Saturday 6th December 2014 Arriving back to Santa Cruz was a case of coming back to the reality of hostel accommodation; check out our photo of the view from the bedroom window. It is a bit different to the Albemarle Hotel on Isabela! The room, however, was clean, cheap and had air con, so no complaints. On Saturday we hiked to Tortuga Bay, about four kilometres, so eight kilometres round trip. The camino that leads to the bay is simply a granite-built pathway, so the only way to get there is either to walk or get a boat and then swim ashore. It was a lovely walk through an Opuntias and Mangrove forest that stretches for miles. The Opuntias are cactus trees. This is the only place on earth where ... read more

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 When we arrived here on Isla Isabela from Santa Cruz, we planned to stay just two or three days. However, such is the beauty of this little Paradise that we are staying five days until Friday. Flights on Friday are full, except the over-priced “executive” flights, so we shall be braving 83 kilometres of ocean in a silly little speed boat once more, and paying $30 each for the pleasure of doing so! We contemplated staying until Sunday (our flight back to Quito is on Monday) but with the absence of banks or ATMs and very few places taking plastic, we need to get back to Santa Cruz and hope that the ATMs over there have some money left in them by the time we arrive on Friday evening; if not, plenty ... read more

Friday 28thNovember2014 The Inland Highlands: Santa Rosa We hoped to see some giant tortoises today. We didn´t expect to see hundreds of them. The inland highland areas of Santa Cruz Island are quite lush, with untouched vegetation that the tortoises thrive on. Sadly, elsewhere, as mentioned in a previous blog, their habitat has been destroyed and numbers have decreased. Not here, however. The Santa Rosa region is an oasis for these magnificent gentle giants. One has to be careful driving along the tracks, because they don´t understand the Green Cross Code and they amble along all over the place, at leisure. We left the hostel early in the morning and went with a guide (just the two of us). He was a lovely character, but not particularly knowledgeable and informative, as one expects a guide to ... read more

“The earth is not a legacy from our ancestors, but a loan from our children” Native American Traditional (quote on our bathroom wall) We have only been here twenty four hours and we have already seen more wildlife than we expected to see in a fortnight. This place is incredible! John has already taken 203 photos and Viv took 65 before the battery died (must remember to charge up every night). We have swum in a lagoon with Marine Iguanas, seen Giant Tortoises, Land Iguanas, Booby Birds (but not the blue-footed ones yet), Pelicans, Cormorants, a small Ray, Sea Lions and numerous Darwin Finches of different colours and sizes. We haven´t hardly started yet, not having left the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, where we are staying. We left Quito early ... read more

Quito is a quixotic mixture of Spanish colonial grandeur and third world pollution and poverty. The climate also, swings between sunny intervals and torrential downpours, varied and never dull! It has taken us two days to adjust to the thin air, longer than we hoped. Quito is 2,800 metres (9,350 feet) above sea level. We might have skied from this height before (not sure, maybe not) but certainly we have never lived and slept at such altitude. It has also taken us a while to adjust to the strong smell of cheap petrol fumes, which are so strong, one can taste them. John Sawyer, if you read this, remember the fumes in Moscow? It isn’t quite so bad here, but close! A great pity, because it is a beautiful city in a stunning location, high in ... read more