The usual call to consciousness followed by a trip to Urbina Bay, known for giant tortoises. They warned us it would be a long hike and difficult due to the lava boulders we’d be expected to scale and worse, the wasps. They failed to mention the heat and humidity. It seemed particularly steamy today, but that might have been everyone’s excitement about the potential sightings of these gentle beasts, found nowhere else but in the world. Within five minutes of being on the track we encountered the first tortoise. He was enormous – about 200lbs and probably 100 years old. He wasn’t the biggest or the oldest guy we saw. This fellow sat just off the trail, chewing grass and occasionally looking at us with a decidedly bored expression. When he’d had enough he got up ... read more

This is Josh blogging (I was supposed to do it yesterday but I decided that my time was better spent sleeping). Today my life’s goal of seeing boobies has finally come to fruition. We went on a hike at the ungodly hour of eight (ugh heaven forbid waking up before three or later). So, on this hike we saw the aforementioned boobies. Now these aren’t the boobies you and your dirty, dirty mind are thinking of; no, these are blue footed boobies – a kind of bird unique to this area. Evidently whoever named them had been away from the missus too long and misjudged the maturity level of future generations. Anyway, I have wanted to see a blue footed booby for quite a while and today I have finally been able to see one! Now ... read more

Hello world! It is your lucky day! This blog post is brought to you by none other than the Rummy champion of the Harte household and, dare I say, the WORLD! Yes that’s right folks, it’s Adrianne! Please, please! Applause is not necessary (although it is appreciated). On this beautiful, warm, sunny Friday in Ecuador (suck it, Canadian winter), my family and I had a blissful day of almost complete sloth. My brother and I did nothing but enjoy carbonated beverages, BBC with Spanish commercials, and a lovely swim in the pool. The parental units enjoyed much of the same, plus massages. The Female PU had a massage that she describes as “disturbingly invasive”, a category that appears to be becoming a trend with our vacations (some of our more dedicated readers may remember their massages ... read more

After our adventures in 2008, there was precious little to blog about. However, we are back on the road, and again posting updates of our latest advenutre; this time we are on our way to the equatorial islands of the galapagos. Sadly we had to leave Avery behind at university. Today was a stop over on the way to Ecuador. A short unventful flight saw us in Miami just after lunch. The weather is cloudy with a strong wind. We are told repeatedly that the weather will be clearing up for the weekend ... sadly we are on our way tomorrow. We did get to spend some time on the white sand of south beach. Unforutnately, due to the poor weather, the usual south beach visual distractions were not out in any force. We did come ... read more

Despite our best intentions and careful notes, the blogging thing obviously didn't work - too much going on to find time, not to mention internet connections, to record our random observations. Here comes the last installment in our collection of observations about our experiences abroad: In a nutshell: after Santorini we went to Rome for four days; down to Sorrento and Capri for two; a day in Pompeii then on to Tivoli, with stops in Naples and Florence, culminating in a blissfully restful five days on a farm in rural Tuscany. We did all the requisite touristy things, ate cheese and pasta, looked for the Pope. Paul and Josh even managed to comandeer a Vespa to weave through the heavy Roman traffic. We then headed to Venice where Adrianne had the time of her life speaking ... read more

We left Cairo for Greece, having to return to Dubai first to make the connection on Emirates. It was a brutal half day affair for a two hour flight, but we finally arrived in Athens with all our luggage and kids. Paul found us Athenian digs ideally located within the shadow of the Acropolis, across the street from a music teacher who had some impressive and loud opera students. Impressively loud. Josh found them irritating. We had one room stuffed with three bunkbeads and a tiny washroom. When you sat on the loo you had no choice but to put your feet in the shower stall. There was internet and a laundromat nearby, so despite the forced togetherness, we were happy. We would have done the Athenian sites at a leisurely pace, but were all serially ... read more