Welcome to South America! We hope we survive!

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South America!!!

After zigzagging across Central America for 6 months we finally made the jump into South America! We booked a trip to the Galápagos Islands at the beginning of December so we unfortunately had to skip over Colombia for the time being, but hope to experience that amazing country either on our way home, or perhaps on another adventure in the future. That being said we packed our bags and hopped on a plane down to Ecuador.

Quito, Ecuador

After an exhausting day of travel we arrived in Quito at 11:30pm, which in itself wasn't too bad, but it was the hour long line waiting to get through immigration that was the killer. Exhausted we arrived at our hotel at 1:30am, promptly hit the sack and slept until noon the next day. The first thing both of us noticed about Quito when we started out sightseeing our first day was that it was wonderfully cool in temperature, but a little challenging to breathe! Quito's elevation is 8,550 feet above sea level, normally not a big deal, but months of playing by the ocean and Quito's ridiculously steep streets resulted in us sucking more wind than we're used to! It's a little embarrassing to have a four-foot-tall grandma breeze by you on a 50 degree sloped street carrying a sack of rice and talking on a cell phone while you're taking a break from climbing 4 stairs!

We began our first day by going to the beautiful Basilica del Voto National. The Basilica is absolutely beautiful with amazing stained glass and gothic architecture. We climbed both the clock tower as well as the bell tower, and from this vantage point we were able to see the enormity of Quito. Every inch of available space of the surrounding hills and mountains is covered with buildings to accomodate the 1.5 million people who live in this highland city.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Old Town, people watching in the Plaza Grande and visiting the most amazing church I have ever seen, La Compañia de Jesus. Words truly can't describe this church, the entire interior is gilded in gold leaf! The church literally glows when the sun's rays peek through the cupulas! One could spend hours examining the baroque designs, counting the faces of angels carved in the walls and ceilings, and calculating how much the entirety of gold within the church is actually worth! While not of a religious nature myself, if anything were to inspire me to go to mass on a regular basis this church just might be it! Pictures weren't "allowed", but thankfully one of us wasn't afraid of being smoted by God or arrested, so we did get some "candid" shots.

We spent the second (and last day) in Quito, getting lost by taking the wrong bus, slogging up never ending hills and mistakenly ending up at the Museo Guayasamín, which actually was very rewarding. Oswaldo Guayasamín is Ecuador's world famous painter of indigenous peoples of Latin America. His works are quite haunting, and not only reflect the suffering and oppression of the indigenous poor, but also are a "tribute to the undying hope for a better world". Again, the "no photos" clause seemed to escape one of our attentions, so you'll get to see some of his work! We spent our last night in Quito back in Old Town, taking part in some of the early festivities surrounding the anniversary of the founding of Quito on December 6th.

Galápagos Islands - Arrival and SCUBA Diving

Both Sky and I were very excited for this next leg of our journey, truly a once in a lifetime trip out to the Galápagos. Our plan included spend 9 days on the Islands, spending a couple of days SCUBA diving as well as spending a few days on a live-aboard boat cruising around to some of the different islands.

Both of us had our faces pressed against the window of the airplane as we were landing on Baltra Island, and both of us were a little taken a back by the landscape we saw staring back at us. I had imagined the Galápagos to be a lush paradise, but in actuality we saw what looked like an arctic tundra and I half expected to see caribou running across the fields! Little did I know there are several microclimates associated with the Galápagos and that Baltra is one of the more arid ones! We hopped off the plane, on to a shuttle bus, on to a water taxi and over to one of the main port islands of Santa Cruz, which was then followed by an hour-long bus ride across the island to hub town of Puerto Ayora.

We quickly found a place to stay, dropped our stuff off and went to schedule our SCUBA diving and to explore the Darwin Research Center. We went on a self-guided tour of the Darwin Research Center, where we were able to see our first giant tortoises and land iguanas. We also saw where Lonesome George (R.I.P. 6/24/12), the last of his species, the Pinta Tortoise used to live. Somehow we managed to miss the tortoise nursery, but we heard they are pretty cute. We had a pretty early evening as we has to be up and ready to dive at 6:30am the next morning.

We were both quite excited about our dive, mainly because the Galápagos Islands are known to be quite the hotspot to dive with hammerhead sharks. The site where we dove is called Gordon's Rock, I was a little intimidated at first due to the very strong current and very cold water temperatures, plus we would be diving at a depth I hadn't experienced before along with limited visibility. Needless to say all of those apprehensions melted away the second we descended into a school of thousands of fish (and when the frigid water slipped between my skin and my wetsuit)! We swam along seeing octopi, moray eels, several species of starfish and sea cucumbers, multiple species of fish, sea turtles, spotted eagle rays, and a sunfish that was at least 6 feet in diameter! The highlight however was the time spent holding on to the rocks with the current swaying us back and forth while we watched several schools of hammerhead sharks swim past us. It was breathtaking to see these bizarre and ancient looking creatures swim within 10 feet of us and not give us a second look! Truly one of the most unforgettable moments of both of our lives. We're sad that we can't post the pictures of this particular dive as the dive shop was only able to provide us with the pictures on disc!

Since we were back from our two dives at Gordon's Rock by 11am we spent the rest of the day exploring more of Santa Cruz as well as spending a great evening eating, drinking and trading travel stories with the people we went diving with.

Galápagos Islands - Giant Tortoises, More Giant Tortoises and the Galaven, and More Giant Tortoises!

The next morning Sky and I packed our bags to get ready for our 5 day/4 night trip on a live-aboard boat to check out some of the other islands of the Galápagos. We had some time to burn, and one of the guys we went on the dive trip with had some pretty great pictures of himself with the giant tortoises. Not sure if we'd get a chance to go to a reserve while on the islands Sky and I hired a taxi to take us across Santa Cruz to a giant tortoise reserve where we could see these 200lb, 100-year-old reptiles. We went to the first reserve, got up close and personal with one tortoise, however, the reserve was a little ghetto and apparently the tortoises that were once there moved on to higher rent digs. So we paid the taxi driver to take us to yet another reserve where we were able to see many, many tortoises! Satisfied with that experience we went back to Puerto Aroya in order to take the dinghy to our boat, the Galaven.

The Galaven was a nice, newly remodeled boat that carried 20 people. Sky and I were some of the first on the boat, joining a couple from Colorado that had already been aboard the Galaven for 4 days of a two-week cruise. We were shown our room which was nice enough, but unfortunately the one closest to the engine. Oh well, we hoped we would be so tired after our day trips that it wouldn't matter! We spent the afternoon hanging out waiting for the rest of the passengers to arrive. Once they all did and got a little settled we all got back into the dinghys, onto land, into a bus and back across the island to tour a freaking tortoise reserve!!!!! Sky and I can say that we have been to every tortoise reserve that the island of Santa Cruz has to offer! Maybe next time we'll read the trip itinerary! After the tour we got back onto the Galaven had a nice dinner, and got to know the people we'd be spending the next few days with. Our guides (Franklin and Billy) introduced themselves further, we had our emergency evacuation drill, and everyone hit the sack pretty early as most of them had a very long day of travel. We weren't scheduled to leave port until midnight because most of the crew was visiting their families who lived in town.

"What Was Fuck Was That Noise?!?"

As I mentioned earlier Sky and I had the worst berth on the boat. Thankfully we both had gotten a couple of hours sleep before the engines fired up at midnight. When the engine did start up I know I jumped a foot off of the bed as it sounded like the propellers were going to be driven right up through the floor. The seas were very rough as well so we were dealing with both the noise of the engine and the front-to-back and side-to-side pitch of the boat. Needless to say Sky knew he wouldn't be sleeping the rest of the night and settled in with a book, I was able to fall back asleep with the use of earplugs and two pillows over my head. At about 4am, Sky got out of bed to use the bathroom which thankfully woke me up as well, because no less than 10 seconds later did the loudest, most horrific grinding, scraping and tearing noise come from beneath our feet, along with the sound of dishes and glasses breaking on the floor above along with the boat coming to an immediate stop!

My eyes had to have been the size of dinner plates as I looked at Sky and screamed, "what the fuck was that noise?!?" His answer, "we just fucking ran aground!" I jumped out of bed, flung open the door to our berth and saw one of the crew members on the floor above with his mouth agape and eyes as big as mine. I threw on some pants, Sky was already dressed and getting our pack with all of our vital possessions thrown over his shoulder. We grabbed our life jackets, hustled up to the upper deck and waited for news with the other passengers. Sky was as calm as could be, taking pictures of the event, I was a little sketched out, I knew we weren't going to sink since we were on solid ground, but I thought maybe the boat would tip over!

Thankfully everyone was very calm and in good spirits. We then got the status report that the boat had in fact ran aground, a gash was torn in the hull, and the boat was sinking due in part to the rising tide, (later we learned it was the cracked freshwater cisterns on the boat and that was responsible for the water in the boat) and that we would be evacuating the boat in the dinghys to the nearby beach! We were allowed to go back to our rooms to pack up our belongings (thankfully we'd barely unpacked) and bring them to the upper deck. I wish I could tell you what it was like to see water coming up through the floorboards in our room while we were getting our stuff together. Very creepy.

We loaded into the dinghys, disembarked onto Cerro Dragon beach on the North side of Santa Cruz Island. The crew then brought our luggage over from the boat. Realizing that we were all safe we settled in to watch the sun rise over our sinking/listing boat, passed around some sunrise whiskey that Sky purchased at the Duty Free in San Salvador, ate some watermelon for breakfast, walked around to see some flamingoes, and watched sea lions playing in the water along the beach. We then got word that the rescue was underway. After about an hour on the beach we heard a helicopter in the distance, which then circled above our boat, then landed on the beach. Out popped the Director of the Galápagos Islands (who looked a little sleepy), and the helicopter crew that had been dropping tons of rat poison across the Islands in order to eradicate the Norwegian Rat that is overtaking the Islands. Here we thought we were going to be evacuated by boat, but lo and behold we were going to be choppered back to Puerto Aroya by d-CON 1!

In groups of five we were loaded into the helicopter and flown back to Puerto Aroya, with all of our luggage coming on the last trip hanging from a cargo carrier from below the helicopter. Not knowing what was going to happen next, if our live-aboard trip was over or if we could be booked on a different boat, we were put up in a nice hotel, fed breakfast and told to hang tight. After a nice morning nap we were told to get our stuff ready, that we were going out to resume our tour on another boat. The only drag was that it would take us a 3-hour motorboat ride to catch up with the new boat. So off we go, back on to another bus, back across Santa Cruz to the north side of the island, to get on the boat to get to our new boat the Galápagos Explorer.

Our tour guide, Billy, was the one responsible for getting us placed on our new boat. Billy is friends with the owners of the Galaven, and just so happened to be helping out with our particular tour. However, Billy's "home" is the Galápagos Explorer, the nicest, swankiest, and most expensive boat in the Galápagos. With it being low season there was enough room for the ship to accomodate us castaways! So after a 3-hour boat ride we come upon this beautiful ship, we embark and are immediately treated like royalty. The brass is blinding it's so highly polished, there are marble floors, there's a picture of Laura Bush and a self portrait of the aforementioned Guayasamín hanging on the wall! The closet in our room was larger than our entire room on the Galaven! The food was ridiculous, Sky and I took salsa lessons one night, and I even took a class on how to make different towel animals (my next career!) Let's just say the Galaven running aground was the best thing that could have happened! And because Billy went above and beyond we only missed a half a day of activities!

Boobies, Frigates, Sea Lions, Marine Iguanas, Snorkeling, More SCUBA

The Galápagos Islands are amazing in the fact that you'll never be able to get as close to wild animals anywhere else in the world. During our land and ocean excursions we were able to see blue-footed boobies, red-footed boobies, other boobies whose names I can't remember, frigate birds, marine iguanas, reef sharks, sea turtles, sea lions, etc. It's a wonderful utopia, a place in complete harmony, a place where the animals could really care less whether you are there or not. I could probably write on and on about the animals there, but I think we'll just have to let the pictures speak for themselves. I will say I did go a little camera crazy over the sea lion pups that are in abundance this time of year, so you may see more baby sea lions than you'd prefer! Sky had a great face-to-face experience swimming with a sea lion while snorkeling, I had a great face-to-face experience with a sea turtle while diving the second time we went. The experience we had in the Galápagos Islands will rank up there as one of our great life moments. We're pretty sure that will be a once in a lifetime trip for us, we're so thankful it was as great as it was! We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Adiós Galápagos! Ecuador, Are You Trying to Kill Us?

We had an uneventful departure from the Galápagos to Guayaquil where we would have to spend one night before flying to Cusco, Peru. We were a little apprehensive about Guayaquil since we'd heard it was a pretty rough town. However, we were pleasantly surprised, especially by how nice the Malecón 2000 (the waterfront promenade) is. We spent the late afternoon and evening walking along the waterfront, through the tropical gardens, and enjoying the Christmas decorations and concerts that were taking place. It was a great way to spend the evening, however, the next morning started out with a little surprise.

I'm beginning to believe that Sky's bladder can sense impending doom. At 6am he got up to use the bathroom, for some reason he opened our door that led to common space/breakfast area of the hostel. Here he saw the front desk clerk standing in the middle of the room just staring at a wooden lamp that had caught fire due to an electrical short! Smoke billowing everywhere, flames growing bigger and bigger, and this kid saying, "no sé qué hacer!" ("I don't know what to do!)! Sky shouts, "agua, agua!", runs into the kitchen to get a pitcher of water and douses the flames, meanwhile the kid comes up behind him and throws a wine glass of water on the smoldering ashes. Yeesh!

Thankfully we made it to Peru safely and we have even more amazing things to share about our most recent adventures. We hope all of you had a blessed Christmas, we missed our family and friends, but know that we are on the adventure of a lifetime and will be home to celebrate next year. May all of you have a very Happy New Year, we can't wait to see all of you again in 2013. May the new year bring you happiness, health, and the continued wealth of having those you love around you!

Love to all! Becky and Sky!

Many pics at the end!

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Photos

Gordon's Rock
First Dive Site