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Stu at an Awesome Bar?
No, its our shitty room that smells like orange.5/18 At last check, we left off at San Cristobal Island...one of the smallest populated of the 3 habitable Galapagos islands with a whopping 6,000 residents. While trying to find a restaurant still open at 8pm we stumbled back by the pier where we heard the lovely cries of the sea lions. There were at least a couple hundred of them who had crawled onto the beach for a safe night´s sleep away from the sharks. It was quite endearing to see the little pups scramble up from the water in search of their mom´s teets. We also witnessed the elusive blue spandexed camel toe often seen on mainland, but not photographed in person. Will continue to hunt. We dined on some local food, polished off an ice cream cone like the rest of the locals and called it a night in our hotel room that smelled like orange cleaner and had the fluorescent glow of a Russian interrogation room.
5/19 We awoke early to catch the speedboat/ferry to Santa Cruz Island, which is the biggest of the 3 populated islands with about 24,000 inhabitants. We finally left on the 7am boat at exactly 7:30...quite punctual. We were crammed in
Cristobalian Fresco
Sorry, also not art. Paint on the wall to cover the holes where art once hung like sardines on a 25 foot speed boat with 30 other people pushed along by three 200hp engines. The trip took us 2 hours and halfway through our ¨steward¨who was a 15 year old boy passed out our snacks of club crackers and applejuice boxes. We travel in style :-)
After arriving at 9:30 I decided to make us attempt to walk to the hotel not knowing exactly where it was. Not the smartest idea when it was already 85 degrees and humid. After wandering around for about 15 minutes, the smarter half made us get a taxi for $1 to the hotel which was probably about 5 blocks away. Our room was a little bare but very nice (meaning it had AC and hot water). After settling in we had to head to the scuba shop to get fitted for our gear. We had to wear 7mm suits which seemed like a little bit of overkill. To give you an idea, it was like wearing seven tight, uncomfortble, and unflexible spandex layers. Technically we had a 7mm jumpsuit and then had a 7mm overcoat, so over our chests and back we had 14mm of polypropalyne. I actually had
a hard time getting the thing over my hands and by no means do I have Seinfeld man hands. After we left the shop I thought it would be fun to go back to the Darwin station to see the large tortoises we saw on the first day to the island. 95 degrees and sunny. Again, I think I don´t make the smartest decisions in excessive heat. After walking another mile away from our hotel, Stu informed me it was one of my dumbest ideas and we headed back to the hotel. By then we thought the smartest thing to do would be seek shade. We didn´t do much the rest of the day but had a nice ceviche and walked through the 30 stores that all sold the same 7 ´I love Boobies´ (the bird not the breast) t-shirts. Saw another pink spandex camel toe, but escaped to a local nail salon for safety.
5/20 We headed to the dive shop at 7am. Our site was a 45 minute drive across the island and then a 45 boat ride away. Our first dive down was to re-check a couple of skills...being able to fill your mask with water
Pelican eating fish head
Who doesn´t like a nice fish head twice the size of your face and clear it, and taking the regulator out of our mouths then putting it back in. Luckily we passed with flying colors. We surfaced and boated about 15 minutes farther to a place called Mosquera. The diving actually was a little sub par. Visibility was really low due to the currents and the one thing we were hoping to see didn´t show itself...hammerhead shark. Probably the most exciting part was Stu running low on air since his equipment had a big air leak. Stu ran out of air with 10 minutes left in the dive and had to share air with the dive master using his octopus. Stu was pissed off because the dive master wasn´t the most thoughtful and would turn quickly or go up and down making Stu hold onto the regulator for dear life fearing the dive master would swim ahead. With about 5 mintues left in the dive and Stu with 50 bars of air left stu got his regulator back and we buddied up again. Stu noticed his air leak was getting worse and he insisted on leaving the group and surfacing on our own...also something we´ve never done by ourselves. Luckily Stu had his
Haier
Haier brand, rabbit ears, no cable, remote island = shitty TV classes more recently and remembered we had to stop at 15 feet under for 3 minutes and it wasn´t the other way around which I thought which was 30 feet for 5 minutes. Stu ended up out of air 10 seconds after surfacing.
The second dive was another 30 minutes away at Daphne Island. Stu got a new and properly functioning regulator. The dive was slightly better than the first and we were able to vaguely see a sea turtle, but did see a few white tipped reef shark and a couple of sea lions (my fave of course). After diving we thankfully got to get out of the 7mm spandex crap and headed back to port. We had a lunch on the boat of potatoes, vegetables, and chicken...a little random since you usually get a sandwich and a cookie.
We ended the night with multiple cervezas and paying for a couple of overpriced t-shirts. They justified the cost by saying 10% went to help schools. Oooh...think of the children as Stu likes to say. 10pm, Stu hits the toilet. 1030, Stu hits the toilet. 1045, Stu hits the toilet. rinse and repeat as needed.
5/21 That
morning we headed to the pier to meet up with or original Seaman boat group to bum a ride to the airport. On the way, we stopped to see 2 sinkholes that were about 180 feet deep. Quite and impressive sight. Stu remained silent for fear of filling one of the sinkholes..... Our flight back to Quito was uneventful, thank goodness. We arrived at the Sheraton Quito (very local we know) since we had points for a free room and were giddy to learn we were upgraded to a suite. Basically the room we´re in is like a small luxury apartment with it´s own separate elevator, kitchenette, and even a washer dryer! That night we had a dinner at Mi Cocina a nice local place not too far away and headed to the grocery store to get some snacks. It was called MegaMaxi and looked exactly like target on the inside. We felt right at home. Did laundry, flushed our toilet paper, rinsed our toothbrush, and slept contently.
5/22 We had arranged for a trip to the Otavalo market (if you´re a zoolander fan you get the title which is a play on Audiwhateee in the scene with Ben
Al Paca
his name was Al Stiller and David Duchovney) and the Equator museum. We drove the 2 hours to the market and the guide was great telling us about Ecuador history and culture along the way. The market was a bit smaller than I expected, but had great handicrafts of silver, Alpaca blankets and ponchos, and some leather goods as well. We spent some minimal cash and headed back. Stu said the driving wasn´t nearly as crazy as India, but still fun with passing around corners. At the equator museum, we took many pics and got to see several experiments. They had a sink that the placed on the equator and the water went straight down, when they placed it a couple meters on one side the water turned clockwise and on the other side of course it turned counter clockwise...no joke. You could also balance an egg on a nail right on the line and if you walked on the equator line your balance was quite thrown off due to the pull from both the north and south poles. It was actually fascinating. We are now back at the hotel to enjoy our last night in Quito before flying to Cusco, Peru tomorrow morning.
Retarded photo Op
Forced by our driver, we posed for this never before taken photo. Luckily it only cost us a dollar
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