Jen and Rebecca Swim with Sea Lions, Sea Turtles, and Sharks--Oh My! (1-2-10)

R: Even though we went to sleep at about 8:30 last night, I again had an erratic night of sleep. The boat rocked severely on rough seas until we finally reached Floreana Island at around 1:00 in the morning, after which I think I must have slept better. We made our wet landing at 8:00 and headed out to get a look at the flamingos. We saw a whole herd of them (or I guess maybe you’d call it a flock?) We took a lot of photos from far away that will probably just look like specks, but later in the morning we managed to see them a bit closer up, including a hurried attempt of two of them mating. We also saw an abandoned flamingo egg. Did you know that flamingoes build a little hill to lay their eggs on? Or that they are pink because of all the shrimp they eat?

R (cont’d): We also continued along to a beach on the other side of the island where some sea turtles were sunning themselves on the beach. You could see a bunch of them a little further out in the clear water on their way into shore. The beach is a nesting area, so we also saw some turtle tracks up to dry sand where there were likely eggs. In addition to the mating flamingoes, we also saw two turtles mating. Must have been a good day for animal love…

Sea turtles on the beach (not mating in the photo, obviously)

J: We spent the rest of the morning snorkeling, which made me very happy. Our first bit of snorkeling was off of the beach at Punta Cormorant. I attempted to improve upon my underwater photography skills and think I succeeded, but to be honest, I got a little distracted by everything swimming around me to remember to take many pictures. I do remember a sea turtle, some Technicolor fish and really cool green ones that blended into the moss (and made it exceptionally hard to capture on camera). Once we were done at the beach, we headed off to Devil’s Crown - a swim not meant for the weak of heart or leg-a few of our group stayed behind as a result. The currents were pretty strong, so the first half of the swim was easy, but required a little extra muscle to make it around the corner. But once again, it was worth it as I saw many more brightly colored creatures - and a shark! Don’t worry, mom, it was several feet away and well out of camera range.

R: I was bummed to miss the shark. I was behind the group a little way, admiring the starfish--I may have even taken a decent picture of it, the starfish, that is, not the shark. Then I was a little panicked to be so far behind that I swum to catch up without looking around too much. But I was eventually rewarded with more and different starfish to admire as we went through the middle of the crown. My swimming skills were definitely tested and while I saw some neat fish, I can’t say I was too sad to get back on the pangas for the ride back to the boat. Although the snorkeling excursion did have the added bonus of getting us near some rocks with some adult blue-footed boobies which meant they actually had blue feet.

Juan called this the Mexican Chocolate Chip Starfish.

J: After lunch, we headed into Post Office Bay. it’s a working post office that started in the 1700s as a way for sailors to send letters home (the theory being that sailors would deliver each others’ letters), but is still in operation today. Upon arrival, we searched the mailbox (it kind of looked like an overgrown birdhouse to me) for any letters from our hometowns that we could deliver either by hand or US Postal Service. Alas, there were none addressed to Denver, but Rebecca found a couple headed to the Twin Cities area. Wonder if she’ll hand deliver them…. [R: as of 2/27, I've made no deliveries!]

R: I intend to. But Eden Prairie IS awfully far from Woodbury. We also posted a few of our own postcards, so if you’re one of the lucky recipients, let us know when you get them so we can see how long it took. We concluded our Floreana visit by watching our crew and the two college-aged guy passengers playing soccer. It was way too hot for me to be playing a sport, but they all seemed to be enjoying it. Then Juan told us the story of the German lady and her sex slaves who one populated the island. But then another German lady murdered them. The island has a bit of a sordid past and I think there’s a book about it that I intend to read when we return. I like reading about sordid history, after all. Back on the boat, we began an 11-hour trip to our next port by sitting on deck whale-watching. Well, that is if it’s still considered whale-watching if you don’t see any whales. More like whale-waiting and being disappointed.

J: It wasn’t for lack of trying, we had several eyes on the water, but the pesky whales did not want to cooperate. The first 3 hours of the trip weren’t too bad - definitely rocky - but with lots of distractions, so no one really got too sick. Once the sun went down and we came inside, the story changed. At least 4 of the passengers (Rebecca included) ate dinner at the crew table outside because their seasickness prevented them from being able to eat inside. Plus, a couple more just passed on dinner. In total, 11 of 15 passengers were not feeling well that night. But, Juan did his best to distract folks from their misery by telling funny stories from his 21 year guiding career. Plus, since I was one of the lucky 4, I got a free beer!

R: Hooray for a place where going to bed at 8:00 is acceptable, is all I’ve got to say.

Jen and Rebecca Swim with the Fishes (1/1/10)

R: Happy New Year! For once drinking too much was not the reason I didn’t sleep well on a New Year’s night. Instead it was because the ship rocked and rolled all night long and the sleeping pill did NOT knock me out! Oh well. I must have gotten at least catnaps in between boat movements. We arrived at our next port at Espanola Island (also known as Hood Island) around 5:30, well before breakfast at 7:00. We had our first wet-landing in Gardner Bay, but it was on a smooth sandy beach, so we didn’t even need to wear sandals. We had a few hours to lie down with the many sea lions and wander the beach, and swim. We saw a hawk perched on the rocks, many un-shy mockingbirds, the bazillions of napping sea lions, as well as a number of tourists on the beach.


J: The sea lions were quite used to tourists and actually posed for several of our photos. After about an hour of floating in the water and taking endless shots of the sea creatures, we headed back to the ship to prepare for our first snorkeling adventure. We brought our own snorkels and masks (which Rebecca bought the week before the trip), but thought it wise to rent wet suits so that we could stay warmer in the water. We put on our snorkel gear and rode the pangas out to a rocky little island and jumped overboard. I saw an endless number of brightly colored fish, a diamond ray, and some coral (sadly, no sharks yet). Unfortunately, my underwater photography skills leave a lot to be desired, so I didn’t get very many good pictures to actually prove I was there.


R: But it was fun trying. I somehow managed to get my finger in several of my photos. Need to work on that for next time, I guess. I also saw a sea lion swimming right next to me which was pretty cool. After our lunch break (and my siesta) back on the boat, we returned to shore after moving to Punta Suarez on the other side of the island. This hike was another bird and iguana paradise. We saw only one blue-footed booby upon landing that actually had the blue feet. The others we saw were all juveniles whose feet had yet to turn blue. But to make up for that, we saw a whole lot of Nasca boobies, one sitting on its egg, then another hovering over its tiny chick, and yet another sitting on TWO eggs. Plus we saw a marine iguana in full mating-ready color showing off for some lady marine iguanas, plus a bunch of baby iguanas.

Nasca booby

Preening male iguana with the ladies in the background

J: Rebecca neglected to mention my awesome bird photography. I got a beautiful picture of a frigate bird as it was passing overhead. Some may call it luck, but I prefer to say that I’m immensely talented. Juan had warned us earlier that we may not see any albatrosses today, but we actually saw quite a few, including a couple of juveniles. My favorite part of the day was when we sat on a cliff near the ocean and watched water shoot up thru a blow-hole. I’m guessing there were some animals playing nearby too….

Jen's frigate bird photo

R: Yeah, we saw a Galapagos hawk swooping through and perching on a rock here. Plus we could admire three young albatrosses here. December is apparently the end of their season on Espanola Island, so seeing 9 was really pretty lucky. Back aboard the boat, we had dinner (complete with wine brought from the mainland by some of our shipmates) before the boat took off for another overnight sea voyage adventure. Early to bed again, mostly because it’s impossible to do much of anything else while the boat is moving over rough waters without at least half of us feeling ill…

Jen and Rebecca Gain a New Appreciation for Birds 12/31/09

R: We went to bed last night already anchored in the Puerto Ayora bay. Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos, with about 30,000 people and also the home of the Charles Darwin Research Station where we started our day. We of course got distracted on our walk to the Station, though, by the many birds and other finches along the road. Plus we stopped at a fish market to watch a variety of birds and seals try to steal the fishmongers’ goods.

A brown pelican wins some fish parts after a tug-of-war with another bird.

J: Once we finally made it inside the research station, we stopped to view some more birds. Our group gets exceptionally excited by the sightings of tiny little brown birds. And there are several varieties of them! After each of the little creatures was properly identified and photographed, we were off to see the giant tortoises. Each island has its own species of tortoise so we could see the differences up close here in captivity.

A ground finch. I think maybe it's a medium ground finch. We saw lots and lots of finches.

R: We also got to see Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise from Pinta Island. They’ve been looking for a mate for George so that the particular type of tortoise doesn’t go extinct, but so far, no luck. George isn’t interested in any of the fine lady tortoises thrown his way. Much to the amusement of my shipmates, I pulled out Emma’s knit turtle that I’d brought along to try to photograph with real turtles/tortoises. One of the tortoises really seemed to like him, probably because the bright green color made him think it was lettuce. We also got to see lots of little baby tortoises that live at the station until they are old enough not to get eaten by predators before being returned to their home islands.

Tortoise eyeing my knit turtle suspiciously

Tortoise agitated by the knit turtle

J: After we finished up at the Research Center, we had some time to wander about town and do some shopping. Sadly, we didn’t find much to buy. I guess that will help keep me under my 20kg weight limit for the flight back to Quito. For lunch, we had some yummy beef and potatoes and then spent the rest of the time before out next adventure relaxing on the boat with the other passengers. The tour operators are smarter than the tourists who sign up for these cruises and they realize that we cannot spend all day in the equatorial sun and survive, so we generally have a 2-3 hour break between our morning and afternoon activities to relax on the boat. The first day it seemed quite long but I’ve grown to appreciate the break.

R: After our break, we loaded the pangas (the motorized rafts that take us to shore) again and headed back to Puerto Ayora. This time we loaded a bus that took us up into the highlands of the center of the island where we walked through was is essentially a rustic tortoise farm, though also a wildlife sanctuary. On the way we were stopped in the road by some men who were dressed as women, we think in celebration of the new year. They let us pass after giving them some change.

J: As soon as we started our walk thru the park, we spotted the elusive vermillion flycatcher. It’s a bright red bird that one of our travel-mates had been wanting to spot. Unfortunately, the little guy didn’t want to sit still long enough for Rebecca or I to get a good picture of him. Onward down the trail, we spotted many tortoises, several more finches and a barn owl hiding in a lava tube (a giant tunnel left behind after a volcanic eruption). The tortoises proved to be the most photogenic, perhaps because they didn’t move that quickly and they weren’t hiding in the dark, so we have close to 20 tortoise shots.

Barn owl

Tortoise in the wild

R: We also saw a variety of plants including a grapefruit tree, a coffee tree, Spanish Cyprus, blackberry bushes (and we each ate one without any ill effects) as well as Galapagos mistletoe. At the end of the trail, we ended up back at the farm house where we were able to have some tea and coffee (with optional complimentary shots of rum) and listened to Juan sing some traditional songs. After the bus ride back to town, we returned to the boat again for dinner (a full turkey in honor of the New Year--plus champagne) Then we headed back to the mainland for some New Year’s fun. Granted, most of the town’s fun wasn’t scheduled to begin until midnight and we had to be back on the boat by 10:00, but we did have some big beers, danced in the courtyard, and saw the various effigies set to be burned at midnight to usher in a good new year. Back on the boat, I loaded up some Juan-endorsed sleeping pills to get through a rollicking night of sailing to our next destination.

Jen and Rebecca Meet Their New Cachalote Family (12/30/09)

[Finally updating the blog from our trip--we wrote all the following posts while on the boat with no internet access...]

R: We made it to the Galapagos! An early morning taxi ride got us to the aeropuerto with mucho tiempo to spare. A rep from the travel agency met us as expected - yay, our expensive tickets weren’t a scam - and we were able to nap on our flight to Baltra (with a stop in Guayaquil in southern Ecuador) despite the woman in front of me who kept her seat reclined into my lap the whole time. Our naturalist guide, Juan, met us at the small open-air Baltra airport where we walked through a wet mat to rinse off our shoes before entering the island. We then met the others in our party, a family from LA with three college-aged children (2 boys and a girl), one couple about our age, one mother-daughter couple with a daughter also about our age, and two couples from Italy. (We were surprised that there are actually more people under 50 than over in our group.) We boarded a bus for the harbor, and were ferried out to our boat, the Cachalote, luggage coming separately. But not before we already spotted some iguanas, pelicans, and herons on shore.

The Cachalote

J: After a delicious lunch of red snapper (possibly caught fresh that day), we were assigned our cabins. Rebecca and I are sharing a spacious room with 2 bunks and small bath. Unfortunately, it’s below deck and was exceptionally hot when we arrived, so even if we had room to move, I don’t think we’d want to spend any time in there. But, there is ample deck and salon space for the passengers to gather in.

J (cont’d.): We left the boat at 2:30 for our first island adventure to South Plaza. Once there, every passenger on the boat became a professional photographer - at least in our own minds. Within 5 minutes of landing, I had taken approximately 30 pictures of sea lions, sally lightfoot crabs and iguanas. (Over the 2.5 hours on the island, I racked up an impressive 84 snapshots. Rebecca surpassed me with 100).

The Cachalote family ready with their cameras to take pictures of flying birds.

R: Yes--30 of my pictures alone included at least one iguana! Jen discovered that taking photos of moving birds was highly challenging, though we did manage to see flying frigate birds, red-billed tropic birds, yellow warblers, finches, and blue-footed boobies, though you really couldn’t see their blue feet while they were in the air. The island itself is not inhabited by people. It’s a pretty small island and you have to keep to the paths so as not to trample vegetation, but fortunately all types of wildlife--including the sea lions-were directly on parts of the trails. I think Darwin had a good-time getting reacquainted with the Galapagos today.

Darwin on South Plaza. (Actually, the real live Darwin never landed on this island.
But I figured it wasn't too late for him to see it.)

One of Rebecca's 30 iguana pictures.

Yellow warbler

Sea lion napping inland

J: Once we got back to the boat, things got a little rough. And some folks turned a little green. Several passengers, Rebecca included, lost their lunches. Luckily, the passage from South Plaza to Santa Cruz did not affect me. But I did have some trouble walking a straight line at times (for once without alcohol to blame). Dinner consisted of chicken, asparagus and rice. After a brief discussion of the day’s activities and tomorrow’s itinerary with Juan, we were all off to bed. The equatorial sun really does take it all out of you!

Jen and Rebecca Survive the Galapagos

Despite sea sickness (Rebecca), a migraine (Jen), itchy heat rash (Rebecca), and colds (Jen, Rebecca, and everyone else on their boat) we survived 7+ days on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We managed to avoid being eaten by sharks, stung by stingrays, and bitten by sea turtles, though we were barked at by sea lions and spit at by iguanas. (Fortunately we were out of the spit trajectory.) Though we still kind of feel like we´re on a boat (perhaps due to the cold medication), we are, in fact, back in Quito in mainland Ecuador, and in an awesome, huge room at the hotel! We will post more about our exploits later after we´ve enjoyed some Quito nightlife (er, late afternoon life.)

Jen and Rebecca Get Really High

R: Jen and I had a fun-filled, exhausting day in Quito. Quito is known for its high elevation in the Andes Mountains (¨high,¨ get it?) as well as all its churches and we made sure we experienced both today. As our hotel is in Old Town, we decided to focus our tourism attention on Old Town today and were able to see about three sites of interest to us within three blocks of the hotel. We started out at la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus. (I love that we have an ñ key!) This church has an ornate gold interior that, as one guide book put it, could raise Liberace from the grave. It was very pretty and very shiny.

J: Sadly, none of the churches would allow us to take photos inside the sanctuaries, so we can´t show you any of the golden walls or flashing Christmas lights on the altar. You´ll just have to trust us. The church had a small museum attached displaying a variety of scientific instruments that you all know we had to tour. And then I discovered something amazing- all of the signs in the museums were in Spanish which severely limited Rebecca´s ability to read them. She could only look at the objects and pictures (normally she reads every word printed - which takes considerably longer). We made it thru in record time! After the museum, we proceeded on the
Monastery of San Francisco. It also had an adjoining musuem of religious artifacts and artwork. Once again, we set a new museum speed record. However, we both got distracted by a collection of nativity scenes on display for the Christmas season. Granted, part of the distraction may have been due to the many settings on our cameras and our experimenting with our photography skills.

R: The Franciscan Museum had a nice courtyard (again good for photography) and I also made a new monk friend. See below:




R (cont.): Next, a quick stop at the Casa de Sucre before lunch. This is the home of one of the military leaders who helped Ecuador gain its independence. Too bad we couldn´t read all the placards to learn exactly what this dude did. Onwards to lunch. We picked out a lovely restaurant from the guidebook located near the Monastery, but it didn´t seem to exist anymore. We headed to the other guidebook-recommended restaurant instead, only later in the afternoon I realized that we´d eaten at an entirely different restaurant. It´s okay. The food at this one was good too, though we exposed ourselves as complete tourist morons by not ordering at the counter as we should have, causing much confusion for the poor waiter later. It turns out we don´t really understand much Spanish. Next we headed to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, or as Jen started to call it, the ¨scary church.¨ I told her all about how you can climb to the top of the clock towers, a jounrey which also included walking across a precarious wooden plank path. Since Jen has a bit of a fear of heights, she was a little apprehensive about this. I, however, insisted we go! Here´s Jen crossing the plank path which turned out to be the least scary part given all the skinny metal steep stairs that came next!

J: I was not nearly as excited to climb to the top of the belfry as Rebecca, but I made it most of the way. The photo below is where I chickened out and sent Rebecca on ahead:

J (cont´d): But, I´m glad I made it as high (hee hee...get it...high) as I did because the views were awesome. We could see almost all of Quito from the top, plus, if it hadn´t been cloudy and we knew exactly which direction to look, I´m guessing we could have seen Cotopaxi as well. The Basilica is different from most other churches (at least on the outside) because instead of gargoyles, it had animals carved into its walls (see the bird below):

R: The weather had been sunny and hotter than expected up til we got to the Basilica--yes I know we´re at the equator, but we´re also high in the mountains! And weather.com had me believing it would be 60 and rainy. But in the afternoon, the clouds rolled in and in a very beautiful way. But yet it never rained. Yay! After climbing back down all the Basilica steps, we took an over-priced taxi ride to the Parque Itchimbia for more over-the-city views. (Guide book said the ride shouldn´t be more than $2 and we were charged $7. But when Jen handed him a $20, he only gave us $10 back. Ack! Stupid language barrier again!) After wandering in the park, we headed to a recommended restaurant across the street (Cafe Mosaico)where we got to see the sunset behind the clouds.

R (cont´d): We had a more reasonably-priced taxi ride back to our hotel where we got our bags organized for leaving again tomorrow - we have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am, ugh! And we´re exhausted. But to add to the day´s excitement, Jen got the memory card of my brand new camera stuck in her computer. Good thing I take crafting supplies with me everywhere I go. We managed to get two sewing needles in the drive the pry the thing out. And all the pictures were intact! I think we were both too tired to realize the folly of putting the small memory card in. Oh well. It all ended well. And speaking of endings, we need to get to bed. After our long travel day yesterday, the 6:00 am unintentional wakeup call this morning and another early day tomorrow, we are exhausted! Next stop, Galapagos Islands!

Jen and Rebecca Cross the Equator

We made it to Quito, Ecuador last night, and finally arrived at our hotel around 1:00 AM after our flight from Atlanta left about an hour late. But we breezed through customs. We´re staying at a lovely hotel called Hotel de San Francisco in Old Town. We like that our room has a window into the hallway. We don´t like that some strange alarm went off at about 6:00 AM this morning. It may have been the fire alarm, but as we never saw any fire or smelled any smoke, I think it was just a false alarm. Or maybe it´s the Ecuadorian wake-up call?

Jen at our room´s hallway window.

We´ve just finished breakfast--eggs (Rebecca´s scrambled, Jen´s fried), rolls with butter and jam, watermelon juice and hot chocolate. This should be enough to fuel us as we head out to explore Quito! And despite weather.com´s predictions that we´d been checking for weeks before we left, it is NOT raining, and is, instead, shining bright equator sun down on us. (Can´t forget to bring our hats!)

Jen at breakfast

Tomorrow we head out early for our flight to the Galapagos. YAY! Can´t wait!