Wotchu Doin Down Ere?

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A piece of advice... never get a haircut in Peru. In fact never travel with short hair as you will just end up spending your time choosing between hairdressers stuck in the 50's, a very bad mullet or shaving it all off. I have abstained from the latter and after the last attempt at a decent haircut in Cusco, which left me begging Matt to get the scissors out to stop me looking like a 96 year old, I am now having to learn to live with a mullet. It is an affliction, honestly.

Well moving on... next stop Lima, the capital of Peru. We were in Lima for the national elections, which was all very exciting, well, had the potential to be exciting but it wasn't at all... everything was closed and they banned the sale of booze everywhere for the whole weekend! Anyway, the following day they closed the main square in the city's Plaza de Armas for an address by the new president. However, as we were tourists and apparently didn't pose a threat to the riot police we were allowed past the barriers. Very weird seeing the main square of this huge city without cars or people!

After a mere glimpse of the sea at Lima we headed back in land and up to the central highlands and headache country again at well over 3000m. We used a small town called Huancayo as a base to explore a few of the local villages along the Mantaro Valley, each renowned for a particular craft or food, including hats, carved gourds, fish, silver, gold and ‘health’ potions. The first village we visited was San Jeronimo which is famed locally for its gold and silver crafts, but also has a huge Wednesday market. The market consisted of the usual phenomenal array of fruits and veggies as well as food stalls, livestock (pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks and rabbits), shoes, and a large number of health potion stalls. The oddest stall was one of these, and involved a bowl of live frogs, a bowl of snails and a blender with a greeny-brown liquid inside... we didn't hang around to find out if our suspicions were correct. Matt also became somewhat obsessed by the gourd carving in the towns of Las Cochas. We went, and on arrival found a huge village fair in full swing with all the kids and adults in full traditional dress singing, dancing and acting out various plays - ‘twas much fun, although it appeared that we were the main attraction! We did also manage to find some of the gourd carving workshops and purchased some very fine examples, after one of the carvers demonstrated that they would be perfectly safe in our rucksacks by throwing one at the concrete floor to prove its durability. Huancayo itself was a busy town where people lived their lives without the influence of tourism, quite rare for Peru, we didn't see another tourist the whole time we were there, and everyone seemed quite surprised, but happy to meet someone from England!

After Huancayo we had a bit of a change of plan and sneaked another country into our itinerary - Ecuador! So with this fresh in our minds we galloped up the country without stopping. Although most of the trip along the Panamerican Highway was in the dark we still had a little time to appreciate the crashing waves of the Pacific on one side and the huge sand dunes on the other. As we got close to the border this quickly changed to a much greener lush landscape of banana plantations and mangrove forests, which continued throughout the south of Ecuador to Guayaquil.

After more than two days on the road it was a relief to finally reach Guayaquil. Although the biggest city in Ecuador it had its own charm with wide palm tree filled streets leading to parks bursting with spiky green iguanas! It was here that we chose to stay and watch a few World Cup matches including Ecuador beat Costa Rica to guarantee them entry to the second round - a first for the country. This of course resulted in a huge street party with the continual chant of ‘sí se puede’ (you can do it) long into the night… and the following days! They were certainly passionate.

Since we were in the area we thought it would be rude not to sneak in a trip to the Galapagos Islands. We booked an eight day sail around many of the islands, in what they classed an 'economic' boat. We took our first flight of our whole trip (we did enquire about sailing the 1000km to the islands but this was met with a chuckle, much to Matt's disappointment!) from Guayaquil to Baltra, then travelled to meet the boat that was to be our home for the next week, the Cormorant - a tiny but beautiful antique of a boat that proved they don’t make ‘em like they used to! Being the cheapest way to see any of the Galapagos the remaining likeminded eight people on our boat similarly filled it with their rucksacks and crates of rum for the journey.

Having met the Cormorant and squeezed our bags into our room, one at a time, space permitting, we were fed a fabulous meal, which was a good sign for the week to come. We were then whisked off back to dry land to the highlands of Santa Cruz to see some giant tortoises, which really were giant! These ancient creatures were nearly up to our waists and were very ET like in appearance, and in sound with their heavy breathing when anybody got too close. Back on board we spent the evening docked so didn't sail until 11pm, by which time we were all asleep so had the fright of our lives when the engine started... which we were practically sleeping on!

The next morning we were woken up for 7am brekkie, as we were daily, so no lie-ins! Then we had a wet landing on Rabida Island's red sandy beach, where we tried not to disturb the basking sea lions or their overly playful babies! After a short walk we went for our first snorkel around the bay and swam with a stunning and plentiful array of fish as well as a few sea lions. Back on board there was talk of shark sightings which whetted our appetite for the following swims.

In the afternoon we hopped off at Egas Bay, seeing a few more sea lions and a few sea turtles on our way. We picked our way across the island’s lava and rock pools trying to avoid the huge colonies of marine iguanas littering the rocks after their tough day of swimming and eating, lying spread-eagled on their bloated bellies catching the sun. What made this trickier was that as they'd all recently climbed out of the sea they were in the process of snotting the accumulated salt all over everything and everyone that was in range - there was a beautiful chorus of spitting, snotting and squelching sounds all around the beach while we ducked for cover! Further along the beach, hidden in a cove, we stumbled upon a few fur seals gazing up at us with their huge eyes. These were somewhat shyer than the sea lions so didn’t come to enquire what we were on arrival, as with most other creatures here.

The morning of the third day we visited Bartolome Island, passing a few Galapagos Penguins and the odd turtle on the way in (the penguins being the third species we have now seen, although probably the smallest and cutest!) The island itself is very sparse, but shows the craters and other signs of all the volcanic activity here in the past. We also took a wee swim and a snorkel around the tip of the island and were lucky enough to have our first taste of swimming with sharks. We saw about five or six White Tipped Reef Sharks, no further than a couple of metres away - the biggest of which were about 6-8ft long. Who'd have thought the call of 'shark' would have had us all frantically swimming towards them! We also very nearly got to swim with penguins (well, we paddled with one!) they appeared at the beach just after we’d dried off and were departing (much to poor poor Katie’s disappointment!) The afternoon took us to Sullyvan Bay on James Island, and after seeing another dozen or so penguins we viewed the very new lava formations around the island (about 100 years old we think). From a distance the flows look like huge black raging rivers, but on site they appear to have been frozen in their last rage, some very eerie looking formations. Later, on our way to North Seymour, we caught sight of a huge manta ray performing acrobatics for us, literally jumping out of the ocean doing somersaults right behind the boat.

Day four was bird day. On North Seymour we saw in fantastic close up male Frigate Birds puffing up their phenomenal red chests to attract the ladies, and just around the corner Blue Footed Boobies lifting their feet high into the air and stomping them back down (a-la-John Cleese) in a hilarious dance which was later to result in some boobie loving (which, sadly we missed). We also saw many of these birds with child (many fluffy white boobie babies around - locally called cotton babies) with some great feeding action going on. Later on in the evening we witnessed some very comedy tom and jerry style chases around the boat with sea lions doing the chasing and many small fish skipping across the water in a bid to escape - some hitting the boat, others landing on it and joining us in the galley!

The fifth day was sea lion day. After viewing some pretty dramatic seabird action around the cliffs of Plaza Sur we swam with many of the playful little pups. Well they weren't so little, but they were certainly playful! Darting in-between each other, chasing you, biting your flippers, staring right at your face from about 6" away and blowing bubbles at you, swimming right at you and playing chicken at the last second and generally just frolicking around! Matt received four ‘play’ bites, each of which drew blood (I think I must have been the favourite with all the attention I was getting… well, that or I was the least favourite!) He is hoping he will soon be the proud owner of a perfect sea lion jaw mark scar on his left shoulder! Also, Ivy, a fellow shipmate had a big gouge out of her behind! Around the same area we also managed to have a swim with a few turtles - so much more graceful and calm looking than their land going counterparts.

After a long loud night at sea, including a 4am repair to the boat which was just an hour of banging, and Katie clinging to her top bunk riding the waves, we arrived at Española Island. Here we walked amongst Albatross nesting in the rocks, some of them clashing beaks like swords in a mating dance, and one even popped out an egg in our presence! Again we spent the afternoon swimming with sharks and the odd sting ray.

The seventh day took us to Floreana Island and the best snorkelling of the week. There were fish everywhere of all colours, shapes and sizes, which looked beautiful with the sun shining through the shallow water and the starfish glowing on the rocky bottom. Camouflaged with the very shallow sea floor of the underwater crater we were swimming in Matt spotted a very cool turquoise and grey octopus playing with a fish, its beady fake eyes watching us watching him! We again swam with a few sharks, and saw a few more skulking on the bottom waiting for breakfast.

On the trip back later that day we had our eyes peeled for whales and dolphins, but no success. We were, however, kept entertained by the boat regularly spinning in circles as the steering kept breaking! We made it back in one piece (as did the boat) despite the regular head banging, toe stubbing and general noisiness. The boat was great fun, food was excellent and of course the islands were superb, each day throwing us a new surprise. On the last day we went to the Charles Darwin Research Centre where the last treat was impotent Lonesome George, the last giant tortoise of its species, who can't find a mate - very sad. The centre also houses a hatching centre for the eleven types of surviving giant tortoise species, apparently over 2500 have been successfully reared here and reintroduced to their respective islands over the last 20 years. Seeing the two or three month old babies was amazing too, especially when considered alongside their elders - the babies are less than 4” long, but perfectly formed complete with wrinkled and strained old men’s legs and necks!

Our return flight to Guayaquil was smack bang in the middle of the Ecuador v England game so we unfortunately missed all the fun atmosphere of the Ecuadorian bars, but since then we have continued to receive the warmest welcomes whenever we have admitted we are English!

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Photos

Marine iguanas
Fed and watered now basking in the sun.

How cute am I?
A fur seal

Is this big enough?
Male frigate birds puffing out their chests to find love.

Look at my lovely blue feet
Blue footed boobie and baby.

A tough life
A saddleback tortoise with a rather long neck... or Matt after his last haircut?