ECUADOR

 

January 2-11

From the airport in Quito, I took a cab to the center of Modern Quito, also known as Gringolandia.  Quito appeared rich with culture and I was looking forward to my time there.  After finding out that the place at which I had initially wanted to stay was full, I found a very nice, but not that social, place around the corner.  The owners were nice and, after dropping my stuff off, I journeyed to find a place where I could arrange to study Spanish and live with a family.  The first place I went to turned out to be perfect, and I was able to arrange to start taking Spanish lessons the next day, with my home-stay starting the following Monday.  I had committed to a week, with the option being open for me to either stay in Quito longer and study, or go to a different region of the country to study (perhaps Otavalo), or to just stop the studying altogether.  I had planned to go to Otavalo the following week and then back to Quito for the final week, but that is not what ended up happening.

 

I had arranged for tutoring of 6 hours per day.  My teacher the first day was very cool and we walked around the city for part of the day to break the monotony of sitting in a room.  On the first Saturday, I decided to explore Old Quito.  I took the walking tour described in my travel guide.  Luckily, I got a one-on-one tour, in Spanish, of a gorgeous church.  Parts of it were being restored!  The guidebook had warned that Old Quito could be dangerous, so I was constantly on the alert, and that was the only thing that was unpleasant about the remainder of the walk.  Nothing really seemed dangerous, but that is often deceiving.  The walk took me past various churches and plazas on pretty colonial style streets.  I bought various snacks on the street, including sliced and peeled mango.  Yum!  I can’t tell you enough about how much I love Magno.  I eventually walked back from Old Quito to the Modern Quito.

 

On Sunday, I decided to go to the famous “Mitad del Mundo.”  I knew in advance that it wouldn’t be that interesting, but could not really find something else to do for a day trip, even after asking around several times.  It is just a place built around the equatorial line.  There was a place you could stand for pictures.  Apparently, the toilets flush in different directions, depending on what side of the line you are on.  There were several museums, and I checked out one of them.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too big.  I sat in the sun.  I read.  I found a place to buy some delicious fresh juices (including a wonderful “batido” of naranjilla, a fruit I had never tasted before), and I chatted with the owner for about an hour.  Since it was the weekend, they had live music and I listened in one of the surrounding plazas.

 

During the next few days, I spent 4 to 6 hours per day with one-on-one Spanish tutoring.  We generally didn’t sit in a classroom, instead walking around to some part of town and engaging in some physical activity.  Sitting in a classroom is tough for that many hours straight, so we didn’t.  I had specifically asked not to study grammar and instead to focus on conversation, so I thought it was a little bit tough on the teacher.  I generally don’t have that much to say in English, let alone Spanish.  After speaking with another student living with the same family as I, as well as with family members, I decided that the Galapagos seemed like a good idea, and I would arrange to go the following week.

 

We visited the Panecillo, which is this huge Jesus sculpture sitting atop a hill in Quito that can easily be seen from anywhere in Old Quito.  Apparently, the walk there is dangerous so we took a taxi.  I wanted to walk back but my profesora conveyed the message, I don’t think so.  I believe they are extra cautious with students.  It wasn’t even like I had anything with me worth stealing.  We took a tour that pretty much described the origins of the sculpture, etc.  It really wasn’t that interesting, but it was in Spanish.  Somehow, I gave the impression that I understood everything she said, but I completely didn’t and I’m not sure why I conveyed the opposite impression.  Other things my teacher and I did during this week included visiting the Serpantario, a museum with many serpents, and a natural science museum.  One night, many of the students at the Spanish school got together in the evening and had dinner at the school premises.

 

With a flight to the Galapagos scheduled for the following day, I took an excursion on Saturday with some of the other students.  We went to hike the Volcano Pichincha, which also has a crater, and the earlier in the morning that one starts, the greater the chance of seeing the lake at the bottom.  I wanted to leave at 4 AM, but we didn’t leave until 7 AM, and although it appeared to be a perfectly clear day, it was only appearances.  It took about 2 to 3 hours to get to the top.  Altitude sickness is apparently caused by rapid changes in altitude, rather than the absolute altitude.  We were hiking at a pretty fast pace, taking extremely steep shortcuts.  I was struggling, but never stopped for more than a few seconds.  Upon reaching an area near the top, there were two summits.  We went to the first one, which had a cross on top.  The view was completely obscured by clouds and, similar to earlier in my trip, I could not see the supposedly gorgeous crater.  The other peak was higher and I debated with a new friend whether or not to ascend.  It was only about a 15 to 20 minute hike.  He said no, and I said we’d never be here again, so we might as well do it.  That convinced him and off we went.  It was a struggle and the clouds started coming in real thick.  So much so, that when we arrived at the top, we didn’t really know which direction we had to walk to get back down.  Both of us were completely disoriented.  We each thought it was a different way, and to tell you the truth it was probably dangerous to just randomly head down.  But that is what we did, and neither of us was really correct in our assessment.  Fortunately, we saw this tiny thing, sort of a landmark, and we were able to head down in the correct direction.  After resting a little bit, we began our to hike down the volcano.  We stopped to eat on the way down.  Once back in the van, we exited the volcano region and stopped for a snack.  Everyone had a beer (not me - I was starting to feel a little not so good).  A few were smoking as well.  “What’s wrong with these people?” is what I was thinking.  I ate a couple of plums and some disgusting artificially flavored local fruit drink.  I was feeling a tiny bit sick, and when I finally arrived back in my room, I was feeling really sick.  And this sucked, because I would be heading to the Galapagos the following day.  I took a lot of medicine, including some given to me by another student whose girlfriend is a nurse, and just started downing water.  I took a 2-hour nap and showered, and thought I would feel great, but I still felt like shit.  Eventually though, I started to feel better and I couldn’t have been happier.  The next morning, I more or less felt fine and I was ready to head to the island.  The family I was with made me tea and was very kind to me that night, and I am thankful to them for that.  This hike up Pichincha was a blessing in disguise though, because I had planned on doing the 3-day (or is it 2-day) hike up Cotopaxi.  Apparently, that hike is even more difficult.  In order to avoid the ice melting, one must start the ascent at 12 AM and arrive at the summit by 6 AM, before heading down.  Now, I had hiked 2 to 3 hours, but doing twice that amount, at 1000km higher, and using ice picks and being freezing would not be in my foreseeable future.  The challenge would have been good, but not the prospect of getting sick from the altitude.  There are so many other challenging things I could do that are physically tough but don’t involve having my head pounding for hours and hours.  I decided against that future excursion then and there.

 

January 12-19

Galapagos, Santa Cruz

Our guide met us at the airport, where we waited around for everyone to show up.  Eventually, we took a bus to another part of the island, where we waited for a dingy (small boat) to take us to our ship, the Floreana.

The people on this trip were fairly interesting - a Peruvian couple, Daniel and Luciana, three English guys including my roommate Lee, an Australian family living in Chile or someplace like that, three middle aged Austrian women, Rosie, an Aussie woman who was really nice, and a Chinese girl named Lily with an English accent who has lived in London for the last 5 years and was very skinny, but very funny and very nice.

Most days were actually pretty similar.  We would wake up for an early breakfast, almost always before 7 AM.  After breakfast we would have a short break before departing for a 1.5-2.5 hour tour on an island.

 

   

The part of the island that can be toured is very small and must be done with a guide, I think one guide per 16 people.  So, no matter how fancy the tour, the actual walking around the island part is the same, except for the guides, who rotate from boat to boat anyway.

It was a little bit annoying in that the islands are completely isolated, yet, while we visit them, there are many people there.  Oh well.  The tour operators actually do not even make the decision where their boat will be and when.  This is done by a central organization, and it makes sense in terms of organization.  This way the people will hopefully be spread out in an efficient way. 

   

After arriving back on the boat, lunch would be served and there would be a short rest while the boat leaves for another island.  In the afternoon, at around 3, we would either go see another island or perhaps snorkel.

   

The first day of snorkeling was wonderful.  Perhaps my favorite part of the entire Galapagos trip was snorkeling next to the beautiful sea lions.

   

It was unlike anything I had previously experienced.  While viewing the gorgeous fish and other sea creatures, sea lions would swim right next to me.  Initially, it was a bit scary, but the feeling of the whiskers of the sea lions rubbing against me is something I will never forget.

Upon arriving back on the boat, there would usually be a snack, followed eventually by dinner!  Some would chill out on the dock, others would read, and yet others would nap.  Each person had his own thing going on, and I varied in what I would do.  After dinner, some would remain in the dining hall to chat, usually myself included, and others would start drinking on the deck.  It was not a rowdy bunch by any means, but the three English men did drink the boat out of beer.

In the middle day of the trip, we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station, and some passengers departed while new ones boarded.  We had been getting on really well, so some were not thrilled about this.  I was fine with getting some new people on board, especially since two of them were a nice looking Australian couple, Mark and Lynne, who immediately (and justly) had certain demands that needed to be met.  Well, as soon as I heard them questioning our guide and the captain, I decided, what the hell!  Being the only American on board, I decided to look through Daniel’s CD collection and look like the bad ass I am from NY.  Perfect, Eminem (Detroit-for those who don’t know)!  Well, I’m Sorry Mama would subsequently be blasted and I would then explain to some of the crew how it might sound like he’s being nice to his Mama, but if one listens more carefully, it isn’t about that at all.  I was trying to explain this in Spanish, and Mark and Lynne, not more than a month removed from their Spanish lessons in Mexico, heard me and remembered this afterwards.  After this, Mark and Lynne discussed whether or not this was a diving (scuba-diving) boat with the crew.  Apparently, they were told that this would be a diving boat, but this information that they had previously obtained was incorrect.  They were both pretty upset about this, avid scuba-divers that they are and Lynne was particularly incensed!  I felt bad for them, but was used to the not getting exactly what you expect the entire trip.  The truth was, the captain and the crew were fantastic and did a good job.  It wasn’t their fault that the travel agencies lie to get a commission and to get people to choose their boat.  Sometimes, they don’t even tell you the correct boat.  It’s amazing that it isn’t better organized, but, for now, that’s not my business.  Mark and Lynne also informed the crew of their special dietary needs, since they are vegetarians, and this could be another thing that could go wrong.

 

At the research station, there were some informational panels and a video describing how none of the animals had any natural predators until man came along and introduced rats, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, horses, cows, etc.  They are apparently trying to eradicate these animals, but it is easier said than done.  A new project is the Judas Goat - a feral goat is captured then released with a radio transmitter collar to enable the researchers to track the herd.  They also collect the giant land tortoise eggs, incubate them here, and keep the hatchlings in rat-protected pens until they are three years old and big enough to fend for themselves.  They also have a number of adult tortoises here that had been kept as pets or in zoos.  It is impossible to tell exactly what subspecies and island they would have originally come from, so they are kept here.

 

We learned some amazing facts about turtle nesting here.  The nests are these little ditches on the shore of the beach, about 10 to 20 meters from the ocean.  The tortoises sit on top of the eggs, which are extremely vulnerable to predators.  When the 1 in a 100 eggs eventually hatches, the shell is still fairly soft and it somehow crawls from the nest to the water in a very dangerous journey.  Tortoises normally walk slowly, so imagine this baby with a soft shell walking that 10-20 meter distance.  Obviously, it is not very safe from the many hungry animals out there.  Even after it makes it to the water, it is still vulnerable.  Now the interesting part is that when this tortoise eventually nests later in life, it will come to within 10 meters (maybe even less) of the nest where it was born to create a nest for her own babies.  If this path that it walks from its nest to the ocean, as a baby, is somehow skipped, it will never know how to make its way back to the nest and will therefore never have babies.  Additionally, a tortoise can be thousands of miles away in the ocean and it will still come to this spot to nest.  I still don’t understand how it can find the exact spot.  Unbelievable.  Some facts about animals are unbelievable.

 

 

 

We went on the island to look for turtles roaming in their natural surroundings.  Where did we go?  Well, to our glorious captain’s immense backyard.  Now, when I say immense, I am not lying.  It initially started out a little bit muddy and, given subsequent events, it was rather amusing to watch people being careful not to get muddy.  We couldn’t find any tortoises, so we eventually wandered into the woods.  We got completely disoriented.  The woods contained fences everywhere, and the mud was knee deep.  People kept falling and we were all laughing, not knowing if we would ever make it out of there.  After an hour of searching for the correct direction, we sort of found our way out of the woods and back to his farm.  And wouldn’t you know it, just after exiting the tree filled area and entering the back of the captain’s farm, we saw it, a giant tortoise.  It was gorgeous, just sitting there, probably 5000 years old, older, perhaps, than our good friend Jesus!  We took pictures and tried our best not to break any rules about touching. 

 

 

When we exited, we were all soaked in thick black mud and my shoes would never be the same again.  But the captain’s family was very nice and lent us a hose to hose down our shoes and legs and whatever else we needed.

The following day we visited Santa Cruz, Dragon Hill, to see the flamingos.  We also saw some feral goats, land iguanas, lava lizards and many birds including, of course, Darwin’s finches. Then it was back to the boat.  The ride back to the boat was a laugh - the dingy had a hole so everyone was given buckets to bale out the water.  Luckily, we were getting rid of it at the same rate it was coming in so we didn’t sink.  It did result in our missing a dingy tour of the turtles, rays and sharks at Tortuga Negra.

After lunch, the boat continued on to Rabida Island, where we got to walk around and see plenty of sea lions.  The Island also contained a lagoon, with many Flamingos accompanied by the occasional sea lion. 

 

Such beautiful scenery.  One could just sit for hours, watching the animals and birds go about their business.  But we did not have quite enough time for that, so we went wandering around part of the island (which we weren’t meant to do without a guide, but we forgot), followed by some snorkeling.  By the time everyone was finished snorkeling, the dingy was fixed, so we went on a tour of Rabida by boat.  This was the only chance we had to see the blue-footed boobies and penguins (the only tropical penguins in the world) along with numerous marine iguanas and sea lions.

   

As the sun began to set, we headed back to the main boat for dinner.

It was another early start to the day, and we then had a morning tour of Puerto Egas.  It was a beautiful rocky beach covered with fur seals, which are, in fact, not seals at all, but a type of sea lion.  It was here that we saw Darwin’s toilet (a rock formation which flushes and fills with the surge of each wave) and hundreds of Sally light-foot crabs - incredibly brightly colored red, yellow and orange crabs.  We spent a lot of time looking down at a swimming hole with 10 or more fur seals just rolling around, blowing bubbles and being swept backwards and forwards with the surges.  They sure know how to have a good time.  It was tempting to dive into the bright aquamarine water and join them, but there were some seriously sharp rocks around and I’m sure they preferred to be left alone.  After lunch, the boat’s engines were started once more and we headed to Bartolome.  On the way, the boat sirens went off.  They do this to let everybody know that there is something interesting to see.  Indeed there was - huge numbers of bottle-nose dolphins were all around the boat.  About ten were jumping at the front of the boat, and many more were elsewhere in the water, about a hundred altogether.  You could even hear them communicating.  There was also a shark or two.  Then our guide got really excited as some black dolphins with rounded faces appeared and were jumping out of the water, near the boat.  He thought it was a new species of dolphin, not mentioned in any of the books, and was excitedly showing me in a book how only three types of dolphin are found in the Galapagos and this was clearly not one of the three.  Then he turned the page.  They were not dolphins but pilot whales.  Still, it is very rare to see them jumping like that, and to see so many of them.  This lasted for about an hour.  Then we saw a sea turtle.  All during this time there were four or five frigate birds gliding just a few meters from the boat. When we arrived at Bartolome, we did a short hike to the top of the hill for the great views.  We later went snorkeling again near the beach, next to Pinnacle Rock, until dusk.  The next morning, we visited North Seymour Island and saw many nesting frigate birds, but no blue-footed boobies. 

 

Our guide was very surprised as this was mating season.  On the last day, I pretty much spent the entire day traveling back to Quito.

January 20-26

In my last week in Ecuador, I decided that I would try to see as much of Ecuador as possible. I knew I wanted to go to Cuenca, and thought about flying there and making my way back to Quito, but I didn’t really know exact travel dates and times and was hesitant make an advance commitment. So, after discussions with the family I was staying with, I made a plan for the week, which I pretty much stuck to. On Monday morning, I got a ride to the bus station to catch a bus to Banos. It was suggested that instead of going inside the bus station, I could simply catch a bus at a corner, so I decided to do that. The whole bus system is really funny. In addition to the driver, there is a person usually sitting next to him who collects money and gets out in the street and screams out the destination at the top of his lungs. It took longer than I had expected for the bus to come. Once on our way, I realized that the bus would not actually be going directly to Banos. The problem was that some roads were closed for whatever reason and we had to go through Ambato. Upon arriving in Ambato, everyone unexpectedly had to get off the bus. People were screaming and one lady went to get a cop. I actually didn’t realize what was going on and remained on the bus until I was the last person to get off. I thought that perhaps this was most of the passengers’ final destination. After realizing what the commotion was about, I had to figure out how to get another bus to Banos, and it appeared that we were being completely ripped off. I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly what had happened, but I did board another bus. When the man came to collect money, I said something in Spanish that I had already paid on the other bus, thinking he would say so what. However, he didn’t end up making me pay and much of my anger was alleviated. I arrived in Banos at around midday. I quickly found a place to stay that I had read about. It had a special type of steam bath available in the morning. After dropping off my stuff, I quickly left to find a bike and start a little trip. 

I had heard about this bike ride from some girl that was staying at my hostel during my first weekend in Quito.  The bike ride to Puyo was magnificent.  It was a road surrounded by volcanoes.  The journey supposedly takes about 6 hours and I figured I could make it to Puyo before dark and then catch a bus back, but little did I know what would transpire.  The ride was pretty smooth early on, and then I met a group of Chileans, who kindly asked me to take a picture of them.  They didn’t think I was pressing the button correctly so they kept telling me to push down a little harder.  When the girl came back to look at what I had done, I had taken about 8 or 9 pictures, yikes.  I apologized, but they were cool about it and I continued on with them.  We stopped at a sort of sky ride across the lake and then took a muddy hike down to a waterfall.

 

Eventually, after leaving them, I was walking alone to see some other waterfall off the road, and I ran into some girl who was psyched to practice Spanish and was also biking and exploring alone.  We walked and then biked together.  I told her that whenever she felt like stopping I would be happy to turn around and catch the bus back to Banos.  It was murky, and even started to rain, but the views were still fantastic.  I really enjoyed the mix of beautiful scenery and good exercise.  We didn’t make it all the way to Puyo, and it didn’t help that everybody we asked said Puyo was between 30 minutes and 2 hours further.

 

When I returned to Banos, I met my roommates, Alan who is Dutch, and Tina who is from Oregon and Arizona.  Tina was very friendly and encouraged me to go out with them that night.  First we grabbed a bite to eat and then we went to a pool place.  After a couple of drinks there, we moved on to a fake Hard Rock Café where we met a girl from Texas with her Ecuadorian boyfriend from the coast.  He enjoyed bantering with me in Spanish, and my practicing the unique words I had learned from some Peruvians in the Galapagos.  Despite being awake until past 4 in the morning, I still arose early the next day for a steam bath.  It consisted of immersing yourself in a steam chamber, followed by a freezing cold spray, and finally sitting in a freezing cold bath.  This process would be repeated several times and is supposedly healing.  After breakfast with my roommates, I walked around the town before catching an afternoon bus to Riobamba, from where the famous Devil’s Nose train ride begins.

 

The following morning, I awoke and made it out to the train station by 6:15, which was supposedly plenty of time to get a seat on the good side of the roof of the train.  I rented a cushion and found a seat.  Local vendors came walking by selling tea, coffee and other food.  It was hardly empty at 6:15, and by 6:30 almost all of the good seats had been taken.  I saw a couple sit themselves down on the worse side of the roof and went over to tell them that there was still a little bit of room to sit on the better side and they should shift over to where I was.  I’m not even sure why I chose to suggest this, but they ended up saying ok and sat next to me.  Their names were Andrew and Heather (from Toronto and Massachusetts).  Once the train started moving, there were still vendors, young boys and old people, walking along the roof and really risking their lives to make a little bit of money.  Soon, they were selling lollies (lollipops, or chupiditas) and I couldn’t figure out exactly why.  However, we eventually rode past this little town and it looked like some class had taken a school trip just to watch the train go by.  The train is really only in existence for tourists, although locals do ride in it occasionally.  It is not really profitable if used in a normal way.  People threw the lollies to the schoolchildren and they were very excited about it.  To me, it just felt condescending to do this because the children would all run to wherever the lollie was thrown and the person who caught it would immediately hide it.  Later on, one of the vendors was examining my sandals, which were outside of my crowded backpack but not being worn.  He seemed to like them and, since it had started to annoy me that they didn’t fit into my backpack, I gave them to him and he was a happy camper.  The ride was very pretty, but the supposedly amazing part at the end involving an amazing feat of engineering didn’t seem like a big deal.  The train came off its tracks a couple of times and everybody had to get off and watch the whole process of getting it back on the tracks.  The funny thing is that the tracks border on a cliff, so we debated whether, if it fell off in that direction, it would flip over and we all would die.  I said I thought that the side would hit the ground and then the train car would flip over us.  Perhaps that was an optimistic way of thinking.  I think the train often comes off the tracks and it wasn’t really unexpected.  Overall maintenance of the route is kept to a minimum.  Finally, the train arrived in Alausi and everyone got off.  There were buses available to take people to their eventual destinations.  I had convinced Andrew and Heather to come to Cuenca with me, so we boarded a bus.

 

Upon arriving, the three of us took a taxi to a hostel and then went to grab some dinner.  I had a TV in my room and they didn’t, so they came over later to my room to watch.  The next day, we walked around Cuenca, which has beautiful colonial streets, a wonderful river, etc. In the evening, we walked to a movie theater. The choices were horrendous, but Heather had never seen a Friday the 13th movie, and was curious, so we decided on Jason 10 or something like that. The movie was absolutely horrible, exactly as I expected. Amusing. With Andrew and Heather off to their next destination, I spent the majority of the next day in a nice restaurant studying calculus and reading for no reason at all. I got a horrible shoe shine, which turned me off to the whole experience from that point on. I would’ve paid for the kid to undo the atrocity that he had done to my shoes. At night, there was an all night bus to Quito. A cute lady patted me down, and it made me feel safe. Shit, it must be dangerous if they have to do that. I slept on and off and the bus was supposed to arrive at 7am, plus or minus about 15 minutes. Little did I know that it wouldn’t arrive until 8. While in Cuenca, I had emailed “the Biking Dutchmen” in Quito to find out about their bike rides down the Cotopaxi Volcano. The van to the Volcano was supposed to leave at 8, and that’s precisely when the bus arrived in Quito. Luckily, it stopped at a pretty central location and I sprinted to the spot where the trip was departing from. The van had not left yet and was waiting for additional people to show up, so I had some time to kill. I crossed the street to one of the only good coffee places I could find, and bought a wonderful cup of Mocha from The Magic Bean. The drink was delicioso. So, at about 8:20 or so, we departed on a long bus ride with our bikes on the roof. It was crowded, although I think they probably could have squeezed in one or two more people. I spoke to some girl from West or Central US who was a kayaker. The bike ride was gorgeous with beautiful snow-capped views of the Volcano. Early the next morning, I got a ride to the airport for my flight to La Paz.