Getting our land legs back

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Hello Peeps

Phew... Got back from the Galapagos last night - what an experience!! Our boat was fantastic (thanks for the tip, mum and dad) and the other passengers were just lovely - there were about 45 of us in total and everyone just seemed to get on so well - us brits weren´t too badly outnumbered either - about 25% of the total by my reckoning. We were really lucky with the weather i think as it tipped it down as we embarked and disembarked (check out the technical terms - ay ay captain). Personally i had a wobbly first couple of days and found that snorkeling made me feel a bit dodgy but most of the time i was fine - Nige was his usual stoic self and kept saying that his dad was in the Navy so seasickness wasn´t an option - altitude will be the next challenge.

We saw some amazing wildlife - sea lions, iguanas (marine and land), turtles, rays, dolphins, beautiful seabirds including boobies, friggate birds, pelicans and some awesome looking gulls, penguins (so much tinier than you think), elephants, lions, gorillas - just checking you´re still awake. It was fairly action packed though - snorkelling ,walking, kayaking, swimming - we loved it. We really did meet some fantastic people - Roy and Pip, Sarah and Tony, Andrew and Heather, Andrea, Lisa and Matt to name but a few.

Roy and Pip kindly gave us a lift when we got back to Quito last night and we ended up staying at their fantastic B&B - Villa Colona in the historical part of time - it is just a brilliant place with the most fantastic breakfast though at this rate we´ll be back by June through lack of funds... next stop Peru needs to be cheap as chips... We have also sent home our second package (we sent some glassware last week - fingers crossed) as R and P kindly offered to take some stuff back as they live 10 mins away from mum and dad in Totteridge (small world) so look out for a call, M and P!!

At the moment Nige is taking some photos of the B&B (we got a bit of a discount!) and we will be going out in Quito later on, we´ve really enjoyed Ecuador - it´s a beautiful country with lots of diversity, amazing countryside, lovely friendly people and was a really great first stop.

We´re looking forward to Peru immensely and will be attempting some sort of training before we get to Maccu Picchu on 29th March (some of the other passengers were full of horror stories - great heights, altitude sickness etc!!) as well as visiting Huaraz, Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Nazca Lines - should be fun.. We´ll probably go into the jungle too but are not sure where and when...

We haven´t seen any news, i obviously heard about Spurs´s great victory before we left for the Galapagos but am completely unaware of what is going on in the world - it´s quite nice living in a cocoon sometimes...

We´re missing everyone loads. Lots of love.

Louise and Nige

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Comments

[Poulu]

Hello from Cusco
Hi there, sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you let´s just call it teasing errors with the blog!!! So great to meet you guys too and spend that time with you on the Eclipse, which seems like so so far away now!! Thanks for reading our blog.. there are pictures now though sadly not of the galapagos as Nige sent them home thinking we could still access them here which we can´t.... doh.. Ditto about London, we´ll put you up, clothe you, feed you anytime!! Hope your "kinder" are ok and didn´t miss you too much. Please stay in touch. Love Louise and Nige PS we do the inca trail in 4 days time and counting... eek!!