Going it alone...

Unfortunately, all but two of us stayed on in the jungle for the next 5 weeks. This means that I am going it alone, a slightly daunting prospect to begin with but I am definately getting into it. After my slightly depressing alone time in Cusco two months ago I have decided that keeping busy is the most important thing to do. So after managing to shift my flights forward by ten days (3 and a half weeks of flying solo seemed like a little bit too much!) I am now cramming as much into ten days as possible.
I got back to Quito from Tena on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday I simply changed my flights and enjoyed some nice civilisation by going to see Iron Man 2 in the cinema...in Spanish. It´s not great...but it wasted a couple of hours!!
On Monday I wandered around the Old Town for a while after going up to a hill over the city on a cable car called the TeleferiQo. It was cool, in both the slang sense and the literal sense. Quito is huge. But it was to cold to stay up there for long so I came down pretty sharpish.
Tuesday morning I took a bus to Riobamba, from where the Devil´s Nose Train Ride goes from. The train is apparently a really cool ride which switch backs down a mountainside. Unfortunately, on arriving at the station I discovered that it was shut for repairs for 6 months (of course there was nothing on the internet to tell you this!) and so after being accosted by two, very charming, Ecuadorian guys who wanted to interview me in English for their class, I headed back to the bus station and sped off to Baños.
Baños is a pretty little town set right below an active volcano (I think it´s active anyway). It´s famous for it´s hot baths and good spas and is generally considered to be a good place to chill out. I booked into a hostel and then went out for an early dinner at hte pizzeria next door. Halfway through my meal a group of 4 gringos wandered in. I quickly recommended that they have the pizza (there was pasta on offer too!) and was invited to eat with them. They were all staying at the same hostal and were going to the baths that evening, they once again graciously invited me to join them...and I did. We had a good time warming up in the hot pool and then jumping into the cold one, although it did very strange things to my head! Afterwards we went and chilled out for a while at their hostal, they were all heading off the next day though so I couldn´t make any more plans with them.
Nevertheless, the following day I got up bright and early to hire a bike and ride 18km down a slightly sketchy road called the Route of the Waterfalls, unsurprisingly passing a lot of waterfalls on the way. Sadly, I was on a man´s bike, which caused serious pain to my butt, I think it might be bruised, and so ended up pushing it a bit of the way. When I got to the last waterfall, I then hopped on a ranchero (basically an opensided bus) which raced back Baños at petrifying speeds.
Today (Thursday) I decided to head up to Otavalo (North of Quito, Baños is South) where there is a great artisan market. I hopped on a bus and we made it about an hour of the way before we were stopped by the police. Apparently there is some huge strike on today by the indigenous peoples over water. Basically they blocked off the Panamericana which is the main artery from the South to Quito. So we turned round and went back to the nearest town, Ambato. I decided to wait a couple of hours and then tried again. This time we made it about an hour further before we were told "no hay paso" (you can´t get past) and had to turn back around. I jumped out at the little town of Latacunga and am spending the night here in the hope that the government will have come to some kind of deal by tomorrow which will open up the roads again.
Fingers crosssed!! (Actually, I tried that for Machu Picchu and it didn´t work...so uncross your fingers!!)