The first time I went to the Galapagos islands 10 years ago-I witnessed our guide snorting cocaine with his mates on  the top deck of the boat- and he was thrown off by the captain! So this time, all would be calm, right?! Let`s wait and see.........!
We left  Ruby at Finca Sommerwind in Ibarra and caught a local bus to Quito, about 2 hours away. We spent a few days in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Quito is situated at an altitude of 2,800 metres,  and on the slopes of a volcano. We explored the old town, a UNESCO world heritage site, which has one of the largest, least-altered and best-preserved historic centres in the Americas.

We flew from Quito airport to the Galapagos islands, approximately 560 miles from the Ecuador coast. The Galapagos are volcanic islands. They are like nowhere else on earth and at times you think you have landed on another planet when wandering around the volcanic landscapes. The islands are famous for their huge number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin.Hiis observations and collections here, contributed towards the theory of evolution  by natural selection.

The group consists of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets. The archipelago is located on the Nazca Plate (a tectonic plate), which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American Plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) per year. It is also atop the  Galapagos hotspot, a place where the Earth's crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume, creating volcanoes. The first islands formed here at least 8 million and possibly up to 90 million years ago.

While the older islands have disappeared below the sea as they moved away from the mantle plume, the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed, with the most recent  volcanic eruption in April 2009 where lava from the volcanic island Fernandina started flowing both towards the island's shoreline and into the centre caldera (volcanic crater).

We had booked on an 8 days cruise around some of the islands, on the Millennium Catamaran. The week was a mixture of walking on the islands, snorkeling, sailing on the boat and short dinghy trips. We started at Santa Cruz, where we went to see the Galapagos giant tortoise, they were huge and live to over 100 years old. We then finished by exploring a lava tunnel, which are formed following a volcanic eruption when the outer layer of molten lava solidifies, but the liquid magma inside continued to flow-leaving a tube.

Every day was jam packed full of different landscapes, animals and sea life. On day 2, whilst  still having a great time, the small dinghies which collected us after a walk had been late a couple of times-leaving us waiting for nearly an hour each time. I approached the guide and asked him if the dinghies could be on time the following days. A simple request, or so I thought.  The guide went a little crazy on me saying " are you complaining? We don`t care about you...the boat is always full" then coming back to say " I have bigger problems than this-I might leave the boat!" Arkward! ! To cut a long story short-our guide was a little eccentric but hugely knowledgeable and he stayed on the boat and continued to guide us.

Gav and I absolutely loved the snorkeling and were often the first to be ready in our wetsuits, flippers and masks! The water was usually crystal clear and turquoise blue and we saw so much. We swam with sharks, seals, penguins, marine iguanas, huge turtles, loads of fish etc. The first time the guide told us that where we were snorkeling was a good spot to see sharks, I was really scared! When someone spotted one under water and shouted "shark" I could often be spotted swimming away  in the opposite direction! However, by the end of the week, as soon as someone shouted "shark" I was swimming to find it as fast as I could! I swear that sometimes as my head was under water looking for them, I could hear the Jaws music coming from somewhere! On our last day-we spotted a shark swimming right beneath us-it was fantastic!  We also snorkeled above giant turtles, followed swimming  marine iguanas and were objects of fascination for sea lions. The sea lions liked to play and swam very fast under and around us. When we all spotted our first sea lion in the water whilst we were snorkeling, we all grouped together looking outwards laughing manically because we were a little scared!

Our cabin aboard the Millennium was brilliant! We had a private balcony which overlooked the sea-where we could sit and spot the marine life . We also had a shower which overlooked the sea, although we had to make sure the blinds were closed otherwise a passing ship might have thought they had spotted another species!

Our trips on land were also scenic and full of wildlife-we saw land iguanas, so many sea lions, tortoise, and a variety of birds. Every day and every island we landed on was different and we loved it. This was by far our best experience on our trip so far and we would highly recommend it to anyone.
 

After 10 weeks and 3 days we finally left Colombia for Ecuador. We had planned to leave a little sooner, however the mechanical issues we  had prevented this. On our final day in Colombia we made the long drive of 200 miles up and down hills to the sanctuary of Las Lajas just 7 miles from the Ecuadorian border. Las Lajas is a Roman catholic basilica which has been built inside a canyon and it is considered to be the most beautiful church in Colombia. We got there late afternoon and had time to visit it-before the light went at about 6.30pm. We then wild camped near the teleferique nearby.

The following morning-we got up early and were at the border for 7.30am. The Colombian/Ecuador border is renowned for being an easy one to cross and we had no difficulties. It took a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes to complete the whole process.

Colombia/Ecuador border process
The border is at Rumichacha. As we approached the Colombian side, a lot of people try and flag you down and tell you where to go. Ignore them all! We drove through and parked up where all the taxis are parked. We first went to Colombian migration building and had our passports stamped out of Colombia. We then went to the customs office (Arduane) and gave in our temporary import paper for Ruby.  We then drove and parked in front of the Ecuador migration office. Inside, we filled in a small form with our details, handed it in with our passports and got a 90 days visa for Ecuador in return! Finally, we went to the Ecuador customs and gave them: Gavin`s driving licence, international driving licence, V5 vehicle ownership document and passport and they issued the temporary import permit.

Highlights of Colombia
Colombia has been a brilliant start to our trip and very easy to travel around. We have had so many good times here and we have agreed that our top 3 highlights are:

Land rover meeting Villa de Leyva
After posting a message on the Land rover club Colombia facebook page, we were quickly invited to the annual land rover meeting at Villa De Leyva, taking place over a weekend. We did not really know  what to expect nor where it was taking place as the joining instructions had been very vague! We spotted some other landy owners in town and asked them where it was and followed them to the camp site. Then the madness started! We were the only land rover from outside of Colombia which meant that we were inundated with interest from the moment we arrived to the moment we left a couple of days later. We had a constant crowd of people around Ruby, inside Ruby, on top of Ruby and even underneath Ruby! Gav and I had to go and sit outside the toilet block every now and again to get 5 minutes of peace! The land rover parade through Villa de Leyva and into the  mountains was hilarious-with land rovers getting lost, windows and doors falling off and, of course, breaking down! The people we met have been incredible-with offers of places to stay, offers of help when we have broken down etc. This was a unique weekend and our favourite experience in Colombia.

Trek to the Ciudad Perdida (Lost City)
The 4 days trek to the Ciudad Perdida was through spectacular rainforest and was really hard, because of the terrain and the humidity. We loved it! We were the slowest out of our group and on the final day the guide set Gav and I off at 5.30am because we were so slow! They still caught and passed us though! At times we both swore to each other that this bloody lost city could stay bloody lost for all we cared, particularly when we were on a  challenging section of the trek or were just too hot. It was incredible though and the actual lost city itself was  amazing. We were lucky that we had a great group on our trek and a super guide. We had to check our shoes for scorpions every morning and were on regular snake watch. Gav and I were lucky enough to see a big black snake all coiled up in the  bushes.

Salento and the Zona Cafetera
We loved Salento and the coffee region for many reasons. it was beautiful countryside and we did an interesting tour of a coffee plantation and a lovely walk to the Valley de Cocora. We stayed in a great finca with views of the valleys and hills and we also met some fab people. We played the traditional Colombian game of Tejo, which involves throwing stones at targets containing gunpowder-great fun!

We have so many other great memories-the graffiti tour of Bogota, the communa 13 tour in Medellin, wild camping in Tayrona national park,Barichara, the desert of Tatacoa, the stone statues of San Agustin, the wonderful air b and b on the Caribbean coast in Cartagena and our wonderful host, Jack, etc etc. It has been liberating to drive ourselves through the country and decide when we want to stop and when we want to leave.  Ruby has been a star! OK, so we have had one or two mechanical issues but nothing that has been really major and the repairs have been easy to sort out with some wonderful landy mechanics-Alejandro and Joaquin. This is all part of the adventure and has bought us into contact with some great people. Ruby has driven the whole length of Colombia, up and down some huge hills and off road and has got us to Ecuador! Our roof tent has been brilliant-we both sleep really well in it (OK I know we have had a few hotels too!!) and our other kit is working well for us.

There are so many other things that we will remember about Colombia. The first has to be the incredibly friendly and helpful people. We have been inundated with smiles, "welcome to our country" greetings, people taking photos of Ruby and people offering to help. We met the wonderful  Guillermo in Cartagena, who helped us get Ruby from the port and invited us to his house to meet his family; the great folks at Villa De Leyva-too many names to mention and Carlos and Landrover Roy who helped us sort out our mechanical issues. We will also remember the military and their thumbs up as we drove past. This was right up my (Jen`s) street! As you can imagine,  I returned their thumbs up with huge ones of my own and a big grin! One set of soldiers had customised the thumbs up to make it their own: it involved a fist bump to their heart and then the thumbs up-I was in my element replicating it!

We will remember the look of huge surprise on peoples` faces when they spot we are right hand drive. They are a left hand drive country and are simply amazed by ruby`s steering wheel being on the "wrong side"! Occasionally, they have noticed me nodding off in the passenger seat and we hear shouts of concern as they think I am in the driver`s seat! Ruby has been the subject of many photos and we have conducted a number of guided tours-sometimes going round twice. The concept of "Mi carro es mi casa" is beyond a lot of peoples` comprehension, and we also realise how very privileged we are to have the resources and ability to undertake this type of trip.

We will remember  one of the first questions that we always get asked by the local people" do you have any children" and the look of shock when we say "No, we don`t want any!". This is beyond their comprehension too. Lots of other stuff-music always on very loud, the sellers who congregate at speed bumps, street entertainers who perform at traffic lights for a few pence, awful sausages, and much more!

We have spent our first week in Ecuador in Ibarra, staying at a lovely finca called Finca Sommerwind. This is on the edge of Laguna de Yahuarcocha, a lovely lake where local families congregate at weekends. We are also surrounded by hills and views of volcanoes. The finca is a well known spot for overlanders to stay and we have met some great people. Our friends Gudrun and Roger from Germany who we met in Popayan are here and we went on a lovely day out with them on a train, though the hills to a little village called the Salinas. We have also met the van Nomads-who we have been following for some time on facebook. Marie and Jason are from New York and are driving their van, Houdini, to Argentina. We also met Therese and Peter from Germany; they have been driving their campervan for a year from Argentina and are heading into central and North America-we had great fun with them. Hans, the wonderful  German owner of the finca is so helpful and also hosted two big BBQs whilst we were there with the BEST sausages we have had since leaving the UK!

We visited Otavalo market for the day. Otavalo is a largely indigenous town in the Imbabura Province of Ecuador. The town has about 90,000 inhabitants and is surrounded by the peaks of Imbabura (4,630 metres (15,190 ft)), Cotacachi (4,995 metres (16,388 ft)), and Mojanda volcanoes. The indigenous Otavaleños are famous for weaving textiles, usually made of wool (that is sometimes as black as a raven), which are sold at the famous Saturday market. Although the largest market is on Saturday, there is a very wide range of wares available throughout the week in the Plaza de los Ponchos, and the many local shops. The shops sell textiles such as handmade blankets, tablecloths, and much more. We had a great day here and bought some paintings on feathers and a woollen blanket for the higher altitude we will be experiencing soon!

We caught a bus from Ibarra to Quito, a 2 and a half hour journey, along the Pan American highway-surrounded by hills and volcanoes. We have 4 nights in Quito before we fly to the Galapagos islands, where we pick up our boat, the Millennium, for an 8 days cruise around the islands. I am very lucky, in that I have been to the Galapagos before on my previous RTW trip. It would have been rude, however, to leave Gav to go by himself so I agreed to accompany him and return to these beautiful and unique islands!! What a trooper!!!

We left Bogota for the second time, after the mechanic fixed the expansion tank and did a few other bits and pieces.  We were heading for the Tatacoa desert, the second largest arid zone in Colombia consisting of the red desert and the grey desert. We have had some fun trying to tell Colombians that we are going to the Tatacoa desert as they do not seem to understand m y pronunciation of it. The dialogue goes something like this (in Spanish) Local person: " where are you going to next?" Jen: "Tatacoa". Puzzled look from local person. Jen repeats " Tatacoa" in a variety of ways getting increasingly louder. Local person: "ohh Tatacoa" ,with the same pronunciation Jen has used! ! Jen :"YES-that`s what I said!!" Gavin, meanwhile, is laughing his head off by the side of me as this has been the exchange numerous times!  Another common chat i have with Colombians is to tell them "mi carro es mi casa" (My car is my home). They are enthralled by this and cannot believe we are living in it for 2 years!
The drive to Tatacoa (yes I said Tatacoa!) was beautiful. There was a long dirt road section for the last 20 miles or so, and we crossed a huge river and went through a tunnel built in the rocks. The scenery changed dramatically to being very dry and dusty with lots of cacti everywhere. We were only there for one night and camped on the edge of the red desert which had stunning scenery of the red rock formations below. It was incredibly hot and we decided not to walk into the desert, relaxing on the edge instead and admiring the scenery. Because there is no light pollution at night-the sky was stunning and we saw many stars, including shooting stars. We both lay with our heads out of the roof tent at various points in the night as it was so clear and stunning to see.

The following day we set off for San Agustin, an area known for its pre Colombian archaeological sites. We had an evening and night of rain, which turned the camping area into a mud bath! I managed to slip spectacularly in the mud in front of a group of youngsters form Bogota and ended up on my bum in the mud! We went to the largest of the archaeological parks and were really impressed by the large number and quality of the stone statues we saw. The largest group of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in South America stands in a wild, spectacular landscape. Gods and mythical animals are skilfully represented in styles ranging from abstract to realist. These works of art display the creativity and imagination of a northern Andean culture that flourished from the 1st to the 8th century.

We then decided to drive to Popayan, with a view to getting closer to the Ecuador border and crossing a few days later. The drive was again a lovely one, with a portion of it being on dirt track which was full of potholes and bumps and dips! It took us through Purace national park and though paramo.  We then hit tarmac again and the journey smoothed out. But then it happened. We heard a clunking sound from underneath Ruby-which got progressively louder as we got nearer to the camp site. We checked underneath for anything obvious but saw nothing. We spent the following day trying to diagnose the problem using communication with Ben and Gav`s brother, Jamie. In the end we decided that we needed to head to a main city to get it fixed. We contacted Carlos from the Colombia landrover club, who is so helpful and he gave us a contact in both Pasto (South) and Cali(North).  the deciding factor was the roads-we learnt that the road to Pasto was very hilly and that the one to Cali was pretty straightforward and fairly flat! Back up North it was to be then! We had begun to think we would never make it to Ecuador-as this was our second time heading back North! Carlos sent us the contact details of " Landrover Roy" who we had met at the big landrover  meeting in Villa De Leyva and Roy said he would meet us at the garage. 

To cut a long story short, Roy and his friend, Carlos were incredibly helpful. They told us which mechanic to use and we met them there. The first mechanic didn`t really seem to know what  the problem was and just repeated things we had already tried eg taking off the prop shaft. Roy called the owner of the garage and he sent his son down, another mechanic. He was brilliant. Roy and Carlos also helped us to order parts from Bogota which we would have to collect from the delivery firm the following morning. Things are not straightforward here so in total we were at the garage for about 7 hours, sometimes going round in circles about which parts we needed etc!! The following day we collected the parts from the delivery company and took them to the mechanics. Again, Roy and Carlos waited with Gavin until the repairs were done and the mechanic was satisfied.  I`d like to say that I dutifully also waited at the mechanics for a second day, but instead I took myself off to Cali zoo! So we had the CV joint replaced, the drive member on the rear wheel replaced and the bushes tightened up. No clunks anymore! A massive thank you to the brilliant Joaquin, the mechanic, who Gav was very impressed with and to Roy and Carlos who gave up almost 2 days to help us! The people here are wonderful. We booked into Hostel Casa Miraflores in Cali and parked Ruby outside. We met some lovely people (all a lot younger than us) and spent the night chatting, eating and drinking. We realised that we are out of touch with youth culture when  Joyce from Holland, who had met her boyfriend ( Joep) on the dating app-Tinder-told us that a common line on the site was to ask whether the person wants to meet up for netflix and to chill. Well, what a lovely idea I thought-watching a lovely film together and chilling out! They all could not stop laughing as they realised I had no idea that it actually meant did people want to meet up for "intimate relations"!!!!!! Well  how they laughed!

So we are now back in Popayan with a view to covering some serious miles over the next couple of days. I hope to write my next blog from Ecuador-unless Ruby has other ideas of course!  So I`m signing off, I want to go and watch netflix and chill!!! (MY version!!!)