Sealions and a State of Emergency

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Hi!

Don't have a lot of time right now and haven't really thought this through, but given the current state of affairs in Ecuador thought I'd better write a few lines to let you know I'm safe!

Got back from the Galapagos on Sunday (more on that later!) to read in the paper that Ecuador was under a State of Emergency. Then an hour later to read in a different newspaper that it had been called off. Either way there had apparently been riots in the streets, calling for the President to step down due to corruption scandals, etc, the usual South American political shenanigans.

Didn't notice anything other than a lot of cars horns all night, but nothing unusual there. Either way decided to leave Quito asap and next morning came down to the relative safety of Baños about 3 hours South of the capital. Various people here told me there were piles of burning tyres and road closures between here and Quito, but having slept most of the way I either missed some great photo opportunities or we're all a bit overexcited!

Read more about it here> The Ecuador situation

The Galapagos...
I'm sat here staring at my keybopard wondering where to start, how to describe the Galapagos, but I can't even begin to do it justice. It's just incredible! Possibly the closest thing to Paradise on Earth. The animals, the landscape, the ocean, all are beautiful, amazing, just indescribable, but beyond that, the whole place feels magical, someone on the boat described it as sacred, which is a very good word. As soon as you set foot on your first pristine beach, spot your first sealion jumping out of the water, or your first fat pelican almost belly surfing along the water you know you're in a very special place.

We joined a cruise on 'The Darwin Explorer' with about a dozen others passnegers, and visited around 8 different islands over 8 days. We would sail overnight and wake up in yet another perfect azure bay with sealions playing round the boat, shoals of brightlycoloured fish hiding under the bow and frigatebirds flying overhead!

The animals on land and sea are ridiculously tame, you're totally in their realm, and have to step over land iguanas, walk round albatrosses that are sat in the path and bypasss the dancing blue-footed boobys! The guide told us to stay 2m away from the animals, but no-one told them that, as you can see from the sealion pic!

The snorkelling was definitely a highlight. We swam with sealions, turtles, sharks, sting rays and penguins. Scary feeling when you see your first shark, but then later we found ourselves following five 2m long white tipped reef sharks just a few feet in front of us! The turtles were graceful giants, straight out of Finding Nemo, we swam round one for around 10mins while he happily grazed the reef, incredible! And the penguins dived round our feet chasing fish at phenomenal speeds.

I am not doing this justice, I'm really not! Al has around 400pics, including three rolls of underwater film and even those won´t even begin to capture the reality of The Galapagos. I would advise anyone who has ever watched a David Attenborough film to just go there and experience it for yourself! I can honestly say it was a lifechanging experience, and if you want more details about what I mean by that you'll have to mail me direct! ;-)

OK, enough for now.

I´ll be here for another couple of days, then will move further South to Riobamba, Cuenca and possibly Vilcabamba before leaving Ecaudor and going to Central America.

Ciao amigos! Hasta lluego!

Ali
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