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Published: June 20th 2005
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Cruel Nature
Hard not to want to intervene... A mother and her two day old pup. Beside (look above their heads) there are two hawks waiting for them to fall sleep so they can attack the little pup. The mother is aware there is danger and is protecting the pup.... First of all a bit of back tracking... after Cuzco I cheated like mad (so much for busing around this continent) and flew to Lima. Stayed in Miraflores which is the posh part of town and quite frankly was characterless with lots of the usual US branded restaurants etc. Had my first cebiche (seafood marinated and cooked by lime juice) which was rather lekker and then spent my afternoon in these little minibuses whizzing around Lima trying to get a ticket out of there!
Next day and off it was to Ecuador. 27 hour bus trip (an additional three hours due to several breakdowns) and I found myself in southern Ecuador. I had met two other Gringas mad enough to do the same trip in one go and spent a couple of days with them in the city.
First thing that hits you is the weather. It is hot and humid! Finally back to weather which I would associated South America with. Great to get my havainas and flip flop around. It has to be said there is not much to see in Guayaquil. I did the city bus and confirmed this - there is nothing for tourists. I
Giant tortoise
Ok these can´t move fast so they do not have much choice about posing with us! enjoyed the place and found the Ecuadorians to be super friendly (especially the men it has to be said!).
I took myself off to Montanita on the cost taking again the local buses and changing at several little towns on the coast. At lunch time the vendors jumped on and everything you could think of was being sold - chicken and meat on skewers, humitas and my favourite - banana chips. I loved taking in the scenery and observing the locals and no gringos in sight. You get to Montanita and it is a little Gringoland. There are restaurants and bars (more cebiche) and lots of thundering waves (which kept me up all night!). I could not see what the fuss was about. I found it a tourist trap with a littered beach and unless you are a surfer dude it really did not have much to offer.
Took another little bus (these are old US school styled buses) to the end of the Ruta del Sol (Road of the sun) to Puerto Lopez. Not much happening there either! I decided to have my hair cut and the girl freaked out at the state of my hair and
Are you sure you have not stepped in blue paint?
We love boobies! No one could get over the colour of their feet! chopped off 4 inches and had me sit for 2 hours with conditioner in my hair. I had to laugh - the conditioner apparently contains Cholesterol - so here is something it is good for - hair conditioning. I have seen some brilliant translations here - on a cocktail list a Margarita was translated as a Daisy and a Cuba Libre as a Free Hogshead (still have not figured that one out!). Anyway where else would you get your hair cut, washed over the kitchen sink with water heated by a microwave and charged $10. I loved my afternoon of pampering especially when she switched on a DVD for me to watch and the only thing they had in English was a surf video!!!
OK so with my adventures on the ruta del sol over with it was time to head to the Galapagos! I have to say this was to be the highlight of all highlights as far as this trip was concerned. I flew a day early to take in one of the islands. It is a chilled out little place and I happily hung out (and got sun-burnt!) on my day on the island. Then it
was off to the airport to meet the rest of the people on my trip. We were the European brigade with 3 Swede siblings, 2 Austrians, A Belge couple and a British couple. We ranged in age from 18 to 32 and there were 7 girls to 3 boys. We all got on extremely well thankfully as we were to spend 24 x 7 in each other´s company. We sailed on the catamaran called the Galapagos Vision. The crew were superb and we had a great time on board... Luckily none of us suffered too badly from sea sickness.
Of course what makes the Galapagos are the animals. I could not get over how close we could get to them. There are sea lions everywhere. They are very curious creatures and will come up to sniff you or follow the boat. Though you are close enough to touch them you can not as you interfere with their smell and ability to find each other. I got to watch the baby pups come out of the water and cry for their mothers and then go sniffing the sea lions on the beach until they find the right mother! There are
Face to Face
The sea turtle was a little surprised when he looked up from eating to find me! also the dominant males that patrol their patch of beach and do not take too kindly if you invade their area! Slight problem when this happens to be the ocean and you want to snorkel. I was OK as I got in as he was patrolling the other end but got to watch some of the others do a rapid exit out of the water when they got spotted!
There were landings every day on the islands. Each had different animals living there and we saw marine iguanas, land iguanas, sea lions in abundance, fur seals, many types of birds (ie I can not remember their names! I have bought a pack of cards with all of them so I can learn them!), marine and land turtles.
What was also fantastic was that this was also breeding season! There are the seal pups suckling and make the same noise I make when I am excited about food - (you know that smacking noise I make?). Then there were all the baby boobies. Oooh so cute from days old with no down to lots of white fluffy down. They practices with sticks to get the right angle for catching
fish. You also have them all mating. So there is the booby dance where they walk around with a funny walk showing off their blue feet to the albatross that cross beaks as part of their mating ritual.
We also had snorkels where we got to swim with sea lions - we found a group of young ones which were so playful and kept zooming up to us and then at the last morning ducking and diving so they miss you... There were also sea turtles which we observed eating algae and swam with. One turtle swam within an inch of me as I was trying to swim backwards to get out of its way! We also had penguins on one snorkel. They swim so quickly you loose track of where they are! They are little tornadoes. Then on another snorkel I am all alone and I see four black legs and a tail in front of me. A little confused as to what this could be I looked up above the surface and saw that it was a Marine Iguana.....
It was one week of 100% magic. As I said dreams do come true
If you
are not feeling ill at not having taken me up on the offer of joining me on the trip there are more photos here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/foodiefloozie/my_photos
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Mae and Pai
non-member comment
Wow!
Lucky Lucky girl we are green with envy and so happy for you...as you say a dream come true. You know how I've said I'm right there looking over your shoulder? well this time I'm not sure I could have coped with the boat, the sea, and the swimming but in theory I was there too! I think may be I would have been more green with sickness! We adored the boobies! Continue to ENJOY all our love XX XX OO OO