Maud visited us in Ecuador. We took a break from the cycling, parked our bicycles at a Dutchmans campsite near Quito and took the bus into Quito.
Maud took a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam straight to Quito airport. We picked her up and took her to the Secret Garden Hostel in the town center. Here we had some acclimatization and resting days. Quito is the highest capital in the world and it will take some time to get used to the high altitude coming from sea-level as Maud did.
After Quito we moved on by minibus to Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Near the volcano there is another Secret Garden Hostel in the middle of nowhere. One of the most awesome places we have bin so far. Around Cotopaxi we did a few hikes (in the rain) and we did ride horses.
From Cotopaxi we moved on to Baños. A laid back outdoor paradise. We stayed a few days for some biking and hiking.
Cuenca was our next destination. The second largest town of the country after Quito. A nice town, home to the Panama hats. After two nights we moved on to the coast. 🙂
Montañita at the coast is a surfers paradise. We stayed quite a few days for surfing, relaxing and hanging around. Our hostel up there was super chill with a lot of hammocks hanging around, chill music and a good vibe.
A nightbus took us back to Quito for the last few days of Maud's visit. Back in Quito we visited the market in Otavalo. A large colorfull market with loads of local handcrafts for sale for cheap.
We also took a sky ride to a nearby volcano at nearly 5000m. To be honest; the sky ride took us to 4100m, we had to hike the rest by ourselves 😉
We didn't make it to the top but at least we had a great time up there.
After Maud having in Ecuador for nearly three weeks it was time to say goodbye again... 🙁
The short story above in nearly 300 pics below, have fun watching:

Straight from an 12 hour flight into a public bus in Quito was a little bit to much... Here we have a break and from here we walked further to our hostel.

At the end of the cycling day a truck picked us up to bring us back to Baños... This is real luxery for us. We're used to cycle everything, including the uphills. Backpackers are more lazy...
The day after we dropped Maud at the airport and took a ride back to Arie, the Dutch campsite owner where our bikes where parked the last weeks. The day after Maud left we started cycling again into the Ecuador Amazon region to head south for Peru within a 1000km.
Will be continued...
Thanks for reading again,
Kim & Arjan
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