We have a few moments this morning before our journey to the jungle to share some details about the past 4 days. We arrived in the Galapagos, 5 days ago, to the most humid, hot weather I've ever experienced. Once again chaos ensued as we tried to find our way. We were told someone would greet us at the airport with our name on a placard. There were several placards, but none with either Smith or McNamara. So we sat and waited. Eventually a man asked if my name was Charlene!! He held up the placard with a questioning look as to why I hadn't approached him. Hmmm, sorry with so many placards around I didn't think to stop at the one that said, "Chardle." Go figure!
We took a bus to a water taxi across an aquamarine colored straight. Grabbed a cab there and headed to Puerto Ayora to find the dock. The cabbie pointed to one dock and we waited there. A man with a bright smile arrived 15 minutes later bringing us to a dinghy which brought us to the boat we would be on for the next 4 days. One can not survive here without a lot of patience, trust and hope that you'll eventually make it to your destination! Honestly, though, that has been one of the biggest and most fascinating adventures of the whole trip!
We had a wonderful lunch awaiting us on the boat. Then jumped back into the dinghy to a van which escorted us to the highlands to visit tortoises. I was surprised to see such lush, thick green vegetation. So many photos I have seen of the tortoises are in more arid looking areas. These tortoises wander throughout the area from one private land to the next. The properties are surrounded by barbed wire, but the lowest rung is almost 3 feet high to give the tortoises free reign. We saw several, large and small. We could walk up right behind them without their knowledge but when approaching from the front they let out a great hiss like moan to let you know they were not happy.
We wandered to an open air hacienda where we were served a variety of fresh fruit juices with rum! Momma was happy with that surprise. We headed toward some lava caves when the skies opened up and dumped on us, within seconds we were soaked and weren't able to see the caves. Back to the van and the boat where we settled ourselves and met our fellow passengers, only 8 of us in all. There was a sweet young couple from Bishop, CA, another older couple from Germany and a Swiss man. They were all great companions. In addition to the 8 passengers there were 8 staff/crew members who took very good care of us.
I promise not to write about each meal, but each one was better than the next. Ecuador is not known as a culinary epicenter and though our meals on the mainland were never bad, they definitely have, for the most part, left a bit to be desired. We had a very, very different experience aboard this boat! This food was phenomenal, worthy of an Anthony Bourdain review!
I won't go through every detail of everyday, but will give a general overview. We sailed most nights after we were asleep arriving at a new island each morning and twice we also made shorter trips to different islands during the day. It was extremely hot and humid everywhere. Some islands were more lush and jungle like, others quite barren and desert looking filled with prickly pears, scrub brush and seemingly no life, though never arid. There was plenty of life though, often very hidden. We visited Santa Cruz, sailed to two different locations on Espanola, Santa Fe, South Plaza and Baltra, which means we only saw a tiny fraction of all the islands!
Some of the highlights...visiting with sea lions on the beach with the pups waddling right up to us to smell us and make friends, seeing a variety of iguanas up very close and personal, both land and marine, blue footed boobies, frigates, swallow tail gulls, shear water birds, many fish and sea turtles from the deck of the boat, also watching birds dive repeatedly into the ocean for fish. One of the best experiences for all of us was snorkeling with sea lions, green sea turtles, rays of many kinds, large schools of fish and a variety of random fish. The boys also enjoyed jumping from the roof of the yacht, 4 stories up, to the water!
Unfortunately, the motion really got to Reyn and the Dramamine I brought from the states did nothing to help him. Finally our guide told us he had "better stuff" for him. I questioned the safety of it for children and he brushed aside my concerns. No FDA in Ecuador means access to very cheap and strong drugs. This seemed to do the trick for Reyn. I only hope that his children one day will not have 2 heads or some other oddity due to the residual toxicity! :-)
On our last day we were up at dawn and on a dinghy to explore a mangrove area. Here we saw many sharks and sea turtles. We were also fortunate enough to see 2 pairs of green sea turtles mating in the water, doing a circular dance together for more than 10 minutes. We headed back to the boat for breakfast, goodbyes and another transportation adventure! We made it back to Quito for an evening of relaxing, re packing and an early bedtime. So we could get up early for our journey to the jungle in the Amazon basin!
I doubt we'll have any access while in the jungle, but I'll update the blog when we're back to civilization!
So many cool things you're doing!! I've been to Cotopaxi, in 1976, to touch snow as near to the equator as possible, and I've been to that Otavalo market, too, although I never saw any hats as beauteous as the one K. is wearing (since I have no idea how to spell Kierrrrrrran).
ReplyDeleteI hope Bren is safely with you now and you can relax while he speaks all the Spanish! Guinea pigs, yuck. lots of love, xox M.