Checking out boobies by the sea..

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... the red and blue footed kind of course.

Do not believe all the hype about The Galapagos being expensive, with lots of hard work the budget conscious traveller will only find it very very expensive. Cost aside we loved it. It seems logical to list all the amazing things we saw, however that is a very long list and we do not have enough time.

We tackled the Galapagos with the first few days on a boat - a combination of snorkelling and short walks on various islands with a guide. The rest of the time we made our own way around and generally preferred this. Diving off Floreana was a real treat, we saw dozens of sea turtles, eagle rays, galapagos and reef sharks, a large manta ray, schools of barracuda and played with friendly sea lions for what seemed like hours.

We celebrated Sarahs birthday on Isla Isabella and are under strict orders not to mention any of the sandy details of the night, suffice to say Sarah enjoyed her birthday more than was strictly necessary and struggled with the three hour boat ride back to Santa Cruz the next morning.

We then spent a week in Quito studying at the Barraca Spanish School. While Dave was conjugating verbs, Nic and Eve (Nics ultra cool teacher) strolled the streets of Quito learning about Ecuadorian culture. Eve recommened Cronicas, a movie set in Ecuador and unlikely to be forgotten by any of us. The lessons cost USD 4.50 an hour and were pretty good though David wanted his money back after failing to become Presi Presi (President) after 5 days of our break time game Tolo Tolo.

Our plans not to buy many souveniers until the end of our South America trip were neatly destroyed by the amazing market town of Otovalo where the highlight was the fresh food in the markets.

Our final day in Ecuador will be remembered by the overly complicated border crossing which saw us spend about 2 more hours than necessary trying to cross the border. The day did not recover as we ended up arguing over prices with three more taxi drivers, each time thinking we have learnt all the tricks they can pull on you. These are the secret delights of South American adventures.

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Comments

[john]

Sea Lions
Why do sea lions always wear sun glasses on the beach?