Big!
This is the first impression of Peru once I entered into this country. Surely, Peru is 4 times as large as Ecuador, no wonder when I went into the door of Peru from the North, my only activity for the first few days was sitting in long ride bus!
From Loja in Ecuador to Piura in the northern coast of Peru, I used about 10 hours. Then from Piura to Chiclayo, only about 4 hours. (Noted that, it was only transit, no sightseeing at all).
From Piura to Chiclayo along the northern coastline, it is totally a desert.
From Chiclayo to my first destination, Chachapoyas which was in the centre of Andeans, it took almost 11 to 12 hours.
Sunset on the road from Chiclayo to Chachapoyas. 
When I went back to the coast, Trujillo from Chachapoyas, because there were landslides on the road before, so it took incredibly long time, 17 hours!
Beautiful scenery along the way from Chachapoyas to Trujillo.
After toilet hour...from Chachapoyas to Trujillo. Luckily, the bus was quite comfortable.
While I thought this must be my longest bus ride in Peru, then I needed to take another bus from capital, Lima to Cusco, the gateway of Machu Picchu. It took me 22 hours!!! I hope this record won't be broken in the future!
Though Ecuador is such a small country (272,045sqm, one of the smallest in South America), I spent 70days here. Thanks for the reasons of studying espanol, I could explored many parts of the country.
Ecuador's landscape is very diverse, from the Amazon jungle in the East (the Oriente), Andes in the central trough (the Sierra) and the coast in the west (the Costa). In addition, the Galapagos Island, where Charles Darwin was inspired and then gave birth to the theory of evoluation.
As I have already planned to go to the jungle in Peru, and there are so many beaches in Hong Kong (though they are different), so I didn't explore the Oriente and Costa of Ecuador. For Galapagos, orginally, I planned to go there, but after calculating the budget and after told by other backpackers that,'With the same amount of money you spend in Galapagos, you can live half year in India!' So I decided not to go, though everybody who had gone that said the 1000 to 1500USD spent(for around 5 to 8days) was totally worthwhile.
Therefore, I just concentrated exploring the central highlands where I were fascinated by the high mountains and the concentrations of indigenous people.
Among all those places I have visted, my No. 1 is Chimborazo where I had a wonderful encounter with the world No. 1 peak.
No. 2 is Quilotoa where the beauty of the emerald blue and green crater lake I can never forget. Besides, the dense concentration of the beautiful dressed indigenous people and the little indigenous girl who saved us from the risk of dog bite are also unforgettable.
As it is hard to choose, so there are 2 No.3, they are Cuenca and Mandango Peak in Vilcabamba. The impressive old colonial architectures in Cuenca really made me feel like I was walking on the street in 16th century. And the dangerous Mandango Peak which made my legs shake a lot can never be erased from my memory.
Besides impressive mountains and cities, the food in Ecuador is also not bad, sometimes even very good. When I first arrived Ecuador, I didn't expect that rice is their main food.
So every time in the lunch or dinner set, there must be rice with chicken, beef of pork. And just like European culture, Ecuadorean lunch or dinner set must have three course, 1st Soup, 2nd Rice and 3rd Juice and sometimes with desserts also. Usually, it only costs 1.3USD to 2.5USD, which is really a bargain and delicious.
Among all those restaurants I have tried in Ecuador, my favourite is still the cooking of my home stay family in Quito. Nelly is really a good chef, among the 21 days I lived there, the lunch sets had never been repeated! And every day was a really big meal for me, sometimes rice, sometimes noodles. When later Mel,a vegetarian arrived, Nelly's cooking was more fantastic, she could turn every vegetable into an incredibly delicious meal.
My home stay mother, Nelly and her splendid cooking.
Though I loved eating in local restaurant in Ecuador, sometimes I really encountered bad food, like the tasteless beef in Cayambe, hard rice in Ibarra and rubber like chicken in Banos. But everytime I still grateful for the bad food, because if there was no bad taste, how could I enjoy and feel that I was lucky to have other delicious food.
For accomondation, Ecuador is really cheap to living in. My costs of living (dorm or private or shared room) ranges from 4USD to 10USD. Of course, there are many high ranked hostels, but to me, a budget traveller, the price is really good (even though it is still more expensive than in the hostels in China). And the quality is not bad, for the cheapest hostal I had lived in was in Banos, where I have my own toilet and I could take hot shower(usually it is a very important criteria).
My first home stay in Quito.
And the most expensive one is in Vilcabamba, I chose it because I arrived at night and the cheap dorm was full at the moment. But the quality of this room is really 'luxury' to me, where I have a big bathroom with hot water and I also had my own hammock at the front of my room. The hostal also has a big and beautiful garden, and I could get lots of travel information(including maps of trekking) from the discussion board and the owner (a french).
What a relaxing life!
However, my favourite accomondation is still my home stay in Macro family in Otavalo, where I had a big, pretty and comfortable room. And I also had the real feeling of being included as a member of the family.
My home stay in Marco's family.
I just stayed in Cuenca for 3 nights and then I continued to head south and arrived Vilcabamba, which is near the border with Peru.
Vilcabamba's alitude is only 1520m, so here is much warmer than Cuenca. And this little villge is famous for the long lives of people living there.
I heard many backpackers said they loved Vilcabamba and so I had high expectations on it, but then I found it was quite similar to Banos, with many hiking opportunities, horse riding, swimming, massage etc. So I was not too excited about this little villge.
After comparing with Banos, I even think Banos is more beauiful, with so many waterfalls dotted around the village and the background of Tungurahua is incrediblely splendid.
Having said that, I also had some good days in Vilcabamba. For the first day, As I heard from the locals, Vilcabamba is very tranquil and safe, so I went trekking alone in the Mollepamba loop. The only dangerous thing was always the dogs on the road, luckily with the presence of the owners, I bypassed a few barking dogs.
The valley of Vilcabamba.
While I was trekking up the mountain, I met a local farmer, Miguel, who was riding a donkey. He seemed very interested about talking with me, so he kept his donkey slowing down and walked along with me. He even invited me to have a look of his little hut, where he kept 10 chickens, 3cats and 1 dog.
A snapshot of local people's lives.
When we went into the house, his mother welcomed us back and started to work on squeezing the maize to feed the chickens. She walked slowly to the stone platform and then used another big rock to squeezing the yellow maize into white powder for the chickens. It really seemed a hard work, so I offered to help. Once the big and heavy rock was in my hand, I started to move it from left to right, or vice versa, then the maize changed to powder little by little.
I wondered if the mother do this every day, it was really a hard work and not interesting at all. It seemed they were quite poor also, the wooden hut would be easily destroyed in heavy rainstorm and their clothes were torn off and old. So I really appecrated for their hospitalility and friendliness.
This was the advantages of trekking alone, because it would be easier to meet local people.
The next day I trekked the symbolic mountain, Mandango Peak(about 2100m), with Yuhei. As my hostel provided information about the route and the owner said the route was not too difficult which could be finished in at most 4hours, so we set off after mid day.
The spectacular shape of Mandango Peak.
At first, I didn't know tourists could trek up to the top of Mandango Peak(1.5USD for entering the national park), because its shape was so uncommon and seemed so narrow at the top. So I was really happy that I could trek this mountain. And it turned out to be one of my unforgettable trek.
When we trekked up to the mid level of the mountain, we already had a very impressive view of the whole village of Vilcacamba and the mountain behind. When we trekked up higher, bypassing the two crosses at the top, the view was much more incredible. The mountains here differed from the mountains I saw before a lot, it just like big rocks falling from the sky, but not folding up by pressure from the crust of the earth.
Only after 45mins of trekking, we were already rewarded by the beautiful scenery.
The first cross! We are coming!
The panoromic view given by the reflection of the cross.
A narrow path towards the bottom edge of the peaks.
Encountered with nature.
The second cross overlooking the whole village of Vilcabamba.
We had to walk through all the path which leaded through the top of peaks.
And the trek at the top those peaks was very tough, most of the time, we could only walked on a trail which was less than 50cm wide and both sides were cliffs. I might had been even using 5mins to walk (or crawled more properly) down a 2 meters cliff-like path! Really felt so scared at that moment!
The steep slope which made my legs shaking!
While paying attention on the cliffs just beside my feet, my eyes also enjoying the scenic view of the mountain and valley.
Pefect sky.
A lit of sunshine over the mountains.
Looked like the faces of apes.
Though the trek was quite dangerous, the view was really scenic and unforgettable, sometimes we saw cacti and big colourful spiders on the road, sometimes we were scratched by the needle-like leaves and we could even see rainbows from the opposite valley.
Spiders and big cacti were undivideable.
This annoying plants are all along the narrow path.
As the path was so tough, once scared by the dogs in the farm and sometimes we could not find the signs of the correct path, so we finally used almost 7hours for the whole trek. Just lucky enough to get out of the bushes before the night curtains had fallen down. Otherwise, we would be in a real trouble.
Thanks for the Mandango Peak, it gave me a perfect full stop of my travel in Ecuador.
Ciao, Ecuador.
Ingapirca.
Near Cuenca, there is a Pre-Inca ruin called Ingapirca, which is the most important Inca ruin in Ecuador. Built in the 15th Century, Ingapirca means Walled City in Quecha.
From the bus station of Cuenca, there are buses running to Ingapirca every day at 9am and 1pm from Monday to Friday, and the bus fare is 2.5USD.
Orginally, the Ingapirca was linked with Machu Picchu in Peru with an Inca Trail, people could walk between in 28days. But after Spain's conquest, and the development of cities in between, the footprints of the Trail had been lost.
Actually, this ruin was built before the Inca's conquest by the Canar people, who worship the moon, which is in contrast to the Inca, who worship the sun. So many parts of the ruins built by the Canar was demolished by the Inca's people and built the temple for the sun instead.
Ingapirca is situated near a small town Canar.
The whole site is similar to the shape of a Puma, with the temple at the left symbolic the head of the Puma.
A closer look of the temple.
Inside of the temple.
Our guide was explaining how the Canar's people use this rock to calcuate the date of a month by moon.
Comparing with Machu Picchu, the size of Ingapirca is just like Hong Kong comparing with China. Though the ruin here was not so impressive, I like the quietness of here a lot.
Villagers living near the Ingapirca.
Cara del Inca, means face of the Inca, an interesting natural formation of rock near the ruin.
Found in 1557, Cuenca is Ecuador's third largest city, just behind Quito and Quayaquil. Though Cuenca is famous for its splenidid colonial buildings and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is not as 'proud' as I thought.
The New Cathedral, built in 1885.
Cuenca, overview.
Leaving Riobamba, before coming to Cuenca, I always thought about the old city in Quito and comparing both of them. But once I got here, I could clearly tell who was the best.
I love the quiet mood spreading in the city, the politeness of the people here, the laziness of the sunshine and the old air I breathe in when I was walking amid of the old buildings.
Day and night of the Santo Domingo.
The Old Cathedral, built in 1557, but it looks 'newer' than the New Catedral though built 328 years earlier.
Beautiful streetviews of Cuenca.
Besides colonial buildings, Cuenca is also famous for Sombrero hat(generally known as Panama hat). I and Fabian visited the Taller del Sombrero, a museum describing the making process and history of Sombrero, combined with a beautiful shop selling Sombreros.
At first, I thought the museum would charge for entrance fee, then I found it didn't even charge a penny and also provided guide service for tourists. Nice staff. Strongly recommended. There was also a very nice cafe behind, selling indigenous coffee and chocolate. And the Sombreros were not expensive, Fabian bought one which only costed 15USD.
The most classic Sombrero.
It evolves to many different styles nowadays.
The raw Sombrero without any processing.
