. We got out of the water and back onto the boat. Some warm tea, a few sandwiches and the worst tasting orange drink I have ever had was for lunch on the boat. Next stop was further inside some of the fallen down rocks, where we got out of the boat and saw some nesting blue footed boobies. We got to see a day old chick, it was so little. We then got dropped back at the pier, the guide said a bus was turning up soon. We're good mate, gonna stay here as we have to catch the ferry in an hour. There is a small “cafe” here, so we grabbed a coffee and a drink for the kids while we waited. Back onto the ferry and set off for Santa Cruz. Everyone fell asleep on the ferry. I was worried the kids would wake up spewing, but they were all good. Back on Santa Cruz, we dropped the wetsuits back to Andreas on our way to our stay. Showers, relax, dinner at home and movie night.
25.9.2025. We did pretty much nothing today. Kids blogged, I cooked a meal or two. We got some clothes washed. We walked around some of the backstreets but we always end up back on the beachfront. It was starting to get late so we walked back towards a restaurant near our stay. The one we already went to, with the ribs. Andrew and Emma shared one and I had one to myself. What a feed! We also grabbed a homemade drink from there, not knowing what it was. Turns out it had a lot of ginger and some Lemmon in it. Was bloody good. We saw our favourite dog again, Pies we call him. Just before we headed back I gave him a good pat, couldn't help myself. Off to bed, full as a goog.
26.9.2025. Today we're off to another island, San Cristobal. We are to meet Andreas over there and he's going to give us a tour around. The ferry took longer than it was supposed to as it was a bit rough. We met Andreas at the pier and hopped into his car. We were supposed to do a small hike to another crater that is filled with water and has great view. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and rainy at the top of the mountain, so we pressed on with another part of the tour. Maybe it will clear up on our way back. We stopped at a beach on the other side of the island and had a close look at some sea lions. Then a short walk up some rocks to get a really close look at some blue footed boobies. We got some photos then walked back to the car. We had to go bush, because a huge male sea lion was blocking the path. Next stop, another tortoise breeding centre. This one has a special meaning to Andreas. He was born and grew up on San Cristobal island. His father was the architect for the buildings in the breeding centre, and when he was old enough he volunteered at the centre before moving to Santa Cruz to become a guide. After the breeding centre we headed back over the mountain, it was still very rainy and cloudy, so we decided not to do the hike up to the crater. Which was a shame but we wouldn't have seen anything anyway. Next we got dropped off for lunch. Soup and a main, with a drink, for $6. It was already paid for in the tour, but this is the kind of place you look for when you're here. Good Ecuadorian food at a good price. And it was good food. The kids didn't manage to finish all theirs so dad to the rescue. Full as a goog again. Andreas left us there to drop off the car and would meet us again at the ferry. We had a walk along the shore front and watched two small sea lions playing with each other in the shallows. We got back on the ferry and went back to Santa Cruz. We had been told there was a lobster festival finishing tonight, with floats and dancers and they would crown Miss lobster 2025. Or something like that. This was the most people I had seen in Santa Cruz so far, it was packed. We watched the parade then had a look around. We had hoped there would be some street food available but I couldn't find any. We went back and I made pasta for dinner.
End of part 1 as there is a limit of words per blog. Part 2 of Kev's blog will be in the kids' blog.Læs mere
Galapagos Islands, Kev part 2 & the kids
24.–29. sep. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
For part one of Kev's blog, see the previous blog.
27.9.2025. What are we gonna do today? Schoolwork!! Kids love it, they ask me all the time. Dad, can we do schoolwork please!! We dont wanna go do fun stuff involving fish and snorkels and hiking and ice cream and interesting new foods. There was too much pressure and I caved. I allowed them to math it up. Mel on the other hand had a pretty bad migraine and spent a good portion of the day in bed. The kids did well with their work and in the afternoon I took them down to the beachfront. There's a little playground there they like. We walked down and noticed tables and marquees set up. What's all this then? Ooohh there's a beer tent and some food places. I resisted for a while, but once again I caved. I went and got a beer. Oooh 3 beers for $10, yeah I'll be in that. I took a selfie with a stout and sent it to Mel. Who then said they still felt terrible, but was on their way. There were two beer tents, both from local Galapagos breweries. Some food beers, the stouts. Some less than good beers, IPA's, blerhg. Anyway, I tried them all, as you do. Mel had a couple and maybe started to feel better. There were a couple food tents as well. The kids went and got themselves some sushi and Mel and I got some lobster things. The ceviche was very good. Not sure why they didn't do this last night during the lobster festival. The first tent I went to was iguana rock breweries and they had really fun looking shirts. Unfortunately they didn't have any for sale, and the guy wouldn't sell me his so I missed out. We wandered back home, had a shower and watched a movie before bed.
28.9.2025. Breakfast, blog, pack and have one last visit down the shore front. Got some money out of the wall, came back and had some dinner before bed. On the move again tomorrow.
Kev
On the 16th we took a plane from Quito to the Galapagos (yay), when we landed, we walked out of the plane and on to the path of the run way and guess what we saw, Iguanas. We then took a bus to a place where we could get a taxi (boat) to another island, and in the meantime we saw some more iguanas. When we got to the other island (which was called Santa Cruz) we took another bus to our hotel, we put our bags in the hotel and then we went down to the beach where we saw some, wait for it, (cue flashy lights), sea lions. We looked around a bit more and then we went to a restaurant, I had some steak and then we went home and went to sleep.
On the 17th we did school work in the morning and then in the afternoon we went down to the beach with some snorkel gear and we practiced a bit because tomorrow we were going to go snorkelling, then we did some shopping. We then saw a ceramic garden that was free so we decided to have a look, and it turned out to be worth it, there were lots of cool stuff. After that we went to a pub got a few drinks then went home and slept.
On the 18th we went on a tour to Santa Fe, it’s a little island that you can go snorkelling, the first place we went snorkelling at, we saw some fish but half the way through I got too cold and went back to the boat. On the second one I didn’t go in, I was too cold (I now highly regret it), mum and dad saw seals in the water (I wish I came). On the third one we could see turtles, I wanted to see them so I braved the cold and went in, it was really cool there were lots of turtles, we saw to males have a small fight, and then after that we went back to the hotel and we went to sleep.
On the 19th we did school work and then we went out to a tour agency where we booked a couple of tours, and when we got back to the room, we did some more school work and then we put our shoes on and we went to the tour place where we met our tour guide because the first tour is today. We went to a tortoise breeding centre, when we got there, there was some information about Charles Darwin and that he was the first-person brave enough to publish a book about evolution (everyone else was to scared because evolution went against the church). When we got to the tortoises place we found out there where a lot of them, we looked at lots and figured out they could live to up to 200 years. We kept going and we saw ones that were born in 2025, they were less than a year old, after that we went to a restaurant where I got a really nice meal that had lots of meat, it was yum. After that we went to the room and went to sleep.
On the 20th we went to see giant tortoise again (this time they were in the wild) it looked really cool, there were lots of them, some of them where like a metre long. We looked around at them a lot and then we went to see a big crater that was made by a big gas bubble in the earth, we walked around on a path and we saw some birds, they were interesting, after that we went back to the car and went to the room, watched a movie and then went to sleep.
On the 21st we just stayed in the hotel and relaxed, we did a little bit of school work and then played on our computer a bit, after that we had dinner and went to sleep.
On the 22nd we took a ferry to Isabela, it took 2 hours to get there but when we got there we went on a tour to see some lava formations. We took a boat to another part of Isabela where we got off and walked around, we saw pointy lava rocks and some iguanas. We kept walking until we got to a channel that had lots of sharks in it and it was pretty cool, after that we went down to the boat and changed in to swim suit and then we went snorkelling, we saw lots of fish and a couple of turtles. After that we went to the beach and had dinner there. We went to a restaurant where I got my first octopus and it had garlic sauce. It was very yummy and I would happily have another one. We then went to the hotel and went to sleep.
On the 23rd we took another tour to go on a hike up to Sierra Negra volcano, it has the second biggest caldera (opening at the top) in the world, we hiked up for a while, but before I tell you that I will tell you some information about the volcano. It is still an active volcano and the last time it erupted was in 2018, the caldera is 10 kilometres long. When we got up to the top it was an amazing view and there was lots of dried lava, after that we hiked down the other side to get to another little volcano called ‘volcan chico’ it was a long hike. We could see down into the volcano, it was a long drop, we looked out at the land scape for a while and then we went down and hiked all the way back, it was very tiring, after ages we got to the bus and they drove us back to our hotel and we went to sleep.
On the 24th we went on another boat over to a place called los tunnels, we went snorkelling there and it was really cool, we saw turtles and lots of puffer fish, there was also sharks and a stingray, I also saw a 11 to 13 centemeter long sea horse. It was cool. We then went over to a place where we could get up on the rock and look around. When we were up there the guide showed us some nests that had baby blue footed boobies in it and one of them was born yesterday, they were tiny. After that we went back to the boat and then we went back to our hotel and then we went to sleep.
On the 25th we did some blog and then we walked around a bit then at night we went to a restaurant and then we went home and slept.
On the 26th we took a boat to St Christobal where we were going to see a big crater but when we got there it was raining so we skipped it and kept going to a beach. At the beach there were lots of sea lions, we looked around and then went to a tortoise breeding centre where we saw some baby tortoises and it was really cool. this breeding where centre was different from others because they weren’t in separate pens, they where in one giant pen. After that we drove back to the crater to see if it had stopped raining but it hadn’t stopped so we went to down to a nice little restaurant with the guide and we had some food. Then after that we went to the boat and came back to our hotel and then we went out to the town square because there was a festival called the lobster festival, there was a beauty contest but I barely paid attention I just looked at the cool floats and the dancers. After that we went home and went to sleep.
On the 27th we did school work or a while and then in the afternoon we went down to the beach where me and Emma played on the playground trying to find each other, it was fun. After that there were little stands that had food so mum and dad had some beer while me and Emma ordered some sushi. After that we went home and went to sleep.
On the 28th we didn’t do much we just stayed in our room and did blog and then, in the afternoon we went on a walk on the pier and then when we came back we went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 16th we took a plane to the Galapagos. Then we took a bus then a boat then another bus to a station near our place. We found our place then we visited the city. We saw tortoises, sea lions and iguanas. Then we had dinner.
On the 17th we did schoolwork in the morning and played at the beach in the afternoon. We practiced snorkelling as well. We saw a few fish. Then we walked in the city. Did shopping. Then we saw the ceramic gardens. There were cups stuck to the wall. Paintings. There were some flowers as well. Then we went to a bar and played games.
On the 18th we had a tour in Santa fe. We went snorkelling. We saw fish, sea lions and turtles. It was really cold. It was really fascinating to see how all the animals moved. Seeing the turtles was very interesting. It was scary at some points. I did not always feel safe.
On the 19th we did schoolwork in the morning. Then we went to a place where we booked tours. Then we went to a place where we saw baby tortoise. They are so cute. They were in a breeding centre. They were breeding tortoise to make sure they did not go extinct. It was interested to see tortoise. Did you know? Tortoise’s shells get smoother as they age. The tortoise’s shell is actually a bone. If the shell is punctured it will never seal. There are two types of tortoises, one is the saddle back tortoise and the other is the dome shaped tortoise. Then we had dinner at a restaurant. A dog kept coming up to us. I decided to call him pie.
On the 20th we saw giant tortoises. They can live up to 200 years. We also saw big craters. They were surrounded by trees. When we were walking around the craters, we walked through some clouds. We also saw lava tubes. We went into the lava tubes and there were quite a lot of plants.
On the 21st we did blog. we had a lazy day.
On the 22nd we took a ferry to Isabela Island. We did a tour. We saw lava formations, sharks and iguanas. The sharks were in a tunnel thing and there were a lot. We also went snorkelling. I held on to dad every time I went snorkelling because I was not comfortable. In the evening, we had dinner at the beach.
On the 23rd we hiked up Sierra Negra volcano. The Sierra Negra volcano has the second biggest crater in the world. Even if the volcano is called active, its last eruption was in 2005. The easiest route of reaching the volcano is by hiking the 5.5 mile trail. You can do it on foot or horse back. There were flowers and plants, and I think it looked really nice. The were also crystals on the ground. I could imagine pixies just living there. It was beautiful. In the evening, we played on the beach.
On the 24th we went snorkelling again. We saw sharks, stingray and fish. Then we saw baby blue footed boobies. They were adorable. They could fit in my palm. The first baby we saw looked like it was dancing. Then we took the ferry back. Then movie night.
On the 25th we did blog.
On the 26th we took a boat to San Christobal Island. We walked along the beach when we got there. We saw a lot of sea lions. Then we went to a tortoise breeding centre. We saw some really small ones. They get kept in a small place for about three years and then moved to a bigger place until they are about five or six. Then they get released because it is very hard to break their shell. Then we had lunch in town. We went back to Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz there was a festival that lasted three days, so we went to see the ending of it. There were dancers, people on cars trying to get the name miss lobster. They all had fake lobsters on the back of the car and were dressed nicely. It was a beauty contest.
On the 27th we did schoolwork in the morning. Mum had a migraine. Then we spent the afternoon in the town, and me and Andrew played on a playground. Mum and dad had a few beers. For dinner, me and Andrew had sushi. Yum.
On the 28th we did blog. Tomorrow we are going to Quito which is on the mainland of Ecuador. See you there.
Emma (9 years old)Læs mere
Quito, Ecuador by Mel
29. sep.–6. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
Ola from Quito,
We are back in the capital (but not the biggest city) of Ecuador.
A tiny bit of information about Ecuador: it is located in the northeast of South America (just in case you didn’t know) and is on the equator (that is where it gets in name of)! Historically speaking, modern-day Ecuador was once home to several groups of indigenous peoples that were gradually incorporated into the Inca Empire during the 15th century. The territory was colonized by the Spanish Empire during the 16th century, achieving independence in 1820 as part of Gran Colombia, from which it emerged as a sovereign state in 1830 (thank you Wikipedia!)
On Monday the 29th of September, we took a plane from the Galapagos to Quito. It went smoothly, you know, just a regular bird made of metal flying very high in the sky, with us in it! Nothing extraordinary!
We took a taxi from the airport to our place and discovered the city for the first time. My first impression was surprise at how big it seems. One thing to know about Quito, is that it is the first or second (that depend on what capital of Bolivia you choose: apparently it can be La Paz or Sucre) highest capital city in the world. Its elevation is 2850m high. It is located between mountains and volcanos, which made the landscapes around it, spectacular. But which also made it pretty hard to breath in! It takes several day to adjust. As it is squeezed between mountains, it is relatively elongated. When we arrived from the airport by car, we could see the city from a high point of view and it is pretty incredible to see how far the city goes.
It was the end of the afternoon by the time we arrived, so we dropped our bags, relax for a bit and went in search of a place to eat. We found a small place with cheap food: we ate a ball made of dough and cheese inside (the other 3 had some meat as well) deep fried. I can not remember the name of it, but it was good. We also tried Morocho, a drink made of corn, milk and spices and you can add sugar in it. It was not bad either and pretty filling. After that we go back and went to sleep. The appartement we have is very nice and big: 2 bedrooms, one living room, a kitchen well equipped and a bathroom. It will be nice for a week!
The next day was not very eventful. We went out to find some breakfast: we got some sweet things from a bakery type place. Emma felt a bit queasy and had a small spew. I think it was probably related to highness sickness. She was better just after her spew!
We walked around to find some place to do grocery shopping.
When you arrive in a new country, you have to figure out what type of shop sell what. Is there big supermarket or is this more small shops selling specific things? It is not always easy the first few days. We found a small supermarket, which sells pasta, rice and basic things, but hardly any vegetables, nor coffee! We bought some of the things we needed and went back to our place. We will find out latter that veggies are sold either on the side of the street or in very small shops. Coffee is sold in specific shops. As I said before, Quito is wedged between mountains and volcano, which means that streets are going up and down a lot and are pretty steep! Mix that with the lack of oxygen, and just doing your shopping become an extremely hard exercise!
After a lunch with no salt (as we didn’t find any) cooked by Kev (like always, I am so grateful that Kev cooks!), we rested a bit. Kids played and I researched and planned the things we are going to do here. Then it started raining, then hailing! The kids were super excited to see hail! It was the first time for them!
When it stopped raining, we went out to find dinner. On the way, we stopped at a chocolate shop where we tried different chocolate and alcohol made with cocoa: wine, beer and whisky! Some were good and we ended up buying a wine, some moka/coffee and a bar a white chocolate picked by the kids. We regretted some of those things later, as it turn out the coffee/moka wasn’t that great. The wine was ok, but not as good as we thought it was in the shop! Anyway, we tried, that is what matter!
Kev found a lovely restaurant, where we (well, the other 3) could try, one of the Ecuadorian delicacy, guinea pig!!! There were 2 dishes made with it: one where you could see the Guinea pig and one where the meat was in your plate but not in the shape of the guinea pig anymore! Kev ordered the first one of course. I had a thought of trying it, but I couldn’t! Meat is not part of my liking anymore! The other 3 tried. I think it was not too bad, but not their favourite either. Andrew ordered pork belly and apparently it was the best he ever had (for more details read his blog).
I had one delicious meal, but again I can not remember, for the life of me, the name of it!
The kids ordered chocolate to drink. When it arrived, it had cheese on the side. I had read about that and was keen to try. You put the cheese in your spoon and let it soak in the chocolate and it is really not bad at all! I enjoyed it!
After that, we walked back to our place, slowly, to save our breath.
On Wednesday the first of October, we visited Quito. We started by the Basilica del Voto Nacional, which is 2 minutes from our place. This is the largest neo-gothic basilica in south America. The project was first thought of in 1883, started in 1892 and finished in 1909. We stayed in this basilica longer than in any other basilica we visited. You can visit the towers of the basilica: it has 10 level and shops at every level pretty much, where you can buy Ecuadorian things. You can also admire one of the rosace made of painted glass which is beautiful. But the most interested thing for me, was the fact that you can visit inside the roof: You can walk above the roof made of stone and under the one made of slate, metal, I’m not sure, but the pointy bit at the top! You can also go right up in the spire, which was pretty cool. Emma and Kev went at the highest point going up a pretty steep ladder/stairs: Andrew and I stayed at the slightly lower level because you know, we felt better there! You can also have a drink at one of the levels, which we did of course. I think we stayed over 2 hours there and it was a great time.
After that we kept walking in the historical centre of Quito. We arrived in Independence square, which is considered the centre of Quito. There are several important buildings, including one ministry of some kind (I didn’t quite find out what it was), but there was a heavy police presence around it, so I assume it is an important one! There is a statue in the middle dedicated to the independence of Ecuador and also another church called Catedral Metropolitana de Quito. We visited it and there again we could go on the roof. To get there, we had to walk through very narrow and dark corridors: it felt like we were going to discover treasures around the corner. The view from the top on the independence square was nice. Inside the church, it was very colourful. Like a lot of things here, there are colours, lights: it is very lively.
We got something to eat in a small restaurant: empanadas (pastry filled with meat, or cheese or vegetables) and sandwiches. It was cheap and good! We kept walking in the street of Quito for a bit then grab a taxi (they are everywhere here!) to get to the cable car. It took us 3945m high! It takes around 18 minutes to go from the bottom to the top. When you get there, the views over the city and the surrounding volcanoes are amazing. We hiked a bit to a close viewpoint. On the way, we did the ‘swing in the sky’, which is a swing (obviously) near the edge. If you swing high enough and take a good angled picture, it seems like you are swinging in the cloud! It was a good opportunity to show the kids how pictures can be manipulated: the swing is really safe and a few meters away from the edge, but it is easy to make it look like it is not! We had fun nonetheless. We stayed there for a while, taking on the views. When we decided to get down, we had to wait a bit as a big cloud was passing by and the cable car was stopped. It was cold!!! Emma said she wanted to feel a cloud, well we did! When the cloud passed, we got back in one of the cabin and went back down. You may know that I am not comfortable with heights… then again, I was suspended in a small cabin on one cable (thick but still!) very up high… great! What I wouldn’t do for adventure! After that full day, we came back to our place, had dinner, movie night and bed!
Thursday the 2nd was another fun and interesting day. We got picked up by Jesus, the taxi driver we meet the day before coming back from the cable car to our place. He took us for a one hour drive from where we stay. The first stop was a volcano (yes another one); the Pululahua volcano. We trek down for a little bit, but decided not to go all the way down: when you go down, you have to come back up. We are still struggling with breathing, so we decided not to push it too much. The views again, are amazing. Nature is so beautiful.
The second stop was “El mitad del Mondo” (the middle of the world). This is where you can find the monument which marks (almost) where the equator is. There is a whole little town around it. For more information, go to Andrew and Emma’s blog as they did some research on it.
It was fun. Even if it is a bit touristic, it is fun thinking we are jumping from one side to the other side of the equator, marked by a yellow line on the ground. We spent a few hours there, as there are a few small museums to visit: one about the Ecuadorian people, one about the French expedition which came here in 1736 to determine the position of the equator and the exact shape of the earth (flattened on the pole) and one small planetarium. The French expedition of 1736 got their calculation slightly wrong and with our modern technology we know now that the equator is actually a stripe (wider than a line) around 240 meters away from where the monument is located. Interesting fact is that El Mitad Del Mondo is the most visited site in Ecuador.
There are a lot of little shops and I couldn’t resist buying a small chess set (the Spanish versus the Inca; the Spanish have horses for the knight and the Inca got alpacas!), a small El diablo mask (a traditional 2 faces colourful mask use in to scare demons) and some magnets of course!
We left there around 3.30pm and as the traffic here can be a bit busy in Quito, we were back to our place by 5pm ish.
Easy evening activities and sleep.
The next day, was another trip with Jesus, our taxi driver. We drove for just over 2 hours to Mindo. This is a small town located north of Quito in the cloud forest. A cloud forest is a tropical or subtropical forest, forever green due to water being almost always present in the form of low clouds. It is one of the most biodiversity rich biomes in the world, with a lot of species depending on it.
We started by visiting a butterfly sanctuary, with beautiful species flying all around and landing on us. We also could see butterfly coming out of their cocoons. Some of the cocoons were golden and magnificent. It was a lovely visit, even if it was a little pricey for Ecuadorian price.
Then we went to do one of Andrew’s favourite activities: zipline!!! The place we went had either 3, 7 or 10 zipline course. We took the 10 of course! Andrew was excited. Emma a bit less. But Emma seems to panic before doing something, and then when she is doing it, she loves it! When she saw the first zipline, she panicked a bit and said she didn’t want to do it. I told her, she didn’t have a choice and we were doing it no matter what, but we will do it together, me and her. If I can do it, she can too! And we did! And guess what: she loved it!!!! She had the biggest grin on her face when we were flying through the air above the cloud forest. As for me, despite being scared of height, I loved doing that with Emma. It was a great moment together. We did 9 out of the 10 ziplines together. The last one was a very long and fast one, so she had to do it with guide, but she was fine with that. After she thank me for pushing her to do it and for doing it with her. It was a great moment. Andrew and Kev loved it as usual.
After that, we took a cable car above the cloud forest (why did we always end up high, I don’t know!) to get to a trekking track to a waterfall. The cable car was fun and the trek was nice too. But being a cloud forest, it was meant to rain at some point!!! And it did! For some reason, we left our rain jacket in the taxi, but we had 2 umbrellas (the one bought in Paris) in Kev’s backpack. We trekked down with our umbrellas and got to one of the waterfall, which was very pretty. The forest is amazing: there is moss everywhere and it looks magical. When we arrive at the waterfall, the kids decided to throw rocks in the river, because that is what kids do, even if it was raining and getting heavier. Kev and I watched from a small undercover area. As we didn’t want them to get sick, we had to leave because the rain was getting heavy. We walked back up the trail which was becoming a small river! There were more waterfalls to see, but we were wet enough and decided we were done! Back on the cable car to get back to the other side of the ravine and in the taxi, back to Quito.
I was a bit sad to leave the area because I wanted to see birds as it is the area for that, but the weather decided that it was not for us that day. We did see a toucan between 2 ziplines, which was cool.
Saturday the 4th of October was our 9 months on the road! I can not believe we are down to our last 3 months of the gap year. I really don’t want it to finish! I truly love traveling and most of all, I love spending time with Kev and the kids. I am going to miss them when we are back home, running between work, school and activities. It is a privilege to watch Andrew and Emma discovering the world and being themselves. I could easily spend my life doing just that!
We started the day easy, a little bit of a sleep in. Then we took the underground to go to a shopping centre to get Emma’s Pandora charm from Ecuador. There is only one line of the Quito underground, so it was easy to find our direction! We got to the shopping centre, find Pandora and Emma choose her charm, an avocado! When we asked “Cuanto?” (How much?) we got a bit surprised by the answer: 210US$!!! The most expensive charm so far! We were not expected that in Ecuador. But a promise is a promise and we promised Emma a Pandora charm from every country that has Pandora, so there it is!
After that we had brunch and tried some more Ecuadorian food. Pretty delicious.
And then we spent the rest of the day, walking in one of the massive park of Quito, the Carolina parc. It is a massive open space with a lot of soccer, basketball and other sport fields. There are also several playgrounds for kids, exercise areas (one had massive tyres that the kids managed to turn over). There is a botanical garden that we visited. Ecuador has a lot of endemic orchids and other plants and flowers. There was also a bonsai garden and Emma fall in love with it and want to have a bonsai when we go home! We’ll see if the idea last till then!
We got back to our place, blog a bit, had dinner and decided to go out as it was Saturday night.
We wanted to see some live music, but didn’t find some. We find a bar with some music in it (just not live) and spend a couple of hours there, playing one very long game of Uno No Mercy. Nobody won as it was taken so long and it was getting late, so we forfeit (Andrew didn’t want to, but 3 against one!). Back to our place for a good sleep.
Sunday the 5th is our last full day here in Quito. We did some blogging in the morning.
This afternoon, we are going to have an easy one and maybe have one more walk in the area.
Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Ambato a city south of Quito.
We will see you there.
MelLæs mere
Quito, Ecuador by Kev
29. sep.–6. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
29.9.2025. Today we're heading back to the mainland. So up early, breakfast and gone. A short walk to the bus station, 20mins or so, pay and get on. Ferry ride between islands, about 150metres. Onto another bus for a very short ride to the airport. All up $34us spent on getting to the airport. Mel tried to get our baggage tags and boarding passes from the auto computer thing. Didn't work, wouldn't read any of our passports. Luckily there's still someone at the check in counter to help us. What the f is with these stupid auto check in machines when you have to go see the person at the counter anyway? We had to do it in Paris, pretty sure we had to do it in Aus before we left. It amazes me when someone has a great idea to replace people with machines that don't work and you need to go see the people anyway. They must have gotten a new manager, they always bring in change for the sake of change. Even if everything works fine, “let's change it”! You know what else, there's never enough stress at the airport, let's create more. Alright, I'm done. We waited, then got on our plane. A few hours later we were back in Quito, Ecuador. $26 for a taxi! Eh it's getting late, let's just get it. About an hour later we got to our new stay. Ok maybe it was worth $26. We give the guy $30 and he gives back $5. Alright, saved a buck. Into our apartment, it's big! Two bedrooms, family room, kitchen and dining area. We have space to stretch here. We went out for a look around and to see if we could find some food. Quito is a city built between mountains, and if you're not going uphill, you're going downhill. It's steep in places too. Quito is also over 2800mts above sea level, and we're all feeling that lack of oxygen. Stopping to take a few breaths here and there. We read it takes a few days to acclimatise to the altitude. We were heading to a place that I found on GMaps but got side tracked and stopped at a small place. We had some crumbed ball things, mine and the kids had pork and stuff in it. Mel's had cheese. It came with an egg and a coffee. We ended up with three coffees and a Morocho. A thick drink made from corn, milk and spices. It had peppercorns in it. We ate, we drank, we paid. It wasn't a great dinner, but we were fed. Back to the apartment, goodnight.
30.9.2025. Today we headed out for some breakfast. I had a bit of a restless night, woke up a few times feeling like I was having some trouble breathing. We'll see how the acclimatising goes. We stopped at a small bakery we saw last night and grabbed a few things. While waiting outside, Emma felt a bit off after having one small bite of the biscuit she got. A little spew later in a drain and all good again. Maybe the altitude, who knows. Andrew got what he thought was a big donut covered in powdered sugar. Turns out it was hard as a biscuit. New countries with their new foods, gotta love it. After that we walked and looked for a supermarket to get some supplies. We found one and got some stuff, but they don't do veges in supermarkets here, or at least not this one. We'll look for veges later I guess. We went back to the apartment and I made pasta for lunch. We forgot to get salt. Pasta without salt, which in my opinion, and the rest of my family's, is not good. If you don't do salt in your pasta, no offense intended, it's just not for me. After we ate, we noticed it started to rain. Oh well, we're not going out again in that, time for some schoolwork. A little later it got heavier, it even sounded a lot heavier. It's hailing! Small hail, the size of a pea but hail nonetheless. Really glad we didn't go out in that. As I have previously stated the kids love schoolwork and it was hard to drag them away from it. But it had stopped raining/hailing and the city is not going to explore itself. On our way, we passed a place called Afrodesiac chocolate. We had seen it earlier and had meant to pay them a visit. As soon as we stepped foot inside, the free samples started. Maybe they hadn't seen a tourist for a while or maybe that's how they always are. I wasn't complaining. We tried a chocolate beer, tasted more like chocolate wine. Next we tried chocolate wine, followed by chocolate champagne and a chocolate whiskey liquor. The kids got their share of just plain old chocolate, no complaints there either. We had agreed to buy one bottle, the champagne. Then they hit us with the chocolate coffee and hand creams. Finally, we were all sprayed with a chocolate perfume. We bought one bottle, a box of white chocolate kids liked and a bag of chocolate coffee, then escaped with our lives, I think they would have kept us there all night. We were only just around the corner from the apartment so we took our stuff back. We were back on our original plan, which was to explore a bit before going to a restaurant I picked out. We got to the restaurant and it was very nice. Menus were dropped in front of us by a guy who could speak a bit of English, that helps. We looked at what was available. One of the more expensive dishes was Cuy, Guinea pig. Why not, I'm here to try the food and the beers. I ordered it and asked why there were two options for what seems the same meal. The waiter told me it was about presentation. He said most tourists want to try it, but don't want to see it. So there's a sooks option. They cook it then remove all the bones, so all you get is a pile of meat. Not a big pile mind you, it is after all a guinea pig. I went with the other option, not because I'm a big tough bloke. It's because I wanted a photo to send to my mate Damian, who has guinea pigs! What did it taste like? Hard to say. A bit like pork, but a bit gamier. The skin was cooked a little like pork crackle, but was really tough in places. It was cut in half and there wasn't a lot of meat on it. I did enjoy it, the kids had a taste, but I wouldn't have it again. I prefer a good steak or pork belly, and they're half the price. After dinner we walked back to the apartment. No more rain thankfully. Bed time.
1.10.2025. Today we're visiting a bit of the old city, starting with Basílica del Voto Nacional, which is right next to our stay. It has two big clock towers and a spire at the other end. We got our tickets and went in. As you enter the main area of the Basilica is closed off, but you can go up one of the towers. There's shops at almost every level, which we've not seen in a church before. We walked through one shop and out into an open area, where another shop was opposite. In the middle was a walkway, which we worked out went across the top of the vaulted ceiling in the main area. This is the first time we've been able to see what is above the ceiling and it gave us a unique view. At the other end were steps leading out to the spire at the other end of the Basilica. There are a couple sets of steep steps leading up to the spire. At first only I went up and had a look around. When I got back down Emma said she wanted to go up, so up I went again. After the spire we crossed back to the other side and went further up the tower. We stopped at another shop. This one was selling drinks. Coffee, tea, juice and BEER! It was only 10am, and I had that mentioned to me, but I had to try one. A beer made for a Basilica, being sold in a Basilica. My kinda church. I picked one that said it had some salt and pepper added. It was a very good beer. After having a bit of a laugh that a church would sell beer, we explored some more. We noticed that you could see the spire from a vantage point in the tower. I had the great idea that Mel could take a photo of Em and I in the spire. So we went back down and across, then up the spire again. Hope it was worth it for a good photo. We went back down and around to another part of the Basilica. This time we went inside were it is open and looked around. It is much bigger than I first thought it would be. After that, we wandered a bit and found an open area. A place with plants and benches. Lots of little restaurants and quite a few people. We stopped and had lunch before moving on. We visited another church, this one was heavily decorated on the inside, gold decoration everywhere. Lots of carvings as well. Which were very impressive. It was a bit over the top for me, the gold decorations, gaudy I would say. I'm sure they love it though. After that we found a taxi, as our next destination was over an hour walk away. The next thing to do is ride a cable car to the top of Pichincha volcano. After a 2klm ride you get dropped off near the top. A shortish hike sees you at the top, just above 4000m from sea level. Guess what! There's a swing up there. Andrew was the first to hop on with Emma being a bit hesitant. I had a go and swung pretty high. Mel initially didn't want to have a go, but I convinced them so I could get a photo. We walked a bit more, the view up here is fantastic. It started to rain a little so we headed back to a cafeteria. Yep, there's food and drinks available at the top. Seems here in Ecuador they have put a shop and somewhere to get food at every place to visit. We waited for a bit, well we had to wait for a bit as the cable car was shut down due to the rain. At least that's what I got from the brief conversation I had in Spanish with the guy who runs it. It was shutdown for around 10-15mins, would have been great to have been stuck in a car during that. After that we wandered back out and found a taxi. Well a taxi driver found us. On our way back to the apartment we had a talk with him. We organised to be picked up tomorrow for another tour at a negotiated price. Once back I made some dinner and we hit the sack as we have a somewhat early start tomorrow.
2.10.2025. We got picked up out the front of the apartment and taken on our tour for the day. First stop, the Pululahua crater. Free entry woohoo! There was a good viewpoint right at the top where you could look out over the crater. The crater doesn't look much like a crater as it is fully covered with vegetation and a small town. I sure hope it is now an extinct volcano. We started the hike down towards the bottom. We got around halfway down before deciding to head back up. Even though we've been here a few days, we're not fully acclimated yet. Or maybe just not that fit and figured it would be a lot harder to do the whole hike back up. Anyway the decision was made and we went back up. On the way out we passed through the shops. A magnet was purchased and we headed back to the taxi. Onto our next stop, the Middle Of the World!!! The equator line! A small fee and we're in. Once inside we saw some buildings depicting how the locals lived before Spanish occupancy. What they ate and the medicines they used from native plants. Next we rode in a “train” around the whole place. Unfortunately the train museum was closed, so we couldn't visit it. Afterwards we went to the centre, where there is a big monument for the equator. We did the selfie thing, then went inside. On the way up the monument taking the stairs, they had lots of information about the history of the exploration and discovery of the equator. At the top we had a good view of the surroundings. Unfortunately it was a bit cluttered as they were setting up for an Oktoberfest event in a few days. Also unfortunately we wouldn't be here for that. After going back down we found the planetarium. It was all in Spanish but was ok to watch. We visited a few other buildings, one of which was detailing the efforts of French explorers and contributions to finding the equator. Also that there was an equator and that the world was indeed round. There's lots of information that I can't remember and can't be arsed to look up and write in my blog, do it yourself if you wanna know. We found and had lunch there then looked around a bit more. We found some alpacas or Lama's, I still can't tell the difference. We visited what they called the chocolate museum. It wasn't really a museum at all, but rather just a shop for chocolate. I decided to give the beer museum a miss after that as I figured it would be the same. The kids played in the playground there for a while, then, as it was getting on in the afternoon, we headed back out to find our taxi driver. On the way back to the apartment we organised with him again for tomorrow. An earlier start tomorrow, so dinner and bed.
3.10.2025. Picked up from our apartment at 7am today. Off to a town called Mindo, located in the middle of the “Cloud Forest”. The Cloud Forest is a strip of forest that lies between the coastal area of Ecuador and the Amazon forest. It is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Our first stop was at a butterfly sanctuary. They had an area where cocoons were pinned up and we saw butterflies hatching and drying their wings. I even got to see one take its first flight from the cocoon. Next stop was for zip lines, yay!! Emma, as usual, had been hesitant to agree to do zip lines, even after her success in Africa and Paris. After seeing a picture where the kid went with an adult, she had said she would do it. Once it came to the crunch tho, she faltered. A little tough love from Mel and they were hooked up together, I didn't see it as I was already on the other side with Andrew. Andrew as usual has no issues with zip lines. He is happiest when he gets to do it first. As it turned out these were the longest ones we'd done so far with two being 500m long. Emma only took one zipline to realise again that she loves them and was happy to do the rest. Apparently she had a huge grin on her face and was laughing halfway through the first one. All up we did 10 lines and had a lot of fun. The guides we had with us were great, one of them even had Mel's camera and videoed them on the way across. We saw leaf cutter ants in action, we'd seen them before in an aquarium but this time we saw them in nature. We heard toucan chicks in a nest and saw the two adults in the branches. We finished at the start, took off the harnesses and thanked our guides. There was another group ready to go, so they didn't get any rest. Back in the taxi and off to our next stop. A big cable car across a ravine. On the other side we had some lunch, empanadas for Mel and I, burgers for the kids. Then we had a hike down to a waterfall. It started to rain on the way down. We had our umbrellas with us but had left our jackets in the taxi. By the time we were back, we were cold and wet. My shoes were soaked, tho a jacket wouldn't have helped with that. So we want to do more waterfalls? It's 3pm and a 2.5hr drive back. Plus we're wet and cold. Let's head back. Back across the ravine on the cable car and into the taxi. A long drive back along a winding road through the cloud forest to Quito. Once back we all had a nice hot shower and changed into warm clothes. I made dinner, we had a movie and went to bed.
4.10.2025. We started slowly today. After breakfast we headed out to visit some more of the city. It's also the anniversary of our 9th month on the trip. What better way to celebrate than by getting Emma her Pandora charm from Ecuador. How am I feeling after 9 full months travelling? Still happy to see new countries, taste new food and try new beers. Still not regretting having agreed to do this crazy thing. Also still haven't murdered anyone in their sleep.
We looked into taking the bus, but that was a little confusing and seemed harder than it needed to be. The metro however, was very straightforward as they only have one. Quito is a long narrow city built between mountains. So one long metro line seems to cover most of it. I think it was a $1.50 for the four of us for tickets. We hopped onto the train and headed into a newer part of the city. We got off and started heading towards the shopping centre that has a Pandora. We noticed that in the newer area there was more space. Bigger roads and footpaths. We found Pandora and bought Emma's charm. A lovely looking avocado one, and the most expensive yet. Alright let's look for lunch. We had food in the centre, then headed out again to a park just outside of it. Now this park is big. Actually not just big, pretty bloody huge. There's heaps of soccer fields, some basketball courts and some big playground areas. The kids had fun, we had a chat and did some people watching. There's people selling everything here, right in the park. Marquees set up and BBQs going. Being a Saturday I reckon people would spend most of their day here. Why not, the weather is lovely, there's plenty of food and drinks on offer and there's lots to do and see. In the park area there is a Botanical garden, which naturally we had a look at. One part had a bonsai tree display. Not sure if it was a competition, but it sure was interesting to look at. Some of the trees we saw were over 25-30 years old. Emma now wants one when we get back. We had more of a walk after that and found a Quito sign for a picture. We got back on the metro and headed back to the apartment. Rested then blogged some. I made dinner with the last of our pasta and leftovers. Then we headed out to find a pub with some music. About a 5min walk we were at a pub and having a nice stout. The pub was uniquely decorated and it was nice to sit amongst the locals for a bit. The kids got some drinks but neither finished as they said they were way too sweet. We tried another beer, this one another dark one but with coffee. We played one game of uno no mercy, which lasted over an hour and a half and we didn't finish as we all got sick of it. We headed back to the apartment and headed to bed.
5.10.2025. We had a bit of a sleep in, then went out and grabbed some breakfast. Have been blogging all morning, not sure what we'll do for lunch. We have purchased some bus tickets for tomorrow, but the company hasn't sent them to us yet. Mel has messaged them a few times and we're still unsure what is happening. So our plan is to head to the bus station in the morning and see what we can get. Hopefully we'll get our tickets sometime today, could do without the stress, obviously. Dinner somewhere, maybe at the apartment, though we have no food left. We'll see what happens.
KevLæs mere
Quito, Ecuador by the kids
29. sep.–6. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
On the 29th we took a plane from the Galapagos to Quito, Quito is the capital of Ecuador and it has 2.7 million people and an area of 372km2. When we looked out at the city from high up (the taxi to get to our hotel had to go over a hill) the city looked huge. When we got to the hotel we put our stuff down and went to look around, we found a nice restaurant, had dinner there and then we went home and then went to sleep.
On the 30th we went out to have breakfast and Emma got a little altitude sickness and then we went to a supermarket and got some food. Quito has some steep roads so it’s hard to climb and it’s really high up from sea level so it’s hard to breath, after that we went back to the room and did some school work and games, but then it started raining. I was looking out the window at the rain and then I saw something, it was falling with the rain, it was little and white, it was little bits of hail, we went out and looked, it was covering the streets. It was very cool, (cool like awesome cool and cool like cold cool). When it stopped we went out to a restaurant and dad had Guinee Pig, a full one, I tried it and it was tough and not that good. I got an absolutely fabulously marvellously amazingly mouthwatering pork belly, It was sort of fat and it had delicious meat. There was also an amazing peanut sauce, it was the best peanut sauce I’ve ever had, after that we went to the room and went to sleep.
On the 1st we went to a big church that had a thing where you can go up in the big spires, it was awesome, we got to walk in the roof, we were above the cement bit but under the wooden bit, we then went right up to the top of the tower and it was a really good view. After that we went to independence square, it had lots of fountains and some plants. We went inside a church and it was really cool we looked around and there was lots of gold coloured stuff, we also went up to the dome at the top, it was a lovely view, we looked around and enjoyed it. After that we went t to another church that had even more gold than the last one, everything was gold, no exceptions, cool. After that we went to a cable car up the mountain, mum didn’t like it that much, when we got up the mountain it was a magnificent view. We hiked for a bit across the mountain and we saw a swing that was a bit close to the edge of the hill so I swung on it, it was cool. After that when we were walking back it started lightly rain and then I noticed that there where tiny balls of hail falling to, when we got back to the room we went to sleep.
On the 2nd we went to Pululahua (it’s a volcano), we hiked down for a bit and then we decided to go up again because it was too hard, when we got up we went to the middle of the world, also known as the equator. When we got there it only cost $15 altogether to get in, there is a big monument that has the first letters of Cardinal Directions. We looked around at some museums, there was a line that went across the whole place and it separated the hemispheres. Now my parents want me to do some research about this place so I will. The middle of the world is called Ciudad Mitad del Mundo in Spanish. The Equator was first mapped out by a French geodesic expedition team that was led by an explorer named Charles-Marie de La Comdamine in the year of 1736. It was mapped out by them but first discovered by the Incas, the monument is actually not on the equator the equator is 240 meters away and is on a ravine, so that area is not really buildable. Ecuador was named after the equator, funny. Of all the time we spent at this place I probably crossed the northern and southern hemisphere like 50 time. After that we went to the taxi and drove home and slept.
On the 3rd we went to Mindo, in the cloud forest, the first thing we did was went to a butterfly park, there where so many butterflies, there were some cocoons that there had butterflies coming out every five minutes. It was really cool, I had a butterfly land on my head, it felt weird. After that we went to a zipline place, Emma wasn’t that sure about it but at the end they turned out to love it, we did a tour of 10 ziplines witch altogether was 3600 meters. The first zipline was 500 meters, the next one wasn’t that big but the one after that was also 500 meters. Around zipline number 6 we saw a really interesting bird, a toucan. There were two toucans there, and in a tree we didn’t see them but we heard them, baby toucans. The guide said the adult toucans are always there because of the babies. At the end we then went to a cable car which went over to another side of a ravine and then we went on a hike to a water fall, on the way down it started raining, and we didn’t bring our coats. When we got down to the waterfall it looked really nice, me and Emma chucked some rocks in the water then we went back up and went back home and went to sleep.
On the 4th we took the underground to a mall where we got Emma a pandora, It was US$210 which is AUD$317, in other words, too much. After that we had brunch in the mall and then we went to a park, There were lots of basketball courts and soccer fields, there was also a huge playground and an old plane on display. The park is 670,000 square meters big, we kept walking and we saw some art, then we went to a botanical garden. We saw lots of plants and cool stuff, then we went home and did blog then at night we went out to a pub. We had some drinks and then we started an Uno: no mercy game, Uno: no mercy is an incredibly cut throat game, the one we played went for 1 and a half hour, and we didn’t finish it, we just gave up and we declared me the winner. Whatever mum, dads or Emma’s blog says don’t believe them we totally declared me the winner. After that we went home and went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 29th we took a plane to Quito from the Galapagos.
On the 30th we had breakfast out. I spewed up belly acid, and it stung like hell. It did not taste well either. Then we did shopping. Up on the hill where we were staying, it was pretty hard to breathe. Then we went back home, and it HAILED!!!!!!!!!!!! We did schoolwork and played a bit of games. For dinner we went to a nice restaurant. Dad tried Guinea pig. I didn’t like it that much. I had a burger. They gave me gloves to put on. It is funny to eat a burger with gloves on. It was a good burger. It had meat, cheese, onion and a bunch of other yummy stuff on it.
On the 1st we went into a massive church. We went up the towers. Mum and Andrew went all the way up except a tiny little bit. To get up the last little bit you had to climb steep steps. Me and dad did it. Mum didn’t do it because it was too high. And Andrew didn’t go up for other reasons. Then we visited a famous square that had fountains. There was also another church. Then we walked around the city. There are small grocery stores scattered all over the place. A few big buildings. Then we took a taxi to a cable car. We went up and up and up! it was so cool. We saw all the buildings getting smaller and smaller. When you look left all you can see is city. When you look right you see city. It is massive. Then we went on a swing that was at the top of the mountain. Then we had dinner at home.
On the 2nd we went to a place called Pululahua volcano. We walked and walked. The path was surrounded by bushes. It was nice to walk in nature. We stopped halfway down the volcano because mum mentioned how hard it would be to back UP the volcano. Then we visited the middle of the world. It is called Mitad del Mondo. Did you know? The Equator is not a line, it is stripe. Did you know? The monument on the equator is thirty metres high not including the massive globe on top. Did you know? In 1979 the monument started being built and it finished in 1982. The monument was built to commemorate the French for their work in the 18th century on the Geodesic mission. Geodesic means the shape of the earth. The earths shape is a sphere just squished. I think that a giant alien stepped on earth and flattened it a bit. That is how the big boom was created. We saw quite a lot of stuff actually. We saw Alpacas, we saw a model of Quito, a few museums. It was fun. Then me and Andrew played on a turning swing.
On the 3rd we drove for two hours. Then we arrived at a butterfly sanctuary. There were so many different types of butterflies. It was really pretty. Then we did ten ziplines. When we were lining up to do the first zipline, I said I did not want to do it anymore. Me and mum got into an argument and mum ended up forcing me to do it. I went with mum on nine of them and on the tenth I went with a guide. It was cool to go ziplining over cloud forest. On the first few I was holding on to mum very tightly but after that I was comfortable, and I enjoy it very much. It was the coolest day of my life. It kept getting higher and higher. Then we took a cable car over a river. We did a trek up a waterfall and played a bit there. But when we were trekking back, it started to rain. We still got drenched even if we had umbrellas. It was really cold.
On the 4th we went to a shopping centre and bought my pandora charm for Ecuador. I got an avocado charm. I was happy to get my pandora then because it was our ninth month on the road. Three months left to go. I can’t believe it, it’s almost over. Aarrrrhh. Then we went to a park. we saw some Bonsai trees. They were beautiful. I decided to get a bonsai tree when I get home. Then we went to a pub. We played one board game because it lasted one and a half hours.
On the 5th we did blog. Then we had a movie night.
Emma (9 years old)Læs mere
Ambato and Banos, Ecuador by Mel
6.–9. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
Hello everyone,
We are still in Ecuador but a bit more south now.
On Monday the 6th of November, we woke up early, around 5.30am. We got dressed, grab a taxi to take us to the bus terminal. I had bought some tickets online with 12go, but apparently, even after several message from me, they were not capable to tell me if I was going to get my tickets or not. We left in the morning with no tickets, so we wanted to get there early to make sure we’ll find a bus. We did not need to worry, as we found a bus easy peasy. In South America, we found out that online booking is not necessary, not effective: you just need to go to the bus station and you’ll find a bus easy enough.
We got in and it took us around 2 and a half hours to get to Ambato.
Ambato is known as the flower and fruits city. They even have a flower and fruit festival in February I think. Because we left Quito super early, not knowing how easy it will be to get a bus, we arrived super early too. Too early to check in. We found a little place which made empanadas to spend a couple of hours before we could check in.
Our place is pretty good: big, but the view is the main thing. Ambato is built around the Ambato river and our flat is right on the river but higher up, so we have a massive view of the surrounding mountains and the river. That is really cool.
We settled a bit as usual and then, as usual went in search of a small supermarket to do some grocery shopping. We found one and did our shopping. We got surprised when we went over $50, we got asked some ID. Life is pretty cheap here, and wages are not very high either, so maybe $50 is a big shopping. We are not sure. Anyway, we paid and went back toward our place. On the way, we came upon a street full a market stalls selling anything and everything, but a lot of fruit and vegetables. We got a few different fruits we never saw before and a chorizo, that we learnt is one of the specialities around here. Kev and the kids tasted it later and they all loved it!
After that, we came back and did our normal night routine (no that we have one, but you know!) movie night and bed.
Tuesday, we visited the city. There are a few things to visit around the city, but nothing big. We started with El Casa Del Portal, a museum with paintings from different Ecuadorian painters: some were portraits, some landscapes, some more modern. We even recognised some of the things we visited in Quito in some of the landscapes. We then visited the main basilica, which is pretty recent as the city was almost fully destroyed in 1949 by earthquake. It was built where the old basilica was, but in a much modern style. The inside is very clean and white and bright. The few paintings inside are full of light and I liked it. After that we went to another small museum which had some information about the trades of Ecuador, some traditional clothes and some mural paintings that we enjoyed looking at all the details. While we were there, some people were filming a small commercial for an event they will have there over the following weekend and asked us to say a couple of sentences in English along the lines of: “it is a great event for families and don’t miss it”. We agreed to do it (you know, it was fun!) even if we didn’t really know what it was for. We found out after that it was a small event with Mangas and music.
The next thing we visited was the casa del Montalvo. Juan Montalvo was an Ecuadorian essayist and novelist from the 19th century. He was strongly opposed and a big critic of the presidents/dictators of Ecuador at the time. He was exiled for over 20 years and died in Paris. He is a very well know and loved author in Ecuador. As he was born in Ambato and his body has been brought back in Ambato, you can visit his house and learn about him. The kids should have done a bit of research on him (I haven’t checked yet!), so if you are interested go have a look at their blog.
For lunch that day, we found a type of cafeteria where we had a very good lunch for $8 (for the four of us)!! Food is very cheap here, especially if you go where the locals go! It is always cheap and delicious! The traditional lunch here is a soup, a main which is often rice and either chicken or beef (sometime pork) with a bit of salad and a juice. And again all that for $2 each! Also during the day, we picked up a few snacks: one was a sweet bread with caramel inside (delicious) and one was chips with a tangy sauce and nuts. Food is good here!
We wanted to do one more museum, but it was close when we arrived (to Emma’s delight) and we went back to our place. The kids did a bit of schoolwork and then we rested.
Wednesday we visited the botanical garden. It was a lot bigger than expected and we spend a few hours in there. Ecuador has a lot of orchids (I think I mentioned that in a previous blog) and there seems to be botanical garden in a lot of cities. This one was very lovely, with big hummingbird statues, a lot of flowers and plants. It made a lovely morning walking over there.
When we were getting hungry with found another one of those places who served the typical soup, main and juice and had another great lunch. The kids played in a playground we found and after a while we came back to our place to meet the owner who wanted to shoot a video of the appartement but then decided otherwise (maybe because he saw our mess, which I had warned him about!) Anyway, regular end of the day!
Thursday, we took a bus to go to Banos, a town one hour bus drive from Ambato. This is known as the place to do all the extreme activities in Ecuador. We had booked through WhatsApp (this is a must have app when you are traveling as a lot of booking go through that) the day before, for a 2-day tour over there. It was hard to pick what to do as there is a lot in offer!
We woke up early, jumped into a taxi (they are everywhere here: yellow taxis absolutely everywhere) then in a bus direction Banos. We left early as usual as we had to be there by 9m and we didn’t want to be late, so we arrived around 7.30am! We found a coffee place to wait, while having coffee and sweet stuffs. While we were in the coffee place, 2 musicians dressed in traditional Ecuadorian clothes came and played pan flute and guitar.
Banos is a very touristic place. The streets are full of tour companies, restaurant orientated to tourists, hotels and shops selling souvenirs. The more we travel, the less I like those places. They all look the same: the only thing that change is the type of souvenirs they sell in shops. I am not going to lie: I do buy magnets everywhere we go (almost) and we use tours in some places, but I feel like those cities are losing their spirit a bit. Ambato is Ecuadorian, Banos is tourist city. I wish we could find a just middle where there are touristic places but also still feel like the country is still there and not disappearing under tourist pressure.
Anyway, at 9am we started our adventure tour. We tried some bikes. They had to find a smaller one for Emma and off we went. Well, we had to pay a little bit of extra for a van to follow us. The guide we had, Roberto, didn’t seem to sure Emma could do the whole trip, so he advises us to have the van following, so if needed, Emma could use the car.
We started our tour riding in the town first and then sharing road with big bus, trucks and cars. It was a bit scary at time, but all went well. We stopped to look at a couple of waterfalls. For one of them, we took a cable car that was run by what seem to be an pretty old engine…It worked, so all good! The cable car took us above the waterfall and with a bit of a rough stop, let us have a look at the landscape. As everything natural here, it is beautiful. Volcanos, hills, valley, rivers, waterfalls…. The scenery is magnificent.
On the way, we had the opportunity to do a zipline in the Superhuman position: laying on your tummy, headfirst flying down a 1025m long zipline at a speed between 70 and 110km/h. Andrew and Kev took the opportunity. Emma and I were happy to watch. For some reason, the superhuman position is not my favourite to go down zipline. Apparently it was great!
I have to give credit to Emma for her riding. She had a small bike, more BMX than road bike, so she had to work more than us (even on the downhill sections) and she did great! She took the car a few times (and she sat on the front seat, so she loved it) but did 2/3 of the road on her bike. Our legs were pretty tired by the end of it!
We finished the bike tour at ‘El Pailon del Diablo’, the cauldron of the devil. This is a waterfall located on the Rio Verde river (verde means green for the colour of the water) and merge into the Pastaza river just after the drop. It is an 80 meters drop making it the tallest waterfall in Ecuador. The rock formations around it are beautiful and made of volcanic rock, which give the dark colour and make the place even more dramatic. Some stairs have been added so you can go under the waterfall. There are a couple of hanging bridges to get to different areas of the waterfall. It was a great sight and we really enjoyed it.
There were obviously some little shops where Emma bought herself a ring. I bought a couple of magnets and a tiny pan flute, because you know!
This was the end of the riding part of the day.
Roberto took us to a local restaurant where we had fish from the Verde river: absolutely delicious! After lunch, off to the Casa del Arbor (the treehouse) which is famous for having a big swing called the swing at the end of the world. This is a big swing on the slop of a mountain, and when you are on it if feels like you are swinging into the nothing! I am not a big fan of swing (they make me sick), so I tried a smaller one, which my stomach did not like! The other 3 did the big one and loved it, especially Andrew. He could have stayed there forever!
There were also an area with a fair few hummingbird. If you don’t know what they are, here it is: they are small bird which can hover with the help of their very fast wings. They move incredibely fast and they are hard to take in pictures. I am very happy because one was very kind to me and stay still for a bit and I took a picture of it and then went off in flower close to us and I manged to get an ok picture of it while it was flying. I’m happy!
Then we went off for our last adventure of the day: ziplines!!!! Because apparently, we love zipline! This course was a 6 ziplines course adding to 2000 meters. There were regular sitting ziplines, some you could go upside down like a bat (only Andrew did it) and some on the superhuman position. I am getting comfortable on the sitting one, but the superhuman position is still slightly terrifying for me. I don’t like seeing the ground! If I look forward, I’m ok, but seeing the ground, scares me more! Anyway, I still did it! Emma was a bit worried, but ended up loving it!!! We drove back to Banos and got dropped to the place we were going to spend the night. We dropped our bag, rest for a little bit and then got in search of a place to have dinner. We found a vegetarian restaurant, where the service was pretty slow but the food was good. After that, as we were exhausted we went back to our room and straight to bed!
Friday was a slow start as we had no activity planned in the morning. We got up and got breakfast at a nearby place. It was included in the price, so we were expecting a small ish breakfast, but we had: fruits, juice, coffee, a couple of bread rolls each with butter and jam and scramble eggs. We were satisfied after that! We went to visit the church of Banos, which is made with volcanic rocks. It gives it a pretty gothic look. The inside is a mixed of the black rocks and white paint with flowery decorations. It is striking. Next to the church is a smaller “chapel” that look like a cave with a statue of Mary (I’m assuming) with fairy lights and decorations (which is pretty common here) and a lot of candles lit up. You can feel how important is the faith here.
There was also a small museum right next to the church that we went to visit. It was not very big, but there were some nice religious paintings, some religious clothes and artifacts, and one slightly creepy room with taxidermied animals.
We then found while walking around, a magical mystical land. I had found one the previous day while searching things to do, but it turned out it was close at the time we wanted to visit it. Hence why I was happy to find that other one which was open! Apparently, a few years back, an artist made fairies and other mystical creatures and made a garden with them that you could come and visit. It worked well and tourists came to see it. Obviously, more were created and there are now several of them. I have to admit it was nice to visit. You entre through a book portal and walk through different worlds: fairy land, dragon land, witch and wizard land (very Harry Potter inspired), unicorns, goblins, big spiders and dragonflies and gnomes were there too. It was fun. Some areas had dress-ups you could put on and take pictures with. We had a fun time there. We found a small place to eat with the traditional soup, main and juice and this time a small dessert as well. It was pineapple in jelly and was pretty good.
Then we left for our activity of the afternoon. Andrew was very much looking forward to this one. I was less! You guess it, it was something up high in the air again! We were going paragliding!!!
We thought that we would go together and as Emma didn’t want to do it, we decided that Andrew and I will go. I like pushing my limits (I’m not sure why)!! We met with Jonathan, our guide for the day and he drove us to one of the mountains around Banos where we met with Dario, who was going to be the one taking us in the air. Jonathan assured me that Dario had over 20 years of experience and all was safe. Andrew wanted to be first, but the winds were too strong for him, so I had to go first. Yeah…. I got striped to Dario and much sooner than expected, with no briefing on what to do, I was told “run!”. I’m sorry what, are we going now, I’m not sure I’m ready!!! Ok I run then! I took a couple of steps and we were up!!! It went so fast! The feelings up there are amazing. The views of the mountains around and the city in the valley are sensational. All you hear is the wind (and Dario telling me to relax). This is truly an amazing experience, and I am so glad I did it. It was not as scary as I thought it would be; don’t get me wrong, I was still holding onto the harness a fair bit, but I did truly enjoy the experience. As we were paragliding in a mountain area, there is always winds coming up, so we could take off and land at the same place. You do not go down. Dario being really good at what he is doing, did made us fly right above the fields with feet almost touching the long grass and then back above the valley and going around again. It was finish way too soon.
Andrew had to wait a fair bit for the wind to calm down. I think he was getting pretty stressed out that he wouldn’t do it. But at some point, Jonathan said: ‘your turn’ talking to Andrew and you should have seen the smile on his face! They put the harness on him and added a 10L water thing on his back to make him heavier! And they were up! Literally! He didn’t need to run, as soon as the parachute was up, 2 guys had to hold them as they were up straight away, then they let go and Andrew was gone. My mummy heart was a little bit worried to see my baby boy so far up in the air, but I knew how much Andrew love that kind of experience. He absolutely loved it. It said it was one of the best experiences he ever had!
As we were going one at a time, Kev decided to do it too! So it was his turn. While he was up there, Emma decided that she wanted to do it too. Hearing both Andrew and I talking about how wonderful it was, and watching her dad doing it, she wanted to have the experience too.
After Kev landed, it was here turn, with the 10L water thing on her back too obviously. She was up in the air with a massive smile on her face. I am so proud of her for doing it and pushing her limits. She is realising that she can do a lot more that she thought possible and loving every second of it. She is growing so much this year.
Andrew is too and developing his love for extreme activities! It is such a pleasure to watch them grow and developing who they are. This is one of the things I enjoyed the most this year. Just being with them and appreciating our time together.
After paragliding, Jonathan and Dario took us to a small shack on the side of the road with yummy food. Apparently, they always go there after a day of flying. We tried mita, some cornbread with cheese in the middle, absolutely delicious and kimbolito, a sweet warm bread wrapped in banana leaves, amazing! We also got some empanadas, some of the best we had some far. When we were full, we hailed a bus to take us back to Ambato. It was a great day!!
Saturday the 11th of October was a simple one. Schoolwork and blogging were done. We went out for lunch and a tiny bit of food shopping. We also had a look at the event we did the little video for a few days prior. There were a few stands selling manga related things. We bought a One Piece picture for Andrew and Emma got a necklace with a horse on it. It was pretty small, so after a tiny bit we got back to our place. Then game and movie night.
Sunday was similar. We finished the blog about here and Banos, went out for lunch and had one last walk in Ambato. We will have to pack as tomorrow we are taking another bus for our next destination, Cuenca a city a few hours south of here.
We’ll see you there!
MelLæs mere
Ambato and Banos, Ecuador by Kev
9.–10. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ 🌧 21 °C
6.10.2025. Up early so we can head to the bus station and sort out some tickets. 12Go Asia has been useful in other countries but useless here. I read some stuff on the interwebs that bus tickets in South America usually can not be purchased online, only in person. So why do they sell the bloody things then! We bought tickets really easily and hopped on a bus almost straight away. Mel messaged 12go and told them we had tickets, they replied they would do a refund. The fact that Mel messaged multiple times over 4-5 days asking for our tickets and we kept getting told it's being worked out and just wait, instead of telling us that they couldn't secure tickets was very stressful. Anyway, we're off to Ambato. As we saw in Quito, the landscape here is fantastic. Tall mountains and winding roads. Lots of farms all the way up the sides of some mountains. Green everywhere, and small villages throughout. We got to Ambato way too early and couldn't check in yet. We found a small restaurant and got some food and a coffee. We sat there for ages before checking in. The apartment is pretty good. Two bedrooms, a loungeroom/kitchen/dining room, two bathrooms and even a media room. I'm sure shit will be spread all over the place soon enough. We headed back out and found an ATM, then a supermarket. After the supermarket we walked through a huge market that had every vege or fruit you could want. Naturally we got some extra stuff. We headed back afterwards and put everything away. The kitchen is new and really well laid out, but I only have one pot and one pan. I like having a few things on the go at once, I will mention it could be better equipped. Dinner was made and eaten, then off to bed so we can explore tomorrow.
7.10.2025. We're going out to see the city today. Well the bit that's near where we are staying anyway. Our first stop was a museum. Some paintings and portraits. Every country is different and every artist is different. We see the differences in the art from all the different countries. We then visited a “new” church. Well 1949 new, but it's architecture made it seem to me as though it were newer. The last “big” earthquake they had here was in 1949. It wiped out a lot of the city, including the church. They have obviously since rebuilt. We stopped at a small Ecuadorian boulangerie, I can't remember what they call it, and grabbed a couple things. Em got a person shaped snack with icing on it. Turns out it was full of caramel too. I grabbed what I thought was just a bread roll, but tasted kinda like a slightly salty croissant. Both were delicious. We stopped at another museum, this one showing the daily lives and clothing of the Ecuadorian people. There were painted murals all inside too. We were approached by a few people who asked us if we could help them make a promotional video. Apparently they are having a convention of sorts on the weekend and would like some English speaking people to help promote it. Why not, it's not like anyone is gonna see it. After our few words, we finished our visit and moved on. Next was yet another museum, this one was about Juan Montalvo. An Ecuadorian author, who was exiled from his country for speaking out against the government and its dictator. He later died in Paris after the second time he was exiled, this time for speaking out against the next dictator. Eventually his remains returned to Ambato, Ecuador, his home town. Where he was laid to rest in a mausoleum next to his house. The museum was set up in his old house. It was interesting and there were some very inspirational quotes of his around. A little too godly for me but the man seemed to have his head screwed on right. By now we're getting hungry, kids are starting to snarl and drool looking at each other. We wandered for a bit, and I led us to a market. Nope that's just a market, but hey what's that next to it? A cafeteria by the looks of it, set up for working Ecuadorians. Let's try, language barrier be damned! We managed to order almuerzo, which means lunch in Spanish. It usually consists of a soup, a main and a juice. That's what we got, we even managed to get across that Mel is vegetarian and they got a “special” lunch. There's meat in everything here, so you have to ask for vegetarian, usually. A really nice chicken soup followed by a good pork chop, salad and rice. The juice was good too, and is always different from restaurant to restaurant. By the end I was stuffed, I didn't even finish the kids leftovers, just my own food. Mel went to pay and when they got back said, $8. Wow, $8 for the four of us and it was pretty decent food. Once again, go where the locals go. After that we slowly wandered to our next stop. Another museum, this one was bigger and had lots of animals in it. It was also closed! We weren't the only ones trying to get in, so it wasn't just us who couldn't find the front door. Well what now? Back to the apartment, rest a bit, it was a pretty big day. Kids did some schoolwork and Mel and I looked at other stuff we could do.
8.10.2025. We're headed to some historical houses today, along with that comes some really big gardens to explore as well. We headed across a bridge near our apartment, something we haven't done yet and headed towards our destination. A bit later we got to the first of the houses but it didn't seem we could get in. Something was happening there and there were security guards that told us to keep heading along the road to the entrance. So that's what we did, kept walking. We eventually got to the entrance, paid our fees and went in. Lots of paths, lots of plants and lots of flowers. Ambato is called the city of fruits and flowers and after being in the market and now visiting here I believe it. We walked for a while just enjoying our surroundings. We found some huge flowers that were almost as tough as leather. You could see through one that had fallen and the kids had fun doing that. There were flowers of all sizes and aromas all around us. We visited the first of two historical houses in the gardens, this one had lots of paintings and mannequins dressed up. On the way we found a wooden car the kids mucked around on and a swing with hummingbirds. Once we got to the end and the other historical house we found it was hosting some kind of event and we couldn't go in. Oh well. We could have exited there, but we decided to go back through the garden again, much better than walking along a road. After we left the gardens we found a small place for lunch. Where we had lunch was right next to a park so the kids had a good play before we headed back to the apartment. While resting I boiled some water. We've been told not to drink the tap water here, so I boil some for us to drink. We bought a big bottle when we first arrived and I now just top it up. The rest of the night went as usual, keep reading for tomorrow.
9.10.2025. Today we're heading to Baños, a smaller town not far from Ambato. Up early, quick breakfast and into a taxi. Out of the taxi and onto a bus. About an hour later we are in Baños. Of course we're early, we always are. Early for what you ask? Why early for all the activities we booked today! But as I said, we're early, so we stopped at a coffee shop. Mostly to kill time, but also because I like coffee. It's now 9am and we're off to start our first activity, biking roughly 17klm, stopping at waterfalls on the way. Our guide, Roberto, wasn't sure Emma was up for it, so he pushed a bit for us to take a car. We wanted to ride as Emma had expressed that she was missing her bike. Emma rode, but we did agree to pay a little more for a car to follow us just in case. Which turned out to be a good choice as Emma's bike wasn't the greatest and she did indeed use the car a couple times. I'm not criticising her effort at all. Emma pushed herself and was knackered by the end of it. We all were. Along the way we stopped at a few waterfalls, a cable car and a huge zipline. Andrew and I decided to do the zipline. This one you lay down in “superman” position and go headfirst. I should have kept my glasses on as my eyes were watering from the wind. It was over 1klm long and up to 110klm/hr. I was told to put my hands out to slow myself down once over the river. I still had to be stopped at the end. Andrew got the early lead, but because I was heavier I soon overtook him. We kept riding, the cable car was pretty cool. Although the guy controlling it did a few sudden stops which made some of us, not mentioning any names, shit themselves just a little. More riding. We went through a tunnel in the mountain, Andrew did not like the tunnel and was happy to be out the other side. When we made it to the end of our trip, we all felt a great sense of accomplishment. I reckon Emma rode at least 2/3rds of it, which was an achievement in itself as Mel said her bike didn't roll that well and she even had to pedal downhill, when the rest of us got to roll and rest. I am proud of my family. The last stop was Pailón del Diablo. In English, Cauldron of the Devil. A beautiful waterfall running along greyish/black volcanic rock, towards an 80m drop into the cauldron. Some suspension bridges and walkways for the tourists were crossed. It truly was a lovely place to visit, opening up into a canyon in the forest. On the way out we stopped at a couple of shops, yep there's shops to buy trinkets here. There's shops to buy trinkets everywhere. We were then taken for lunch. A restaurant near the falls, where we had fresh grilled trout caught from the river, with rice and salad and of course a juice. It was delicious, the fish was cooked perfectly. Next stop is a place called The Casa del Arbor. The Treehouse. On the top of a mountain, with nice gardens and paths. Also really big swings that go out over the edges of the mountain. The kids loved the swings, Mel not so much but they had a go. There were even some flying foxes. The kids had a lot of goes on them. Alright, we need to keep moving as we have another activity. On the way out of the treehouse we saw hummingbirds. We even got a close up look at one as it rested on a branch. Mel managed to get a pic of one in flight. Next stop, ziplines! We got to the next place and got geared up. We're off to have some fun! Emma is so much better at ziplines now. This time she had to go by herself, and in superman position. She was a bit scared, but there was no real hesitation from her. Em just got the job done. She is definitely more comfortable with ziplines now, which is great for us as we don't like having to convince her everytime. In between ziplines we had to walk a fair bit up the mountains. After already biking a fair bit today and running with the kids when they did the flying fox at the treehouse, my legs were starting to complain a bit. It was cool up in the mountains, but that didn't stop me from sweating it up and huffing and puffing a bit. After that we got dropped back to the company office and then taken over to our hostal for the night. It was a room to ourselves and had enough beds for everyone. It was also included in the price of the activities and included breakfast tomorrow, so win win. We had a rest and a freshen up, then went out to have a look around for some dinner. I found a vegetarian place on GMaps. There's not much of that here so we hit it up. The service was a bit slow and the price was a little more than we originally wanted to spend. But it was huge and pretty damn delicious. Plus beer is vegan/vegetarian so I felt obliged to have a couple. We wandered back, and pretty soon everyone was asleep.
10.10.2025. We woke up and went outside where we were led to another place for breakfast. Fresh fruit with cereal on it, bread and jam, coffee and eggs. Not bad for an included breakfast. Our last activity in Baños isn't until later this afternoon so we have a bit of time to walk around and see the town. Mel had found a fantasy place that you could visit, but turns out it didn't open until after our activity started. We decided to visit the church in town. Built from black volcanic rock, there was a mass going on when we got there so we didn't go in, but instead visited a museum they had there. Lots of old toys, some dead animals and a fair few clothes. After the museum the mass had finished so we went in and had a look inside. It's a church, paintings, carvings, really high, moving on. We wandered for a bit and found a different fantasy themed place. It was opening in 30mins so we got tickets and went to have a look. Once inside we noticed quite a lot of Harry Potter themed stuff. The kids and Mel posed with cloaks on with Hagrid. The kids sat on broomsticks and we took photos with all sorts of characters and animals. Afterwards we looked for somewhere to have lunch. Not far from the entrance was a local restaurant serving almuerzo, lunch. The guy even spoke some English, so we were able to get Mel something vegetarian. Lunch was huge! A really nice soup, pork with rice and salad, finished up with a pineapple jelly dessert thing. Oh and a juice, it was all really good and I was stuffed. Once again I didn't eat the kids' leftovers. We still had a little time until our activity so we stopped at a cafe and grabbed a coffee. As soon as we sat down after ordering, Mel received a message asking if we could come to the office at 2pm instead of 2:30. We rushed our coffee a bit and didn't finish it, then headed over. What are we doing this arvo? Why paragliding of course. Something none of us have done. Andrew and Mel are booked in to have a go at it. Back at the office they organised a driver to take us to the place. An Ecuadorian bloke named Johnathan, cheery and talkative. He told us how things were going to happen and was happy to answer our questions about Baños and Ecuador. Once there we saw paragliders in the air and I could tell Andrew's excitement was growing. Because the wind was a bit strong he had to wait, Mel went first. Quickly they were clipped in and while not quite ready and understandably a bit concerned, they were off. Because of the wind we had to move location. Johnathan packed some gear and we got back in the car for a short drive. Unfortunately we didn't get there in time to see Mel land. I did meet another Aussie there while waiting. Shona from Bathurst, who was also travelling South America. We had a chat and since Shona had caught Mel's takeoff on their phone as well, they exchanged WhatsApp with Mel and she sent the video. Johnathan was also a photographer and was taking photos and videos for us. Andrew had to wait because of the wind, which was driving him mad. He came up to me and said “I don't think I'm going to get to do it”. I could see it on his face and heard in his voice, he was worried. It was something he had been looking forward to since we booked it, and now he was thinking it wasn't going to happen. I reminded him that we had time and that we had to wait for the wind for him to be safe. The pilot? I dunno what you call the person flying the paraglider. His name was Dario and he had been flying for over 20 years and he knew the wind. He came over and asked me how much Andrew weighed. I said 30-32kgs. He looked thoughtful for a bit, then left and talked with some other people. Everyone on the mountain seemed to know each other and helped each other out. He came back with a 10lt pouch full of water. He said with this and the fact the wind had dropped a bit, Andrew could do it. The look on Andrew's face when he found out he was going. It changed from a look of resigned disappointment to sheer joy in an instant. He was clipped in and the water bag was loaded in behind him. They clipped him to Dario, the paraglider filled with air and it took two people to hold the two of them down. Then with Dario's say so, they were off, soaring through the air. I was happy Andrew got to do it. He would have been terribly disappointed if not. Once he was back on solid ground you couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Since the water bottle was still in the harness we asked if Emma wanted to do it. We had only booked Mel and Andrew because we thought someone would have to stay with Em. We didn't know it would all happen on the same mountain. Emma was still reluctant to have a go though. Johnathan said to me that because it would not be through the company it would be cheaper for us to do it now. Eh why not, let's have a go. The water bottle was removed and I got hooked up. Soon I was soaring through the air. It was quite peaceful and the view was spectacular. We swooped in low and I heard Emma call out “dad I have decided to do it”! Good one Em. My time was up and I landed. Emma, still a little worried but determined, got clipped in and soon was off with the birds. Once back on the ground, her smile was from ear to ear and I was so proud of her for having the courage. We were done, everything got packed up and we started to head back. We had talked to Johnathan on the way there, he was not going to take us all the way back to Baños, but to a spot on the highway where we could catch the bus back to Ambato. It just so happened that the spot also had a small restaurant right there on the side of the road. We had talked to him earlier about wanting to try all the local foods, so he took us in there. We got served some of the best food we have eaten in Ecuador so far. The empanadas were absolutely delicious and we tried a bread wrapped in leaves. While waiting for the bus we had dinner, coffee, hot chocolate and grabbed some more of the bread for breakfast tomorrow. All for $8.25. Once again, I had the best tasting empanadas so far on the side of the road. Which after all the travelling I have done so far, doesn't surprise me at all. Johnathan and Dario stopped the bus and helped us on. We were on our way back to Ambato. Once there we grabbed a taxi and got back to the apartment. A little wind down, then off to bed.
11.10.2025. Kids did some schoolwork this morning, then we headed out to grab some lunch, money and some supplies. Also we are heading back to the museum where we did the promotional video, just to see what's what. It was a much smaller convention than I thought it would be, no wonder they wanted to promote it. It was mostly manga stuff, with shirts and jewellery. We got Andrew a One Piece picture thing and Emma got a necklace. After that, with our wallets and bellies full, we headed back to the apartment. The kids and I went to the bottom floor of the complex. There's a small playground there. They played for an hour or so, then we came back up and they blogged for a bit. Some of the supplies I mentioned before included beer. Now that they were a bit cooler they started to disappear. Dinner was made, a movie was watched then bed.
12.10.2025. Today we are finishing our blogs for Ambato. We'll head out for some lunch after that is done. In the afternoon packing our bags will happen. Probably have another movie after dinner this evening then off to bed. See ya in Cuenca!
KevLæs mere
Ambato and Banos, Ecuador by the kids
10.–13. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C
On the 6th we drove to Ambato but we arrived earlier than expected so the apartment wasn’t ready yet. We went to a restaurant and had some snacks then when the apartment was ready, we went there. The view from the apartment was amazing, we could see loads. We then went out and walked around, we saw some stuff but the main thing was when we were walking back, we saw a huge market. There were lots of people selling vegetables and fruits. After that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 7th we went out and visited Ambato, we first went to a museum that had lots of paintings that were made out of water paint, it was cool. There were lots of portraits and landscapes. After that we went to a church and checked it out, it was a very new church. After that we went to another museum, and this one had paintings to. This one was about how the Ecuadorians live like back when the Spanish invaded, it was pretty interesting, after that what did we another museum. This one was about a person called Juan Montalvo. He is pretty famous in Ecuador, he got exiled to multiple places after speaking out to the government, he is also one of the three Juans. You don’t know who the three Juans are? This should help explain who they are (a bit). Born in Ambato on June 28, 1832, Juan León Mera Martínez (long name) is sometimes called (by Ecuadorians) the father of Ecuadorian literature. He wrote lots of books and his most known are Cumandá, Novelitas ecuatorianas and Entre dos tías y un tío. Next Juan, politician and educator, Juan Benigno Vela Hervas was born in Ambato on July 10, 1843. He went to Quito and started doing a law degree then when he completed his law degree, he became an active member of the Liberal Party (sounds important), fighting for democracy and freedom. There was a lot of cool stuff in the museum. After that we went back to the apartment, did a little school work and then went to sleep.
On the 8th we went to a botanical garden where we saw lots of cool stuff, there were so many plants and sculptures, it was cool. After that we went to a little playground where we played a bit and I had a sit on the swing and try to fling my thongs as far as I can contest with myself, it was fun. After that we went home did some stuff and went to sleep.
On the 9th we took a taxi to the bus station where we took a bus to Banos (Banos is a very touristy place). When we got there we went to a café because it was pretty early, we had breakfast there and then we went to a tour place because mum and dad had booked a tour. We got some bikes and just tested them a bit then we started riding, mum and dad got a car to follow us in case Emma got too tired (spoiler: Emma does get too tired). The first place we stopped at was a little waterfall, we looked at it a bit then we moved on, we rode for a bit and then we came across a huge zipline that to go on it you would have to superman style. The guide said it was a twenty dollar extra to do it, me and dad did it. It was really cool, we went across a river, it was awesome. After that we kept going and then we came up to a waterfall that had a cable car going over it, we did the cable car and it was fast, mum didn’t like it. Then we kept riding to the devil’s cauldron waterfall, it was really cool, it is 80 meters high and near it there is another waterfall near it named San Miguel after the archangel saint Michel, that waterfall is supposed to watch over the devil. It was really cool there was so much water coming over, it was awesome. After that we went back to the car and that was the end of our biking tour (biking tour, not the end of the main tour). The car drove us to a restaurant where we had a plate of fish, then we went to the casa del harbor, it's like a place that has lots of swing near the slope of the hill, it was cool, the swing was swinging out over nothing, it was so cool. There was also a pretty big flying fox. After that we went to a ziplining place it was really cool. We saw some birds and it was really fun, there was six zip lines and the longest was 550 meters long. After that we went back to the hotel had dinner and went to sleep.
On the 10th we started the day by visiting a church, most of it was made of volcanic rock, it was cool. We looked around a bit till mid-day, then we went to the tour place to do another tour. We took a car up to a mountain and then mum got strapped in ran a little with the guide and took off, we were going paragliding. Mum was with the guide and they were already really high. I wanted to go but they said the wind was too strong and I was to light, we moved to another place where it would hopefully be less windy, but while we were driving mum landed so we didn’t see mum land, sad. When we got there I couldn’t go yet so we started waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. That’s enough waiting, I felt like I was never going to go. But then the guide got a ten-litre water bottle and put it in the seat thing so it was now heavy enough, then the guide strap me in and I was ready to run but then there was a big yank and the wind lifted us up into the air. The feeling was amazing, the wind soaring around me, it was awesome, it was an amazing view with farm land and city it was so cool. I could even see the top of a snow-covered volcano. When I landed we got dad to do it, and then after dad we finally convinced Emma, Emma had been so reluctant but now after they had seen all of us do they decided to do it. When Emma came down they where happy they did it. After that we went to a bus stop, took a bus to Ambato and went to sleep.
On the 11th we did nothing but school work and games then we went to sleep.
On the 12th we did lots of blog and in afternoon we had a walk in the streets one last time and then we came back, watched a movie and went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 6th we took a bus from Quito to Ambato. It was about two hours long. We found a place where we had lunch. We had empanadas. Empanadas are bread like things that either have meat or cheese inside. They were delicious. We settled into our hotel. we have a good view from our window. We can see a big bridge not far. Then we did shopping. When we were walking back from shopping, we saw so many people selling stuff. Then we had dinner and a movie night. (Clap, clap, clap. Wwwwooooooaaaahhhh. Yeah).
On the 7th we visited Ambato. First, we visited museum casa del portal. We saw so many paintings. The biggest one was of a beautiful landscape. Then we visited a church. It was a really new one. There were a few statues. It was quite beautiful. Then we had a little snack. It was bread shaped like a human with caramel inside. It was delicious. Then we went to a museum about the fruit and flower festival. It was quite interesting. Mum and dad were in a video saying that they recommend that place. Then we visited a museum about Montalvo. The Ecuadorean writer Juan Montalvo was born on April 13th, 1832. He died in 1889, Paris. He was often called on of the finest writers. He spent most of his life in exile. Then we had some food and made our way to the next museum (which was closed). Then we went back to our apartment and did schoolwork.
On the 8th we went to a botanical garden. They were red flowers, purple flowers, yellow flowers, orange flowers, and best of all blue flowers. The garden was beautiful. There was a wooden car that me and Andrew played on. It was a really nice garden. There were some statues of hummingbirds. It was a nice day.
On the 9th we had an early start. We took a bus to Banos. We arrived early so we had some food at a café. Some people played traditional music. We had a tour booked for that day. We started the tour by riding bikes. We stopped at some waterfalls to look at them and then we stopped at a zipline were you had to lay down in superhuman pose. Dad and Andrew did it. Me and mum stayed behind. Then we took a cable car above a waterfall. It was a really beautiful waterfall. Then we went to devils cauldron waterfall. It is a massive waterfall that never stops flowing. If you try to canoe down it, you will die. we walked over some wobble bridges to get to it. I would just like to stop you there for a moment. I would like to give mum a round of applause for being such a brave and encouraging mother. Then we had lunch. After that we did the swing at the end of the world. We saw some hummingbirds. Then we did ziplines. I was an incy bit scared at the beginning but after the first one I was fine. It was so cool. We did two superhuman ones and the rest of the were sitting up right. Well Andrew did one upside down. The superhuman was my favourite. Then we had dinner in Banos.
On the 10th we visited a church and a museum. Then we went to Bosque Encanto. There were some harry potter stuff. There were witches and trolls and pixies and fairies. We got to dress up. It was fun. Then we had lunch. After that we went paragliding. I didn’t want to do it at first but then mum did it, then Andrew, then dad. They all convinced me to do it, and it was amazing. It was not as scary as I thought. After a little bit I started to feel sick. It was cool to see the town from high up. I liked it. But I still preferred the ziplines.
On the 11th we did schoolwork. Then we went to a manga shop, and I bought a necklace with a horse on it.
On the 12th we did blog and had a movie night.
Emma (9 years old)Læs mere
Cuenca, Ecuador by Mel
13.–19. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
Buenos Dias,
We are in Cuenca in Ecuador. We came here from Ambato by bus.
As you can’t buy ticket online in south America, we arrived at the bus station, we thought early enough to catch a bus. Well, we were not early enough. We arrived around 8am. One bus was already gone, and the next one was at 1pm. We bought our tickets and waited and waited and waited a bit more! We read, played a made-up Pictionary game and read a bit more. The bus was late and left a bit before 2pm. The trip took 7 hours. It was long, but well, we managed.
Both kids were a bit sick in the bus but we are used to it now. A quick taxi from the bus station to our stay and we were in bed pretty soon after that.
Tuesday the 14th was our traditional finding a supermarket day and discover the surroundings. We did our shopping and found a market for fruit and vegetables. There were everywhere! We also found some food stall and the kids got some pork and apparently, it was delicious, one of the best according to Andrew. We walked around Cuenca for a bit.
A little bit of information about Cuenca. It is the third biggest city in Ecuador. It is believed to have be founded in 500AD by the Canari people, an indigenous population living in this area. Toward the end of the 15th century, the Inca took possession of the city and incorporate the Canari people and their knowledge in astronomy and agriculture.
The Inca built a grand city, called Pumapungo and was said to be second to Inca capital Cusco in current Peru. Unfortunately, the city was destroyed before the Spaniard arrived, it is believed it was done in purpose to not leave anything to them. In 1557, the Spanish started a settlement there and the population steadily grow since.
Nowadays, the city is flourishing and is a beautiful city to visit. The centre is a UNESCO heritage site with its multitude of churches, buildings and murals.
Now back to us: For dinner, we found a Japanese restaurant. We normally eat food from the country we are in, but the kids loooove sushi and have been bugging us for sushi for weeks now, so we caved in!
We walked in the street of Cuenca by night and we really enjoyed it. The buildings are a mix of Spanish influence and small Ecuadorian shops. The streets are pretty narrow (like one line streets). It has an atmosphere that I really enjoyed.
Wednesday we properly visit the place.
We started with the old cathedral which was built in 1557. Inside where massive bells, which unfortunately were never put up, as they were so heavy and no cathedral where big enough to have them! Across the old cathedral is the new one, build as the old one was not big enough for the growing population of Cuenca. The new one called, Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción, was finished in 1975 and could accommodate 9,000 of Cuenca's 10,000 inhabitants at that time. The population is now much bigger. The cathedral’s towers were never finished as the architect who made the plan, did a mistake in its calculation and if the towers were built is it was planned, the foundations would not be able to carry the weight.
It is still a very impressive monument to visit. The 3 blue and white domes are a symbol of the city. You can go all the way up the towers and have a beautiful sight of the city. We had fun counting all the churches we could see and there are a lot!
After that we went to see a flower market. It used to be a big industry in Cuenca. Now that other cities are developing this industry, it is less so, but there are still a lot of flowers around. While we were walking, we found a small market, selling trinkets, so we bought Emma a necklace with a blue rock (I can not remember the name of it) and Andrew a small sword from One Piece (a manga Andrew loves!). We also saw an ad being filmed with a lot of women dressed in traditional very colourful clothes. It was nice to see.
The next visit was one of my favourites. We visited a toquilla hat shop/factory. You probably know those hats as Panama hat. They are not from Panama but from the area around Cuenca. The place we visited are making them all by hands. They are beautiful. In the museum you can see people making hats: weaving the toquilla straw, using machine to give them the form wanted, adding colours and decoration on it. The art of weaving the traditional Ecuadorian toquilla hat was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in 2012. It was a really interesting museum. We really wanted to get some hats, but we knew they would get squished in our bags. So we did not buy any… very sad…
After a quick snack at the café from the hat museum, we walked along one of the rivers which flow through Cuenca, the Rio Tomebamba. It was peaceful and the kids loved it. We found a playground with swings, which the kids loved! I am amazed by all the murals in Cuenca. It feels like every wall has a big painting on it and they are beautiful. It makes the place so colourful. Add that to the openness of the place, with the low buildings and the mountains all around that you can see pretty much from everywhere, it is a fantastic place to spend time.
After that, we visited the money museum, to Andrew great pleasure! He loves money. It was a good museum, despite the fact that everything is written in Spanish (obviously), so we can’t understand everything. Kev has an app which you use your camera to hover over something written and it gives you a translation. It is not always efficient, but it helps! Andrew got some old Ecuadorian money as it is what he collects from each country. There was also a screen which took your picture and added it to a coin or a note (on the screen only: it would have been fun to be able to print it!). It was fun though.
After that full day, we walked back home enjoying the city, then a calm evening at ‘home’.
Thursday was cooking class day! We haven’t done one for a while, so it was time. It was taking place in a restaurant/coffee place. We were in the open kitchen in the area where other customer came to have food. I’m assuming they had another kitchen somewhere at the back, to cook for the customers. Our chef teacher was Kathy. We did 3 dishes: a starter, a main and a desert. We cut, mixed, cooked, fried, it was good. I am not a passionate cook, but I do like, when I am being told what to cut and where to put it and then eat a delicious meal. And the kids seem to like cooking class, so it is a bonus! The starter was “tamal de papa”, some mash potatoes mixed with butter, egg white and egg yok, cheese and other good stuff, rolled into a leaf and steamed. It was delicious!!! The main was “Camarones al ajillo con patacones y ensalada”: prawn in a delicious sauce with garlic, butter and parsley with plantain, green banana fried and salad. Again delicious! Even Andrew who is not a big fan of prawn enjoyed it. The desert was a traditional one called Nogada. It is like fudge we ate in Scotland: a lot of sugar and molasse (I think) cooked with butter for a long time. I loved it but I was the only one: too sweet apparently. It is strong, but I really liked it. We had fun and I love those experiences we do as family.
We got back home to rest a bit as we were planning on going out in the evening. Kev found a concert in a pub to raise money for a woman shelter. It is sad that it is needed, but it is, so we wanted to help.
Before going out, Kev and I had to do our taxes as we have been delaying it doing it but now it’s time! So that’s done! Off to the bar which was called Bistrot Yaku where a band made of expats were doing cover of famous songs. Cuenca is a city where a lot of expats come to live. It is a great city and I could see myself living there, so I get it! The evening was fun, even if we didn’t have a table so we sat at the bar: Andrew loved watching the barman doing a lot of cocktails. We listen to the music, had a few drinks and food. We even ended up dancing on a few songs. It was a great moment. We obviously donate some money to “Mujeres con Exito”, which translate as “successful women”. They are a shelter for women but also provided training for them to get a job and day care for their children while they are studying. I couldn’t find a link to donate to them online. But if you know a woman shelter near your place, maybe you can donate to them as it is unfortunately needed everywhere in the world.
Friday we went to visit another museum, which had different rooms with different themes: some was about modern artists creations: sculptures, paintings and installations. It is always interesting to see different influences and styles. We might not always understand it all, but it helps develop our creativity and the kids especially. There were also some artifacts found in the area where the palace created by the Inca was situated. It explained some of the history of the area. Again not speaking Spanish, we couldn’t understand it all, but we got some information. At the back of the museum are some Inca ruins (which we think are part of the palace) and a big park with Llamas, fish in ponds and birds. We had a nice walk there.
After a lovely lunch in a very pretty restaurant, we walked toward the modern art museum and it was closed for a few days to prepare for a big event coming!!! Great! We walk back to our place, did some blogging and rest.
Saturday we wanted to make sure that the bus experience from last time did not repeat. Waiting several in a bus station is not fun. So, we went to the bus station to check the time. We got told they were not sure buses will run Monday (the day we were supposed to leave) as there are protests blocking the road in the area we want to go. Great! What do we do? Are there buses tomorrow (Sunday)? Yes. Ok, so we will leave one day early. I make sure the place we book have availability for one more day for us: yes they do. Great, so we’ll be back tomorrow early, to get tickets as they don’t sell them in advance. We are sad to leave Cuenca one day early as we really like it here, but better go early than be stuck here for a while!
We went back home to pack. Then I found out about a free play/puppets things for kids, so we got there. It is set outside and has 2 actors, dressed clownish and a couple of puppets telling a story about rubbish bins (we understood a bit of it, but missed a lot). It was still fun and the kids cackled themselves a few times. We then had our last walk in Cuenca looking for live music, but we couldn’t find any that were not super late at night. We went back and went to bed early to be up early in the morning to get a bus.
We are going to Loja tomorrow, so we’ll see you there!
Mel.Læs mere
Cuenca, Ecuador by Kev
13.–19. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
13.10.2025. Today we're off to the bus station, so we got up early and grabbed a taxi. Pretty straightforward so far. Walked into this massive terminal and found… empty booths. Well not all of them were empty thankfully. Unfortunately there was only one company selling tickets to Cuenca and the first bus left at 6:30 this morning. Ok when's the next bus? 1:15pm, that's great, since it's 8am we only have a few hours to wait. There was a bus to Guayaquil about every 30mins, but not to Cuenca. So we waited. Had lunch at the terminal and waited some more. It was finally time to head over to the platforms and get ready to board our bus. Except it's running late. Frustration had fully settled in by now, and while the bus was only around 30-35mins late it felt like hours. Finally onto our bus and we're off. 7 hours later we arrived in Cuenca. The driver did his best to get us there on time, I reckon he drives Formula One as a second job. Andrew was sick on the bus and Emma was sick just after getting off the bus. We ended up with a really nice taxi driver who gave us a little info on the way and was nice with the kids after seeing Emma sick in a pot plant. Finally at the apartment, the lady let us in and showed us around. After getting up at 6am and getting to our apartment just before 9pm, we were all done. We'd spent all day either at a terminal or on a bus. Not a fun day, but we're here. Tomorrow will be better, goodnight.
14.10.2025. Grocery shopping to be done, so we're not always shelling out heaps at restaurants. We then found a market for some fruit and veges. There were these full cooked pigs upstairs at counters and a lady behind one convinced me to try some. Bloody delicious. Andrew had a try too and soon after we had ordered two plates for the kids. We got some fruit and veges and headed back. After putting everything away we did our own thing for a bit. In the evening we headed out to find a sushi restaurant. The kids, especially Emma, have been very demanding in their opinions on when we should next go to a sushi restaurant. We relented and decided to go tonight. We walked to the first one on GMaps. It was shut so we headed to the next. Couldn't find it, off to a great start. We walked past the next one as the front was pretty small. We doubled back and went in. As far as sushi goes it was ok. The kids really enjoyed it. They didn't have ramen, my favourite at sushi restaurants, so I had to order something else. I got some maki which is supposed to be spicy, it wasn't. We ate, we paid, then we walked around the city a bit at night to take it in.
15.10.2025. Today we are having a look around the city and visiting places. Mel has come up with an itinerary for us, so that's what we're doing. Our first stop is an old cathedral in the centre. At the entrance they have three bells on display. The largest weighs over 2,800kg. These bells were meant to be installed in the new cathedral but it never happened. So now they sit here, tonnes of brass on display, never to be rung. After the old cathedral we walked across the square into the new cathedral. The new one is much larger and we got to go up the towers. At the top we got a really good view of the place. There's towers for cathedrals or churches all over the place. There is a wooden model of what the finished cathedral was supposed to look like. The bell towers on the model are another couple stories taller than the real thing, and we later found out that they didn't get completed as it was thought that underneath was not strong enough to hold it all. Hence the bells still sitting in the old cathedral. It would have been very impressive to have seen the finished product, but I do understand that you don't want it falling over. Might give the wrong impression. After the cathedrals we walked through a flower market. Lots of flowers, obviously. The place was full of colours and smells. Right next to it were a few small vendors selling trinkets. Emma bought a necklace, let's see if she wears this one and Andrew got a replica key ring sword. One of the swords of Zoro from one-piece manga. At first he said no but I could tell he really wanted it. Eventually he said yes, that he would like it. We then walked to a hat museum, where they make the Panama hats. We got to see a guy heating, pressing and shaping hats. Another guy trimming off the excess fibres and then using a machine to flatten them. We had lunch there, toasted sandwich and chips, not real fancy, but it did the job. Our next stop is a money museum. Showcasing old and new money from Ecuador. At the top there were coins from the 16th and 17th century. Back downstairs they had some coin packs for sale, and since that's what Andrew is collecting, we got a couple. We then went and spent some time in a park for the kids to run around a bit. After, we went back to the apartment and that was it for the day.
16.10.2025. Today we have a cooking class. Set in a restaurant that actually served people as we cooked. We prepared a starter, main and dessert for ourselves. The starter was Tomales, mashed potatoes mixed with eggs and butter. Then you put it on a big leaf, add some cheese and capsicum. Fold it up and steam it. We chopped up all sorts of stuff. Capsicum, garlic, chillies, cabbage, carrots, coriander and parsley. After all the chopping and mixing my arms were stuffed. We seemed to be making a lot for just four people. The instructor said we were making for others too. What others? Later an older guy came in and had one of the Tomales we had made. I saw that he paid for it. So we paid to make them, and they sold them after. Double dipping at its finest. The best thing we made today was garlic prawns. After both kids said they don't like prawns, Emma ate most of hers and Andrew wanted to eat everyone's. It was fun and we were all full as googs after. Back to the room to digest for a bit. Later we went out looking for live music. I found a place called Bistro Yaku that had some live music and was also hosting a charity fundraiser. The fundraiser was for a woman's shelter, which we were only too happy to donate some money to. It was, however, not what I was hoping for. The place was full of expat Americans, including the band. We still had a really good evening. There was no room left so we had to sit at the bar. Andrew was mesmerised by the barman mixing drinks. I'm not sure he actually looked at the band. The music was good, the crowd was good and we had a nice time. Hopefully next time I can find a bar with Ecuadorian music and musicians.
17.10.2025. This morning we're heading to another museum. There was lots to see, but my favourite part was outside of the building but still inside the grounds. Some old ruins and a garden they recreated from some texts recovered about how it looked centuries ago. We walked right past some Llamas in the park too. There were all sorts of grasses growing tall, fruiting trees and plants and a pond with fish. I do like walking around looking at that sorta stuff. On one part of a hill, there were some chambers built into the hill. They looked like they used to be covered and had doorways in from the side of the hill. I wondered if maybe they were for food storage as I would have been cooler in there. We'll never know as there was very little signage around the place. Once finished here, we then headed over to a modern art museum. I'm always interested in modern art from the countries we visit, as it changes everywhere. Unfortunately it was closed. Well bummer. We headed back to the apartment and rested. Kids caught up on blogging, then we finished with a movie night.
18.10.2025. We headed out this morning looking to sort out our bus tickets for Monday. We got side tracked as there was a huge parade all the way up one street. We think it was for a school or schools, as there were lots of kids in uniform. We watched people march with banners while kids drummed. There were people on stilts, people dancing in colourful dresses and costumes. At the very end there was a band in the back of a ute. They were pretty good and I wished we had heard them at the pub the other night. After that we were once again off to the bus depot. This time we made it without further disruption. There were a few offices saying they sold tickets to Loja, but they all pointed us towards just one, so we went there. The person behind the counter didn't speak much English, none really. After a few minutes we managed to work out that there may not be a bus on Monday due to the protests around the country. There will be a bus tomorrow, they're just not sure what time. Ok well that changes our plans a bit. We were told to be at the station early to make sure we got tickets. Mel got on the phone and changed our booking for Loja. We headed back to the apartment, stopping at a small park to let the kids have a run around. Back at the apartment we all packed and got ready for tomorrow. After packing we went out again in the afternoon. We had found there would be a puppet show of sorts at an open area in the city. We got there early, it's what we do. So we had a brief stop over at a small bar near the spot. I tried a couple more beers, made right here in Cuenca. Then we went to the show. Two people, a couple puppets and a pile of rubbish. It was all in Spanish but we got the gist of the act. Get kids to recycle and look after the place. There was a fair bit of laughter, some crowd involvement and some rats being chucked around. It was pretty well put together. Wish I knew Spanish though. Afterwards we walked back along the river towards our apartment. We were hoping to find some more live music, but it was not meant to be. We went to bed looking forward to another lovely bus ride tomorrow.
KevLæs mere
Cuenca, Ecuador by the kids.
13.–19. okt. 2025, Ecuador ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
On the 13th we went to the bus station where we waited for ages to get on the bus and then when we got on it, it was a 7-hour drive. I spewed and it was not nice then when we got there we went to the apartment and went to sleep.
On the 14th we went shopping at a market and I had a delicious bit of pork, it was so tender and it was beautifully cooked, it was so yum I could have eaten a thousand times more of what I was given. And then after that we went back home had a rest, then played on our computers then went to a sushi restaurant. It was a little sushi restaurant but me and Emma loved it, mainly because we love sushi better than anything else, we ate not as much I liked but mum and dad said something about “paying” and “it’s not cheap” no clue what that means, at least it doesn’t involve me. After that we went to the apartment and went to sleep.
On the 15th we went out and visited Cuenca, we first went and visited a church known as the old church, it is small but pretty cool and there were some bells on display, the biggest one was 2.8 tonnes and was 1.5 to 1.7 meters tall, I can’t remember. Next we went and visited a church known as the new church it is huge and awesome, it is so big it took almost a century to build and was built to hold more people. There were three main domes on top, there was also two big towers, we climbed one of the towers and it was a really good view. After that we went to a flower market there were lots of flowers and the way they were put together was really cool. After that we went to a museum about hats, but they were only Panama hats, not just any average hats. They had the hot press and we saw someone making them. It was very cool. After that we went to a money museum, it was very cool, there was lots of different notes of money, they also had a proper gold coin, it was awesome. After that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 16th we went to a cooking class, we cooked quite a few dishes, we cooked a starter, a main meal and a desert. The starter was a mixture of potato, egg and butter with capsicum and cheese on top of it, it wasn’t my favourite. The main meal was absolutely scrumptious, it was prawns in a sauce of garlic, parsley, butter and chilly (not a hot one, this one was actually really nice). The desert was very yum, it was fudge with walnuts in it, the fudge was yum but the walnuts ruined it. After that we went home did some stuff, and then went out to a bar where they had live music, the music was raising money for a women’s shelter, the music was really good. We were sitting at the bar because all the tables where already taken and, I was watching the person make all the cocktails, they were really good, they knew where everything went. When it was time to order food, I got a beef tenderloin and it was delicious, I could bite through it so easily. There was also a side of chips. After that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 17th we went to a big museum that had lots of ancient stuff, there was some art made by one person in the first room, it was cool. After that we looked at newer pieces of art that were pretty cool to, then we saw some stuff about tribes from when the Spanish invaded, then we went out to see some inca ruins (they were still in the museum). It was very cool, there were lots of broken walls, I could really see where they used to have stuff, then we went down to a little park that had plants and lamas and an aviary. After that we went to an art museum but it was closed so we went back and did blog had a movie night and went to sleep.
On the 18th we went to a bus station to see what time the bus to Loga left, after that we went to a park me and Emma played a bit then we went back home. We did some blogging and packing then we went to a place where they had a show. The show only had two people acting, I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on because it was in Spanish. After the show we went home and went to sleep.
On the 19th we took a 10 hour bus to Loga and it was long, when we got there, we went to the hotel and went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 13th we went to a bus station. we waited there all morning. Then we took a bus for seven hours.
On the 14th we did some shopping. Then we rested at home. Then we went to a sushi restaurant. It was delicious.
On the 15th we visited Cuenca. We visited an old church and a new church. It looked like the new church was old and the old church was new. The new cathedral was built because the old one was too small. It took nearly a century to build. They did not build the cathedral as high as they wanted because if they did, the cathedral would crumble. Then we went to a flower market. There was a bunch of colourful flowers. After that we went to a hat museum. They showed us how to make hats. They went and got long grass. Then they sew them together to make a hat. Then they put it in a machine that thumps the crap out of the hat to make it smooth. After that they make it into the shape they want. After that we went to a money museum. Money isn’t my greatest interest. Andrew was very interested.
On the 16th we did a cooking class. It was in a place that looked like a small restaurant. We chopped up some herbs. We made a salad, a sauce with prawns and a potato thing with cranberries and capsicum. And for dessert we had fudge which was too sweet for my liking. My favourite thing was the prawns. I learnt a few new things. Then we spent the evening at a bar. The donations that were given to a women shelter. I was watching the band and Andrew was watching a guy make cocktails, so now he is a professional. Just kidding.
On the 17th we visited a museum. In the first room there was a bunch of sculptures. Then there was a board that had stuff on it, and me and Andrew were quizzing each other. There were some paintings. Then we walked to another museum which was closed. After that we went home, blogged, and had a movie night.
On the 18th we went to book a bus. Then we played at a park for a little bit. After that we went back home to pack. Then we went to a puppet show. It was funny. I did not know the whole story because they were speaking Spanish. Then we walked back home.
On the 19 we took a bus to Loja. It was a really stressful day.
Emma (9 years old)Læs mere
