Anna and I have just had a jam-packed last 10 days of so, and the first stop was the Galapagos Islands. We flew from Quito to Balta Island on the 10^th, and after a couple of hiccups with issuing tickets and playing ´who we hoped would not be on our boat´ (of those who were on the plane), we arrived and we greeted by someone from our tour company, wearing a t-shirt of another boat which made him a little tricky to identify. We then had to wait for 3 other passengers, but there was a mix up somewhere along the way and they were already at the boat, so despite Anna and my amazing packing and only having carry on luggage and being the first ones out of the airport, we ended up being the last ones on the boat! Oh well.

The first afternoon we visited Santa Cruz island and saw some land tortises, but not Lonely George, the most famous Galapagos Tortise, as he lives at the Charles Darwin Research Station, and had photos taken in a huge tortise shell. We also visited an underground tunnel created by lava flow, which I didn´t like so much b/c I don´t much like being underground, but it was still interesting.

The food on the boat was great – lots of fresh vegetables, and plenty of everything, so we certainly didn´t starve! So the day ended well with a yummy dinner.

During the next 3 ½ days we visited a number of islands, including Floreana, Santa Fe, North Seymour (sorry, they´re the only ones I can remember off the top of my head) and saw all of the animals that you read about and see on documentaries and in books about the Galapagos Islands. We saw lots of blue footed boobies, whose feet where really bright blue, sea lions, albatrosses, masked boobies, frigate birds, land iguanas, marine iguanas, lava liazards. Although they were incredibly ugly, the marine iguanas were my favourite – mean faces, spikes down their back, patchy grey and red colouring. They go out to see to feed, and so at the time we saw them, one afternoon, they were all surfing back into the beach, and it was funny to see these little heads bobbing in the water! The amazing thing was that we could get so close to these animals without bothering them, and it was incredible to see all of these animals, many of which are so different to anything anywhere else in the world, and to see how perfectly adapted they are to their remote environment.

One of the other interesting places that we visted was Post Office Bay, which is where people can leave postcards, and the idea is that when you visit, you sort through the cards, and if there are any from your hometown or nearby, you take them with you and drop them to the addressee. Unfortunately there were none for Brisbane or Adelaide, the closest were Port Douglas, Bondi or Western Australia. Not that it would have really matter b/c I am not going back.

We had a really nice group of people on our boat – all Europeans except for us. A couple from Belgium, some Germans, some Danes, some Dutch and a Scottish couple, and everyone seemed to get on pretty well. The boat was a converted sailing boat (now motorised) and fortunately I didn´t experience any motion sickness because there was a fair bit of movement when the boat was on the move. The only thing that was a little bit disappointing about the trip was our guide. Unfotunately his English was a little hard to understand, but I don´t thing that was the main problem. More so, I think it was that he was going on holidays as soon as our tour ended, and so he was simply going through the motions and couldn´t wait to finish. But I saw everything that I wanted to see, and might like to do a bit of reading now, but all in all, it was definately worthwhile.

The other great thing that we got to do whilst in the cruise was lots of snorkelling – and there were some brilliant things to see. We saw sea turtles, sting rays, mata rays, angel fish, parrot fish, trumpet fish, sea cucumbers and lots of other creatures that I would have no idea of their names! But the view under the water was unbelievable. The water wasn´t particularly warm, though we didn´t need wet suits, and out of the water it was sunny most days and so we were able to spend some time lazing on the deck of the boat sunning and reading.

The Jungle

We flew back to Quito on the Monday morning after one last early morning walk to see the frigate birds (the ones with the bright red ´bag´thingy under their chin), and straight away had to get laundry done and pack for our trip to the jungle the following morning. We managed to find a laundry that could do our washing for pick up that night, and so managed to dash up to Parque Itchimbia for a view of the old town and for a coffee at Cafe Mosaico, also with a great view of the old town.

It was another early start at the airport to fly up to Lago Agrio, about 15kms from the Colombian border (all´s fine, we made it back safely with no sighting of guerillas), followed by a 3 hour drive in an open air bus/truck and 2 hours down the river to Jamu Lodge, where we would stay. When we arrived at the airport, we found that Galiya, one of my friends from school was also coming with us, and another couple from my school, Scott and Sara who had changed dates and were now with us. Add to that a family from France, a girl from Scotland and a lady from Canada (not the sharpest tool in the shed, as they say), and that made our group of 11.

It was a very bumpy drive to the river, leaving everyone with very numb butts, and we had a packed lunch before travelling down the river in a motorised canoe. It was great going down the river, surrounding by so much green-ness – trees and vines and palms and all sorts of other tropical plants. We also spotted a few types of monkeys and birds like toucans and macaws (brilliant colours of aqua and yellow). Surprisingly, it was not as hot as I might have expected, and I hardly got bitten by mosquitoes at all – the mossies were actually far worse in Mindo!

The lodge was a series of little wooden, open air huts on stilts surrounding a communal eating and relaxing area (a bigger hut), and Anna and I had ½ of a bigger hut with our own bathroom. What we decided here was that the lack of hot water in our accommodation is becoming a bit of a theme for us! Despite paying the extra 10 dollards for hot water, I think we actually only got it on too occasions! Oh well, worse things have happened.

So the first afternoon we went out to the Big Lagoon to go swimming – so very refreshing after a long day of travelling, and to much relief, we were not eating by caimans or piranhas nor did we have leeches attached themselves to us. In fact, there was not even a nibble! The only problem that we did encounter that night was when we learned that dinner would not be served until 8pm and there were no snacks between meals! After being spoilt in the Galapagos, none of us knew what to do, and most were ready to naw off another´s arm! But we survived.

The second morning we took a hike through the rainforest, and whilst we didn´t see any Jaguars or big animals like that (the saying is that you are more likely to see a Jaguar in Quito city (the car) than in the jungle, they are so rare), we saw some more types of monkeys, all sorts of birds – the most strange of which were the prehistoric or stinky birds, which honestly looked like they had skipped a few steps in the evolutionary process and belonged more in the era of dinosaurs-, a sloth (one of my other favourite animals b/c they are just so lazy – it takes them 5mins to move 1 metre!), some spiders, bugs etc. We also saw how the indigenous people make rain protectors and ´jungle sleeping bags´ out of palm leaves and got very muddy!

That afternoon we went piranha fishing from our canoe, and we, well actually Anna, had some success in that she caught a red piranha! It may not have broken any records size wise, but nonetheless, a catch is a catch and it was definately a piranha!! Two others from our group also caught piranhas, and we saw how easily they can chomp off someone´s finger with their teeth... no, not really, but they were pretty efficient at chomping through a twig!! They had a serious set of teeth!

The following day we visited a local community and saw how they made yucca bread (a root vegetable/plant thing), which in reality was pretty darn bland, but because we were all so hungry from not snacking during meals, it seemed like the best thing ever at the time. They also made this brilliant chili chutney to go with it, and that spiced things up a bit! We also a visited a ciabo (oops, I´ve already forgotten the name of them, and I think that is wrong!) tree, one of the massive trees that towers above everything else in the rain forest, which has a massive root system, and the particular one we visited requires 23 people standing fingertip to fingertip to circle it – it was huge!  We then were supposed to visit a sharman and let him work his magic (or at least demonstrate it) – one of the things they are know for it a potion they make with mushrooms... but unfortunately he didn´t turn up (who knows) so we toddled back to the Lodge and for a swim in the lake again. At some stage during one of our journeys along the river, we also saw an anaconda resting in one of the trees on a banks!

That night we did a night walk through the jungle, and while we coule hear bull frogs talking to one another, we mainly saw spiders – scorpian and wolf spiders, AND a couple hairy taranchulas!, preying mantises etc. On the way back we briefly spotted the eyes of a caiman lurking near the bank of the river. Wouldn´t have liked to have fallen in at that point! On the way back, Washington, our guide, also found for us a boa resting in a tree. Not a constrictor and not very big, but a boa none the less!

Our final morning we went birding watching, and I´m having a mental blank and can´t think of any of the names of what we saw, perhaps could have something to do with how early we had to get up! We then had to make our way back up the river and back to Lago Agrio. What we did see on the way back was an awesome display or acrobatics by a group`of monkeys who were swinging from tree to tree and jumping from side of the river to the other!

We had a mad mad of a driver taking us back to Lago Agrio, and while I should have been terrified for my life, it actually made from an interesting ride. Overtaking on blind corners whilst going up a rise, barely avoiding tumbling off the side of the road and almost colliding with both oncomnig and same direction traffic, but we made it in record time. Now Lago Agrio is not really somewhere I would recommend that anyway puts on their ´to visit´list, b/c pretty much it sucks, but we had a good night with those of us who stayed to catch the flight the next morning.

Now, I can´t bear to write any more at the moment (and this is already more than enough), so I will fill in the past few days at a later date, but we are now in Vilcabamba where we are having tarot card readings, massages and going horse riding and will be heading to Peru in the next few days. This is the life!!