Aarti n Hemals South American Safari

Phew - its been a pretty busy last 2+ weeks. We left Guyaquill on Saturday for Riobamba. There is this great train journey which originally went from Quito to Guyaquill, but due to floods and El Nino, most of the tracks have been destroyed. However, the most spectacular part is called the Nazir el Diablo (the devil´s nose) and that is still intact so now it just runs as a tourist train for the spectacular views - and you can sit on top of the train.

The train starts from Riobamba and goes to Alausi with the devil´s nose on the way. However, when we got to Riobamba, they said that the train now only runs along the small path which has the devil´s nose. So we took a bus the next day to Alausi, got the ticket for the 2 hr train ride which goes all the way down the valley and then back up and got some more bad news. Apparently, a couple of Japanese tourists were killed a few months previously while standing on top of the train (probably taking pictures) and so now they don´t let people sit on top of the train. So after an hour´s wait, the train started its journey. But almost immediately, it ground to a halt. A freight train in front of us got derailed - apparently that is quite a common feature. It took over 2 hours to get the freight train back on track and it was already 1.00pm by now. We started from Riobamba at 7 in the morning, and were still waiting for the train ride. So again the train started and this time there were no problems. Although the scenery is great, sitting inside the train just doesn´t seem to be worth it as we have seen such scenery on the bus rides. It is a big disappointment, and when the train started back on its way up the valley, it got derailed 3 more times. Thankfully, they managed to put it back up pretty quickly but it was 4pm by the time we finished the ride. We then took a bus and headed for Cuenca - Ecuador´s 3´rd largest city. We got to Cuenca at 10.30pm and after a quick dinner, went straight to bed.

Cuenca is probably the most beautiful city in Ecuador. Its got narrow cobblestone streets and whitewashed red-tiled buildings, beautiful plazas and big domed churches. We spent Monday just walking about town and visited a Panama hat making factory. Now, a fact that people may not know is - Ecuador is where the Panama hat originates from - or more specifically, Montechristi!! The only reason they are called Panama hats is because when the Spanish came to South America, they began shipping the hats back via Panama.

We did a hike around the Loja national park the following day which was quite beautiful and tiring. The hike took 6+ hours and it was through bushes and there was no trail. However we did have a guide. On Wednesday, we went to see some waterfalls near Cuenca and chilled out for the rest of the day.

We made our way to Vilcabamba the next day. This is a small tranquil village set in mountainous surroundings. It is also famous for being called the ´Valley of longevity.´ Inhabitants supposedly live to be 100 years old here, and some as old as 120 years. I could understand why when we got to Vilcabamba. We booked in at a hotel-spa (most places were hotel-spas) situated out of the town centre. It was really peaceful and relaxing. They also provided us with nice big organic breakfasts and dinners and there was a constant supply of thei water with some 20 herbs which were supposed to be good for your body. Well it tasted nice anyhow.

The next day we tried to get up to this mountain which provide great views of the region. However, it was over 35 degrees and an hour into the hike we gave up and made our way back down - it was the hottest day of the year by far. We booked a horse riding trip for the next day which the person there said was a pretty easy day out. Obviously it wasn´t. We spent the first 3 hours getting to the Las Palmas nature reserve. That was the first time eaither of us had done horse riding, and you soon get used to the horse and start enjoying the ride. Once we got there, we did a 2 hour hike down to a waterfall and back again. It was a pretty tough hike, and there was no trail and the gradients going up and down were sometimes very steep - it involved using ropes a couple of times or the strong tree branches to pull yourself up. So much for the easy day out. And then it was a 3 hr horse ride back to Vilcabamba. Needless to say our bodies were shattered after the long day.

We had a well deserved massage the next day and chilled out - frankly neither of us could be asked to do much and we decided to enjoy the spa instead.

We made our way up to Banos the following day where they have natural thermal baths but not much else. Its also a good place to arrange hikes to the jungle, rafting etc... But we were running out of time (yeah - 8 months is definitely not enough) and then headed up to Quito.

Quito is a very old and grand city. We stayed in the old town for the first 2 days and then moved to Mariscal (the touristy area) for the remainder of our stay. The old town is really interesting with its huge churches, plazas, museums etc... We did a walking tour through old town on the first day. In the evening, encouraged by reports that there were indian restaurants in Mariscal, went in search of one. We saw 3 and decided to go to Bombay Palace. It is a pakistani owned restaurant and the food was average. However, after going without Indian food for 2 months, we didn´t really care. It was quite satisfying.

We went up the Teleferico (Quito´s newest and modern tourist attraction) the next morning. Its a multi million dollar sky trap which takes people up a mountain for some views of Quito. They also have an amusement park at the base. The views were ok as you can rarely get a clear day in Quito.

We headed for the famous Otavalo market the next day which is a couple of hours from Quito. Its a huge market, and on Saturdays spills itself on the sidestreets. We went to the Mitad el Mundo (centre of the world) on Sunday which is where the equator crosses and where the Ecuatorians believe to be the centre of the world. It was a very touristy place as you would expect but there was a great museum nearby which explained the geographical significace of the equator and gave some water and energy demonstrations of the gravitational forces on the equator and on either side of it. There was also this balancing an egg on the head of a nail where I was the only one who successfully managed to do it in our group - and I got a certificate for my efforts!! They also showed how people lived centuries ago in their huts, showed us how their ancestors would shrink people´s heads when they died (a pretty gruesome exhibition) and how they hunted - by blowing on poisoned needles through hollow pipes. We had a go at that and i managed to hit the target at 20 metres. Their ancestors would be doing it over 60 metres!!

We had tried to book a tour to do the Quilotoa loop as its a pretty remote place with very few busses servicing the route and thus making it easier to do a 3 day tour. However, the tour agent screwed us up and said that he was busy on the day before the tour, so we decided to do it by ourselves instead. We also met up with a Californian couple who were doing the same thing over thorn tree. It was a 6 hr bus ride from Quito, and we got to Chugchilan in the afternoon. As it rains every afternoon there, we rested for the evening, and organised a taxi (a pickup with benches really) to the Quilotoa logoon for the next day. The lagoon gives out a brilliant emerald colour and is the highlight of the area. We hiked down to the lagoon and came back up in the morning (abit tough as we were doing it a 4000M above sea level) We made our way back to Chugchilan and spent the afternoon relaxing as it was raining. We had to catch the 5 AM bus the next day back to Quito which was quite an interesting experience - thats the bus the locals catch to get to work, and we had sheep and pigs on top of the bus!!

We spent the evening relaxing in Quito and today we have just chilled out, done laundry and updating the blog.

Tomorrow its onto Colombia and we have an 18 hour bus journey to look forward to - starting at 5 am. Great way to spend Diwali.

Ecuador was a great experience - it packs alot of diversity for a small country. Its also a place which has thousands of busses. Every town has a terminal terrestre (kind of like an airport) which is the base for all bus companies. All you have to do is get there, find out on the LCD display which company has the next bus going to your destination and book it. Brilliant!! No need to book ahead or plan your next stop. And at the start of every bus journey, there will be a salesman or a conman pitching to sell a product or asking for money. The snacks vendors bring to sell on the busses are very tasty too. Sad to be leaving Ecuador but looking forward to Colombia - everyone we have met or heard from have said what a great place it is. And I am not only talking about the drugs...or the women!! ;-)

We reached Guyaquil - Ecuador on Sunday night (8 October) after a 4 hour delay. On the bus, we met a local lady who kindly offered us and a couple of other tourists a lift to town. Her niece came to pick us up in a van, with its doors literally falling off and the van could only be started by hot wiring it.

The next day, after breakfast we decided to go look for a tour to the Galapagos and plan the rest of the itinary around the tour. The plan was to go to the nearest agency, have a feel for the prices and then research on the net as to which is the best tour to do. On entering the first agency (Galasam - www.galasam.com) at 10.00am, the guy there said there was a tour leaving that same day, with the plane leaving at 12.00 noon. He explained the tour, gave us a special last minute price, we haggled it down abit (but not as much as we should have - mainly due to the fact that we were running out of time), rushed back to our hotel to pack up and get our money, rushed back to the tour agency, made the payments and signed the contract, and were driven to the airport by the tour agent. We got there with about 20 minutes to spare - talk about last minute!!

We managed to get a decent deal and at a higher class then we intended to do the tour - so we effectively upgraded from tourist class to first class but still staying in our budget. The flight was an hour and a half, and we were picked up by a panga (motor boat) and taken to our yatch. There we had the first of our many 3 course meals, met our fellow travellers (there were 15 in total) and got geared up for our first snorkelling trip. The snorkelling was ok as it was a cloudy day and visibility was not that great. We were also swimmimg with wetsuits as the water was very cold!! It was definitely not the caribbean sea. After snorkelling we stopped at our first island - North Seymour where we had a small walk to catch the sunset and saw sea lions and some frigate birds (alot of other names escape me) This was our first (of many) experiences with the sea lions and it is amazing how they can be totally oblivious of all the tourists. It was really good watching them at close quarters and already we could feel the magic of the Galapagos - even though this was only a taster of things to come. Both of us were still in some kind of a shock as 24 hours earlier we had no idea what we would be doing and now we were up close to sea lions in the Galapagos!!

The next day we stopped of at Gardner bay in Espanola Island for a closer meeting with the sea lions (there were hundreds of them there) and snorkelling from the beach. The guide gave us a talk on the sea lions and in the middle of the talk while we were all sitting down on the beach, a baby sea lion wandered into the middle of our circle and decided to join us. The young ones are the best as they are the most curious and playful. The beach also had mocking birds who always look for handouts from tourists, marine iguanas (who look very pre-historic) and bright red Sally lightfoot crabs. They were an amazing sight to see the red against the black rocks. Again snorkelling was ok and the water seemed even colder from the beach. Unfortunately, the cold currents and El Nino has wiped out most of Galapagos´s coral population. It was back on board for lunch and then to Punta Suarez for the afternoon trip. Here we saw the Albatross and had our first (again of many) encounter with the blue footed boobies. These birds are also called Kamikazee birds due to the way they dive in head first at great heights - with speeds aproaching 100 kms/hr into the water to catch their fish. These birds are the most popular amongst tourists due to that sight and the graceful way they fly about - and they are also the most plentiful. Inevitably, the most poplular tourist t-shirts in the Galapagos are ´I love boobies.´ Wonder what genius thought of that.

For Day 3, we travelled to Floreana island which is the southernmost Galapagos island. We visited post office bay in the morning which as the name suggests was and still is a post office. A long time ago someone came up with a plan to have a mail exchange at Floreana, whereby sailors who were sailing around the Galapagos could leave letters for their families at the island in a box, and others who were returning home, could take letter destined for their country back and post it from there. In time the families of the sailors also started sending letters with people travelling to the Galapagos for anyone who was sailing around there, and this bay became a fully fledged and very effective post office!! Someting very simple but very important to sailors and their families who would not see each other for months or years. The post office still exists today, and we all wrote postcards and put it in the box, and had a look at any postcards already in the box which we were for our destinations. Obviously we didn´t take any as we are travelling, but others in our tour took a few for their countries...We went back on board and did some snorkelling before lunch at a place called the Devil´s crown which is a ragged semicircle of rocks and we swam with sea lions here before heading to Punta Cormorant for the afternoon excursion. Here we saw some very beautiful pink flamingoes and sting rays very close up to the shore. We could see the rays from the beach. There were also a few other birds including boobies, pelicans and the Galapagos hawk.

We sailed to Isabella island on Thursday where we stopped off to see marine iguanas, white tipped sharks swimming in coves, and flamingoes. However, the highlight was in the morning when, while we were having breakfast, thousands of blue footed boobies decided to have theirs near our yatch and it was a great sight to see them all diving in to catch their fish. They would circle the fishes from above and once they had a group to aim for they would dive in - and they seemed to do it in groups so we would see about 30-40 diving in at the same time. That was when I really wished I had an SLR as mine was just too slow to get a decent picture. In the afternoon we set sail for Santa Cruz where along the way we would have a lookout for whales and dolphins. However the sea got choppy, the weather worsened and not only did we not see anything, but most people had to go to sleep to prevent being sick. We docked off Puerto Ayora for the night - thats the biggest town in the Galapagos, and were given the treat of going to mainland after dinner. We did feel abit woozy on terra firma - i guess we got sea legs!!

Friday was the last day for many of the travellers who had taken the option of a 5 day tour. In the morning we were back to Puerto Ayora and visited the Darwin research centre where they are breading tortoises who were in danger of extinction on a few of the islands due to alien animals introduced to these islands by humans. Also, tortoises were very popular for meat amongst the sailors in the early days due to the fact that they could last a long time without food and water, and apparently they have sweet meat. Hundreds of thousands of tortoises were eaten by the sailors, but now the tortoise population is increasindg due to these breeding centres and the fact that they live for a bloody long time. Some people predict they can live for more than 200 years - some say it can even be nearer to 400 years - obviously we will never find out as its very hard estimate how old a tortoise is and records only go back 80 years. Maybe my great grand kids might know for sure!!! After lunch, we got 9 people replacing the 10 who left - these people booked for the shorter 4 day cruise. We visited the highlands in the afternoon to see the tortoises in the wildland then went back on board for dinner.

We visited dragon´s hill on Saturday to see land iguanas and sea lions of course and we also got to do some snorkelling in the morning. This was the best snorkelling we had so far in the trip with plentiful of fish, a few playful sea lions and a couple of sharks swimmiming nearby. In the afternoon we stopped off at Bartolome which has a great beach and we also walked up 368 (Aarti counted) steps to get a good sunset view. This island also has some of the best lava landscape.

On sunday, we were at Santa Fe island to see more land iguanas (unique to this island and and not seen anywhere else in the world), sea lions, a few birds and 10m tall cactii. We did manage to spot a few iguana after abit of difficulty (a bit of a pain as we were spoilt by seeing all the other animals every day without having to search for them). We went back to the boat and had a small swim near the boat and made a jump from the top of our boat - 20 metres high!! And it hurt!! We snorkelled in the afternoon and visited an interpretation centre on San Cristobal island. This documented the history of man on the Galapagos islands - very interesting.

Monday was the last day and we had a panga ride before breakfast near a mangrove cove where we saw turtles, rays, sharks and our friends - the boobies!! Plus there were the hawks and other birds. It was back on board for breakfast and that was the end of the tour as we were dropped off where we started from - Baltra island!! We stayed for a couple more days at Puerto Ayora where we visited Tortuga bay and basically chilled out.

I am not sure if I have done justice to the Galapagos with this post - as I have got tired of writing now. However, the islands are really great, its extremely easy to see the animals and you can interact with them at close quarters, we saw some really unique animals, our natuarlist guide was great and gave us alot of information on virtually everything, the boat, crew and food was good (I guess it helped being on a first class boat) and the islands are as good as everyone makes them out to be!! I am gonna miss those boobies. Well I deserve a beer after this - adios amigos. Hasta luego.