Advertisement
Published: August 27th 2006
I SAW WHALES! Lots of them and up close and personal too. Humpback whales are migrating (to where?) and pass by these shores at this time of year. We went on a whale-watching trip at the coast last Friday and were lucky enough to find a large group of whales only about half an hour from the shore. There were 4 adults and 2 babies in the group and they stayed near the boat for about an hour just splashing around and showing off really. We could have stayed there watching them all day, it was brilliant. I could also have spent all day trying to get a decent photo as the buggers just wouldn't keep still but I did eventually manage a few tails and fins. These are the edited edited highlights; I think we all took over a hundred pics each!!
The next day we went on another boat trip to 'Isla de la Plata' -silver island. Sounds quite magical doesn't it? Until you discover that it was so named apparently because the guano (bird sh*t in laymans terms) that covers all the cliffs glitters like silver in the moonlight. How romantic. There we went for a long
hike and saw blue-footed boobies. These are birds that have bright blue feet (the clue´s in the name, really) which made them marginally more interesting than most birds. They have no natural predators on the island and don't know fear of humans so will just sit there looking up at you in a friendly, quizzical way. Quite cute though, in a dumb kind of way. We also swam off the boat and I braved my fear of a shark attack just so I can now claim that I have swam in the Pacific Ocean. On the way back we saw lots more whales but at a greater distance this time. I even saw one jump right out of the water and that counts even if it was about 500m away!
Also last week I went to the equator. The original line was placed in 1736 and now with GPS they´ve worked out that it is only 150m off. Thats pretty cool but it does mean that there are two lines. One with a massive monument, souvenir shops etc and then a smaller (the real) one tucked away down the end of a dirt track!! Anyway it was great. We
At The Equator
Yes, very touristy I know but c'mon, it's not every day you get to stand on the equatordid lots of touristy things like walk along it, balance an egg on a nail (?! Something to do with forces counteracting each other but it was still pretty hard. If anyone wants to try this at home can you let me know how you get on as I´m not convinced it was easier there than anywhere else!) Also the water thing really does happen. We had a moveable sink of water and the water did swirl in different directions on either side of the line and went straight down when it was on the line. Amazing!! I´ve always wanted to try that so there´s another lifetime ambition to cross off the list!!
Somewhat worringly I had my last Spanish lesson today. There is still so much I don't know. I have, however, been learning the imperative this week and am now fully bilingual in the language of bossing small children around so am hoping that will get me through the next few weeks. Unfortunately though I haven't yet mastered translations for universal teacher phrases such as 'Its your own time you're wasting'...
Andy has gone to his volunteer placement in the jungle and has been replaced by
2 new housemates: A 19 year old German girl, Frederica, and a 22 year old Swedish girl, Linda. I realise this probably sounds like a perfect set up for some of you boys but for me its just making me feel old. And of course they both arrived speaking better Spanish than I have managed to glean in 3 weeks. Typical!
The condensed version: Saw lots of whales which was very cool indeed.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
