Highest mountain in the world (?), H poirot II and other stories

Started working our way south. Took what is supposedly one of the world´s great train journeys, dug out of the Andes. Most of the time we could see our own tracks as they zig zagged up mountains. The train derailled twice, the engineers fixed it by putting rocks under the wheels and driving the train back onto the tracks. Great fun but its tiring sitting on a roof for 8 hours!! My big disappointment is that it is usually a steam train but they only had a diesel working














We took a trip up Chimoborazo, the highest mountain in the world if measured from the centre of the Earth (its because of the bulge on the equator) . We were driven to the first refuge and then climbed upto the second refuge at 5000m. It is the highest we have ever been and the effect of the altitude was incredible. Marilyn didn.t make it all the way and I had to leave her sitting on a rock with the radio. She subsequenlty rcovered and nearly made it to the top but ran out of time. After this we cycled down 30 miles on mountain tracks
They are electing a new president in Ecuador. Every wall has election slogans on it, even in the indiginous community villages in the jungle. In the towns there are parades with stilt walkers, bands and banners everywhere. Most of the candidates seem to canvass by giving out free sweets. They don´t have parties but each candidate has a number which is on every bit of publicity. Dont know how many candidates there are but we have seen up to number 66 so far

Ecuadorian Hercule Poirot - Marilyn handed our washing in at the hostal last night. When we got it back her very special, much loved fleece was missing. The girl on the desk was as upset as Marilyn but couldnt find it. We gave her the number of our new hostal and she called to say she might have found and could we go back. Her boyfriend had realised who the culprit was and suggested that she look in the night watchman´s room and it was there. She was very scared because of his reaction if he found out she had been in his room. After a lot of negotiation the manager promised that he would say it was him who went in. Marilyn is happy but we would like to know the end of the story and hope the girl will be ok

Ughh Stuff

1. I went into the toilet in an airport and saw a guy wiping the inside of the loos with a cloth. How very clean and thorough I thought until he walked over to the sinks and wiped the taps with the same cloth !!

2. The resturants have a dish of chilli and herb sauce on the tables. I had added it to my soup and eaten it when I saw a fly get trapped in the dish. I took it out with my spoon and realised that all the bits of herb where in fact other dead flies

3. One of our long distance buses had a loo on board. Great unless you are in mid flow when the driver makes an emergency stop