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Published: November 6th 2007
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Two blondes, Jill and Darwin
Good times in the Galapagos cactus forest After flying into Quito on a Friday night Christine, Jill and I had quite a shock. We had no idea the city was so big and were immediatly intimidated, realizing quickly that we had to toughen up. We decided the next day to book a trip to the Galapagos as soon as possible, partly because we had the money at the start of our trip, but also we thought it would be a nice way to ease ourselves into travelling. We spent Saturday morning getting lost in Old Town Quito, and eventually finding a travel agency to book our eight day Galapagos cruise for the next day.
Sunday morning we took off to the islands that are the basis of evolution, and arrived at the smallest most unorganized airport we had ever seen ... the baggage claim consisted of a pick up truck piled high with luggage, the bags thrown onto the ground and then a made rush of mostly american tourists in their tilly hats running around to pick up their bags. We were worried that the other seven passangers on our boat would consist of these typical american tourists, but we had a pleasant suprise of sharing
our boat with five irish travellers, a sexy spaniard and a beautiful english girl, as well as our guide, Eddie.
Eddie was defintaly one in a million, he had the most contagious laugh ever and kept our group in stitches the majority of the trip. He also seemed to make up facts about the animals he didn´t know and wouldn´t answer your questions. One classic Eddie example was at the Charles Darwin center when we were looking at a turtle named Lonesome George. George is the last tortise of his kind and they are trying to breed him with other species, but George doesn´t work quite right. Eddie decided to tell us that it was because he was trying to have sex with a female, but he missed and instead his "peni" hit a rock and broke. Not only did Eddie tell us this infront of many other tourists, but he acted it out with his hands and made turtle sex noises ... I was defintaly laughing up a storm.
We spent eight days in the Galapagos and saw so many amazing animals, I felt like I was in a David Attenborourgh film, for any of you who
Under Deep
Sting ring while snorkelling took Reinkins classes. We saw sea lions everyday, they have got to be the most rank smelling animals in the world, but super cute and we did see a couple new born pups that were adorable. The birds were everywhere and we were there during mating season, so we saw albatros mating dance which was brilliant. We also saw frigate birds with their pouches inflated, bluye footed boobies, nazca boobies, penguins, pelicans, flamingos and of course Darwin´s finches. The boobies and penguins were my favorite. We also went snorkelling almost everyday and saw a lot of "color fish", sharks, marine iguanas, sea turtles, eagle rays and at one point we were swimming in a school of about 15 rays.
Because we were in the Galapagos for Halloween we didn´t dress up, however we did go out to the bar in Peurto Ayora and had a lot of fun, unfortunatly I am too tall for this country as I constintly hit my head and am heads taller then all the latin boys, not that it´s a big loss because their hissing and cat calling isn´t all that appealing. In South America they celebrate, All Souls Day, on Nov 1st, and
Darwins Giant
They have got to be the slowest moving creatures EVER we were invited by a pirate pìcking at his genitals with his hook so we decided to pass and take the night easy.
All things added up, the Galapagos was everything I expected and more, as the irish would say it was great craic. We are now back in Quito in transition before we head off to the amazon. We took a bus up to the center of the earth, Mitad Del Mundo, finding out that there are actually four claimed areas to be the "real equator." At the Museo Solar Inti Nan they had a great exhibit of artifacts from the Amazon, including a shrunken head with illustrated directions of how to shrink a head and the infamous penis fish!! We also took a bus to Otavalo where there is a very large market, I am sorry to say that it is very hard to shop for males as everything is brightly colored or jewelry. The bus system is really funny, they drive by shouting out their destination and ushering you onto their bus, it almost feels as if you are being stolen leading to a good laugh at the situation. Our next adventure shoudl take us to
Surf´s Up
Penguin getting ready to dive .. watch the movie, so cute!! the amazon!!!
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Lauren
non-member comment
Hey Katie! Sounds amazing!! That is one place on the top of my list for when I go back to South America. I can't wait to see more pictures and hear more about it! Just watch the American tourist jokes...we're not all like that!!! ;) When I traveled I actually avoided the other American tourists because they embarrassed me...so I know exactly what you mean, but I hate the stereotype ;) Que te vaya bien chica...buen viaje Saludos, Lauren