Seven months on the road, and these travelers are beginning to grow somewhat weary. The pursuit of adventure is alive and well as we still relish in each new vista seen or new friend met... but after seven months of living out of a backpack (five of which we have been constantly moving), breaking points are beginning to be hit, for several reasons.
Sleeping on rock hard beds, with equally hard and lumpy pillows. Counting squished bugs on the wall while brushing teeth. Having only Doritos for a meal...again. Hours of research scoping out each destination. Sitting next to a another pukey kid on the bus. Killing monster sized bugs that are surely going to kill you if you don't get to them first. Cold showers. Smelling all four pairs of dirty underwear to determine which can be worn again, only because it doesn't smell quite as bad as the others.
I could go on. And once I look at that list, and think of other things that make this vocation a difficult one, I am surprised that we have any enthusiasm left after seven months.
To be clear - despite the rough going sometimes, we have zero regrets. Everything we have done, everything we have learned, and every new challenge we have conquered has made every lumpy pillow or bag of Doritos worth enduring. But, as we are in the last country of our South American journey (before making the jump into Central America), and as I find myself becoming increasingly sensitive and bitter when we do hit the rough spots, there are some things we have had to ask ourselves. Most importantly, do we think we can keep this up for four and a half more months?
Before I reveal our answer, let's look back to our few days that forced us into these tough questions!
We left Popayan early, and arrived in Colombia's third biggest city, Cali, in the early afternoon. We checked into our hostel in the cute neighborhood of San Antonio and laid down on the bed for a quick stretch after the 4 hour bus ride. Bed: harddddd and terribly sloped. Pillow: lumpy. After having virtually no sleep in Popayan our last night (bad bed and very noisy), I could have cried. It had been quite some while since we had been in a place that I could feel completely comfortable in, and I couldn't visualize getting any sleep in this room without chemical assistance to do so.
Thankfully, the hostel had another room available with a posturepedic bed (more expensive, of course), but we jumped at it. While it wasn't the cleanest thing we have stayed in for awhile, at least I wouldn't wake up with a back or neck ache. Problem solved, tears averted.
Next up - food! Having only Doritos for lunch (frequently happens on travel days), we eagerly went out and enjoyed a good meal at an Italian restaurant nearby. Back to the hostel and we caught up on some much needed sleep.
Day two in Cali and we set out on our walking tour of the downtown. Ick. I mean, it has it's marginally pretty points, to be sure, but it has to be one of the least attractive cities we have seen in all of our travels. Granted, we had not heard very great things about this city (many people skip it), but Pete was determined to give it a chance, if only because it has the cool name of Cali (insert appropriate LL Cool J lyrics here!)
No matter, so what if the downtown didn't offer much - we were really here for one main attraction - salsa, baby! Cali is the reputed home of salsa dancing in Colombia, and we were excited to see it in action. After spending the rest of our afternoon reading and doing research for the next leg of our trip, we got gussied up for dinner and a night out dancing (or, watching dancing anyways, we know our personal limits).
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Semana Santa (Easter) is taken quite seriously in this part of the world, and as it was Thursday evening, everyone was apparently at church or with their families instead of keeping their restaurants open or salsa-ing for the entertainment of these two gringos. The city was dead, we had a tough time even finding food.
Our two day stay in Cali thus ended up being a bit of a bust, and the next day we were back on a bus bound for Salento - the much anticipated beginning of coffee country in Colombia!What was supposed to be a 4 hour journey turned into 7, thanks to bad weather and irregular buses. And when we finally got into Salento, we stepped out of the bus and into a torrential downpour. Walking through the slippery and muddy streets we made our way to our hostel - The Plantation House - which thankfully was not too far out of the way. We were also thankful that we didn't arrive too much later, as another couple was waiting to take our reserved room.
If it wasn't for all the rain on top of our travel weariness, we might have let that other couple have our room. But Salento is a very small town, and we knew there were likely no other options to this relatively expensive dump (visions of La Pedrera in Uruguay came flooding back). There were bugs to be dealt with, it was dirty, and the bed was no better then sleeping on a sheet of plywood. Shortly after checking in, the power went out. We woke up to no running water for a few hours. Doritos were our meal replacement, again. This time, tears spilled over, and this is where the tough questions began to be asked. Can we really keep this up for four+ more months?
But! It wasn't all doom and gloom, at least while the sun was shining and we were able to escape the hostel. This small coffee town surprisingly had a lot to offer - quaint little artisan shops, decent restaurants, fincas (coffee plantations) and many hiking trails.
Hola little coffee beans!
We were also pleasantly surprised to run into our friend Kylee (met in Bolivia, saw her again in Uruguay and now in Colombia!), and she joined us on our hike in nearby Cocora Valley. Cocora Valley has really beautiful countryside such that we have not seen before during our travels - we hiked along a winding trail that led us over and around creeks through the rainforest. There were scores of Wax Palms (the highest palm trees in the world), peaking out from behind the cloud forest that often engulfed them.
For 5kms we walked uphill in rubber boots to reach a refugio for many types of birds - mostly hummingbirds! We were greeted warmly by the family that runs it, and they served us our choice of coffee, tea and hot chocolate with a side of cheese. Yes, cheese! The tradition here is to actually put the salty cheese inside of the sweet drink and consume it with a spoon!We sat for nearly an hour enjoying the eight different types hummingbirds as they darted around us and into the nearby water feeders.
We could have easily stayed longer but decided to get a move on and hopefully avoid the afternoon rains that seemed to happen like clockwork. Sure enough, it came as scheduled when we were nearing the bottom of our trek. We waited only slightly for a jeep to take us back into town and sought refuge in a nice restaurant for dinner before heading back to our dumpy hostel for the night.
After three long sleepless nights, we were anxious to get up and out. A short bus ride brought us to our current locale of Manizales. Ahhh...soft beds, a super clean hostel and friendly staff were waiting for us. We are back in a city but removed enough from it's core that we are enjoying some quiet but are also anxious to take advantage of the many activities that this other area of the coffee region has to offer. I couldn't be happier to finally be in a place that I can call "comfortable". It has been awhile.
And while we bask in our comforts and look forward to a good nights sleep, there will be more discussion on our next steps. The thought of another night in another dumpy hostel down the road might spell b-r-e-a-k-d-o-w-n (for me, specifically!) and thus we are changing our plans.
We need to sit still. We need to sit still where we feel comfortable. We need to sit still where we feel comfortable and get back to two of our main purposes for coming down here in the first place: to contribute to lesser advantaged communities by volunteering our time and to work on our Spanish. Once Pete made the suggestion and we spent some real time thinking about it, we are confident that it is the absolute right thing for us to do right now. Central America will have to wait for another time - we are instead going to settle down in a place we have been before where we know we will be happy to sit still.
That place? We don't know yet! We have a couple of options in mind and have a lot to think about before we make a decision (our trusty friend the Magic 8 Ball may need to weigh in on this one). All we know is that we are going to finish up Colombia in the next month or so, and then likely jump on a plane back down into the southern hemisphere where we can actually unpack our bags and set them aside for awhile. I feel better already!
¡MAS FOTOS! Click here
Saturday morning we were up-and-at-em early (well, early for us anyways) - saying goodbye to our new friends at the Rose Cottage hostel in Otavalo, as well as to our case of the "lazies". We were actually going to have to exert some effort for the next couple of days to get to our next destination of Popayan, Colombia.Our border crossing into Colombia was a bit more convoluted then others we have done, but with the exact details of what to do in hand, we were able to do it seamlessly, even helping an absent-minded Danish girl with no Spanish find her way as well. We also had devious plans cooked up in case we had problems at the border - we had heard that some people were rejected from entering the country if they could not prove they were going to leave it. We, of course, don't know what we are doing two days from now, let alone a month or so down the road. We had thus decided to pretend we knew zero Spanish so that they hopefully couldn't be bothered with trying to communicate with us English speaking gringos. We also decided that I would do all the talking, knowing how Pete likes to chat it up with border people (for some weird reason).
All was for nought, and we waltzed across the border without issue into our seventh country. And what a welcome we've had! Within the first day we met three very friendly and helpful locals: an elderly man who wanted to practice his English with us whilst riding the bus, another bus patron who helped us with which buses to take next, and finally a taxi driver turned tour guide who took us out to Las Lajas Sanctuary - a beautiful Gothic basilica built by 1949 into a large gorge near the border city of Ipiales.
We stopped in Ipiales only to see the Sanctuary, and thus dumped our bags at the bus station and found our taxi driver/guide. We negotiated with Omar to take us out to the Sanctuary and wait to take us back to the station - rather then waiting in his car, he walked with us down to the church, filling us in with details along the way.
Of all the impressive churches that we have seen, this one tops them all. It is built straddling a deep gorge with a river running below it. There is a huge waterfall in front of it, and a long stone walkway down to it. The church was built on the site of an acknowledged appearance of the Virgin Mary, and is said to have some healing powers. Lining the walkway to the church were thousands of plaques, most of them thanking the Virgin for miracles performed. A very awe-inspiring site, and if we didn't have a bus to catch, we could have sat there for a couple of hours soaking it all in.
Hundreds of plaques lined the mountainside
It was a bus ride like we've never had before. The scenery was as breathtaking as any we have seen and very similar to the lush green mountains we drove through in Ecuador. The elevation changed dramatically several times as we wound up and down the mountainside on the curvy road. Some of the curves got the better of a few people on our bus, and for the third time in our travels, Pete sat next to someone who vomited as a result (I'm beginning to think it's Pete, and not the roads!)
One very unique feature of this trip was the crazy amount of armed police and military that we saw on our way. Even in the most seemingly remote places, there would be a few fully decked out soliders on the side of the road, complete with large automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. It was a little unnerving at first, especially when we got stopped in one small town for an ID check - onto the bus came a soldier carrying an uzi while he took all the local's identification. For the gringo's on the bus (us only), he just asked a couple of questions (to which our we-don't-know-Spanish-strategy kicked in), and he left us be without even looking at our ID.
Pete commented that he was close to soiling himself when the uzi brushed his arm as the soldier walked past! I, on the other hand, found it all quite amusing, especially as I watched one of the soldiers who stood guard outside the bus - with his automatic weapon bouncing off his hip, he was swaying and singing along to the reggaeton music that was playing from a nearby store. Like, really! There are very few places in the world where you can find yourself in this kind of situation - I found it quite entertaining.After that stop and another for lunch, we finally reached Popayan - the whitest of white cities!
It seems that most every country in Latin America has a city that tries to lay claim to the title of Ciudad Blanca (white city), and we have visited a couple of them (Sucre, Bolivia and Arequipa, Peru). None of these others, however, are even remotely comparable to the blankness of Popayan. Every building in the old city is completely stark white, with impeccably clean streets in which some are even colored such a pale grey that it adds to the distinct blankness. It is really beautiful, and even a little eerie at the same time.
We arrived in Popayan totally unknowing of the huge festival that was about to overtake the town, and totally without accommodations! We are usually quite diligent about booking ahead (in order to ensure that we never have to stay in hostel dorms), but we have kinda been flying by the seat of our pants since the Galapagos. Wouldn't you know it - the one time we come without plans is the one time we catch ourselves in an already packed city. We trudged around town with our heavy packs until we finally found a place to stay - quite a cute little hotel for the whopping price of $25 a night.We were lucky to find accommodations, but also very lucky just to be here. Popayan is somewhat the cultural and religious mecca of Colombia (the church-to-people ratio is very high), and is home to the biggest Easter celebrations in the country known as Semana Santa (saint week). The festivities have been a tradition or over 450 years! Every day there are musical recitals, art exhibits and parades. The streets are closed and the town is abuzz with throngs of people. We excitedly found the tourist information office and grabbed all the paraphernalia we would need to plan out our few days.
And then, sickness struck. Poor Pete started to feel pretty low Monday, and it all culminated when he actually passed out in a restaurant where we sat to have lunch in the late afternoon. He scared me (and the restaurant staff) pretty thoroughly. After forcing him to drink some juice, we jumped in a cab and headed straight back to our hotel where we didn't leave for the rest of the day. He slept heavily, and by the late evening he started to feel much better. Yesterday he was back to 100%, thankfully! Time to get out of the room and explore!
So much to do, such little time. First up, Manos de Oro, the largest and most unique artisan fair we have seen on our travels. It was SO difficult to not blow all of our money on everything from purses to bracelets to Coca products. I am quite in awe of my own will-power I have developed.
Then, a piano recital! I have never been to one before, but in honor of the week's festivities, a piano player from the Czech Republic was here to entertain with Chopin and Schubert in front of a packed theater.
And finally, the procession late in the evening. Every day this week a parade will march through downtown Popayan, each time in honor of a different saint. It was a gloriously serene and exquisite spectacle, complete with marching bands, hundreds of people lining the streets with lit candles, and huge and heavy platforms adorned with religious symbols.
We enjoyed three hours of the procession, made even better by the fact that we chatted extensively with the two families sitting on either side of us. They taught us (among many things) how to spot counterfeit money, how to say popcorn (there are so many different ways to say it across the continent!), and about the different traditions they experience during Easter week.
Four days into Colombia and we are overwhelmed, but in such a good way. As exemplified by the two families at the procession, Colombians are SUCH an unbelievably friendly bunch! We have been stopped on the street by complete strangers just to say Bienvenidos more in this country then in all other countries combined. The staring at our white skin continues, of course, but at least they are most likely to do it with a smile or an hola.
We are excited to continue, and today we have just a short bus ride to the third largest city in the country. Cali is home to Salsa dancing, many beautiful parks, and apparently is a hotbed for "medical tourism" - plastic surgery. Should be an interesting visit!
Yep, I said it. I just invented a new word - ¨Lazies¨ (at least my spell-checker won´t accept it)! You can guess the meaning behind it, if not from the brevity of this post, but also from it´s lack of pictures. We took a break from our tough jobs as tourists.
Since we disembarked our cruise in the Galapagos, we´ve done a whole lot of nothing. Correction - I´ve done a whole lot of nothing, Pete has done mostly nothing. For our last day in the islands, I barely left our room - I was recovering from the very poor sleep I had the night before (made painful by the lack of air conditioning), and from the serious onset of sea legs where everything around me was swaying. Feeling a little bit better than I, Pete and Margaret ventured out to explore the beautiful beach at nearby Tortuga Bay for a few hours.
As much as we loved every minute of our experience in the Galapagos, we were at least a little relieved to get back to the higher altitude of the mainland and away from the oppressive heat and humidity. Back up to Quito we flew on Tuesday morning - we said a sad goodbye to Margaret as she boarded a bus south, and plopped ourselves down in old town Quito for two more nights. Two nights of...you guessed it...lazies.
As we may have said a million times already, we ain´t city folk, and we were anxious to get a move on out of the capital city. But, lo and behold, my penchant for losing things struck again. On our way back to Quito from the islands, I realize that I had left my iPod sitting on the bed of our last hotel.
O, blessed iPod! Whatever would I do without your multitude of games? Or your wi-fi capabilities for quick email checks? Or the thousands of songs that I filter through on long bus rides, to aid in my aimless staring out the window? Perhaps this may not seem such a big deal to our average reader, but to a traveler carrying her home around on her back, the iPod Touch is most precious cargo indeed. I was sure it was a-goner and that many dark days were ahead.
But, alas! An amiable and generous Ecuadorian came to my aid! And once again, we were reminded of the general good in people, even from the relative strangers that we have met along our travels.
Esther, the receptionist at our hotel in the Galapagos, found my iPod and was waiting for my call so that she could arrange to have it returned. She put it on a flight the next day, even paying for its passage with no request for reimbursement. In the package contained the following note: ¨Hi Darlene or Peter: Here is your iPod. Please don´t forget it in Quito. People is not honest sometimes.¨ Bless your heart, Esther. I will even forgive you for calling me Darlene.
So, as we had to wait for my precious cargo to be returned, we were forced into another night in the big noisy city. Doing...you guessed it...nothing of matter. It was inconceivable for us to do anything even if we wanted to - I was still feeling the swaying of the sea, PLUS now a little altitude sickness thrown in (Quito is almost at 3,000mts). Sea legs and altidude sickness? I had no idea that this combination was possible! Somehow, I found a way.
And you would think that with nothing to do, we would have all of our next voyages planned out to the letter - but that proved to be harder than expected. We had taken a break from planning since going to the Galapagos, and there we were, one night left to go in Quito and we had no idea where to go next. We considered just showing up at the bus station with our bags and picking the next bus heading north.
But then the kind hostel owner in Quito brought out a huge wall map of Ecuador for us and at 10pm on Wednesday night, told us where we needed to go the next morning. Yesterday we traveled 2 hours north to Otavalo, a mountain town known for its bustling market, and to help us break up our trip north across the Colombian border. Our cute little hostel is a series of cottages just outside of the town with a beautiful and tranquil setting, complete with hammocks and nothing but the sound of tweeting birds. We were officially welcomed back into the Northern Hemisphere (spending our first night here in 7 months) by having to wear our long johns to bed for the first time since southern Chile. However, it has still proven to be an inspiring place to do more of enjoying the lazies before we say goodbye to Ecuador, and roll into our seventh country - Colombia!
We have been anxiously awaiting to explore this country for a long time. It is a traveler´s favourite, and is often referred to as ¨the best kept secret in Latin America¨. Diminished are the drug wars that once plagued this country with a ton of bad press, as the country vehemently is working to defend and improve its tourist industry. This is a very large country, and thus we are planning at least 4 weeks to explore (although I suspect we will be longer).
But we move on with a sad goodbye to Ecuador, the little country that has stolen our hearts. We came in with very few expectations, and inside found some amazing scenery, unparalleled wildlife experiences, and some very generous and honest people. In our three weeks here we feel we have barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer, which again leaves us another reason to get on a plane back south after we return to Canada in the fall. This list of reasons continue to grow...
Setting: The magnificent archipelago known as The Galapagos Islands. Some 600km west of the Ecuadorian coast, this myriad of lava rock islands is home to some of the most diverse and unique wildlife in the world.
Scene: 15 tourists from around the world disembark the yacht Daphne to explore Bachas, a northern beach on the island of Santa Cruz - the first of several to be visited.
Cue Blue Footed Boobies and an intense feeding frenzy as they dive by the hundreds to feed in the shallow water! Cue Sea Lion pups frolicking playfully amidst the rocks! Cue baby Sea Turtles - huddling near the top of their nest and only hours away from their frantic run to the sea! Cue Pink Flamingo flying just overhead and settling in nearby lagoon!"I paid an extra $5 for the perfect timing of that Flamingo," said our guide Charlie as we set off down the beach.
That statement was almost to be believed. Day after day, outing after outing, we were all constantly stunned by the abundance and close proximity of the wildlife we encountered - Charlie joked that he had all of the animals under contract to show up at the exact times we were arriving. After awhile, we weren't sure if he was joking or not. It was a wildlife experience like none other. And for four jam packed days and nights, we were well guided on our exploration of the islands of Santa Cruz, The Plazas, Santa Fe, Española and Floreana.There are several ways to explore the islands, and people could easily spend weeks here trying to see it all. Wanting to see as much as we could in a short time frame (and on a small budget!), Pete, Margaret and I booked a 4 night tour onboard the Encantada - a highly recommended sailboat in the "tourist class" level of boats. We were quite happy with the last minute deal that we secured and were set to sail on Wednesday morning.
We flew to the islands on Monday morning to explore a little on our own. Upon arrival we roamed the town of Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz and talked to different tour agencies about the possibility of supplementing our cruise with other day tour options allowing us to take in even more of the islands (we did this on Tuesday, with a half-day tour of Santa Cruz that introduced us to the unique plant life, marine iguanas, sea lions, and our first snorkel!) On returning to our hotel later, we got a distressing message that our boat, the Encantada, had an "incident" (fire!) and that our tour was canceled. Cue PANIC! For the next few hours we were constantly on the phone and doing research online as to what our options were. We finally decided to accept an offer to get on the yacht Daphne - almost an identical tour over the same days, but a free upgrade to "comfortable class".SCORE!! We were treated to delicious food, a newly refurbished yacht, a top-class guide (naturalist), and many more comforts that we would not have gotten on the Encantada - the most luxury we have experienced on our travels! One small downside, however - our new upgraded class of boat meant that we were traveling out of the price range of many backpackers like us - making us the outsiders to a group of twelve friends who were all at least twenty years older. One small upside on top of that, however - we were the kool kids on the boat - the crew treated us to free drinks, we often got served food first, and we also were tipped off first whenever there was marine animal activity around the yacht.
Our days began early, with the breakfast bell ringing at either 6:30 or 7:00am, with the exception of the first day, which began after lunch. After being well fed, we would climb into the zodiac and be taken ashore the islands for a nature walk. Our first day of exploration was literally as first described above - we were shocked by the immediate exposure to the multitude of animals, including the endemic blue footed boobies. We were just in time to see them diving into the shallow waters by the hundreds, hunting for lunch:
The blue footed booby
Feeding frenzy!
We were there to see them on the exact day that they were meant to start their scramble to the sea - we could see their tiny little heads and legs almost right at the top!
Baby sea turtles!!
Circling above the turtle nests was a nasty frigatebird - savagely looking for a snack. We offered to stay and protect the turtles to ensure they made it to the sea (only 1% of the babies survive!), but we were not allowed. We were told we had to let "nature be nature". Cue much sad sighing.
The nasty frigatebird!
We snorkeled a bit on Bachas beach (named after the US military barge that was here during WWII), but saw very little in the murky water. We returned back to the boat for dinner and I felt the first effects of seasickness that would plague me for the first couple of days. As soon as the boat started moving to our next location (a 3 hour trip after dinner), I had to promptly lay down with my eyes closed to combat it.
We woke up the next morning and found ourselves on the Plazas - two small islands off the east coast of Santa Cruz. We stopped to watch baby seals frolicking on the shore before our attention was captured by the colorful land iguanas that we saw for the first time. Mating season is over and the males are shedding their colorful skins, but many still showed their vibrant yellows.
Baby seals, playing among the rocks and crabs!
So ugly it's cute?
Back to the boat for lunch, and then into the water for some snorkeling around the boat and in the bay. Pete and I followed a large stingray for some time as it slinked along the bottom (rays FREAK me out!), but we mostly saw a lot of yellow tailed surgeonfish (think "Dory" from Finding Nemo).
El Capitan of the boat took us out a little further for more snorkeling - this is what I was afraid of. We were in SHARK territory! There are a few different sharks in the Galapagos waters and none are threats to humans - but that doesn't matter. They are still sharks! We eerily swam across deeper, darker waters listening only to our own breathing and expecting something to jump out at any second. We fully expected and (half) hoped to see them, and my grip on Pete's hand tightened.
It turned out that it wasn't to be on Thursday (perhaps Charlie was still negotiating their appearance contract?), but we still came away without disappointment. Instead of sharks, we saw a humongous school of salemas (think school of silver fish that shaped themselves into objects on Finding Nemo). There had to be hundreds of thousands of them all huddled together, stretching as far as we could see.
Feeling a little nauseous again from all the swimming in choppy waters, I climbed back on the zodiac while everyone else made their way towards shore. "TURTLE!" yelled one of the snorkelers and everyone quickly swam over to the same area to see a graceful sea turtle swim along.
I stayed on the boat and the driver took us off to the side to give everyone more room. Suddenly, on the far other side of the boat - another turtle! At that point, I didn't care if I vomited in my mask - I had to get back in the water. I jumped in quickly, and was rewarded with having this giant creature all to myself. I swam alongside him for a couple of minutes, marveling in his gentle, graceful nature as he lazily glided along, popping his head up every couple of minutes for a gulp of air. It was honestly a spiritual experience, sharing a moment alone with this amazing animal!
Still feeling sick, I skipped the afternoon walk along the beach and napped instead with dreams of turtles. But Pete came back with more pictures of beach-bum-sea-lions and iguanas.
Dog pile!!
Another six hour trip after dinner landed us on Isla Española the next day. Our morning walk meant seeing the usual onslaught of sea lions and crabs, but we were also treated to seeing a colorful variation of the marine iguana and their nesting spots.
Also, nazca boobies with nazca booby babies!
Baby!
We were served some relief from the oppressively hot weather with a torrential downpour as we made our way back to the boat. No one was particularly interested in swimming just after lunch then, we all waited until the sun came back out before jumping in to snorkel at Garner Bay. This spot turned out to be the only real disappointment of the trip - the water was very murky and we saw very little. I also decided that I don't like snorkeling when I can't see the bottom and when the current was so strong, as it crashed hard against the cliffs that we were gliding beside.
Back onto the zodiacs and then onto the white beaches of Garner Bay, speckled with big brown patches of lazy sea lions. This time on the beach was free to do as we wish, so we chose to sunbath among the sea lions - keeping the recommended distance away, but still close enough to be sneezed on!
Can you spot Pete?
I wanna be a sea lion!
First up - the Galapagos penguin! Charlie had mentioned before our boat ride that we had a 1 in 5 chance of seeing one, so it must have been our lucky day as we came upon 6 of them right off the bat. Much smaller then the magellan penguins we saw in Chile, they playfully darted around our boat and posed for pictures.
We made two stops on Floreana, the first being Post Office Bay - a locale used in the old days by whalers and sailors to stay in touch with their loved ones at home. Leaving letters behind in an old wooden barrel, other sailors who were on their way home would stop and take it with them. The tradition still continues today - visitors can leave mail for others to pick up and post on the mainland. Pete and I left two postcards of our own, and picked up two others to mail to random strangers. It will be interesting to see when our two postcards will make it to their destination!
Our second stop was to view one of several lava tunnels in the Galapagos. Submarine volcanic activity slowly created all islands in the archipelago - when the lava flows on the outer part of the stream got cold and hardened, the liquid magma continued flowing within, eventually leaving empty tubes behind.
Inside the lava tunnel
Back onto Daphne and we moved to the other side of the island. Shortly after lunch, we made our way to the ominous La Corona del Diablo - the Devil's Crown - for our last bit of snorkeling on our trip. There was a lot of pressure for this last stop, we were all now quite anxious to see the previously absent sharks, and this was reportedly our best chance.
A sailboat beside Devil's Crown
"SHARK!" screamed El Capitan as soon as he entered the water. I had hung back on the zodiac, again nervous of the strong current and my weak stomach! But, I couldn't take any more of the anticipation and I promptly jumped right in.
Two white tipped sharks! Giant manta ray! Sea turtle! Cue dumbfounded tourist (ME)!
I spun around as quickly as my flippers would let me, trying to take in as much as I could in the few minutes I was surrounded by all of the animals. Surprisingly enough, the sharks didn't scare me one iota - they were quite far down and I even chose to follow one of them for a short while to see what he was up to (picking on little fish - that's what!) What scared the bejeezus out of me was the giant manta - I had NO idea that they were that big - they can get up to 6m wide and long!
More beautiful fish, some galapagos sharks, and Pete even saw a tuna dart right to the top and jump out of the water. The best snorkeling we had all week, right on our last day. We regrettably got back into the zodiacs and left Devil's Crown, but Charlie had one more treat in store for us at the end of this fantastic day.
Back onto Floreana, we checked out a lagoon full of pink flamingos and then walked to the most beautiful beach of all. This one was not for swimming though, as right near the shore we watched families of stingrays (with babies!) swim up and down.
Scary rays!
Beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, untouched beach
On this beach we also saw numerous sea turtles, doing their usual lazy stroke very close to shore. Charlie explained that they were all females, waiting until dark to head onto the beach and lay their eggs in the sand. No sooner did he say this then we saw another damn frigatebird hovering overhead, obviously looking for baby turtles already hatched and about to emerge and rush to the sea. The pre-historic looking bird darted it's long beak down into the sand several times, but emerged empty as we all watched - gasping! I couldn't help myself, I whistled at the bird to try and distract it and move it away from the area, but I got in trouble. Again, let "nature be nature", I was told. But thems are babies!! Cue more exasperated sighing. I turned my back and headed straight to the boat. I just couldn't watch.
We had a three hour trip on the water back to port and we enjoyed the sunshine from the top deck, reviewing amongst ourselves all of the amazing things we had seen. Just when we thought we had seen it all...just when we had "checked" off most of the list of things we wanted to see...we had one more surprise - on cue.
¡Muchos delfines! Many dolphins, guiding our ship on the journey back to Santa Cruz! Up to the front we went and watched as six dolphins swam and jumped just in front of our speeding yacht, and another few more did tricks for us along the side. I had never seen such a display before - they were so playful and amazing to watch. A perfect end to our near perfect cruise.
The following morning we bid a sad farewell to Daphne and her crew, but continued on with Charlie for one last visit. Up into the highlands of Santa Cruz we visited the grandaddy of all animals to be seen on these islands - the giant tortoises.
This breed of tortoise, endemic to these islands, can weigh up to 500lbs and can live to be over 150 years old. While there used to be hundreds of thousands of them roaming the islands, they are now down to only about 20,000 left. They are magnificent animals that astounded early visitors - this impression of theses animals eventually gave the islands their name (in traditional Castillion language, the word "Galapago" was used to describe a riding saddle, which resembles the shape of the tortoises shell).
They were mesmerizing. We slopped around in mud to find four of them in the wild - idly looking us over while we snapped a hundred photos. They ranged in age from the ~fifty year old medium-sized-giants, to the very old, giant-sized-giants! One amazing feature of these animals is that they never stop growing throughout their whole life.
A medium-sized giant!
I am struggling with finding the words to accurately summarize this utterly magical experience in this incredibly unique place. I feel like I have been typing! Like this! The whole time!! But there truly is nothing comparable in this world to these majestic islands, and we consider ourselves extremely lucky to be some of the few to experience it.
Cue tourists to exit stage right. Sigh.¡MUCHOS FOTOS! This place deserved an album all to itself...CLICK HERE
There will be more photos added once we get our underwater camera developed!
We rolled into Ecuador's capital city with two missions: to secure a cheap, last minute deal to the Galapagos Islands, and to visit with family (I know!! In Quito!! Of all places!!)
Mission well accomplished on both parts, with a little sight seeing thrown in as well.
Our first task was the Galapagos deal which turned out to be an easy feat thanks to a lot of research done before hand. We saved hundreds of dollars by waiting until the last minute to book, and were also lucky to get on our first choice boat. Tomorrow we leave for the islands with two days to explore on our own before boarding our cruise (a 12 person sailboat) on Wednesday. We are also excited to be joined by our tango-dancing friend Margaret from Buenos Aires!
Second task - enjoy the surreal experience of visiting with a family member over 6,600 kms away from home! Cousin Deidre happened to be in Ecuador for the last week with a contingent of her school-kids, and when we knew that we would be in the country around the same time - we kept in touch to ensure a meeting. Neither Deidre nor I could remember the last time that we saw each other - it is most likely in the 15-20-years-ago range, and likely it was only in passing at church in Grimshaw or a family gathering of some sort. Coming from such a huge family as we do, it is easy to lose track of the many, MANY cousins that we share! But thanks to the wonders of Facebook, reuniting was made possible, and it was an immeasurable joy for me to see (and hug!) someone from home.
Me and Dee!
Deidre spoiled us with dinner, treats and other things that will be very useful to us on the rest of our journey (it was like Christmas for us!) The most exciting of these treats being a bag of "Bits & Bites", of which we are carefully rationing. Pete is allowed only one nut per day.
With two days left in the city before our departure to the Galapagos, we finally had some time to explore. It is apparently quite a debate between Cuenca and Quito as to which city has a more attractive old town - and being as we just left Cuenca less than a week ago, we had to check this out for ourselves.
It is a close one! But the edge is given to Cuenca from these eligible voters...
Old town Quito
Another of the main attractions in this part of the country is to visit Mitad Del Mundo (the Middle of the World) - a large monument and park constructed to mark where the equator passes through the country. And this is where Pete and I would take our first steps in the northern hemisphere in 6 1/2 months!
Oops! Now, thanks to advances in measuring technology (GPS), it is known that the actual equator runs about 240 meters north of the tourist complex. So we had two places to visit celebrating this geographic landmark!
Pete fighting to stay in the southern hemisphere!Or, was he?? This line is fake!
The "real" equator line was way less touristy and more interesting, with some tests set up to show the differences between the northern and southern hemisphere. None of them seemed to work for us though - water seemed to swirl down the same way on both sides, and none of us could get the damn egg to balance on the nail (being right over the equator, this is supposedly possible with the nullified gravitational pulls).
Stupid egg
As incredibly touristy as it all was, we still had a fun last day in Quito with Margaret finally joining us and also meeting up again with our friends Fran and Ross who just returned from Galapagos.
In just a few hours we will be shuttling ourselves off to the airport and embarking on a trip of a lifetime (within a trip of a lifetime)! We have almost an entire week in the islands - half of it on a boat - exploring all of the varied wildlife that the islands have to offer. Tortoises! Sharks! Penguins! Boobys! And more...
Hola little coffee beans!
