Back on main island again briefly today to visit the Darwin Research Station, where they keep the giant tortoises (and boy were they giant, apart from the babies, some of which were very small). Boring for you maybe, but I need a record of what I´ve seen. Now let me think: When first arrived at harbour to go to boat, sea lions and pelicans all lying around/standing on peoples´boats. Funny black seagulls. Then we went somewhere, an island, and on land for lots more sea lions (always one lying on the jetty as you approach), many feeding. Blue footed boobies, saw [View Full Entry]

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Now, I can only be away from the sea lions and iguanas for a minute but I had to come on-line quickly to rave. I´m scrapping my no saying "You Have to come here" or "This is the Best ever" rule to say both those things and also would anyone like to sell their possessions, bar snorkelling masks and underwater cameras, and come and live against a cliff here with me? We can eat turtles and boiled bright red and blue crabs, and snorkel all day long. Then chat about how evolution is The best and most interesting thing there is. [View Full Entry]

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Bright and early tomorrow morning, I´ll be hailing a cab to take me to the airport, clutching my binoculars and butterfly catching net. (I wish I had either of these, it would make me look so much more authentic. I´d like to do the whole thing in the style of a 19th century lady naturalist, actually, with fifteen men to carry my boxes of captured animals, and a parasol.) I have ludicrously high hopes for the trip. I´m expecting it to be more successful than my last couple of days of tourism, at the very least. Yesterday was a bit of [View Full Entry]

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Well, school's out for me and, if the truth be told, I haven't actually achieved complete fluency. I still get people asking me if maybe I spent some years out of Ecuador as a child and that sort of thing. And I guess it may deteriorate to the point that when any of you see me again I know just a little bit more than the average traveller and have to rummage round in my notebook or dictionary for most words and tenses. Straight from school on Friday night, I went to the bottom of a volcano near Quito with four [View Full Entry]

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Being a four-hour-a-day student takes up more time than you'd think. You might think it would take fur hours a day, leaving twenty free. But somehow it's not like that. There's homework, of course , but also when you're engaged from 11-3, it's hard to do much either before or after. So I haven't. I only made it into Quito Old Town for the first time today. I went to a church. There are lots of them here. And just now I tried to go to a Basilica, but it was closed. So I had an ice-cream instead. I bought it [View Full Entry]

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Like a mentalist, I have enrolled for five four-hour Spanish lessons, on five consecutive days. Four hours in a row! One on one, so no sitting back and thinking about netball/lunch/my cat. I started yesterday and I´m due there in twenty minutes. She´s going to test me. I was learning verbs in bed at 7.30 this morning. Oh my goodness. Don´t worry anyone, I´ve already made, ooh, four friends. We´re going to watch an FA cup type football match on Sunday. How nice. My hostal owner guy really has taken a shine to be, btw. Whenever I come in, he engages [View Full Entry]

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I´d just about cracked it on the cold bus journeys by the time I got back to La Paz on Friday morning. I wore three pairs of socks, three pairs of trousers, eight top half layers, gloves, hat, two hoods and I wrapped my grey blanket (alas, now abandoned in La Paz) round me so I was like a mummy. I also had a fat local woman sitting next to me, which helped, although I could have done without her laughing - and getting all her friends to laugh - at me for how much more I payed for the bus [View Full Entry]

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Firstly, the CD player and CDs were great, but the batteries ran out after two album´s worth. I was barely out of La Paz! I just don´t understand. They say very clearly that they are "Panasonic Super Hyper". Panasonic are a good brand, right, and "Super Hyper" sounds like loads of power? And such a good deal at 30 pence for four. (The other two were in the hold of the bus, inaccessible.) Luckily, we changed at Oruru so I bought 12 more batteries. This is OK, as yes they´re very cheap, but I´d rather not have to carry around an [View Full Entry]

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On the bus, I shall be mainly eating fruit. I wanted to buy three bananas (quite a few anyway, right?) but to make the price up to 1 boliviano (15 to the pound) I had to get seven. Ditto with the oranges. I shall be listening to Cold Play, Green Day (American Idiot), FF live at Glastonbury, the BEPs, and a compilation CD with Foo Fighters´"Best of You", which had been sending me wild when it came up on Xfm before I left. So good. I have a blanket too. A fetching grey with lime green flecks, it is. Bring this [View Full Entry]

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Did Mongos, Ram Jams then Mongos again last night for last night with Alice and Chris :-(. (Good tip, Sammie.) From 2.45 today I´ll be toute seule and fending for myself. Expect I´ll start losing cameras and luggage again. It was fun though, and I wish them all the best in the jungle with the mosquitoes. So, I´m not feeling totally tip-top all told, though I´ve a still a couple of hours for it to clear. I´m super duper excited, though, as I´m about to go and buy my pirated CDs for my new player. Woohoo. The men with there little [View Full Entry]

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