I'd rather be a forest than a street...

Hello. We're back.

It's taken some time, but we're finally back in Nottingham. We left Ecuador at 08:05 on Saturday morning and after a brief stop in Miami to enjoy at first hand the somewhat arcane customs procedures of the USA, we finally landed in London at 06:35 this morning.

It's been a long day, so I hope you'll forgive me if I save the interminably long rundown of what we got up to for another day.

For now I hope it will suffice to say that we had a brilliant time. Ecuador is a remarkable country of diversity and contrasts.

Where to begin?



We sat and watched a volcano erupting.



We climbed snowcapped mountains on the same day as we crossed the equator (it's certainly the only holiday I've been on where I have needed to pack my sleeping bag, my down jacket and my skiing gloves as well as my shorts, a big sunhat and masses of insect repellent).



We sweated it out in the rainforest as we fished for piranahs, watched toucans flying overhead and tried to avoid the spiders, mosquitos and the many other forms of insect life.



At various points in our trip, we travelled by car, by bus, on foot, on bikes, on horseback, by canoe, in wobbly open cable cars, down some rapids on a set of lashed together inner-tubes and on the roof of a train as it wound its way down some switchbacks carved into the side of a mountain.



It was a brilliant way to spend 22 days.... although I have to say that I will be quite pleased to be sleeping in my own bed tonight.

How are you?