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Red double decker buses in the rain on a grey morning and for a moment we are not in Andean Bogota, but London. A Berlin jazz band staying at our hotel invited us to see them perform for their trade expo. All went well until a spotlight caught fire and a cloud of noxious fumes sent the front row dignitaries packing. 
Delayed on a long dark mountain pass to the zona cafeteria I had to use an eye mask and ear plugs to drown out back to back Jackie Chan movies on the bus. That night we stayed in seedy Armenia but the following morning arrived in the tranquil weekender town of Solento, heart of Colombia's coffee region.
 An English man had set up the Plantation House Hostel and was also clearing land to grow his own beans. We met Janca and Peter here from Czech, whom we ended up travelling with for the next 2 weeks. They'd both been on the road for 2 years now.
Solento town houses have colourfully painted wooden panels and an unhurried atmosphere. In a local bar we joined in the game 'techo' which involves drinking beer and throwing metal ingots across a room into a sand pit, in the sand pit were small envelopes of gun powder above a metal ring, if you strike it a huge bang lets out like a powerful child's cap gun.
On our way back we were diverted by shouting and screaming coming from a small stadium. On investigating we came across a beauty contest in its final swing. Supporters of each girl were in the stands screaming and waving banners while the audience swarmed around the contestants. 
The nearby green valley of Cocora filled with unique tall wax palm trees and surrounded by rocky peaks and cloud forest. A trail leads up to a small reserve where 6 different types of humming bird came to feed.
South America involves huge distances and we had a couple of uneventful days by bus but staying in the lovely colonial town of Popoyan and the cold grim border town of Ipiales. Although here a surprise attraction was the stunningly situated Santuario de las Lajas, finished in 1944 and spanning a deep river gorge, a popular place for miracles too. 
We had all of our bags searched by an enthusiastic sniffer dog at the border with Ecuador, it took ages to cross and so we broke our journey over in Ecuador in Otavalo, famous for its Saturday market when its streets are turned over to the biggest indigenous craft market in Latin America and we filled our backpacks with trinkets to post home. And one morning we expanded our lungs hiking up the 4200 metre peak of Fuya Fuya overlooking Laguna de Mojanda.
You can only take rice and beans for so long and so besides eating pizza we found relief in Quito at an excellent Indian restaurant ran by a guy from Manchester. But the weather was wet and cold in Quito and so needing some warmth and following a once in a lifetime chance we booked flights to the Galapagos islands. 
The Galapagos are formed from volcanic eruptions and thus all the original life here arrived either by sea or air. They are harsh desert islands surrounded by seas rich from cold currents and played havoc with by occasional El Nino weather patterns. This has lead to a unique pattern of evolution which famously helped inspire Charles Darwin with his revolutionary book 'The Origin of Species'. 
We had 4 days to ourselves on Isla San Cristobal, sharing beaches with packs of sea lions. Even in the centre of town they were spilling over onto the promenade, barking, sneezing and cuddling up to sleep. We then joined the catamaran Galapagos Vision for a several day tour around the older southern islands of Espanola, Floreana and Santa Fe with 7 other backpackers. Sailing mostly in the first part of the night, we lay in bed and concentrated on keeping down our dinner. Then each day we'd have a mixture of guided nature walks, snorkeling and relaxing on beaches.
Its certainly is a unique place. The animals have not developed a fear of humans and you have to be careful not to step on them! We watched blue footed boobies perform their dancing mating ritual, a baby albatross on its own waiting for its feathers to grow before before launching themselves from the cliff hoping it will be able to fly. Then there are marine iguanas whom after warming their blood file out to sea to swim down to eat plants growing under the waves.
The ocean was a little cold but with wet suits we spent hours floating next to dozens of chomping turtles who seemed oblivious to us. Sea-lions are pretty clumsy on land but are incredibly agile underwater. Some swim right up to your face and one played a short game with me where we swam around each other in circles. We saw white tip reef sharks sleeping under rocks, spotted eagle rays and giant manta rays swimming below, but best for me was watching a marine iguana feeding underwater.
The tour ended on Santa Cruz island where we drove up the green forested twin cratered volcano to see the giant tortoises in their natural habitat. Each one living alone for over 200 hundred years, just eating all day long and walked through cave tubes created from lava.
At the Darwin research centre they are trying to breed some of the near extinct species that are unique to certain islands, especially lizards and tortoises. There are tortoise incubators and pens where hundreds of baby tortoises learn to climb rocks. Then there is the famous Lonesome George who is the last of his species of tortoise. For decades George has refused 2 similar mates from another island and everyone feared he would be the last. However just recently eggs have appeared and people are expectant to see if a new generation of half breed Georges will be born.
It was still raining in Quito so we quickly moved on south to Banos which means 'bathroom' in Spanish. Its called this because of the amount of hot springs and swimming pools nearby. In turn this is because it also sits in the shadow of Tungurahua volcano 5016m, which last erupted in 2006 destroying nearby villages. Lots of miracles also happen here, apparently, the local cathedral is full of murals where people's lives have been dramatically saved. 
We had a couple of days hiking up different approaches to the volcano and having picnics, then a day when we hired mountain bikes and flew downhill towards the amazon stopping on route to admire stunning waterfalls and cross the gorge on simple open cable cars.
Motor vehicles go through the many tunnels but cyclists can ride around them on dirt roads above and below cliffs with waterfalls splashing out onto the road. At Pailon del Diablo you can crawl through a tunnel in the rock face and stand behind one of the most powerful waterfalls I've seen. Then eat fresh trout and chips overlooking the sun warmed river gorge. 
We carried on down into Amazonia, staying in Puyo and Macas, two concrete towns growing out of the jungle, not many gringos come here and the people are really friendly. The road between them is mostly unpaved but has 3 new bridges spanning giant rivers although one already collapsed two weeks ago from a over loaded lorry. This is the land of the Shuar people and all along we see small basic villages and community schools.
From Macas we booked 4 days in the jungle staying with a Shuar family near Macuma. Their local bridge had also collapsed we crossed the river via a simple hand pulled cable car. Until recently this had been a secluded part of Amazonia but oil has been discovered and a road is slowly being cut through forest and hillside that will extend another 20km.
We hiked along for 1.5 hours before putting wellington boots on and climbing down a steep hill through thick mud and balancing along tree trunks laid across thick muddy swamps until we reached the riverside where Miguel from the settlement punted us across to our camp in a canoe made from a hollowed out tree trunk. 
Miguel was a friendly, kind man but he was sad the road was being built and the sound of chainsaws and trucks were a daily annoyance. His family had always lived remotely in the forest and now the modern world and its thirst for oil is invading. But at night the machines would stop and we lay awake in our sleeping bags in a bamboo shack listening to the rhythmic hallucinogenic sounds of crickets and toads.
It wasn't a very organised tour but we did do some interesting short hikes in the surrounding rainforest and had plenty of relaxation time to cool off in the river. The food was pretty poor, although one day an armadillo has brought back which we ate with boiled plantain then another time we ate fish caught from the river. The fish have a huge sucker for a mouth and a hard shell like back. They suck on the rocks in fast flowing parts and are fished by lying down in the river and collecting them by hand.
Then up to Ceunca, all day on a bus on unsealed roads through dramatic scenery back up into the Andes to this impressive colonial town of squares, cathedrals and balconies. Here we took an open roofed guided bus tour of the city and its pre-Columbus ruins and colonial architecture sat next to a retired couple who come from just down the road from me in both Wallington and Acocks Green.
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