We've  been slacking off. It's December 18 and we're back in Toronto..... But we'll continue from where we left off. After our windy experience in Chile Patagonia, we decided to check out what Argentina Patagonia had to offer. We had to forego on heading further south however, as we were running out of time. So unfortunately no visit to Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego to see the penguins. Oh well, we'll keep that for our trip to Antartica I guess!! So, we take a bus (what else is new) to El Calafate, on the border of the Parque Nacional de los Glacieres, home to about 350 glaciers, some feeding the Pacific and others feeding the Atlantic Ocean. The Park is about 600,000 hectares. It is also still part of Campo Hielo del Sur (the southern icefield). Yeah, it's huge. Pretty cool when you think about it. Anyway, so we get some supplies in El Calafate (named after a berry not unlike the blueberry from what I gather, but they weren't in season, so no luck in tasting them). They say once you've had the berry, you'll either never leave, or you'll come back, one or the other. We spent a night at a hostel where we camped in the backyard with a bunch of yappy dogs running around all night and bullying smaller neighbouring dogs. Not very fun. Maria woke up to a big sheepdog lying in front of our tent who wouldn't go away.

 

After taking almost an hour to get cash (apparently ATMs run out of money every weekend in El Calafate- tourists don't realize this and are thus desperate like us by Monday morning waiting for banks to open) and getting some supplies, we took an afternoon bus for four hours to El Chalten before starting out our hike at 6 p.m. This was enough time to get to our first camp site and get a good night sleep before heading further into the mountains. This time we would be checking out the Fitz Roy range, featuring Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, both above the 2,000 metre mark. The funny thing about Patagonia is that during the bus ride, you are basically travelling on pampa - what looks like the Prairies with not a mountain to be seen and grass as far as the eye can see - but then all of a sudden this group of snow-capped peaks just juts out in the middle of nowhere. Pretty cool. Oh, and yoú'll never believe it, but it was windy, again! Go figure.

 

Anyway, back to our hike. (Maria now writing btw.) We woke up to a gorgeous sunrise, illuminating part of the range in a golden orange. This was a good sign. We  thought we were going to be in for a great day! We hiked for an hour and a half and set up camp at our new site. This was supposed to be our easiest hiking day. In the afternoon, we planned to hike to the glacier (only half an hour away) and then climb up to Laguna los Tres to get a closer view our Mt. Fitz Roy if the clouds cleared up (another hour and a half one way). We took with us a bottle of water, some nuts, one orange, the camera and toilet paper. As we arrived at the lookout to the glacier, we realized we were on the wrong side of the river. We wanted to be on the other side so that we could get a closer look at the iceburgs. Somehow we took the wrong trail. The river was quite wide and there didn't seem to be any safe spots to cross without guaranteeing that neither of us would be soaked from top to bottom.  So somehow, a trip that was only supposed to take one hour in total became our worst nightmare. We got lost, we got rained on, we got cold and hungry and six hours later we made it back into camp.... Morale had hit an all time low. We quickly removed all our wet clothes, jumped into our sleeping bags and ate sandwiches. Once we started to feel normal, Yose decided to make dinner in the alcove of our tent while in his sleeping bag.  This is the cooking position we assumed for the rest of the trip.  Meanwhile it continued to pour rain outside.

 

The next morning started off with a beautiful sunrise on the Fitz Roy range. Yeah! Actually- I had awaken thinking it was 8am. I dragged Yose out of bed to see the beautiful view. I couldn't figure out why no one else in the campsite was awake. I almost felt selfish not sharing this experience with others and wanted to wake them up. Oh well! Then I realized I was looking at the wrong time on my watch- it was actually 6 am. Ooops!

 

As soon as our clothes were more or less dry from the day before, we decided to hike up to Lago los Tres. (From our trek in Chile Patagonia, we decided to bring less clothing on this trip. Bad decision. Now all our clothes were hanging on a line waiting to dry.) By the time we started off for the hike, the weather had taken a turn. It was going to be another cold and windy day. As we climbed higher and higher, we encountered a snow storm which got worse at the top. Once again, at the top, we couldn't see a thing and the winds were extrememly strong. We decided to descend quickly. Upon return, we dismantled the site and headed out for our next camp site which was supposed to be 3 hours away but actually took 4 hours to arrive.  We camped beside a river in a valley surrounded by invisible mountains (too much mist). We quickly made dinner in the sleeping bag position and went to bed exhausted.

 

The winds were wild and crazy all night and it had rained on and off. When we awoke, everything was covered in sand (including the dishes that we were too lazy to wash the night before) and the tent was soaking wet. We hiked up to the lake to see the glacier (supposedly a 10 minute walk but there was no trail other than rock cairns to guide us). Cerro Torre refused to show its face so we turned around to head back into town. For once, we made it in good time (i.e. we didn't get lost) and the weather seemed to improve as we neared El Chalten. We were rushing to catch the bus back to El Calafate only to find out that the bus was completely booked when we arrived and we would have to wait five hours before we could take the next bus out. This was a good opportunity to have a well deserved coffee and sandwich and waffle and ice-cream break.

 

For a small town of less than five hundred people, this was one of my favourite little towns with wonderful coffee shops and bakeries and such. For me, it reminded me of a quaint little village in the Yukon or Alaska. Now get this- as the bus starts to drive back to El Calafate- the clouds somehow dissipate and you could see the whole mountain range behind us. After much pleading and telling the bus driver that we had waited four days to see this, he pulled over and allowed us five minutes to take pictures. Now is that fortunate or what!

 

Back in El Calafate, we went back to the hostel mentioned above, but decided to treat ourselves to a room with a private, hot shower. Very nice!  (no yappy dogs running around the campground for us this time.) The next day we headed out to Glaciar Perito Moreno, which is 14 km long, 5 km wide and 60 metres high. It is part of Parque Los Glaciares and Campo Hielo del Sur. The immensity of the glaciar and how far it extended was incredible. All the while, we would wait to see the glacier calve, bringing down large chunks of ice thundering into the lake. What a wonderful thing to see! When we returned to El Calafate, we hopped on a 4.5 hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos (our not-so-favorite town - see previous entry under Chilean Patagonia - until we found a parilla/chinese buffet restaurant for dinner) and then a 16 hour bus ride to Trelew.

 

We arrived in Trelew by 12:30pm the next day (Dec. 9). We were quite excited to get off the bus and find a place to stay, but were dismayed to find no place available. Apparently, it's a long weekend in Argentina and most places were booked solid. In addition, we couldn't find a travel agency to book a tour to see the penguins (the reason for stopping in Trelew in the first place). Four hours later, we decided to jump ship and book a bus ticket to Buenos Aires. ..... Yeah another overnight bus ride!!!! Every now and then, I felt as though I was having hot flashes in the bus. I then realized I was sitting on top of the engine. This was not going to be an easy ride. The speakers for the TV/video weren't loud and I was so far away sitting at the the back of the bus I couldn't read the Spanish script. To top it all off, when we stopped for lunch the next day, someone stole our MP3 player from the front pocket of our knapsack which we foolishly left on the bus. We were so happy to get off this bus and arrive in Buenos Aires 21 hours later.

Ok- so it has taken a bit longer to get to El Chalten than we thought. As earlier mentioned, we had to take several buses which do not necessarily connect easily to our destination so we changed our plans and headed down to Rio Gallegos, Argentina and then caught a bus back north to Puerto Natales, Chile.  Anyways, it only took three days and two nights. In the meantime. we had visited some very quaint and not-so-quaint towns along the way.

 

Puerto Natales has been a wonderful town to base ourselves. It has a population similar to Yellowknife and the people are very friendly. Upon arrival, we rushed to pick up things for our trek in Torres del Paine and then arranged a guided kayak trip down Rio Serrano to Geiki glacier  which would take place right after our trek, nine days in total.

 

The 5-day trek was tough. A lot of ups and downs, both physically and emotionally. But most definitely worthwhile. The hiking route was quite packed with people so we didn´t get as much solitude as one would like. Having said that, there were several moments where we felt we were the only ones in the mountains and we did meet many interesting people along the way.

 

The views were spectacular with glaciers, mountains, lakes, flowers, and birds of all sorts. The weather was quite cooperative as well without any rain. The evenings were a bit chilly but we were always close to a refugio where we could warm up. It was definitely "easy" style camping.  On our fifth day of trekking, our luck started to take a turn for the worse. We woke up to clouds which were covering the Torres (one of the main features of the park). Nevertheless, we climbed for two hours scrambling up rocks and such to see only two and a half of the three towers.  No big deal. Then Yose dropped my camera.... then we lost a Nalgene bottle (we left it at the bottom of the rocks since I needed both my hands to clamour over the rocks)... it then rained all the way down to our last camp site... and then Yose wakes up at 6am to realize the wedding ring from his finger had disappeared. The cold weather had shrunk his fingers and so the ring was loose. We frantically looked everywhere inside and outside the tent and  to our good fortune I located it tucked under a backpack on the tent floor.  The only good part of that day was watching two torrent ducks make their way down rapids. It seemed like they were having fun, which made us look forward to our kayaking trip. We ended the day with a supper at the refugio, with a bottle of wine to celebrate our first leg of the Patagonia adventure.

 

The next day we started our kayak trip. We met up with our Chilean guide German who only spoke Spanish. So we got a two-for-one deal. A kayak guide and Spanish teacher. He has done two long-distance trips, one 78-day solo trip from Puerto Natales to Cape Horn and 90-day trip through the West Coast Fjords, near the Camino Austral.  

 

It took about an hour to drive to our put-in. After loading the yaks (solos) we were on our way. Right from the beginning, I knew this was not  going to be the easy ride downstream along a calm tranquil river, while watching the birds and mountains go by. What were we thinking? We´re in Patagonia.This was going to be work. The winds were so strong that the current was going the opposite direction and there were white caps. This was going to suck!  The wind wasn´t constant so there were periods of rest and the river had a tendency to twist and turn (so sometimes we were protected and other times not). Nevertheless- we were quite exhausted after only one hour of paddling. Meanwhile, we´re supposed to paddle five to six hours a day. After a small portage over some rapids, the winds started to pick up again. We waited for a bit and then headed off. In this particular section, I had the wind on my face and the strong current from the rapids on my right. No matter what I did, I couldn´t move in the direction I wanted to go.  That´s when the guide tried to rescue me and I tipped into the nice glacial waters. Thank goodness for wetsuits. It took awhile to get to shore but once we did, we decided to cut the day short and camp overnight. The Patagonian winds just got stronger and stronger throughout the night. At one point, the gusts were as strong as 100 km per hour. Pretty cool!  At least our tent can withstand such speeds (it kinda sucks in rain though).

 

The next day was all rain and clouds. We couldn´t even see the mountains which were supposedly right beside us.  We were both cold and hungry and miserable from the winds. The winds had quieted down by that morning. We finally reached the arm of the river which would take us to Glacier Geiki, however we would need to walk the kayaks (us on the shore, kayaks in the water) for seven hours in the rain. I think the guide sensed that we weren´t happy campers. He also mentioned that we would have to cross the river upstream a few times with the kayaks, and after the first day´s performance, he thought it would be best if we changed plans. No complaints from us. Although it would have been really cool to paddle beside a glacier with icebergs.

 

We headed out to the fjords instead. After six hours of paddling, we never stopped for lunch because we would have just gotten too cold. We reached our destination, Serrano Glacier, quickly ate sandwiches and went into our sleeping bags to warm up.

 

The third day was very cool. We kayaked to the Serrano glacier (much smaller than Geiki but a glacier nevertheless) in a double kayak. Once again, our foe, the wind, was pushing against us. The winds off the Campo Hielo del Sur (southern ice field) were fierce. I didn´t want to fall in again. We made it safely and quickly hiked up the morraine to take a closer look at the glacier. Very cool! There was lots of calving going on from the glacier but we were too slow to take pictures. 

 

That afternoon, we decided to go on an adventure. One of the rangers mentioned a laguna (a small lake) that is only visited by rangers. However, it is difficult to find.  The guide had never been there either. The ranger also neglected to mention that we would be walking upstream in some of the currents. At some points, I was neck deep in water and a couple of times I had to swim (that´s because I´m short) Apparently, it seemed to be OK for Yose and German. But I was a trooper. We arrived at a very cool laguna with 360 degree views of Torres del Paine, Balmaceda Glacier, Chacabuco Range and Dionoso (sp?). What a great day!  We then returned the same way riding the current downstream this time.  I had a bit of trouble controlling the boat, bashing into thickets and trees and such but all was good. Oh right and Yose lost my sunglasses as he pulled his kayak over a fallen tree that blocked the way.

 

Of course on the last day, we had perfect weather. The winds were calm and there were pockets of sunshine. We tried to paddle further into the fjords but the waves started to get pretty big so we turned around and found a very cool waterfall which we scrambled through rocks to enjoy the view. Wow!  This was such a perfect trip. We quickly headed back for our pick up by a passenger boat which would then take us three hours through Fiordo Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope Sound). Absolutely gorgeous! My dream come true..... Just before we arrived back into Puerto Natales, we gorged on meat, a parrilla, at an estancia surrounded by mountains.  It´s incredible how much Yose eats these days. He eats more than me now:)

 

So that´s all for now.  We´re heading into El Calafate and El Chalten to visit another glacier and climb some more mountains.  We´ll be home soon.

 

Ciao for now

Maria

Well, sorry for the delay. Seems like we just wrote, but I guess it´s been more than two weeks, almost three. Time flies! We are now in Patagonia!!! Awesome!!

 

Since our last entry, when we were in Peru, we managed to cross the border into Chile without much of a hassle. Of course I got paranoid during the overnight bus trip seeing a man crawl into the  baggage compartment underneath the bus. This was in the middle of night while I happened to look out the window at a bus stop. I thought perhaps he was going to steal stuff from our backpacks (since we were the only gringos on the bus) or worse put something inside. We arrived in Tacna (the border town) only to find out that we were not at the main bus terminal. As soon as we figured out how to get there, we had to board a taxi with 3 other people in order to cross the border. Really weird. But anyways.... As we waited for 3 other people to show up, I frantically emptied our backpacks of food and looked for any strange substances that could have been inserted.  Upon speaking with the taxi driver, he mentioned that it was normal for bus drivers to sleep under the bus.... Anyways, we crossed the border safely without any incident except for the  border police asking whether we had "illegal" substances.  Meanwhile I was showing him our cheese and fruit.

 

We quickly travelled through Arica (border town in Chile) and then flew to Santiago since we could no longer handle the long bus rides. We had already done two overnighters in a row. Santiago was nice. We were able to visit Yose´s friend, Tony, and his family. However we weren´t able to hook up over the weekend. Thus Yose missed out on a soccer game. I ended up being sick for almost five days so that kind of put a damper on our stay. However we managed to do a hike in the mountains and visit Cousina Macul (a winery near Tony´s place). Bizarre enough.... Wine made me feel much better. And since a good bottle of wine only costs $3 CAD, we´ve been taking advantage of this new finding almost every day.

 

From there, we have visited Villiarica and Puerto Varas, two beautiful scenic towns in the Lake District. We climbed up Volcan Villarica at 2860 metres, an active volcano covered in snow. Yose´s nose got wind-burned. It took five hours to climb with a lot of effort against the wind and snow. But it only took an hour and a half to descend since we slid all the way down on our bums. Very cool! Yose was envious of those who hiked up with their skis. In Puerto Varas, we did some hikes on Todos los Santos lake. Of course we had to visit that lake and walked along the river to check out the rapids.

 

In order to get down to the Camino Austral in the Chilean Patagonian region, we needed to take a ten hour ferry ride from Puerto Montt to Chaiten. Unfortunately due to the bad weather we had to sleep overnight at the embarkation waiting room. The boat had been delayed for about ten hours. The boat ride was uneventful and a bit choppy. So we were both happy to finally arrive in Chaiten. Chaiten is a beautiful frontier town, reminscent of Alaska and Yukon. It sits beside the fjords and has snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. The people were extremely hospitable and friendly. But we are running out of time to see the rest of the region and so we had to quickly pass through the town.

 

The Camino Austral is a dirt road that was built during Pinochet´s reign as a means to connect the whole country. It is one of the most beautiful drives we have ever seen. It runs north-south through the Patagonia Andes. We were able to stop at Quelat National Park for the night where we were able to camp and admire a glacier. We then found our way further south to Coyhaique where we are now based. After a bit of a setback. We had earlier found out that the ferry to take us out to Argentina is booked fully until Wednesday. It is now Saturday. We have decided to take the long way around via a couple of buses and minibuses and hope to be in El Chalten, Argentina by Monday. Who knows? We´ll see where this adventure will take us.....

 

Well we hope everyone is well. We´ll be in Toronto and Quebec for the holidays.

 

Meanwhile- if you´re in Yellowknife-pls. keep an eye out for places to rent in Old Town or a long-term house-sit.

 

Ciao!

 

 

 

So the last time we wrote, we were off for a hike in the Cordillera Blanca. Let's just say that neither of us were ready for hiking at high altitudes. It took almost half an hour to find the bus that would take us to the trailhead. I was already tired and grumpy after half an hour walking in town.We were able to meet 3 others who were going to do a similar but longer hike than us. At first, I thought what great fortune! Well lo and behold, one of the females was in the Israeli army and had taught hiking. I thought she was going to kill us walking at incredibly inhumane speeds. After five hours, we decided to set up camp and let them go ahead. Fortunately for us, we had camp set up before the thunderstorm showed up. In fact, every afternoon in Huaraz it rains after 2pm. Essentially we stayed in the tent while it rained and only came out to cook dinner and then we were back in the tent by 7pm for an early night.  The next day was essentially the same as we raced to get back into town before the rains appeared. Fortunately, we got picked up by a taxi who just happened to be dropping someone off all the way out in the middle of nowhere. Bizarre. But all good, my feet were tired by then.

 

We had planned another hiking trip to Chavin, a pre-Inca ruin site for 3 days. But with all the rains, we decided to go for the lazy bus tour  version instead. The tour consisted of mainly school children, who seemed to have more fascination with the tourists (i.e. us) and wanted to take pictures of us and ask all sorts of questions. We were amused. I think there were more pictures of us than the costumed Peruvian lady holding the cute baby llama.

 

Huaraz was definitely a nice treat. The people were very kind and the town wasn't overly touristy. Of course, we just entered into the rainy season there. So it's probably crazy earlier in the year. We were hoping to hike longer in Huaraz but with the weather we decided to bee-line for Cusco instead.  We took the overnight bus into Lima and essentially went straight to the airport so that we could fly out to Cusco. It was awesome, the flight was only $56 USD.

 

The environment in Cusco started off as mayhem. There are so many tourists and so many agencies, restaurants, taxis, store-owners who want your busines and are always calling after you down the street. At first, this caused much distress for us and we wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Essentially Cusco is very pretty with the colonial homes and the plazas and the inca ruins integrated with the massive churches. You can very well find anything here in Cusco. After one night in Cusco, we started to head out to Aguas Calientes, the closest town to Machu Picchu through the Sacred Valley. As it was a Sunday, we wanted to experience one of the markets in Pisac. It was a great experience, again with mass confusion but lots of colour and food involved. We finally went to the top of one of the mountains to start a hike in the ruins. Once again, we realized how out of shape we are. On our steep descent down, we met a couple from Cusco with whom we practised our Spanish. I don't know how anyone could converse. I was having a hard time concentrating on the steps downwards and not rolling all the way down.  Anyways, it turns out that Henri teaches mathematics at the university and Maria (the name of the other girl) was studying her Masters in Statistics. All of sudden we started talking about longitudinal analyses, Cox regressions, and stats programs. Aggh! I have promised to send her some material since she has difficulty accessing it.

 

After Pisac, we took a bus and a combi to Ollantaytambo and had half an hour to do the ruins. Essentially we raced up the terraces to see the view and raced back down. Again- did I mention how unfit we are? Afterwards we took the train into Aguas Calientes and found a place to sleep so that we could wake up by 4:45am to catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu. I'm not sure what's wrong with us. We seem to have either a schedule of sleeping on buses or waking up at incredibly insane hours throughout this trip. Today was the first day we slept in. And that was 8am.

 

Machu Picchu was beautiful. As one of the crazy few who arrived at 5:30am, we were able to see how mystical this place was without the hordes of people that tend to fill a tourist attraction. Of course, it does come at a price. At first, it was wonderful just to sit there and see the mist come in and out of this magical place. Then we started to walk the ruins, and the pain started to begin. My legs were filled with lactic acid from the day before's hike. We could hardly explore the place without grimacing in pain. And then some insane idea came into our head. We decided to do the one-hour uphill climb to Huaynapicchu. I literally thought I would die of fatigue. I could hardly feel my legs climbing up. But whenever I saw women in their fifties or sixties coming down, I just grinned and beared it. We're both pretty stubborn. Most smart people only carry a bottle of water. We were carrying our knapsacks, filled with books, food, camera, winter coat, water, etc....However, I must say the view was worth it. We stayed up there for more than hour before heading down. By then, I couldn't lift my legs anymore. Once we were back in Machu Picchu, we decided to hike back down to Aguas Calientes so we could save $12 USD. I don't know what came upon us. So we hiked again for another 1.5 hours down to the town. Let's just I wasn't a very happy person by the time we got back into town.

 

Now we are back in Cusco. Essentially, we spent the day having lunch with our new friend Maria (from Cusco). She took us to a town that was famous for chicharon, fried pig skin and fat.... Yummm! And then we went off for another hike to another set of ruins, Sachsayhuaman.  The thing I can't understand- the Incas were ingenious and developed long-lasting well-engineered structures . But for some odd reason, the steps were built for giants. Essentially I feel like I've been on the step machine every day for at least 5-6 hours. We walked back into Cusco in time to get our tickets for Puno. We're leaving tonight for Puno.  We were almost robbed on the street but becuase of my keen sense of awareness, I had warned Yose of the possible culprit. After three tries, Yose finally caught him trying to feel his pocket. Yeah! Maria saved the day.

 

Today is Halloween. And it's been wonderful seeing the kids walk around town in their costumes. They don't seem to go from house-to-house but they roam the streets going to businesses or asking people on the street for candy. I had a great time giving out candy. Mei you would have loved it here. Of course, as soon as I finished giving out all my candy, throngs of children started to appear out of nowhere as they realized I was giving them out. Yose took some photos and then quickly dissipated the crowd.

 

Anyways- we gotta go catch our bus. Sorry again. We couldn't download any photos. Hopefully the next Internet place will allow us to download the program.

 

Catch you in Chile!

Maria and Yose

 

 

We made it to the Peruvian Andes! After our Galapagos cruise, we spent a couple of days in Cuenca, in the Ecuadorian Andes. It was very nice, but we just stayed in town, in a cabbage smelling hostal that was adjacent to a smoky restaurant/bar. The restaurant was really good though. We were going to go to a small town called Vilcabamba and cross over to Peru via the Andes, but changed our minds after we realized it was going to take a long time and involve lots of buses. We decided instead to beeline to Huaraz, located along the Cordillera Blanca in the Peruvian Andes. So from Cuenca, we took a bus to the border town of Macara (eight hours) and spent the night before a 4:30 a.m. bus to Piura, about three hours away. The border crossing was easy. Only one other person on the bus, and the lady and the cop at the border were pretty lax. They didn't even ask for our yellow fever papers. It was only them and a few farmers and their chickens manning the border. If you are gonna travel here, take this border, not the Tumbes one.

 

In Piura, we managed to get some Soles before heading out to Chimbote (took two buses), where we hoped to get a night bus to Huaraz. It was a Friday night, and by the time we got there (10 p.m.) all the buses were booked solid. We were driven to a "shady" (hint hint) hotel by taxi and returned to the bus station in time to hop on a 6 a.m. ride through the gorgeous Cordillera Negra. However, it turned out to be the local milk run bus, at times filled to the gills with people and their chickens (although the chicks rode with the luggage on top of the bus). It was a very interesting ride as we got to see many small indigenous villages high up into the mountains. We crossed the mountains at over 4,000 metres, through a bit of snow. After many stops and one long one to change a tire, we made it to Huaraz in just under 10 hours. Huaraz is a very friendly town with about 80,000 habitants. It's a climbers and trekkers paradise nestled between the Cordillera Negra and the Blanca. The Cordillera Blanca is home to about five peaks above 6,000 metres. We plan on doing some hiking in the next couple of days (we aren't going to go that high though, maybe close to 5,000 metres). We'll try to get photos of the mountains. The Blanca has many glacier covered peaks. Very beautiful. Better than the Rockies.

 

Ciao for now.

Well, our time on the Galapagos has come to an end. We just completed an eight-day cruise around the islands. You can check out the photos on the website. We started on Oct. 8 and boarded the yacht Floreanna at about noon with 14 other passengers, nine of which hailed from Australia (although one of those was originally from Ecuador), two from Switzerland, one from Mexico (via England where he is studying), one from Toronto and one from Germany. It made for an interesting trip. Half the passengers left halfway and were replaced by an American, an Ecuadorian and two Dutch people.

 

Our first stop was at Bachas beach, on the north shore of Santa Cruz. We walked on a beach where sea turtles make their nests. We could see the nests, but no turtles nor turtle eggs. At a lagoon, we watched some flamingos, lava gulls, a blue heron and small birds feeding and protecting their territories. We then went for a quick snorkel. The most amazing thing about that was not the fish, but the hundred or so blue-footed boobies that flew over about a foot over our heads while we were swimming. We were afraid they would dive into us thinking we were fish.

 

We then went back on board, where we had the second of our huge meals that would mark the rest of the trip. We got a chance to get to know the other passengers as well.

We did have an interesting moment when the guide asked us for our park entry tickets. You see, we didn’t have them because our entry fee ($100) was waived because we were volunteering. They kept our passports for a couple of days, which had us a bit nervous. To make a long story short, if you volunteer here and want to go on a 4, 5, or 8 day cruise, you need to pay the park fee. If you plan on doing only day trips, you don’t need to pay. That said, we ended up not paying for it (after conversations between the guide and Emily, the president of Galapagos ICE, the organization we volunteered with).

 

Anyway, back to the cruise.

Day two: The next morning, we headed a bit north to North Seymour Island. Before heading out to the island by panga, we saw three Galapagos sharks. Very cool! We landed on some rocks, and were met by a dying baby sea lion. Poor thing was right on the steps leading to the trail. But right nearby, we saw a mom feeding her pup. All part of nature I guess. We then ambled our way further inland where we saw a colony of frigate birds nesting. It was during the mating season, so the males all had their big red throat sacks filled with air. It’s quite a sight. The frigate is known as a pirate bird because it gets most of its meals (i.e, fish) by stealing it from other birds such as the pelican and the boobies. They remind me of crows a little bit. The baby frigates have a yellow head, and reminded Maria of condors. Walking further along, we saw a male land iguana pursuing a mate. They are quite different from the marine iguana, yet are descended from the same animal. There are, I think, two different species of land iguanas in the Galapagos.

 

We then travelled a couple of hours to Santa Fe, a little further south. The afternoon was spent snorkelling. We saw a sea lion chasing a shark, but mostly a lot of fish like the yellow tail grunt. I found the water pretty cold and didn’t last very long. After snorkelling, spent a bit of time on the beach, where a sea lion colony was basking in the sun, relaxing after what I am sure was a morning spent fishing. The male sea lion patrols the waters where his harem, which can have as many as 20 females. The male won’t eat for about two weeks, trying to mate as much as possible, and fight off competitors. He will eventually lose out on a fight, and be replaced by a stronger male. He will then go to what is referred to as a bachelor pad, where he will recuperate and hopefully gain his strength back so he can reclaim his harem.

 

That night, we headed more south to Espanola Island, about 6 hours away. We took gravol, thank god, because a few of the other passengers had a rough go at it.

 

Day three: In Espanola, Maria’s favourite island by far, we landed at Gardner Bay for a stroll on the beach and some snorkelling. In the afternoon, we went inland where we saw albatross doing their mating dance, male Nazca boobies picking little rocks and twigs and offering them to females as gifts, tropic birds whizzing above our heads at high speeds, blue footed boobies dancing around, a couple of hawks, and an albatross taking off.  The albatross needs a lot of space to take off, like an airport strip, because it is heavy. It gains some speed from running and then hurls itself off the cliff. We also saw the usual marine iguanas and sea lions, but the iguanas were turning red. It was their mating season. There is also a large blowhole, which is kinda neat, but we spent way too much time there. There were also a lot of people on this island. It seems like a number of tour boats did the same circuit as we did, because we kept bumping into the same boats. In one location, there were seven boats! Lots of people. Last year, 120,000 people visited the islands. They expect 130,000 this year.

 

After supper, we headed off to Floreana, about four hours west. Again, we took gravol, and by now everyone had gotten the idea of taking something against seasickness.

 

Day four: At Floreann, we landed at a beach made up of olivine, which makes the beach look green. We hiked to a brackish lagoon where we saw some flamingos and other birds such as the phalaropes and some Bahama pin-tail ducks. A couple of the flamingos were nesting, but they were very far away so we couldn’t see them very well. Thank goodness for binoculars.

 

We then went snorkelling and saw rays, puffer fish, hookfish , angel fish, yellow-tailed surgeon fish and three sharks.

 

We checked out post office bay, where you can still deposit postcards, which are then picked up by other passengers who bring them back home to deliver. For instance, a person from Toronto drops a postcard in on one day. A few days later, another passenger from another boat also from Toronto sees the postcard, recognizes the address can take it and deliver the postcard for the other person. No stamps needed. The idea originated in the 1800’s when whalers and other sailors would do the same thing.

After checking our mail, nothing for us, Maria went to a lava tunnel while I checked out a soccer game in progress. Because of the amount of boats, a number of crew members off the boats played a game. There is a field with nets on this island! Strange. That said, a few of us off the boat managed to get a game in. The crew members all had sneakers, but I didn’t. It was hard, and bruised the feet a bit, but lots of fun. We didn’t win though.

 

After Floreana, we headed for Puerto Ayora, where we had a chance to walk around town and check our emails for about an hour before supper. We stayed on board but others went out to party.

 

Day five: We had an early start and headed to the Charles Darwin Research Centre. We’d already been there, but this time we had a guide. We only spent about an hour and a half walking around and getting to know the giant tortoises that are held there. The centre gathers all the eggs from around the islands and ensures they hatch. While the other people off the boat either left or went off to the highlands, we stayed in town to do some work with Emily and Galapagos ICE, tying a few things up. There were a number of political parades that evening as the elections were coming up on the weekend.

 

We lost eight original members of the group, but got four new ones. A few less people on the boat, so that’s nice. Some of the crew members were also replaced.

 

We then headed up north, to Rabida.

 

Day six: All snorkelling all the time it seems. We did a brief walk on Rabida, a red beach, where there were, you guessed it, sea lions. They are everywhere. The snorkelling wasn’t very good this morning. We then headed back to the boat for a one hour boat ride to Santiago. The snorkelling there was a lot better. I went without flippers because by then my feet were pretty raw. We played with a couple of sea lions and saw our first sea turtles. I didn’t last very long, because there was another soccer pitch on this island. Maria stayed in the water while I went to play. Another passenger on the boat also played, as did a few crew members from the other boats. The other passenger didn’t last long as, playing barefoot, he slipped on some lava rocks and skinned the bottom of his foot pretty well. I was then very careful and played in net for most of the end.

 

Day seven: Bartolome is one of the most photographed islands in the Galapagos. We hiked through lava fields that looked like moonscapes. It was a short hike, 140 meters high, but with all the eating that we were doing- it was a rough go. We got to the top to admire the spectacular view. At the beach, we snorkelled a bit but didn’t see much wildlife. However the rock formations within the water were pretty. You just had to watch out for the current and not get slammed into any rocks. On the other side of the beach, we saw white-tip sharks and sea turtles; but we couldn’t snorkel because there was too much wind. That afternoon, we skipped out on the second snorkel coz we were tired of the cold water. However we did go for a hike on the lava formations on Sullivan Bay. The ride from Sullivan Bay back to the north side of  Santa Cruz was horrendous. We took our gravol a bit too late and suffered for it.

 

Day eight: On the last day, we had a 5:30am start. We took a panga and headed out to Tortuga Negra, which is a bay filled with mangroves, birds, sharks, mating turtles, and rays. It would have been a beautiful spot for kayaking. We headed back to Puerto Ayora and said hello to our ant-infested hotel.

 

We have now left the Galapagos and have started our journey south. We’ll keep you posted.

 

Hi all, just a quick update. We are finally going on our seven-day cruise tomorrow, touring the islands. Should be fun. We were able to book a first-class boat at a reasonable price. The boat we were going to take, the Aida Maria, was supposed to be in port on the 6th after a retrofit at a port on the Ecuador mainland. However, that fell through and the boat is still on the mainland. But, the travel agent was able to book us onto another boat, the Floreana. This one has kayaks, so it looks like a good trade off.

 

Our one-month of free lodging came to an end last weekend. In some respects, it was sad because the employees were very friendly and it had a pool. However, it smelled like sewage every night after 10pm.We would block every pipe opening in the bathroom and shut the door.

 

We then spent one night camping outside town, about 45 minutes away by taxi, on a nice quiet beach. We swam, watched the stars, played some soccer, read a bit, got a little bit too much sun, watched some birds and relaxed. Oh, and we lost a bit of food to ants and cockroaches. You'd swear we'd never camped out before. We left some food in our bag, outside the tent, thinking "hey, there are no bears here, so we'll be fine." We were wrong. Oh well, lesson remembered.

 

So after that experience, we found a fairly cheap hotel (by Galapagos standards). But it has ants, lots of them. We've been managing though. Maria sleeps in her sleeping bag and we leave the main light on all night. It's like sleeping in Yellowknife in the summer. Just instead of killing mosquitoes before going to bed, we hunt for ants. Maria has fun watching the little ants struggle up the walls with the corpses of the bigger ants we killed. Fun times. 

 

We are slowly organizing our trip after the Galapagos Islands. We'll hit Cuenca and Vilcabamba in Ecuador, then make our way into Peru and see some Inca ruins. And hopefully some hiking in the Andes... as soon as we've acclimatized to the altitude, of course.

 

We witnessed the opening of a new hospital wing here. It's interesting because now they have the infrastructure, but not enough personnel and not enough equipment. It was quite an event as even Miss Galapagos was sitting with the bigwigs at the front table. She didn't speak, but I guess that's not really her role.Yose decided he would be a journalist and took photos and notes. Now he just has to write something. He actually went into a cordonned-off area to take a ribbon-cutting photo.

 

We are also in the midst of the presidential elections. They culminate on Oct. 15, the day we get back from our cruise. It's been quite different from what we know in Canada. They have these pick-up trucks blaring music and speeches at all times of the day. Each party, and there are about 30 or more of them, has its own theme songs that they play over and over and over again. It's enough to drive someone nuts. And I won't go too much into the political rallies (we've seen three here.) But just a glimpse: one almost ran us and a little girl over with their vehicle, another had an adaptation of Twisted Sister's We're not gonna take it blaring while a third had mascots dress up as freaky Mickey Mouse and friends look-a-likes. Meanwhile, some sort of fireworks, actually more like bangs without the show, kept peppering the sky.

 

The politicians don't seem to support conservation and environment (which is a shame), and one leader actually wants to kick out NGOs. Another candidate, and one of the forerunners, is a member of the richest family in the country. The Noboa clan owns many banana plantations, among other business ventures. There's a lot of corruption and nepotism involved in politics here. We'll let you know how it turns out.

 

We visited a school in the highlands recently. Santa Cruz has four towns. Puerto Ayora, where we are, is the largest and on the coast. The others are in the highlands, and are mostly poor agricultural towns. We went to Santa Rosa with a new volunteer for Galapagos ICE (the organization we work with www.galapagosice.org) will work for three months. It is pretty run down with broken windows, but the parents take an active role in the education, and the kids all seemed very friendly. When we got there, they were making jewellry. We hope to spend a few hours there after the cruise and play some sports. The volunteer will be teaching English through sports and other activities outside the classroom setting. 

 

That's it for now. We will post some photos after our cruise.

 

Yes, finally, some photos. Just got back to Puerto Ayora after our five days on Isabela. The boat ride back was a lot smoother, but not much quicker. Same type of boat, a fibra. It's a small boat that fits about 14 passengers, flat bottomed with two motors. Goes about 9 knots (don't ask how many clicks an hour that is cuz I don't know). Oh, the ride may have been smoother because we took gravol too, not sure. But I recommend it now.

 

We had a relaxing time on Isabela, but now it is back to work. Maria will be giving the HIV/AIDS seminar once again, for most of the week. More schools this time around. There should be another four or five presentations, to about 100 students from each school.

 

Maria is engrossed in the geology, flora and fauna of the islands right now. She can't get enough of it really. She is at the library reading up on it. It's actually pretty fascinating. All of the islands are made up of volcanic rock, some much older than the others. There is still some volcanic activity on some of the younger islands, including Isabela.

 

I've included a map of the islands (they are about 1,100 km from mainland Ecuador).

Nothing else for now, more later.

 

We were able to take five days off and venture out to Isabela. After a 2 hour crazy boat ride (in a fibra) where Yose and I were not feeling too well from the second we left Puerto Ayora, we landed on the largest island in the Galapagos. We have been staying at a beautiful hostal on a large white sandy beach with the constant sound of waves crashing on the shore. It has been paradise.  Our long awaited honeymoon. The best part is the kitchen. We've been able to cook and have our own meals for the past few days. Had a few mishaps with cooking rice but nevertheless the food was edible. There are many animals and birds (such as flamingos, boobies, gallinules, lava gulls and many more sea and lagoon birds) around and yesterday we went snorkelling. We got to see penguins, white tip reef sharks, manta rays, and many up close encounters with sea lions. Oh and we saw the ever present ugly yucky marine iguanas. There are so many around that one could have terrible nightmares about them. We also went on a hike to see the Wall of Tears, a wall built by prisoners in the 1940s to keep them occupied. It was a very sombre experience.

 

The population is about 2000 and the people are very friendly. It's a pretty quiet, sleepy town so I recommend coming here if you need a break or a romantic getaway. But come soon, I'm not sure how this island will be able to handle the up and coming tourist industry.

Finally, we were able to download some photos onto the site. However these are low resolution photos from the photographer and looked a tad bit warped. Oh well, hope it gives you a good idea of the wedding. Sorry no photos of the reception or of the Galapagos yet.