Goodbye Ecuador!

Our night in Guayaquil was pretty boring, as we just ordered Chinese take-away and went back to our room to enjoy the TV that was mounted on the wall. Had to pay for utensils for the Chinese…everything IS so cheap, but the random stuff that is not complimentary gets pretty annoying. I would like to say that Guayaquil is NOT pretty, but didn´t venture further than a few blocks in either direction, so can´t claim that as truth. In the morning, hopped on a 3 hour bus to the Pacific coast, stopping in Montañita, this little surfer town that our Aussie friends told us we HAD to visit. Our first stop upon arrival was to one of the tiny bar-stands, where we ordered piña coladas (it was NOT good unfortch) and walked around town and onto the beach. The town consists of 1 main road and about 2 other ones…TINY! Basically, we just “chillaxed” throughout the two days we were there: took some walks along the ocean, ate some oyster ceviche from a little cart right on the beach-they give you four huge oysters, mixed with lime juice, tomatoes and onions-the freshest thing I´ve ever eaten, took a surfing lesson- stood up on the board for about 5 secs longer than I did when I surfed in Australia, though I mostly “knee-surfed,” and went dancing with some locals at a club on the beach til 1am our first night. Was pretty heavenly, though we actually got bored at times- still not used to doing nothing! Took a 10 hour over-night bus ride back to Quito and unluckily, our assigned seats were directly next to the bathroom! Tried tying shirts around our faces to block the smell, but nothing worked and I hardly slept all night. Oh well, was still better than taking that bus for that many hours during the day.

Today we are leaving to go to Lima, Peru, though not going to make it out of the airport. Our flight arrives at 830pm and then our next flight to Cusco, where we depart on the 9th for the Inca Trail/Machu Picchu, leaves at 530am, so just going to camp out in the airport- going to be miserable, but will hopefully grab a bench to catch a few hours of snooze.

Just uploaded more pics to my Ecuador album and all of my Galapagos pics, so enjoy!!

xoxox

 

Paradise in The Galàpagos

Day 33

It´s currently 5:20pm and my tummy is a´rumblin´because if I was still aboard the Golandrina motoring around in the Galapagos, it would be snack time, and my body is now dependent on a very tight feeding schedule. Unfortunately, I am now back to the real world (of backpacking anyway) and in Guayaquil, Ecuador, without a little boat chef to cook me three meals and two snacks a day.

Needless to say, I probably had the best time of my entire life (not an exaggeration) during my the past 8 days in the Galápagos. I´m finding it difficult to put my experiences into words…I think I´m still on sensory overload and there´s just too much to say! I guess I´ll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start….). After our 4 hour flight from Quito to Baltra Island (where the Galàpagos airport is), our guide Enrique found us due to the stickers that the Happy Gringo travel agency forced us to wear.  At the port to get on our boat, the fearsome Golandrina, we were met by sea-lions lazily soaking up the sun on benches and one was even on the dock in our path- this was my first notion about just HOW close we would be getting to the animals! Heaven.  The Golandrina holds 14 passengers total and Dee and I got our own TEENSY cabin, complete with our own private bathroom and TEENSY (mostly cold water) shower. I felt like a giant.  As previously mentioned, we were on a very tight schedule, since the Captain of each ship is provided with a specific time when their passengers are allowed to visit each island. They keep to it very strictly.  Each day, breakfast was at 7am, followed by an Island visit. For the most part, this entailed a 2km (about 1 mile) hike that literally took 2-3 hours! If you could see the amount of pictures that I took, you would understand why. Unfortunately, I can´t upload them on this SLOW computer, so you will have to be on the edge of your seat until I can find a quicker cyber cafe. Anyway, after our hike, we would dinghy back to the boat for a 10:30am jugo (juice) break-the juices here are INCREDIBLE- they are basically like smoothies-yummers. After juice, it was snorkeling time! Then lunch at 12, followed by more snorkeling or another hike, followed by a cheesy snack at 5:30pm, then lounging/sunbathing time, another hike, or more snorkeling. Dinner was at 7pm and nearly every night, bedtime was before 9pm. We were like old ladies!

OK, now I will get to the animals, what I´m sure everyone has been waiting for, and the very reason I went to this Archipelago in the first place. I need to emphasize that seeing these creatures on these islands was like nothing I´ve ever experience with animals before. They are simply NOT afraid of humans! I got to watch their every move up close, in the wild, and not in cages. They just g went about their business while I stepped over them, swam with them, and snapped hundreds of pictures (without a flash) in their faces…just incredible.

I was able to practically cuddle with the following:

-Sea-Lions: these were the most abundant animals on the islands, and were CONSTANTLY on our path (which we were NOT allowed to veer from). One time, I needed assistance getting to our dinghy and off the island because this mama sea-lion was growling at me, but she was literally lying across the length of the path and I HAD to step over her! The pups are so cute- I think the youngest one I saw was FIVE days old. Wait til you see the pictures-unbelievable! They made little noises like lambs “baaaa-ing.”  Was able to snorkel with them on four different occasions. It was mostly the juveniles that came to play, and they were so curious and swam around me in circles. The first time I saw one, I freaked, because she was about 3 inches from my face, swimming right at me! The whole time we were playing with them, I couldn´t stop laughing. I think I inhaled more sea-water that way…Snorkeling with sea-lions was 100% the highlight of the entire 8 days!

 Boobies: Saw the Red-Footed Booby, The Blue-Footed Booby, and the Masked or Nazca Booby. The Blue is my favorite of the Galápagos birds…so cute & what a name! I really had a problem and couldn´t stop saying boobies. BOOBIES! Luckily, it was mating and nesting season, so got the witness the courtship between the men & women birds. You can only tell them about from their sounds-the boys whistle (sounds sort of like my gopher whistle) and the girls quack like a kazoo.

Other birds: Frigate birds (black with a huge red puff on their chest when trying to impress the ladies), tons of finches (including the Darwin finch, which started Darwin´s theory of evolution by natural selection…), Galapàgos hawks, a few waved albatrosses (love these too and so sad I didn´t get to see more), some Hood mockingbirds (they are absolutely digusting…saw them eating sea-lion puke and pecking out a deceased sea-lions eyes), American Oyster Eaters (the only other Americans we met!), Galàpagos doves, swallow tails, etc. SO many. My dad is obsessed with taking pictures of birds on our vacations to wherever (even if it was like Ohio or something) and he would have been in paradise!

Iguanas: there are two types on the islands- marine and land. This is the only place in the world where marine iguanas exist- the large males actually dive into the depths of the ocean, claw onto a rock, and eat algae at the bottom of the sea! The land ones are bright yellow and eat cacti flowers, thorns and all. We saw thousands of iguanas, and even got to see a wrestling match between two marine iguanas on the beach- they were head butting like rams for about 30 mins! Didn´t get to stay to see who came out victorious!

Tortoises and turtles: only saw one tortoise in the wild, and the rest were in the Charles Darwin research center, but swam with multiple sea turtles. Pictured them all having Aussie accents like Crush from “Finding Nemo.” Saw a bunch of sea turtle sex, including one group session that included 3 boys on one girl- she was NOT pleased to say the least!

I saw soooo many others, but those are the biggies. Oh- I also snorkeled with white-tip reef sharks!!! Awesomeness. 

The people on our boat were pretty darn fantastic too! We had two different groups of people (because most people only did the 5 day cruise and it looped while our 8 days were still continuing). Made a ton of new friends and had some extremely dramatic goodbyes, waving and blowing kisses while we were sailing away and they were still on land.  Our 2nd group contained an Alison from Nottingham (like my friend Ali (Alison) from Nottingham-this Alison obvi wasn´t nearly as awesome!!!!!!!!!) and two Germans, who can best be described by the Legally Blonde: The Musical song, “Gay or European?” Turns out these guys had girlfriends at home, but I´m still not convinced. We made up a spoof of that song to describe our Ecuadorian boat crew entitled “Five-years-old or Latin?” because the boys were all so excited to have “young women” aboard and were acting like 5 year-olds around us, giggling and clearing their throats whenever one of us would sit next to one of them. It was pretty endearing, but they were all in their 20´s- 30´s! Latin men are extremely immature here! Or at least most of the ones I’ve encountered.

The only bad thing I can say, is that I had to endure a few sleepless nights due to the boat practically FLIPPING over as it rocked from side to side, while navigating 10 hours each night between islands. The water was ROUGH out there my friends. Only got a little seasick once (thank you Dramamine), but just couldn´t sleep because I had to hold on to my bunk for dear life!

There´s so much more to tell, but basically had the time of my life. I hope you´re looking forward to the 500 plus pics I´ll soon be uploading! Have to go for a feed now…it´s WAY past schedule!

Miss you all and Happy December! Can´t believe it´s nearly Xmas and it´s practically 80 degrees here…don´t hate me too much! Off to the Pacific coast of Ecuador tomorrow…I think to a place called Montañita, where they serve fresh seafood cerviche while you´re sunbathing on the beach.

XOXOXOX

 

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had wonderful delish dinners. Luckily, Deirdre´s parents paid for us to have a fancy meal at a restaurant downtown Quito, which is probably the last of those until Christmas. Luckily, the $3 dinners I have grown accustomed to are just as filling, though in no way compare in taste.

I am thankful for so many things at this time: my family, friends back home, having the opportunity to travel with Dee, wearing the same clothes over and over, not wearing makeup, experiencing at least 20 new things/day, and for hostels and the new friends we meet at them, thoguh I am most grateful for my parents´support for my current adventure!

Anyway, I wanted to write a quick blog, since I´m off to the Galapagos tomorrow morning bright and early, and I´m sure I´ll have tons to write about after I´m back from that extravagant adventure. Our past 4 days in Quito have been fantastic. It´s funny because I still am not over how FOREIGN Ecuador sounds. I mean, who would have thought I´d ever be spending 2 1/2 weeks in ECUADOR?! hehe. So yea, it´s been really cool having a home base and just exploring and getting to know one city, instead of zooming around day after day. After spending a few days here, I´m starting to notice the smaller details, like how the 80 year-old indiginous people wandering around carry what looks like 50 lbs on their backs! Poor elderly of Ecuador! Also, it´s a HUGE pain to try and get change for a $10 or especially a $20 bill anywhere! I don´t understand why the ATMs give out bills in this amount if it´s nearly impossible to use them anywhere! Anyway, on Tuesday, we went on a mission to the Equator. It´s only 22 km outside of Quito, so how could we miss it!?  Lonely Planet suggested going to the less touristy museum instead of the Disneyland-esque one and we followed their advice. The museum we ended up at is the site of the actual equator (00.00 latitude calculated on the GPS), so I imagine it´s loads better anyway. In every other country where the equator falls (Kenya, Indonesia, etc) the terrain is all forest, whereas in Ecuador there are mountains. Therefore, in all the other places, the indiginous people had to build pyramids in order to calculate time and the calendar based on the sun, but in Ecuador, they had natural pyramids from the mountains. The indiginous people here created all sorts of monuments to the sun, which are in exact angles of 23 1/2 degrees, which they figured out is the tilt of the earth. Anyway, our museo guide walked us through multiple exhibits. Turns out that on the equator, you can balance an egg on the head of a nail (I did this and earned myself a certificate) and water falls straight down through a drain instead of swirling in one direction or another. Also, I attempted to walk heal to toe on the equator line with my eyes closed and arms out, and it´s extremely difficult to balance. I could actually feel the gravity pulling me from side to side-sort of a drunk feeling. The museum also included some Amazon tribe huts and homes and burial grounds. This one tribe uses bull testicles as a lunch box and dog skin as a drum top (supposedly it sounds the best). Poor perro! Another hut included a home for cuis (guinea pigs), which they eat for a delish snack. We also learned how to make a shrunken head- I took notes, since I´m sure this skill will come in handy very soon. Before we left, we managed to get our passports stamped at the Equator as well! Loving these passport stamps.

That evening, we took a Salsa lesson ($5/an hour) and I was pretty terrible, but it was seriously fun. I looked like an idiot most of the time, but luckily it was just me and Dee in the lesson, so it wasn´t toooo traumatizing.   

Yesterday, we took a 4 hour bus ride to Baños for the night with two guys we met at our hostel in Quito (Ravi (English) and Scott (Aussie)). Dee and I spent the evening camped out at Casa Hood, this hippie vegetarian cafe, at a table surrounded by cushions and pillows, and read for about four hours. I finished The Motorcycle Diaries and traded it in for The Time Traveller´s Wife, based on Katie´s sobbing recommendation in front of the Field Museum when we were in Chicago. At night we just chilled and played the card game shithead (kind of like the British version of the game Asshole), which Ali taught me in Oz, but I had forgotten how to play since then.

This morning we had pancakes for breakfast, which were pretty disgusting, and then rented some bikes for $5 for the day and went biking along the waterfall route through the mountains in Baños. We were supposed to go the full 3 1/2 hour route, but it started pouring so we flagged down a bus (they put our bikes on TOP of the bus) and headed back to Baños to catch our bus back to Quito. Today Dee started intensely teaching me Español and would only use Spanish words, so I had to use context clues to figure out the meanings. She´s a wonderful professor!

Basically, I´m lovin Ecuador (which gets it´s name based on the equator)  and the people are all soo friendly. This trend is continuing for all of the Latin people. Oh, well, except for the ones who keep trying to steal stuff from us! I think the other day on the street, a guy tried to grab my sunnies off my head and today the guy behind me on the bus pulled my day-pack (which was stupidly on the floor) toward him and opened it before I noticed what was happening. Lucky that A, I noticed, and B, there was nothing of value in there anyway. Definitely have to be on guard at ALL TIMES!!!!

Everyone keep your fingers crossed that I´ll get some good snorkeling time with the penguins and marine iguanas of the Galapagos! Back on the 30th!

xoxo

 

New Pics!

Added pics from Ecuador, Panama & Costa Rica in the blogroll, so just click on the links to the right and enjoy!!!

 

Costa Rica & Quito, with a taste of Panama thrown in

Our last day in Costa Rica was really nice. We had to say goodbye to Adilia, the mom, who had been so warm and welcoming throughout our entire stay. The Latins really are quite hospitable- very loving. Adilia gave us each a big hug and kiss on the cheek, and gave Deirdre a little prayer to keep in her pocket (I didn´t get one since I´m Jewish). The story goes that some man had that prayer in his pocket and was shot, and the bullet ricocheted right off of the prayer. Hey- I´m not very religious, but I´ll take any protection anyone has to offer! We took our final bus ride into San Jose, checked into Costa Rica Backpackers, and walked into town to the main Boulevard to go on a shopping spree. I finally bought a new camera (a Canon SD1000- not nearly as good, and it was $75 more than it costs in the US, but it´s very light and small). We also bought some locks to lock our important stuff up in hostels. Dee gave up on her shampoo bar and bought some actual shampoo, while I´m still trucking along with the shampoo/soap in one combo. My hair isn´t too soft, but it works well enough. I´m clean at least!  Edgar met up with us at the hostel, and we treated ourselves to Papa John´s at the food mall. I know, it´s kind of cheating, but we were pretty sick of rice & beans and where else will we get Papa´s delish pizza & garlic sauce for the next 9 months?! So worth it. Then we went to the cinema and saw Resident Evil, with Spanish subtitles of course. It was the first Resident Evil flick I´d seen, so I was a bit confused, but whatever. The next morning, we took a taxi to the airport to go to Quito. Turns out, our flight was overbooked (not our fault) and we were rerouted through Panama. Besides a free 8 hour trip to Panama City, we also were rewarded with a $15 meal voucher and a $100 voucher for a flight on Taca Airlines. I think we will use this money to get down to Patagonia faster, since it´s like 50 hours on busses to get all the way down there from Santiago. We shall see though.

On our flight to Panama, we learned that the city center was about an hour away, and with not too much time before our flight to Quito, we didn´t want to risk going an hour there and back. The girl sitting next to us on the plane suggested going to the Los Pueblos mall instead. We hopped on a bus to get there, and found the buses are really crazy. They are jam packed with people (JAM PACKED!!) and they are old school buses painted with crazy murals. Very interesting rides, indeed. The mall turned out to be a giant shopping center and all the stores contained merchandise that looked like it was loaded out of the back of a truck or something- very ghetto. We did buy Panama flag bracelets for only $0.19 though! The most interesting thing we saw in Panama would have to be the mannequins in the store. They looked like they had been to Hollywood Blvd and all got giant implants!

Seriously HUGE!

We didn´t arrive to our hostel in Quito (Hostel Revolution) until midnight. Luckily, the place is immaculately clean and I love the hostel. It´s probably one of the reasons we have stayed in Quito for 3 days already. The next am, we got up at 6am (ugh!!) to go to Otovalo, which is a small city about 2 1/2 hours into the Northern Highlands from Quito, to go to the BIGGEST mercado (market) in all of South America! We stayed there for about 5 hours, just shopping around from stall to stall. At first we thought all the artisans made their own stuff, but after seeing the same sweater in about 200 different stalls, we figured they HAD to be factory produced. Oh well- it´s still neat stuff. Dee and I each purchased totally dorky alpaca sweaters with little alpacas running across in a stripe on the chest.

I am kind of obsessed with my sweater though, and it is definitely needed here. We are only a 20 minute drive away from the equator, yet it gets freezing at night! They also had a food market in Otovalo, with pig heads and bugs, and other gross items. I have yet to try any crazy foods, though I´m sure I´ll work up to it at some point. I met a kid who ate Guinea Pig in Peru! He had to pick it out (alive) and everything. Don´t know if I can eat something we keep as pets in America.

We met some Aussies at the hostel (Dave & Jason) who have been traveling for like 2 years or something crazy. They´re 28 and have been giving us lots of advice about SE Asia and other places we´ll be going. They´re off to Colombia today, so we´re hoping they don´t get kidnapped. I´m sure they´ll be fine- so many people travel around Colombia and absolutely love it. Too bad we won´t have a chance to check it out for ourselves. We also found this brekkie place where for $2 (no tax or tips) you get rice, avocado, tomato, a cheese sandwich, chicken, 2 eggs, coffee (which is actually just hot milk that you put instant coffee into) and delish juice! Quite the feast for the cost of a subway fare in Manhattan!

Yesterday we went up the TelefèriQo, to 4100m high (like over 12,000 ft) on a cable car to the top of the mountain here. We did a $10/hour horseback ride around the mountains, which was absolutely spectacular. It was my first encounter with such high altitude, and other than feeling a little wheezy when even trying to walk, I was fine. It made me a little less scared about doing the Inca Trail. It was freeeeeezing up there though, so my alpaca came in handy already!

Off to explore Quito now and try and figure out some plans for Turkey Day! Maybe the Embassy will have something exciting going on for expats and travelers from America. Galapagos on Friday!!! The countdown begins.

Til next time…

xoxox