Here is the place Kara and I stayed at the begining of our trip, its an eco-lodge with a secluded beach. We almost made it for Christmas, but due to a late flight we had to stay the the night in the city of Manta, luckily we have no photos of the hotel we stayed in Christmas night. After a few days on the beach we decided it was time to head to the jungle to do some kayaking.


When we arrived in Tena we were greeted with our first real day's of sunshine. We went kayaking immeidiatley with our friend Jaime. Kara feel victim to some Ecuadorian trickery and had her face painted with "medicinal mud". After a short stay in Tena we decided to move on down to Banos to get ready for New Years.


Banos is a great little town nestled in the Mountains. We stayed at a nice little day spa/lodge where we were able to do some relaxing in the mineral baths before the festivities of New Years.


Ecuador and Latin America have different ways of celebrating New Years. First they spend weeks building these huge statues out of paper mache then at midnight they break it all and burn it. Along with some fireworks, that are probably just Quarter sticks of dynamite and some dancing in the streets it makes for a pretty good party.