Putting the picture of a fighter jet on the back of a regional Ecuador bus is a bit like buying a muzzle for a guinea pig, total overkill.

I thought my bus ride from Esmeraldas to Manta would take about 6 hours, the guy who sold me the ticket told me 9 and it finally rolled in about 12 hours after departure. It got up to 41 degrees celcius and the bus had no air conditioning so everyone had to sit in a puddle of their own perspiration.

Going though a quiet town I was bored so took a few photos.

My window was only slightly ajar and next thing I knew a hand reached in to steal my camera.

He succeeds in getting it out of the bus but obviously hadn't bargained on my arm being attached to it. (I had the cord wrapped around my wrist.) A bit of a tussle ensued and the bottom door that holds the battery and sd card on snapped off and hit the pavement as we drove away. I never saw the assailant's face but the camera lives on - nothing a bit of duct tape won't fix. I finally made it Jipijapa just on dusk and saw a wonderful show of birds all coming in to land on a criss cross of powerlines.

There's not a whole happening in Jipijapa (pronounced hipi-hapa) but there was this ridiculous tourist information building with a panama hat for a roof.

We had a pretty cruisy 60km ride today. There was a tough 5km hill to start which took us into Machachilla national park and we kept popping out and seeing glimpses of the ocean. Below are Lee and Enrique posing in front of local fishing boats.

Thankfully they are not allowed to shoot you here as the sign below clearly shows. But that doesn't stop them throwing water grenades and buckets at you from every passing vehicle. I got drenched at least half a dozen times but once the shock of it wore off it was quite refreshing. It's all part of the three day carnaval celebrations that finish up this evening.

This dude here is Gunther, he says he's 74 but apparently he's been saying that for the last 4 years so it's anyone's guess how old he actually is. What I do know for sure is that he is one hell of a rider. His cycling career began almost 60 years ago when he rode from Germany to the bottom tip of India and he's never looked back since - unless you ask him to look back for a photo of course.

It's a little hard to tell from the pic below but there are vultures all sitting in a row on the roof. To the right there's one on a post doing an angel pose. Your guess is as good as mine why they all do this but it looks pretty impressive.

These cactus trees are everywhere within the national park and you hear a chorus of birdsong the whole time you're riding through. Unfortunately on the bike you don't get the chance to get up close but I saw a beautiful green bird fly in front of me, sorry I can't be more specific! Here's a photo of a little gecko I spotted in the sand too.

We arrived at our destination of Puerto Lopez and I couldn't beleive they had a sign pointing to my hometown: Wellington, New Zealand. (A mere 13646 km from here.)

Being the last day of carnaval the beach was madness, there were people everywhere so I sat down and pulled out my sketchbook. It's a children's unlined school book with a puppy on the front but well worth the 25 cents I paid for it.

I had heard the cerviche (raw fish, cooked in a citrus marinade) was good so ordered a big bowl and a bottle of cerveza from the little stall in the right of this photo. It's served with crunchy banana chips and is incredibly refreshing and delicious. Just $3.50 for the meal and the beer, you can't go wrong.

Tomorrow the rest of the gang are going to 'poor-mans-galapagos', Isla de Plata. I'm intending on cycling down to Montanita, a little surfing village 45km south to try and fit in a surf lesson. I'm a complete novice and consider standing for more than three seconds to be 'surfing'. Any advice from the surfers out there?