Promptly at 3:15, Team Zodiac minus 1 (this time Ellen stays aboard, she’s “turtled” out!), pushed our way onto one of the first zodiacs to the Charles Darwin Research Station. This time, the bus ride is quick, about 3 minutes through town, and we’re at the station entrance. Ivan (our Naturalist, for the first time believe it or not!) walks us the 1km to the station, then gives us an excellent explanation of why its in existence (to save the turtles that were becoming extinct) and how they continue to accept and breed turtles. A lot of the turtles they receive are “hybrids” that were kept as pets, then abandoned or turned over to the center. These mixed breeds will be returned to where they belong and not inter-bred with the pure species.
We then troop off to see if we can find Lonesome George – the famous last turtle of his breed – who won’t mate – no matter what the naturalists at the center try. They’ve tried putting females in with him – no dice – Georgia and Georgina are in the pen with him, but he doesn’t care. They’ve tried to extract his sperm, they’ve tried scientific methods, they even tried putting a TV in his pen that ran videos of other animals mating (animal porn!!!), and again, he wasn’t interested. Poor boy, he’s almost 150 years old and unless something happen soon….well……
Unfortunately, we weren’t as lucky as the morning tours – we saw the girls, but George was sleeping under his favorite tree, so we couldn’t really get a good look at him. We did, however, visit some really big males and females. We were allowed to walk with them, right in their enclosures. Of course, the girls had to have their fun – so out I came – plop – snap – another behemoth way to close for my comfort. But in a way, I’m kind of getting used to these big guys They seem sweet enough, and except for that hissing part, they’re not too bad I guess.
After wandering through the enclosures and looking at more of those blasted land iguanas (ok, ok, I know the research center is doing a great thing breeding, helping species keep their place it he ecostructure and all that, but seriously, we’re all a little iguana’d out right now, you know what I mean?), we visited another enclosure with younger males and females. You wouldn’t believe it! They were doing the dirty! Yep, turtle porn as Mags (#2) put it – and like a bunch of voyeurs, we all stood there gaping. Ed even got it on video! Honestly, have you no shame? The male makes this really odd and embarrassing hissing and groaning sound too – move along people! Give them some privacy!
Tat about ended our stay in the Research Center. Maggi, Richard, Ed and Cathy headed back to town, Michelle, went with Mags (#2) and Barb at a slower pace. The walk was enjoyable, only a little over 1.5 km, along the main road littered with restaurant, shops and interesting local life. We stumbled on a cemetery and waded in for some photos. As we wandered through the shops, Cathy and Ed split off form Maggi and Richard in search of refreshments. They found a great spot on the side of the square at Humani Pizza. We bellied up to the bar and relaxed over 2 huge pilsners. A very fitting end to a great day, a great tour, a great week in the Galapagos islands.
Zodiac ride back to the boat was still bumpy, but fun and sort of sad in a way because it was the last fun ride we’d have – next stop – off the ship for good! Back aboard to the remains of the cookies, frozen drinks and beer/wine at the bar. Showered, freshened up and back to the lounge for one farewell evening. Strange with no briefing for tomorrow as we all got little instruction sheets in our room telling us to have our luggage out in the evening – but by 7 am at the latest – disembarking by 8:30. We did have the Captain and all the staff come to wish us farewell and thank us for joining them (that really broke Maggi up).
We also had a special “surprise” – a slide show of our trip with pictures the Naturalists took throughout the week. Great presentation, beautiful music behind it, fantastic shots of the wildlife and even better shots of the feral tourists, including tons of candid (and not all very flattering shots) of the zodiac 6. It was getting embarrassing there for a while! Obviously Geovanna took he bulk of the photos on the day we toured Espanola and it showed during the show! The ‘surprise” is that we all get a copy of the CD with all the photos the Naturalists took (can’t wait to see Jessica’s photos – all taken from here cell phone!). Another neat surprise is a sign up sheet where everyone can leave their email addresses. The staff will then make copies of it for everyone. Really neat idea!
Wandered down to dinner, almost last ones in, after saying goodbye to all the staff. Langostino and chocolate soufflé (which we almost missed because Diego was handling the table and didn’t know about the soufflé, but Juan came to the rescue), Giovanni, the usual waiter, was sick (sick with a hangover maybe – it was his last night aboard before vacation!!!). As usual, excellent food and service – even though Diego isn’t typically a waiter yet, he did a fantastic job!
There was an evening folkloric show we sort of made it through. Nice enough, band of 5 guys playing native instruments. The real attraction for Cathy and Ed though was after the show when Rogelio, Ivan and Jorge jammed with their guitars to celebrate Ivan’s last night with Celebrity (he was moving to another ship) and Rogelio’s last night before vacation. Ed and Cathy managed to hang in for a few songs – they were having fun and it was nice to see the guys were allowed to celebrate like that. Maggi and Richard went out back and watched more wildlife in the water before retiring sometime after midnight (they think!!!!)
Friday, March 28, 2008
3/1 Santa Cruz Island
Friday night into Saturday was rough sailing – or we should say rough anchoring. The boat she is a rocking! Most noticeably when we are at anchor. The spring tide is definitely coming in and the Naturalists tell us that is why the water has been so choppy. It makes for somewhat good sleeping, that is until it wakes you up by throwing you against the wall! That’s how much the boat rocked! Surprisingly our little sea sickness girl, Cathy, handled it extremely well, it didn’t even affect her once. Bravo!
After the rockin’ night, our last full day aboard dawns sunny and warm. So far the weather has been incredible – no rain except at night, clear skies for the constellation watching and open air BBQ – just incredible. We’ve heard the trip before ours only had 2 days without rain and the one previous to that had no sunny days. We lucked!
Today we are back to civilization – Puerto Ayora – the largest town in the Galapagos. Our strategy today is to get the walking done early – to avoid the heat and the possibility of rain later in the day. We made the 1st zodiac and bumped our way into the port, passing various fishing and sailing vessels – some with the ubiquitous sea lions snoozing on the back.
A quick walk through a cute and all but deserted town center (it is only 8 am on a Saturday after all!) takes us to a bus that will transport us to the highlands so we can look for giant land turtles in the wild. The ride is great – It’s cool in the morning, the fresh air through the windows feels great as the bus whips ups through the town and into he outlying Highlands. The roads are great – all well paved – as we pass through verdant, lush farmland (with – yes Sigis – you guessed it – Ecuadorian Cows – la vaca Ecuadoria!!), on our way to the “farm”.
We turn off the main road onto little more than a dirt track – off roading on the bus again! These drivers have no fear! A few moments later, the bus stops and summarily dumps us out in front of a narrow trail heading up a slope. We climbed up through the thicket and towering trees. Michelle at one point decided this was yet another tour description she had to challenge – Farm? Turtles? Huh? OH, the lava tubes! That’s right! At the top of the trail we came upon huge caves caused by Lava flows – the more adventurous of us climbed own into the caves, the others stood back and took pictures!
After exploring the caves, we head back down into the grasslands to search for turtles. We were in luck – and spotted 2 turtles right away – the first was a large female, #882, (they mark their carapaces to keep track of them) who was probably 50 or so years old. Of course, I knew right then and there I was no longer safe! Michelle and Cathy are at it again and here I go – me sitting next to this gigantic creature that weighs more than 150 lbs! Do I look happy???? Rogelio, our guide, think it’s quite funny as he looks on while I lay, exposed, on the ground by the behemoth!
Yikes! Did you hear that thing hiss at me? I don’t believe Rogelio for one second when he tells us that it is jus the air coming out of the turtle’s lungs as she moves her head back in her shell. Yeah, right! Not on your life buddy – it hissed! At me! Ok, Ok, take the darn picture and move on already! Please put me back in the pack, thank you! I’m getting a little tired of this nature thing!
I’m safely back in my pack, until a little ways farther up the field, we spot #302 – a monstrous male who’s very old (the smaller the number, the older the turtle). He’s resting under an equally gigantic grapefruit tree. More pictures, this time of the humans though, not me (thank heavens!!!). And off we go again. We cross paths with Jorge’s group and they report a pair of turtles, possibly mating, under a tree ahead of us. WE scurry over (well, scurry might be a little optimistic as some of the people couldn’t scurry if their lives depended on it), but the only action we see is the female running away from the male. You want to talk about scurrying! Those turtles move faster than you’d expect! Amazing. Rogelio inspected the male, but couldn’t find a number, he’s lived here in Santa Cruz all his life and told us it was more fun when there were no rules and he could ride the turtles (they did all the time in the “no rule” days, I suppose! Can you imagine? Playing with these turtles in the wild as you grew up. Boggles the mind to some degree).
More grassland hiking, literally on the beaten path – searching for more gargantuans. Michelle kindly allowed me to ride with her on her pack – I’m beginning to change my mind about her……. We had started heading back, when a turtle appeared out of nowhere. Looked like she was following us! More pictures, then off to the “farm house” (little more than an open terrace with a bar type area – coffee and tea with a shot of rum are free, soda and water $1). Owner is a native to the degree his parents came over from Seattle and homesteaded in 1949 (what were they thinking? At that time, to come to these islands? Talk about explorers!) and he was born o the island. Said it used to take 4 hours on horseback to get to town, and supply ships only came once every3 or 4 months. Can’t even imagine.
After a short rest, soda and water, we shuffled back to the bus for the ride into town. Much faster on the way back – downhill and flying – we were dropped off in town with only ½ hour before the last zodiac – not much time, but enough to get a flavor of the many gift shops (more expensive than Puerto Boquerzo) and restaurants. Richard and Cathy bought stamps (Richard to collect, Cathy to mail) and then they all headed back on board for lunch, packing (boo hoo) and a little relaxation before the final excursion in the afternoon.
After the rockin’ night, our last full day aboard dawns sunny and warm. So far the weather has been incredible – no rain except at night, clear skies for the constellation watching and open air BBQ – just incredible. We’ve heard the trip before ours only had 2 days without rain and the one previous to that had no sunny days. We lucked!
Today we are back to civilization – Puerto Ayora – the largest town in the Galapagos. Our strategy today is to get the walking done early – to avoid the heat and the possibility of rain later in the day. We made the 1st zodiac and bumped our way into the port, passing various fishing and sailing vessels – some with the ubiquitous sea lions snoozing on the back.
A quick walk through a cute and all but deserted town center (it is only 8 am on a Saturday after all!) takes us to a bus that will transport us to the highlands so we can look for giant land turtles in the wild. The ride is great – It’s cool in the morning, the fresh air through the windows feels great as the bus whips ups through the town and into he outlying Highlands. The roads are great – all well paved – as we pass through verdant, lush farmland (with – yes Sigis – you guessed it – Ecuadorian Cows – la vaca Ecuadoria!!), on our way to the “farm”.
We turn off the main road onto little more than a dirt track – off roading on the bus again! These drivers have no fear! A few moments later, the bus stops and summarily dumps us out in front of a narrow trail heading up a slope. We climbed up through the thicket and towering trees. Michelle at one point decided this was yet another tour description she had to challenge – Farm? Turtles? Huh? OH, the lava tubes! That’s right! At the top of the trail we came upon huge caves caused by Lava flows – the more adventurous of us climbed own into the caves, the others stood back and took pictures!
After exploring the caves, we head back down into the grasslands to search for turtles. We were in luck – and spotted 2 turtles right away – the first was a large female, #882, (they mark their carapaces to keep track of them) who was probably 50 or so years old. Of course, I knew right then and there I was no longer safe! Michelle and Cathy are at it again and here I go – me sitting next to this gigantic creature that weighs more than 150 lbs! Do I look happy???? Rogelio, our guide, think it’s quite funny as he looks on while I lay, exposed, on the ground by the behemoth!
Yikes! Did you hear that thing hiss at me? I don’t believe Rogelio for one second when he tells us that it is jus the air coming out of the turtle’s lungs as she moves her head back in her shell. Yeah, right! Not on your life buddy – it hissed! At me! Ok, Ok, take the darn picture and move on already! Please put me back in the pack, thank you! I’m getting a little tired of this nature thing!
I’m safely back in my pack, until a little ways farther up the field, we spot #302 – a monstrous male who’s very old (the smaller the number, the older the turtle). He’s resting under an equally gigantic grapefruit tree. More pictures, this time of the humans though, not me (thank heavens!!!). And off we go again. We cross paths with Jorge’s group and they report a pair of turtles, possibly mating, under a tree ahead of us. WE scurry over (well, scurry might be a little optimistic as some of the people couldn’t scurry if their lives depended on it), but the only action we see is the female running away from the male. You want to talk about scurrying! Those turtles move faster than you’d expect! Amazing. Rogelio inspected the male, but couldn’t find a number, he’s lived here in Santa Cruz all his life and told us it was more fun when there were no rules and he could ride the turtles (they did all the time in the “no rule” days, I suppose! Can you imagine? Playing with these turtles in the wild as you grew up. Boggles the mind to some degree).
More grassland hiking, literally on the beaten path – searching for more gargantuans. Michelle kindly allowed me to ride with her on her pack – I’m beginning to change my mind about her……. We had started heading back, when a turtle appeared out of nowhere. Looked like she was following us! More pictures, then off to the “farm house” (little more than an open terrace with a bar type area – coffee and tea with a shot of rum are free, soda and water $1). Owner is a native to the degree his parents came over from Seattle and homesteaded in 1949 (what were they thinking? At that time, to come to these islands? Talk about explorers!) and he was born o the island. Said it used to take 4 hours on horseback to get to town, and supply ships only came once every3 or 4 months. Can’t even imagine.
After a short rest, soda and water, we shuffled back to the bus for the ride into town. Much faster on the way back – downhill and flying – we were dropped off in town with only ½ hour before the last zodiac – not much time, but enough to get a flavor of the many gift shops (more expensive than Puerto Boquerzo) and restaurants. Richard and Cathy bought stamps (Richard to collect, Cathy to mail) and then they all headed back on board for lunch, packing (boo hoo) and a little relaxation before the final excursion in the afternoon.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
2/29 Santa Cruz – Dragon Hill
After an excellent lunch of Italian specialties – pasta, antipasto, fish, cannelloni and the like, plus tiramisu for dessert – we headed back to the lounge for – you guessed it – more food! Ricardo, the maitre’d, and Raul Castillo, executive chef, put on a demonstration of Cerviche, decorating a truffle cake and Martini and Specialty coffee. (In all actuality, this cruise isn’t the food fest others typically are. There’s always room service, but meals are short time periods and there isn’t an alternative pizza bar or snack place. Cookies at 3 or 4 every day, and that’s about it. Which is really enough, particularly when you’re venturing out into the heat everyday on excursions. That’s not to say the food isn’t excellent and plentiful – it is – it’s just not such a focus as it is on other ships.)
Demonstrations were great – learned what to do with the popcorn and roasted corn kernels always on the buffet (besides just snacking on them which is what we’ve been doing!) – you put them in the cerviche! Awesome – not that we know – wish we would have learned that on Sunday! Not Thursday! Have recipes for all. The Truffle cake was awesome – Maggie #2 took the huge marzipan Rose we learned how to make – well – let me rephrase that – the rose that they chef showed us how to make – we all agreed, we’re not making that! No way! (PS – Maggie took it to eat, she likes Marzipan!)
At 3 pm there was an Imax movie about the Galapagos Archipelago. Then at 4, we all left again for the Dragon Hill walk. This was another rough zodiac ride. The seas were getting choppy, there is a spring tide going on, and you could feel it in the zodiac. The anticipation was for a dry landing here due to high tide. Jorge told us the snorkeling was not so good, so we elected to go over without our gear, but Ed and Cathy wore their swim suits in case they wanted to stay on the beach for a bit. As we approached the landing, we saw some one in the water right by the landing dock. One of the guests had lost their camera and Richard (our race-zodiac driver from the other day) had jumped in the water with snorkeling mask to try to find it. A very sweet and literally going “overboard” way to help the passengers. But what a sure fire way to ruin your trip. Losing your camera! Big Bummer!
After landing we started off on this short hike, around and up a hill, through land iguana territory. We spotted some large iguanas and fortunately, the girls didn’t get too camera happy, so I got to stay comfortably packed away – safe from these big ugly old creatures. Although they did manage to plop me in a tree for a close up – heck – at least I wasn’t on the ground as iguana app’s!
Walking towards the hill, we even managed to spot some baby iguanas, not more than 2 weeks old. Up and around the hill we came to a beautiful lookout point for photos of the coast. I got to pose next to what I hoped was an abandoned iguana burrow! ON the way back down, we watched a pair of flamingoes fly into the lagoon in front of us, then do their eating thing. Very majestic and tranquil.
Back at the beach, none of us wanted to swim, once again, too rough for us and just not worth the effort. Getting back on the zodiac was a little touchy – the rolling waves kept bopping the zodiac about. Once in, those of us on the left had to constantly stand as a wave crashed in over the side. Eventually we made it out and back to the ship for cookies and refreshments – a little wet – but safe and sound.
Evening activities are the norm, shower, lounge, briefing, dinner, then tonight, a movie night! Winged Migration is the name of the show. The highlight there is the billing of “popcorn” and “milkshakes”. We’re there! Had the popcorn – never saw the milkshakes! And didn’t make it through the movie either! Cathy and Maggi escaped outside with Ed following shortly after, then Richard. Sat out bon the back deck and chatted with Dick and Pedro and Eliana for bit, then Ed and Cathy headed off to sleep, marveling that it’s almost their last day!
Demonstrations were great – learned what to do with the popcorn and roasted corn kernels always on the buffet (besides just snacking on them which is what we’ve been doing!) – you put them in the cerviche! Awesome – not that we know – wish we would have learned that on Sunday! Not Thursday! Have recipes for all. The Truffle cake was awesome – Maggie #2 took the huge marzipan Rose we learned how to make – well – let me rephrase that – the rose that they chef showed us how to make – we all agreed, we’re not making that! No way! (PS – Maggie took it to eat, she likes Marzipan!)
At 3 pm there was an Imax movie about the Galapagos Archipelago. Then at 4, we all left again for the Dragon Hill walk. This was another rough zodiac ride. The seas were getting choppy, there is a spring tide going on, and you could feel it in the zodiac. The anticipation was for a dry landing here due to high tide. Jorge told us the snorkeling was not so good, so we elected to go over without our gear, but Ed and Cathy wore their swim suits in case they wanted to stay on the beach for a bit. As we approached the landing, we saw some one in the water right by the landing dock. One of the guests had lost their camera and Richard (our race-zodiac driver from the other day) had jumped in the water with snorkeling mask to try to find it. A very sweet and literally going “overboard” way to help the passengers. But what a sure fire way to ruin your trip. Losing your camera! Big Bummer!
After landing we started off on this short hike, around and up a hill, through land iguana territory. We spotted some large iguanas and fortunately, the girls didn’t get too camera happy, so I got to stay comfortably packed away – safe from these big ugly old creatures. Although they did manage to plop me in a tree for a close up – heck – at least I wasn’t on the ground as iguana app’s!
Walking towards the hill, we even managed to spot some baby iguanas, not more than 2 weeks old. Up and around the hill we came to a beautiful lookout point for photos of the coast. I got to pose next to what I hoped was an abandoned iguana burrow! ON the way back down, we watched a pair of flamingoes fly into the lagoon in front of us, then do their eating thing. Very majestic and tranquil.
Back at the beach, none of us wanted to swim, once again, too rough for us and just not worth the effort. Getting back on the zodiac was a little touchy – the rolling waves kept bopping the zodiac about. Once in, those of us on the left had to constantly stand as a wave crashed in over the side. Eventually we made it out and back to the ship for cookies and refreshments – a little wet – but safe and sound.
Evening activities are the norm, shower, lounge, briefing, dinner, then tonight, a movie night! Winged Migration is the name of the show. The highlight there is the billing of “popcorn” and “milkshakes”. We’re there! Had the popcorn – never saw the milkshakes! And didn’t make it through the movie either! Cathy and Maggi escaped outside with Ed following shortly after, then Richard. Sat out bon the back deck and chatted with Dick and Pedro and Eliana for bit, then Ed and Cathy headed off to sleep, marveling that it’s almost their last day!
2/29 Santiago and Santa Cruz islands
Up and out early for our high intensity walk around the island. This was the day that was supposed to be the “Survival of the fittest” hike – 4 miles through the inland and up a small mountain. Unfortunately, due to the rain, the trails have been washed out, so we aren’t going to see who’s the fittest of our group. Bummer – we were really looking forward to some good aerobic activity, but it’s just not going to happen on this trip. Cathy doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she hits the Insignia. It’s been so long since she’s exercised on a machine, she may not make it very long at all! Ed of course has been hitting the treadmill whenever he can – but Cathy isn’t doing that bike – it’s just too uncomfortable – and in the heat – it’s just not worth it!
Richard is up and about – but still not quite 100%, so he waves farewell to us as the 3 of us (Michelle took the low intensity zodiac ride and Ellen is sleeping in) head out on our adventure with Jorge (the naturalist). Jorge the cruise director, has already said that the snorkeling is not good today, it’s too cloudy and the waters are rough. Ed, Cathy and Maggi gamely grab their gear though, just in case they want to go in anyway. The ride to James Bay is a little bumpy, but nothing too bad (Cathy is rather enjoying these little sea rides- which is incredibly odd since she’ll get sick the back seat of a car! But on the zodiac, she’s like a pro – go figure!). Getting out of the zodiac is another issue. One at a time on each side, you gotta go and you gotta go fast. When the guides say go – jump – the waves, the undertow, it was pretty brutal. First guy fell right in – soaked all the way (including camera equipment!). Cathy made it out fine, Ed got a little wet, but Maggi went face first – not a pretty landing. How do some of these people do this? We are all relatively young and agile and we’re having problems – we’re just amazed at the older folks who are hopping out of these zodiacs.
On the beach and organized, we head out into the interior a bit in search of shore birds and iguanas (lovely, more iguanas!). We saw quite a few birds, the little fly catchers are teeny and so friendly. A couple just sat on the path in front of us and hopped about while we took pictures. Then they flew at the guys with the big camera lenses and hovered right in front of the lens looking in. It was marvelous. We were all so enamored, we couldn’t even get a picture of it! Peter had a bird do that to him, and he took a picture but doesn’t think it turned out because of the focus. Truly amazing that they are so unafraid.
We continued our walk searching for yellow warblers, more fly catchers, Galapagos hawks and other birds. Learned more about cactus – about the birds reproducing, or not as the case may be because there hasn’t been enough rain. They won’t reproduce if they don’t think they can get enough food for the babies, and the rain is what brings the growth and allows them to get food. It’s hot, but not too unbearable as there is a nice breeze. As we turned toward the coast, the breeze picked up dramatically, and even with the sun it was actually pleasant. We strolled down the rocky coast (all lava) and found oyster catchers and a couple of fur seals sleeping away (you can recognize them by their ears, which are bigger and stick out of their heads more than the sea lions’ ears). We also watched the great Galapagos toilet – a very unique blow hole type formation that really did look like it was flushing when the water went out – even went out in a circular motion!
Stumbled upon a lava heron and then – of all things – saw a great blue heron (which Jorge said was unusual). She was sitting on the lava ledge, just watching us walk by. We took it as a sign that we are being watched over by Nancy – since we’ve seen the same type (we of course want to believe it’s the same heron) at the ash ceremony and that we saw on our last trip.
After looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs, more iguanas and birds, we headed back to the beach for swimming and/or snorkeling. Yeah, right. Not a chance. We had already decided we weren’t going near that water, it was just too brutal looking. Not even for a swim, and when we returned, there was an older gentleman who was supposedly a very strong swimmer who had virtually washed up on the beach. It took 3 guides to grab him under the arms, pull him out and put him under a tree to cool off and relax. The good news is that he just had the breath knocked out of him, and he is fine, but it was a very scary moment. Needless to say that sealed our fate – we were outta there. (Later, talking to Dick, he said the snorkeling was great once you got out around the rocks – he had some awesome pictures to prove it too. Works for us – we’re just as happy looking at his pictures!)
Of course, the decision was terribly easy, the actual implementation wasn’t. Getting back on that zodiac was really difficult. One at a time, these old plump people were being pushed up on the boat – basically belly flopping in the zodiac. Ok, so you figure, the young nimble ones wont have that problem. Ha! Wrong. Ed made it in relatively easily, but Cathy couldn’t get up on the boat, and in the scramble managed to scrap the heck out of her knee (she now matched the other Maggie with her war wound). Maggi got in but got soaked again. The ride back was bumpy, but at least we were all on the darn zodiac. Wow – that was tough!
It’s a busy day back on board with a Life in the Galapagos talk with one of the Naturalists before lunch and a culinary demonstration after! The Naturalist talk with Manuel was very interesting. He is a marine biologist by trade and worked on fishing ships around the islands making sure they were following the Ecuadorian wildlife guidelines. He was out and around the Galapagos a lot on these vessels and decided he really wanted a change, wanted to give something back instead of always being the heavy handed “man” type. So, he became a Naturalist in 1989. Originally from Guayaquil, he and his family got Galapagos residency permits (which he said was much easier to do before 1998 when they began to clamp down on issuing them), and took a one month course to become a guide (now it’s 3 months and only open to residents of Galapagos; this last session 300 applied and only 50 were accepted.)
He explained that there are no Park Rangers as such in the Galapagos National Park, but the Naturalists act as rangers and report in every week about activities around the islands, visitors, wildlife activity, good/bad ships, fishing vessels, etc. There are only 60 visiting areas in the Park, and the Park controls all of them very strictly. The Xpedition goes to the same places all the time, and other ships do the same. The maximum number of people in any given area is 100 at a time (some areas can’t withstand that many tourists, and are restricted to a much smaller number, some as little as 16 people at a time). June, July and August are the best times to come to the islands because there isn’t much difference in the temperature between the sea and the air. There is a lot of animal activity and you can typically see a lot more and different things. Last year there sere 143,000 visitors to the islands. The Ecuadorian government controls the number of visitors, to protect the islands, but it seems to get a little bigger every year.
Richard is up and about – but still not quite 100%, so he waves farewell to us as the 3 of us (Michelle took the low intensity zodiac ride and Ellen is sleeping in) head out on our adventure with Jorge (the naturalist). Jorge the cruise director, has already said that the snorkeling is not good today, it’s too cloudy and the waters are rough. Ed, Cathy and Maggi gamely grab their gear though, just in case they want to go in anyway. The ride to James Bay is a little bumpy, but nothing too bad (Cathy is rather enjoying these little sea rides- which is incredibly odd since she’ll get sick the back seat of a car! But on the zodiac, she’s like a pro – go figure!). Getting out of the zodiac is another issue. One at a time on each side, you gotta go and you gotta go fast. When the guides say go – jump – the waves, the undertow, it was pretty brutal. First guy fell right in – soaked all the way (including camera equipment!). Cathy made it out fine, Ed got a little wet, but Maggi went face first – not a pretty landing. How do some of these people do this? We are all relatively young and agile and we’re having problems – we’re just amazed at the older folks who are hopping out of these zodiacs.
On the beach and organized, we head out into the interior a bit in search of shore birds and iguanas (lovely, more iguanas!). We saw quite a few birds, the little fly catchers are teeny and so friendly. A couple just sat on the path in front of us and hopped about while we took pictures. Then they flew at the guys with the big camera lenses and hovered right in front of the lens looking in. It was marvelous. We were all so enamored, we couldn’t even get a picture of it! Peter had a bird do that to him, and he took a picture but doesn’t think it turned out because of the focus. Truly amazing that they are so unafraid.
We continued our walk searching for yellow warblers, more fly catchers, Galapagos hawks and other birds. Learned more about cactus – about the birds reproducing, or not as the case may be because there hasn’t been enough rain. They won’t reproduce if they don’t think they can get enough food for the babies, and the rain is what brings the growth and allows them to get food. It’s hot, but not too unbearable as there is a nice breeze. As we turned toward the coast, the breeze picked up dramatically, and even with the sun it was actually pleasant. We strolled down the rocky coast (all lava) and found oyster catchers and a couple of fur seals sleeping away (you can recognize them by their ears, which are bigger and stick out of their heads more than the sea lions’ ears). We also watched the great Galapagos toilet – a very unique blow hole type formation that really did look like it was flushing when the water went out – even went out in a circular motion!
Stumbled upon a lava heron and then – of all things – saw a great blue heron (which Jorge said was unusual). She was sitting on the lava ledge, just watching us walk by. We took it as a sign that we are being watched over by Nancy – since we’ve seen the same type (we of course want to believe it’s the same heron) at the ash ceremony and that we saw on our last trip.
After looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs, more iguanas and birds, we headed back to the beach for swimming and/or snorkeling. Yeah, right. Not a chance. We had already decided we weren’t going near that water, it was just too brutal looking. Not even for a swim, and when we returned, there was an older gentleman who was supposedly a very strong swimmer who had virtually washed up on the beach. It took 3 guides to grab him under the arms, pull him out and put him under a tree to cool off and relax. The good news is that he just had the breath knocked out of him, and he is fine, but it was a very scary moment. Needless to say that sealed our fate – we were outta there. (Later, talking to Dick, he said the snorkeling was great once you got out around the rocks – he had some awesome pictures to prove it too. Works for us – we’re just as happy looking at his pictures!)
Of course, the decision was terribly easy, the actual implementation wasn’t. Getting back on that zodiac was really difficult. One at a time, these old plump people were being pushed up on the boat – basically belly flopping in the zodiac. Ok, so you figure, the young nimble ones wont have that problem. Ha! Wrong. Ed made it in relatively easily, but Cathy couldn’t get up on the boat, and in the scramble managed to scrap the heck out of her knee (she now matched the other Maggie with her war wound). Maggi got in but got soaked again. The ride back was bumpy, but at least we were all on the darn zodiac. Wow – that was tough!
It’s a busy day back on board with a Life in the Galapagos talk with one of the Naturalists before lunch and a culinary demonstration after! The Naturalist talk with Manuel was very interesting. He is a marine biologist by trade and worked on fishing ships around the islands making sure they were following the Ecuadorian wildlife guidelines. He was out and around the Galapagos a lot on these vessels and decided he really wanted a change, wanted to give something back instead of always being the heavy handed “man” type. So, he became a Naturalist in 1989. Originally from Guayaquil, he and his family got Galapagos residency permits (which he said was much easier to do before 1998 when they began to clamp down on issuing them), and took a one month course to become a guide (now it’s 3 months and only open to residents of Galapagos; this last session 300 applied and only 50 were accepted.)
He explained that there are no Park Rangers as such in the Galapagos National Park, but the Naturalists act as rangers and report in every week about activities around the islands, visitors, wildlife activity, good/bad ships, fishing vessels, etc. There are only 60 visiting areas in the Park, and the Park controls all of them very strictly. The Xpedition goes to the same places all the time, and other ships do the same. The maximum number of people in any given area is 100 at a time (some areas can’t withstand that many tourists, and are restricted to a much smaller number, some as little as 16 people at a time). June, July and August are the best times to come to the islands because there isn’t much difference in the temperature between the sea and the air. There is a lot of animal activity and you can typically see a lot more and different things. Last year there sere 143,000 visitors to the islands. The Ecuadorian government controls the number of visitors, to protect the islands, but it seems to get a little bigger every year.
2/28 Espinoza Point & evening aboard
The zodiac ride was much calmer, but we did manage to get stuck in the shallows by the dock. After pushing off with a walking stick (they are a nuisance to walk with – but sure come in handy for other things!), we successfully landed and were greeted with our first marine iguana sighting. A huge colony of them, piled over top each other – right in our path. Easily numbering in the 100’s, these things are an amazing sight, but thoroughly disgusting They smell, they spit and they look like sci-fi monsters. Eeeuuw yuk! Of course, Missy Michelle and Cathy have that gleam in their eyes that I know spells trouble. Try to fight it as I may, they yank me out of my comfy pack and summarily plop me down on the ground next to these nasty creatures. Argh! I’m going to need a Purell bath for sure when I get back on board!
After a few interminable moments, they pick me up and we stand gazing at the heap, listening to people ask really stupid questions. Come on folks, move along! We’re at the end of the group and these things are moving towards us. One in particular seems to have designs on Maggi! We’ve got no where to go – trees behind us, piles of iguanas in front of us and people with dumb questions on either side. Move it!!!!
Finally we trek off! Over black lava flows, watching our first Galapagos hawk, looking at SLCs and enjoying a really nice breeze. The lava reminds us of Hawaii and its fun to pick our way through it listening to Geovanna, chatting with Ellen and Michelle (well, maybe not Michelle….I’m still sore about the fishing line idea…), Maggie #2, Dick and the rest of the gang. We reach a point over a sheltered bay type area where we watched a marine iguana swim in from the sea and Cathy takes loads of pictures of SLC. Of course, the net thing I know, here come the girls again! I’m plucked out of hiding and unceremoniously plunked down next to one of those darn crabs! Have you seen those pinchers? Pick me up! Put me back, damn it!
Phew! A close call averted. The group turned back and we headed toward the beach area to view some sea lions and more nasty iguanas. ON the way, Maggie 2 fell and scraped here knee and hand – first war wound! We poured water on it and made sure she was ok, then headed off. She’s quite the trooper, bleeding away, but not letting that stop her from our walk and explorations!
The beach area held lots of iguanas and sea lions. WE all had to walk single file to avoid stepping on any iguana egg nests. Halfway through the walk we came upon a huge iguana colony on a rock. Here comes that gleam again – this time it’s Michelle who plucks me up and sets me down next to those stinky things – I’ll just die if one of them spits on me!!! Photos done (thank heavens!), we continue walking around, taking photos of a fantastic rainbow and assorted wildlife. On our way back to the zodiac, we once again cross over the colony by the dock. We gingerly pick our way around them – we’re getting to be pros at avoiding wildlife by this point – and hopped on the zodiac for the ride back to the mother ship.
Cookies and frozen drinks await us as usual on board. Then, freshened up, we all gather for the briefing and then the “sound of Silence” BBQ under the stars. Richard joined us – he’s getting his sea legs back obviously! We sat outside under a surprisingly cloudless sky and feasted on soup, salad, buffet fixin’s and good BBQ beef (we didn’t realize there was fish until afterwards – oh well!). Drinks in the Discovery Lounge then off to bed for our next great excursion.
After a few interminable moments, they pick me up and we stand gazing at the heap, listening to people ask really stupid questions. Come on folks, move along! We’re at the end of the group and these things are moving towards us. One in particular seems to have designs on Maggi! We’ve got no where to go – trees behind us, piles of iguanas in front of us and people with dumb questions on either side. Move it!!!!
Finally we trek off! Over black lava flows, watching our first Galapagos hawk, looking at SLCs and enjoying a really nice breeze. The lava reminds us of Hawaii and its fun to pick our way through it listening to Geovanna, chatting with Ellen and Michelle (well, maybe not Michelle….I’m still sore about the fishing line idea…), Maggie #2, Dick and the rest of the gang. We reach a point over a sheltered bay type area where we watched a marine iguana swim in from the sea and Cathy takes loads of pictures of SLC. Of course, the net thing I know, here come the girls again! I’m plucked out of hiding and unceremoniously plunked down next to one of those darn crabs! Have you seen those pinchers? Pick me up! Put me back, damn it!
Phew! A close call averted. The group turned back and we headed toward the beach area to view some sea lions and more nasty iguanas. ON the way, Maggie 2 fell and scraped here knee and hand – first war wound! We poured water on it and made sure she was ok, then headed off. She’s quite the trooper, bleeding away, but not letting that stop her from our walk and explorations!
The beach area held lots of iguanas and sea lions. WE all had to walk single file to avoid stepping on any iguana egg nests. Halfway through the walk we came upon a huge iguana colony on a rock. Here comes that gleam again – this time it’s Michelle who plucks me up and sets me down next to those stinky things – I’ll just die if one of them spits on me!!! Photos done (thank heavens!), we continue walking around, taking photos of a fantastic rainbow and assorted wildlife. On our way back to the zodiac, we once again cross over the colony by the dock. We gingerly pick our way around them – we’re getting to be pros at avoiding wildlife by this point – and hopped on the zodiac for the ride back to the mother ship.
Cookies and frozen drinks await us as usual on board. Then, freshened up, we all gather for the briefing and then the “sound of Silence” BBQ under the stars. Richard joined us – he’s getting his sea legs back obviously! We sat outside under a surprisingly cloudless sky and feasted on soup, salad, buffet fixin’s and good BBQ beef (we didn’t realize there was fish until afterwards – oh well!). Drinks in the Discovery Lounge then off to bed for our next great excursion.
2/28 Isabela and Fernandina Islands
2/27 Morning –
Richard is under the weather this morning with gastric intestinal issues that don’t bear repeating. After assurances that all he needed was rest, we left on our morning excursion to Urbina Bay – where there is a possibility of maybe snorkeling. (That’s directly from the daily program, btw.) However, Jorge’s 7:45 announcement told us that the water had “high levels of murky” so we would not be snorkeling. Hadn’t really planned on it anyway, so the high levels of murky sealed the deal!
Team Zodiac minus one boarded the 2nd zodiac – the ride was probably the most interesting part of the day! It was a wet landing on the beach and the wave action was pretty intense. We all had to scramble out of the zodiac in a hurry, drop to the sand, then run up the steep slo9pe of the beach. Pretty exhilarating! After drying off our feet, we started inland in search of giant land turtles and land iguanas. Everywhere we turned, it seemed, there was a land iguana in our path! Rogilio our guide, named them all – Caterina (the movie star), #70 (who actually had the number 70 painted on him) and many others lounging about in the sun and shade.
The walk was easy, a giant turtle was spotted eating branches/leaves in the scrub and a huge iguana that looked like Dino the Dinosaur was spied in the distance through the trees. All was well until Michelle had the bright idea to introduce me to the iguanas. I was happily riding along, being contentedly ignored until that moment. Let me tell you, her stock dropped dramatically right then and there! Here I thought she was such a sweet girl…..
So – here we go….Iguana bait! Every darn prehistoric creature they could find, I was there. Michelle even had the bright idea to hook a piece of fishing line to me so I could be dangled over animals and crevices and all sorts of other death defying situations. Now does that not sound like bait? I’m beginning not to like this girl - I can’t see what Ed and Cathy see in her!
Fortunately, they didn’t find many more creatures to torture me with – and everyone headed back to the beach to swim or go back to the ship. Only a few brave soles (Pedro and Eleana, Elizabeth, Barry and Eduoard) ventured into the water. Team Zodiac wisely chose to go back to the ship.
As the zodiac approached, you could see we were in or a ride. The first one had extra people (some of our group went with them – don’t go there! – people just don’t listen or pay attention!). So when it came time for us to load up, there were less people, which was probably a good thing because the waves were getting bigger and bigger and timing was everything. We all scrambled and belly flopped (known as doing the sea lion) our way into the zodiac and then the guides started screaming go, go, go! Ricardo, our drive, turned us around and here comes this monster wave! We all thought we were goners! But he gunned it and got us up and over it, and out of there. Then he proceeded to haul ass back to the ship – even passing the first zodiac with all of us helpfully egging him on! Officially scary, officially fun!
Back on board, cookies and cappuccino, then a nice chat in the Discovery lounge with Barb, Maggie #2, Ellen, Michelle and others. Afterward a great Ecuadorian buffet – fish, meats, salads and of course cerviche. The food is really quite good. Richard recovering, but still in the room, so the afternoon excursion is not going to happen for him. At 4 pm, Team Zodiac still minus 1 headed out, this time to Espinoza Point.
Richard is under the weather this morning with gastric intestinal issues that don’t bear repeating. After assurances that all he needed was rest, we left on our morning excursion to Urbina Bay – where there is a possibility of maybe snorkeling. (That’s directly from the daily program, btw.) However, Jorge’s 7:45 announcement told us that the water had “high levels of murky” so we would not be snorkeling. Hadn’t really planned on it anyway, so the high levels of murky sealed the deal!
Team Zodiac minus one boarded the 2nd zodiac – the ride was probably the most interesting part of the day! It was a wet landing on the beach and the wave action was pretty intense. We all had to scramble out of the zodiac in a hurry, drop to the sand, then run up the steep slo9pe of the beach. Pretty exhilarating! After drying off our feet, we started inland in search of giant land turtles and land iguanas. Everywhere we turned, it seemed, there was a land iguana in our path! Rogilio our guide, named them all – Caterina (the movie star), #70 (who actually had the number 70 painted on him) and many others lounging about in the sun and shade.
The walk was easy, a giant turtle was spotted eating branches/leaves in the scrub and a huge iguana that looked like Dino the Dinosaur was spied in the distance through the trees. All was well until Michelle had the bright idea to introduce me to the iguanas. I was happily riding along, being contentedly ignored until that moment. Let me tell you, her stock dropped dramatically right then and there! Here I thought she was such a sweet girl…..
So – here we go….Iguana bait! Every darn prehistoric creature they could find, I was there. Michelle even had the bright idea to hook a piece of fishing line to me so I could be dangled over animals and crevices and all sorts of other death defying situations. Now does that not sound like bait? I’m beginning not to like this girl - I can’t see what Ed and Cathy see in her!
Fortunately, they didn’t find many more creatures to torture me with – and everyone headed back to the beach to swim or go back to the ship. Only a few brave soles (Pedro and Eleana, Elizabeth, Barry and Eduoard) ventured into the water. Team Zodiac wisely chose to go back to the ship.
As the zodiac approached, you could see we were in or a ride. The first one had extra people (some of our group went with them – don’t go there! – people just don’t listen or pay attention!). So when it came time for us to load up, there were less people, which was probably a good thing because the waves were getting bigger and bigger and timing was everything. We all scrambled and belly flopped (known as doing the sea lion) our way into the zodiac and then the guides started screaming go, go, go! Ricardo, our drive, turned us around and here comes this monster wave! We all thought we were goners! But he gunned it and got us up and over it, and out of there. Then he proceeded to haul ass back to the ship – even passing the first zodiac with all of us helpfully egging him on! Officially scary, officially fun!
Back on board, cookies and cappuccino, then a nice chat in the Discovery lounge with Barb, Maggie #2, Ellen, Michelle and others. Afterward a great Ecuadorian buffet – fish, meats, salads and of course cerviche. The food is really quite good. Richard recovering, but still in the room, so the afternoon excursion is not going to happen for him. At 4 pm, Team Zodiac still minus 1 headed out, this time to Espinoza Point.
2/27 Afternoon at Bartolome Island & evening aboard
Our afternoon excursion is to Bartolome island – a high intensity walk up a Volcanic cone (374 feet high, 358 wooden steps) to view 28 islands in the Galapagos chain. Before arriving at Bartolome, we sailed through fairly calm waters, spotting rays and other fish off our decks. We noticed something jumping out in the distance – a big silver flash almost - and were told it was a giant ray. They breach like that to try to get the parasites off of them. Had no idea they did that! Wow! A school of dolphin caught the Captain’s attention, and he turned the ship and circled them so we could all get a better look. How fun is that?
At disembarkation for Bartolome, Team Zodiac split up with Maggi and Richard on 1 zodiac and Ellen, Michelle, Cathy and Ed on the next one with Geovanna. A quick ride and we were unloaded on a rocky point to begin our ascent to the op of the cone. Bartolome’s landscape looks like the moon – all ah and volcanic cones (it has had recent volcanic activity). As we climbed (in the heat – but at least with a good breeze), we learned about the lava, lava tubes, flora and fauna of the island and the 3 different types of craters.
The view at the top was spectacular – overlooking the other islands and Pinnacle rock where we would be snorkeling later. After a few photos, we sort of pushed the group along, wanting to get to the beach ASAP to have maximum snorkeling time. This is the island with eh Penguin population, so Cathy was of course particularly excited to get to the beach and see if she could swim with them! But before landing on the beach, Johnny (one of the better zodiac drivers) took us around to the other side of Pinnacle rock to see a penguin swimming. He was adorable – standing on a rock just posing away fro us. Johnny pulled the zodiac right up to the rock so Michelle and Cathy could get pictures. The penguin didn’t even move!!!
Back around the corner we went for a wet landing on a beautiful sandy beach. There was still over an hour left for snorkeling and swimming. Ed and Cathy chose to snorkel, Ellen and Michelle stayed closer to shore, cooling off in the water. The snorkeling was great – at least for sissy snorkelers who didn’t know any better. The waters were cloudy, but you could still hundreds of fish – all different colors, shapes and sizes (identification will have to wait until later when we can get our hands on a guidebook). There was a huge school of brightly colored blue striped fish with yellow tails; a wild looking dark gray fat fish with blue squares; small, electric blue and black fish, just an astonishing array! IT was the first time ever swimming with the fishes for Ed and Cathy (and they were alive to talk about it!!!!)
About mid-way through the swim, Cathy realized she still had on her watch. She’d been being very paranoid about getting her new waterproof watch wet – just in case it really wasn’t all that waterproof. But it worked like a charm, and the light came in quite handy underwater!
Richard and Maggi did well snorkeling too. The breathing finally clicked for Maggi and she took off like a little fishie herself. She saw the yellow tail fish and a small dark gray fish with electric blue stripes plus lots of others. And, just like Cathy, it wasn’t just the fish but the fact that she was snorkeling that made the whole experience so awesome!!! Richard, of course, took off and actually made it around the corner of Pinnacle rock. He saw tons of fish too – and came face to face with a sea lion! Brave boy!
After about an hour, they all dried off and headed back to the ship. Straight into the shower and cleaned up for tonight’s briefing and dinner, the sat at the bar for the briefing (someone else had commandeered their traditional front row seats!). Didn’t matter much – and Carlos took care of everyone as usual – Viu Manent for wine, peanuts for snacks (all you have to do is ask!)
Dinner was excellent as usual – mixed seafood with Langostino, huge shrimp – more like prawns – tuna and something else; Steak and Red Snapper with tomato concasse like sauce. Ed and Cathy had the mixed seafood, and shared the snapper; Richard had steak and Snapper Maggi had mixed seafood. And wine, and beer, and Black Pearl dessert (chocolate dome with a dense vanilla center). Too much! But oh so good!!
At 10 there was the special Equator crossing ceremony, so back to the Discovery lounge. The show was already in progress and the special guest – King Neptune – was being led in by his minions. The gang settled at the bar and watched as Maggie #2 was crowned Queen. Then, the King’s helpers came looking for “supplicants”! Needless to say, Jorge (in painted warrior garb) came straight to Maggi and Cathy – and completely under protest (Cathy is a shellback after all!) led them up to the stage, along with Michelle – forever partners in crime!
The ceremony was cute – and had them kneeling in supplication to the queen. Then of course everyone had to do something to please the King and Queen. Maggi had to become a Blue Footed Boobie – and do the dance. Cathy was a flamingo – and was made to stand and then fly. Michelle was an adorable penguin. Then we all toasted the queen with shots of cranberry juice and were released back to the safety of our bar stools! Later in the cabin, we all got Equator crossing certificates! Very fun.
At disembarkation for Bartolome, Team Zodiac split up with Maggi and Richard on 1 zodiac and Ellen, Michelle, Cathy and Ed on the next one with Geovanna. A quick ride and we were unloaded on a rocky point to begin our ascent to the op of the cone. Bartolome’s landscape looks like the moon – all ah and volcanic cones (it has had recent volcanic activity). As we climbed (in the heat – but at least with a good breeze), we learned about the lava, lava tubes, flora and fauna of the island and the 3 different types of craters.
The view at the top was spectacular – overlooking the other islands and Pinnacle rock where we would be snorkeling later. After a few photos, we sort of pushed the group along, wanting to get to the beach ASAP to have maximum snorkeling time. This is the island with eh Penguin population, so Cathy was of course particularly excited to get to the beach and see if she could swim with them! But before landing on the beach, Johnny (one of the better zodiac drivers) took us around to the other side of Pinnacle rock to see a penguin swimming. He was adorable – standing on a rock just posing away fro us. Johnny pulled the zodiac right up to the rock so Michelle and Cathy could get pictures. The penguin didn’t even move!!!
Back around the corner we went for a wet landing on a beautiful sandy beach. There was still over an hour left for snorkeling and swimming. Ed and Cathy chose to snorkel, Ellen and Michelle stayed closer to shore, cooling off in the water. The snorkeling was great – at least for sissy snorkelers who didn’t know any better. The waters were cloudy, but you could still hundreds of fish – all different colors, shapes and sizes (identification will have to wait until later when we can get our hands on a guidebook). There was a huge school of brightly colored blue striped fish with yellow tails; a wild looking dark gray fat fish with blue squares; small, electric blue and black fish, just an astonishing array! IT was the first time ever swimming with the fishes for Ed and Cathy (and they were alive to talk about it!!!!)
About mid-way through the swim, Cathy realized she still had on her watch. She’d been being very paranoid about getting her new waterproof watch wet – just in case it really wasn’t all that waterproof. But it worked like a charm, and the light came in quite handy underwater!
Richard and Maggi did well snorkeling too. The breathing finally clicked for Maggi and she took off like a little fishie herself. She saw the yellow tail fish and a small dark gray fish with electric blue stripes plus lots of others. And, just like Cathy, it wasn’t just the fish but the fact that she was snorkeling that made the whole experience so awesome!!! Richard, of course, took off and actually made it around the corner of Pinnacle rock. He saw tons of fish too – and came face to face with a sea lion! Brave boy!
After about an hour, they all dried off and headed back to the ship. Straight into the shower and cleaned up for tonight’s briefing and dinner, the sat at the bar for the briefing (someone else had commandeered their traditional front row seats!). Didn’t matter much – and Carlos took care of everyone as usual – Viu Manent for wine, peanuts for snacks (all you have to do is ask!)
Dinner was excellent as usual – mixed seafood with Langostino, huge shrimp – more like prawns – tuna and something else; Steak and Red Snapper with tomato concasse like sauce. Ed and Cathy had the mixed seafood, and shared the snapper; Richard had steak and Snapper Maggi had mixed seafood. And wine, and beer, and Black Pearl dessert (chocolate dome with a dense vanilla center). Too much! But oh so good!!
At 10 there was the special Equator crossing ceremony, so back to the Discovery lounge. The show was already in progress and the special guest – King Neptune – was being led in by his minions. The gang settled at the bar and watched as Maggie #2 was crowned Queen. Then, the King’s helpers came looking for “supplicants”! Needless to say, Jorge (in painted warrior garb) came straight to Maggi and Cathy – and completely under protest (Cathy is a shellback after all!) led them up to the stage, along with Michelle – forever partners in crime!
The ceremony was cute – and had them kneeling in supplication to the queen. Then of course everyone had to do something to please the King and Queen. Maggi had to become a Blue Footed Boobie – and do the dance. Cathy was a flamingo – and was made to stand and then fly. Michelle was an adorable penguin. Then we all toasted the queen with shots of cranberry juice and were released back to the safety of our bar stools! Later in the cabin, we all got Equator crossing certificates! Very fun.
2-27 Bachas Beach & Bartolome Island
This morning’s activity wasn’t until 9, which made everyone quite happy by allowing them to get some extra sleep. Cathy and Ed were up early – around 7 – and left for some coffee and the treadmill (Ed, not Cathy, she stayed on the aft deck and updated the journal – not an easy task since there is so much to remember!!!). After a quick breakfast (which is always quite good – eggs to order, wonderful buffet of just about anything you’d want, pastries and cereal included), it was time for a zodiac strategy session. It seems some of the other passengers (mostly our newly found neighbor Dick) where catching on to the last Zodiac strategy and getting a little, well, irked, I suppose is a good word. So, Team Zodiac decided to not take the last boat this morning, but to mix it up a little so no one would get their noses out of joint.
Morning at Bachas Beach
We met out back to get in line, and as it turned out Michelle and Helen ended up with Cathy and Ed, Maggi and Richard were in the next zodiac (which happened to be the last – with Dick and Linda as it turns out!). C&E and M&H had Jorge for a guide – and walked along the shore looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs and learning about cactus (they grow tall on islands where turtles and iguanas are found because their height will protect them from the animals eating their flowers). Also walked past the remains of the barges that crashed on the beach in the 1950’s. The natives couldn’t say “Barges”, but pronounced it “bachas”, thus, Bachas Beach. Along the way, C&E got the smart idea to use me a crab bait! They actually took me out and set me next to one of those huge, red spiny creatures! What were they thinking? I mean honestly! Bad enough they considered putting me next to the blue footed boobies the other day – but they at least had the sense to keep me in my comfy and safe backpack haven. But, no, now, with the help of little miss Michelle who doesn’t think a crab would like me for bait, I’m out of the bag an on a rock! Fortunately I escaped with only my photo taken, but people, please. Let’s use some common sense here!
Safely back in my little home, the troops headed off to the lagoon to look for flamingoes. No luck today, no flamingoes, but that meant more time to swim and snorkel from the beach. Once again, I stayed in the warm sand, safe in my room, while Cathy and Ed went out frolicking in the surf. Ed – the polar bear – headed straight out with only his mask and snorkel. Cathy followed, only getting as far as knee deep before returning for her wet suit. Finally, both of them in the water, began to snorkel around the rock formations searching for sea life. They both saw some interesting fish – schools of bland looking fish, large round black ones with yellow tails, other colorful varieties and lots of coral and underwater plant life. The conditions weren’t the greatest, it was very, very cloudy, but it was a good way to practice and get ready for the afternoon session which the guides say should be the best snorkeling of the trip (sissy snorkeling that is, not real snorkeling – although yesterday afternoon’s real snorkel wasn’t good at all, so murky that they turned back after no more than 15 minutes).
Maggi and Richard caught up with Ed and Cathy and they all swam around and played in the water for a while. The heat was really building up, and the swim was most refreshing – or so they tell me. I’m waiting for one of them to come up with the smart idea of getting me out there to swim with the fishes. The first time I see that zip lock back come out and the gleam in their eyes, I’m outta here!
Back on board, internet, lunch and then everyone to their separate corners for reading, journaling, or napping.
Morning at Bachas Beach
We met out back to get in line, and as it turned out Michelle and Helen ended up with Cathy and Ed, Maggi and Richard were in the next zodiac (which happened to be the last – with Dick and Linda as it turns out!). C&E and M&H had Jorge for a guide – and walked along the shore looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs and learning about cactus (they grow tall on islands where turtles and iguanas are found because their height will protect them from the animals eating their flowers). Also walked past the remains of the barges that crashed on the beach in the 1950’s. The natives couldn’t say “Barges”, but pronounced it “bachas”, thus, Bachas Beach. Along the way, C&E got the smart idea to use me a crab bait! They actually took me out and set me next to one of those huge, red spiny creatures! What were they thinking? I mean honestly! Bad enough they considered putting me next to the blue footed boobies the other day – but they at least had the sense to keep me in my comfy and safe backpack haven. But, no, now, with the help of little miss Michelle who doesn’t think a crab would like me for bait, I’m out of the bag an on a rock! Fortunately I escaped with only my photo taken, but people, please. Let’s use some common sense here!
Safely back in my little home, the troops headed off to the lagoon to look for flamingoes. No luck today, no flamingoes, but that meant more time to swim and snorkel from the beach. Once again, I stayed in the warm sand, safe in my room, while Cathy and Ed went out frolicking in the surf. Ed – the polar bear – headed straight out with only his mask and snorkel. Cathy followed, only getting as far as knee deep before returning for her wet suit. Finally, both of them in the water, began to snorkel around the rock formations searching for sea life. They both saw some interesting fish – schools of bland looking fish, large round black ones with yellow tails, other colorful varieties and lots of coral and underwater plant life. The conditions weren’t the greatest, it was very, very cloudy, but it was a good way to practice and get ready for the afternoon session which the guides say should be the best snorkeling of the trip (sissy snorkeling that is, not real snorkeling – although yesterday afternoon’s real snorkel wasn’t good at all, so murky that they turned back after no more than 15 minutes).
Maggi and Richard caught up with Ed and Cathy and they all swam around and played in the water for a while. The heat was really building up, and the swim was most refreshing – or so they tell me. I’m waiting for one of them to come up with the smart idea of getting me out there to swim with the fishes. The first time I see that zip lock back come out and the gleam in their eyes, I’m outta here!
Back on board, internet, lunch and then everyone to their separate corners for reading, journaling, or napping.
2/26 Evening Aboard Xpedition
Back on board, Cathy and Ed exercised (they are psycho gym rats after all), Maggi and Richard sat on lounge chairs and watched (the exercise equipment is located outside on deck 6 – right next to the lounge chairs for sun bathing!). We also watched big Manta Rays jump out of the water and breach. None of us had any idea they would do that – and found out later that it is their way of trying to get parasites off of them. Amazing!
Showered and casually attired ( tonight is the star gazing and animal watching from the deck night), Cathy and Ed headed to the lounge to grab seats for the briefing. We were joined by Bill and Kay, from Albany, New York (Kay originally from Florida), and struck up a conversation. They had been to Macchu Pichu before the cruise, and said it was breathtaking, but had a hard time getting out of Cusco due to civil unrest. They had a tough time in M.P. as well. The farmers were striking and they managed to shut down the railways, so the MP train wasn’t running the whole way. The only way to get to the ruins was by car for a couple hours, then onto a train at the Hiram Bingham stop. Getting back down was just a challenging, then their flight was cancelled from Cusco and they ended up spending an extra night there, flying out to Quito on Saturday. They missed the all day tour, but fortunately made it for the ship! Phew! Kay said she thought the protests were over, but that’s an interesting thing to be looking forward to next week!!!
Maggi and Richard joined everyone for the briefing and to celebrate Cathy’s birthday. They had printed out a picture of the 4 of them at the Baroness lookout point from that afternoon (the ship has a Kodak machine that allows you to print out photos) and given that to Cathy along with a chocolate from their room and an adorable penguin. It was such a wonderful surprise!
Dinner after the briefing was great as usual. We had a table for 6, and Jorge, one of the guides joined us for the evening. He was a great table mate, and told us all about his home town south west of Quito, and that he has a banana plantation for his “other job” (everyone has a 2nd job, as they are only allowed to work 4 or 6 weeks at a time in the Galapagos, then must take 4 weeks or so off). He told us all sorts of interesting things about the banana process, about Galapagos and working as a guide (22 years!). He has 3 boys (14, 9 and 7 – ages might not be 100% accurate, but close), and in Ecuador, they call his teenager, the donkey years! Great term for those stubborn adolescent years!!!
We had a very enjoyable evening with him, then at the end of dinner, here comes the Maitre’d, staff and all our friends – Helen, Michelle, Barb, the other Maggie, Pedro, Eleana and Anita, all singing happy birthday and giving Cathy room chocolates (courtesy of Maggi #1!!! Thank you Maggi!!)! It was truly a supermarket moment, and we are all amazed that Cathy managed not to cry! So totally sweet! A beautiful strawberry shortcake like cake with a candle finished off the meal perfectly!
Afterward, everyone headed up to the outside decks to watch the show in the water and the sky. Up on deck 6, they turned out the lights (much like they did at our request the night before on deck 4!!) and one of the officers pointed out different constellations, while Geovanna translated. You can see more stars down here than we’ve ever seen before. We were blessed with crystal clear skies in which you could see everything. Mars, Orion, the seven sisters, Perseus, even the Milky Way. But the real show was in the water.
We were at anchor and the crew turns on the outside lights to illuminate the water. We all stood mesmerized for hours watching sea lions and Pelicans fight for flying fish that moved across the water like torpedoes. Then came the sharks – big ones! One was at least 10 to 12 feet in length, with 2 others close behind. They trolled the waters, waiting for the flying fish as well. When an unlucky fish would happen to surface, all this commotion would begin – the Pelicans would lift off – quicker than you can ever imagine – the sea lions would take off like a rocket and the sharks would fly – all heading toward their quarry. Who ever got there first got the fish – maybe. It was truly amazing.
We could have stayed there all night. And actually, some of us did! Cathy and Ed retired a little after 11 - Maggi and Richard stayed up talking to Pedro and Eleana as well as the other Richmond contingent, Dick and Linda. No telling when they headed back down to deck 3!
Showered and casually attired ( tonight is the star gazing and animal watching from the deck night), Cathy and Ed headed to the lounge to grab seats for the briefing. We were joined by Bill and Kay, from Albany, New York (Kay originally from Florida), and struck up a conversation. They had been to Macchu Pichu before the cruise, and said it was breathtaking, but had a hard time getting out of Cusco due to civil unrest. They had a tough time in M.P. as well. The farmers were striking and they managed to shut down the railways, so the MP train wasn’t running the whole way. The only way to get to the ruins was by car for a couple hours, then onto a train at the Hiram Bingham stop. Getting back down was just a challenging, then their flight was cancelled from Cusco and they ended up spending an extra night there, flying out to Quito on Saturday. They missed the all day tour, but fortunately made it for the ship! Phew! Kay said she thought the protests were over, but that’s an interesting thing to be looking forward to next week!!!
Maggi and Richard joined everyone for the briefing and to celebrate Cathy’s birthday. They had printed out a picture of the 4 of them at the Baroness lookout point from that afternoon (the ship has a Kodak machine that allows you to print out photos) and given that to Cathy along with a chocolate from their room and an adorable penguin. It was such a wonderful surprise!
Dinner after the briefing was great as usual. We had a table for 6, and Jorge, one of the guides joined us for the evening. He was a great table mate, and told us all about his home town south west of Quito, and that he has a banana plantation for his “other job” (everyone has a 2nd job, as they are only allowed to work 4 or 6 weeks at a time in the Galapagos, then must take 4 weeks or so off). He told us all sorts of interesting things about the banana process, about Galapagos and working as a guide (22 years!). He has 3 boys (14, 9 and 7 – ages might not be 100% accurate, but close), and in Ecuador, they call his teenager, the donkey years! Great term for those stubborn adolescent years!!!
We had a very enjoyable evening with him, then at the end of dinner, here comes the Maitre’d, staff and all our friends – Helen, Michelle, Barb, the other Maggie, Pedro, Eleana and Anita, all singing happy birthday and giving Cathy room chocolates (courtesy of Maggi #1!!! Thank you Maggi!!)! It was truly a supermarket moment, and we are all amazed that Cathy managed not to cry! So totally sweet! A beautiful strawberry shortcake like cake with a candle finished off the meal perfectly!
Afterward, everyone headed up to the outside decks to watch the show in the water and the sky. Up on deck 6, they turned out the lights (much like they did at our request the night before on deck 4!!) and one of the officers pointed out different constellations, while Geovanna translated. You can see more stars down here than we’ve ever seen before. We were blessed with crystal clear skies in which you could see everything. Mars, Orion, the seven sisters, Perseus, even the Milky Way. But the real show was in the water.
We were at anchor and the crew turns on the outside lights to illuminate the water. We all stood mesmerized for hours watching sea lions and Pelicans fight for flying fish that moved across the water like torpedoes. Then came the sharks – big ones! One was at least 10 to 12 feet in length, with 2 others close behind. They trolled the waters, waiting for the flying fish as well. When an unlucky fish would happen to surface, all this commotion would begin – the Pelicans would lift off – quicker than you can ever imagine – the sea lions would take off like a rocket and the sharks would fly – all heading toward their quarry. Who ever got there first got the fish – maybe. It was truly amazing.
We could have stayed there all night. And actually, some of us did! Cathy and Ed retired a little after 11 - Maggi and Richard stayed up talking to Pedro and Eleana as well as the other Richmond contingent, Dick and Linda. No telling when they headed back down to deck 3!
2/26 Afternoon on Floreana
On our afternoon excursion, once again, Team Zodiac prevails. A private tour with Jessica again. This time, we spent quite a bit of time in the zodiac, touring the waters right off the coast of Floreana. There were quite a few sea lions playing around the zodiac and sunning on the rocks that were scattered about the area. We sighted 4 little penguins perched on the edge of on of the rocky outcrops – standing perfectly still like they were posing. Then we watched one of them swim through the water – at warp speed it seemed – right past our zodiac. As we trolled around the rocks, we watched giant turtles and rays swim past. We searched for turtles resting in the mangroves, but weren’t lucky enough to spot any.
On the beach, we hopped out of the zodiac (wet landing) and proceeded up a switch back trail to the Baroness Look out point. Fabulous view from a wooden deck at the top of a rise. Legend has it that in the 1930’s, the island was inhabited by a German dentist, his mistress and family (the Wittmers), as well as a “self-proclaimed” Baroness and her 3 lovers. Shortly after the Baroness made her home there, she began to terrorize the other residents. The Wittmer’s would receive gifts from their family, delivered by ship, and the Baroness would intercept the ships and not let the gifts go the family. She claimed them for her own. There were rumors of poisonings and murders, and eventually the Baroness, her 3 lovers and the dentist ended up dead. Many have tried to find the true story behind the island’s inhabitants, but no hard facts have been confirmed. Floreana today is known as the “island of mystery” for this reason.
The look out platform we visited was allegedly the site where the Baroness would scan the ocean for incoming ships. It’s a beautiful view and you could imagine her surveying her entire domain from where we stood. After photos and story telling, it was back down to the beach for the Zodiac back to the ship.
On the beach, we hopped out of the zodiac (wet landing) and proceeded up a switch back trail to the Baroness Look out point. Fabulous view from a wooden deck at the top of a rise. Legend has it that in the 1930’s, the island was inhabited by a German dentist, his mistress and family (the Wittmers), as well as a “self-proclaimed” Baroness and her 3 lovers. Shortly after the Baroness made her home there, she began to terrorize the other residents. The Wittmer’s would receive gifts from their family, delivered by ship, and the Baroness would intercept the ships and not let the gifts go the family. She claimed them for her own. There were rumors of poisonings and murders, and eventually the Baroness, her 3 lovers and the dentist ended up dead. Many have tried to find the true story behind the island’s inhabitants, but no hard facts have been confirmed. Floreana today is known as the “island of mystery” for this reason.
The look out platform we visited was allegedly the site where the Baroness would scan the ocean for incoming ships. It’s a beautiful view and you could imagine her surveying her entire domain from where we stood. After photos and story telling, it was back down to the beach for the Zodiac back to the ship.
2/26 Floreana Island
Happy Birthday to Cathy. Up bright and early for our excursion, and Cathy was greeted with birthday cards and presents (including a massage at 2 – courtesy of Ed!). Another beautiful day, but not as hot in the beginning part of the morning – although after the sun had been up for a little bit, it did heat up. Today’s activities are much less strenuous (their definition and our definition of ‘strenuous’ don’t really mesh, but it’s all about the audience!) – a short walk through easy paths to view flamingoes in a lagoon, then a walk across the island to a sandy beach to view stingrays and back again for snorkeling from the beach (dubbed ‘sissy snorkeling’ by Ed – as opposed to ‘real’ snorkeling which is done directly off the zodiac).
Morning on Floreana
Team Zodiac strategy works again! Last zodiac off and the 6 of us had another private tour, this time with Jessica. An easy walk through rather shaded areas, we learned about a tree that protects from mosquitoes – it’s scent repels them – and watched for finches and warblers again. AT the first viewing area, we could see 30 or ore flamingoes, some feeding on shrimp (which is what gives them their pink color) others just standing in the shallow brackish water. We learned a very interesting fact – the reason why the flamingoes legs look like they work backwards (their ‘knee’ goes to the back) is that their ‘knee’ is actually much higher on the bird – almost up their body – and what we are seeing is actually similar to our ankle – which is why it moves the way it does. Who knew? (lots of things we are learning this trip! Too much to remember actually – so whatever little goofy nuggets we can retain will be found here for posterity!)
We moved on to the next viewing area, a platform perched higher up a hill with a panoramic view of the lagoon. Lots of photo op’s here – you could see the trails the flamingoes make while walking through the lagoon and eating. We noticed what looked like the number ‘48’ in their trails and through that was pretty amazing since Cathy was turned 47 – just beginning her 48th year – that day! (ok – it’s a stretch – but hey – come on – it was close enough to be noted!!)
Next, our little troop moved on to the beach on the other side of Floreana where there were lots of stingrays in the water, plus a shark and a few giant turtles. The beach was white and sandy, and it was the first time we could clearly see the turtle tracks and nests that they made to lay their eggs. The tracks are eerily reminiscent of ATV or 4WD tire treads – leading up to the dunes where they dig a huge whole, lay their eggs then move back to the sea. The water at this beach was very clear with little tide – we all wished we could stay there to snorkel with the animals.
But, alas, that was not to be. Off we hiked, back over the small hill to the landing beach where we had left our snorkel gear. Maggi, Cathy & Richard all suited up in wet suits – Ed decided to forgo the suit and handle the water like the polar bear he really is – snorkel equipment at the ready – we headed out to the water. Temperature was nice – warm enough not to wear the suit, but the sun is so strong and there was talk of jelly fish, so we decided to be safe rather than sorry. Ed took off, even without his vest, and Richard followed. Maggi and Cathy stayed closer to shore trying to get the hang of the equipment. After a few attempts of panicked water spurting, Cathy got the hang of it (blowing up the vest really helped with the panic feeling), but Maggi decided it just wasn’t for her. So as the boys headed out with the underwater cameras, frolicking with sea lions (one brushed past both Ed and Richard), Cathy practiced a little bit here and there (managing not to drown or cough up any sea water), Maggi enjoyed the water and conversation with the other bathers. I was finally let out of my room and enjoyed a few moments basking in the sun on the beach. There weren’t any wet suits small enough for me, so I wasn’t allowed in the water. That was probably a good thing since I’m thinking some of those bigger fish might like a small pup for fish food. Plus, those sea lions…..Bavarian pups might sound like a nice dessert for them! I was happy enough just to bask in the fresh air, sand and look out at the water from somewhere other than the cabin for a while.
On our way back in the zodiac, we had our first penguin sighting! Yea! A penguin on Cathy’s birthday – how perfect!! We found out later that a few people (Barry from across the hall) had actually seen the penguin while snorkeling! Would that be cool or what? Hopefully we’ll have that opportunity tomorrow at Bartolome island where the colony of penguins actually resides.
Back aboard, the very nice morning excursion, followed by an excellent lunch of Ecuadorian specialties – including the awesome cerviche – then off to do our separate things for the afternoon until our 4 pm excursion to Baronness look out. Cathy headed to her massage – excellent, btw, Alicia has a wonderful pair of strong hands – Ed to load pictures to the computer, Maggi to read, Richard to nap. A perfect afternoon respite from our Xpeditions!!
Morning on Floreana
Team Zodiac strategy works again! Last zodiac off and the 6 of us had another private tour, this time with Jessica. An easy walk through rather shaded areas, we learned about a tree that protects from mosquitoes – it’s scent repels them – and watched for finches and warblers again. AT the first viewing area, we could see 30 or ore flamingoes, some feeding on shrimp (which is what gives them their pink color) others just standing in the shallow brackish water. We learned a very interesting fact – the reason why the flamingoes legs look like they work backwards (their ‘knee’ goes to the back) is that their ‘knee’ is actually much higher on the bird – almost up their body – and what we are seeing is actually similar to our ankle – which is why it moves the way it does. Who knew? (lots of things we are learning this trip! Too much to remember actually – so whatever little goofy nuggets we can retain will be found here for posterity!)
We moved on to the next viewing area, a platform perched higher up a hill with a panoramic view of the lagoon. Lots of photo op’s here – you could see the trails the flamingoes make while walking through the lagoon and eating. We noticed what looked like the number ‘48’ in their trails and through that was pretty amazing since Cathy was turned 47 – just beginning her 48th year – that day! (ok – it’s a stretch – but hey – come on – it was close enough to be noted!!)
Next, our little troop moved on to the beach on the other side of Floreana where there were lots of stingrays in the water, plus a shark and a few giant turtles. The beach was white and sandy, and it was the first time we could clearly see the turtle tracks and nests that they made to lay their eggs. The tracks are eerily reminiscent of ATV or 4WD tire treads – leading up to the dunes where they dig a huge whole, lay their eggs then move back to the sea. The water at this beach was very clear with little tide – we all wished we could stay there to snorkel with the animals.
But, alas, that was not to be. Off we hiked, back over the small hill to the landing beach where we had left our snorkel gear. Maggi, Cathy & Richard all suited up in wet suits – Ed decided to forgo the suit and handle the water like the polar bear he really is – snorkel equipment at the ready – we headed out to the water. Temperature was nice – warm enough not to wear the suit, but the sun is so strong and there was talk of jelly fish, so we decided to be safe rather than sorry. Ed took off, even without his vest, and Richard followed. Maggi and Cathy stayed closer to shore trying to get the hang of the equipment. After a few attempts of panicked water spurting, Cathy got the hang of it (blowing up the vest really helped with the panic feeling), but Maggi decided it just wasn’t for her. So as the boys headed out with the underwater cameras, frolicking with sea lions (one brushed past both Ed and Richard), Cathy practiced a little bit here and there (managing not to drown or cough up any sea water), Maggi enjoyed the water and conversation with the other bathers. I was finally let out of my room and enjoyed a few moments basking in the sun on the beach. There weren’t any wet suits small enough for me, so I wasn’t allowed in the water. That was probably a good thing since I’m thinking some of those bigger fish might like a small pup for fish food. Plus, those sea lions…..Bavarian pups might sound like a nice dessert for them! I was happy enough just to bask in the fresh air, sand and look out at the water from somewhere other than the cabin for a while.
On our way back in the zodiac, we had our first penguin sighting! Yea! A penguin on Cathy’s birthday – how perfect!! We found out later that a few people (Barry from across the hall) had actually seen the penguin while snorkeling! Would that be cool or what? Hopefully we’ll have that opportunity tomorrow at Bartolome island where the colony of penguins actually resides.
Back aboard, the very nice morning excursion, followed by an excellent lunch of Ecuadorian specialties – including the awesome cerviche – then off to do our separate things for the afternoon until our 4 pm excursion to Baronness look out. Cathy headed to her massage – excellent, btw, Alicia has a wonderful pair of strong hands – Ed to load pictures to the computer, Maggi to read, Richard to nap. A perfect afternoon respite from our Xpeditions!!
2/25 Evening on board
Back on board, we are greeted with frozen drinks and cookies. Yum! Then we head to the cabins to get ready for dinner. As we were organizing there was knock on the door – Maggi all excited – in only her t-shirt – “There’s a giant friggin’ turtle out the window!” Ed and Cathy go racing back to her cabin – and – she’d locked herself out with Richard in the bathroom! This is cute! So, there the 3 of them stand, Maggi in a t-shirt, pounding on the door, trying to explain to our fellow passengers that we are trying to see a turtle!!! Of course, by the time they get to the window, the turtle was gone!
After that excitement, the night was uneventful! Met in Discovery for per-dinner drinks, shared our Captain’s Club bottle of champagne, dinner in Darwin’s, then drinks in Discovery and on the back deck. Joined up with Pedro and Eliana and spent an enjoyable end of our evening under the stars.
After that excitement, the night was uneventful! Met in Discovery for per-dinner drinks, shared our Captain’s Club bottle of champagne, dinner in Darwin’s, then drinks in Discovery and on the back deck. Joined up with Pedro and Eliana and spent an enjoyable end of our evening under the stars.
2/25 Espanola Island
Zodiac call at 4 pm precisely- we hooked up with Ellen and Michelle again and solidified our “Team Zodiac” strategy by grabbing the last zodiac to Espanola. Private tour! Only the 6 of us and Giovanna, our Naturalist for the afternoon. As we approached the island, we were greeted by a colony of sea lion, slots playing in the water all around the zodiac. As we waited for the boat in front of us to unload, we trolled along the jetty landing area looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs and watching the sea lions play with he zodiac.
After a few minutes wait, we all hopped off the zodiac on the jetty like rock formation and began walking down the path, careful to step around the bright red crabs and marine iguanas in our path.
Today’s activity is a 2-hour walk around the island to a blow hole on the other side. It’s a rough hike because most of it will be over rocks and boulders. The bonus with our small group is we’re all pretty athletic and can handle the terrain fairly easily.
We begin our exploration on a sandy beach right off the jetty filled with a colony of sea lions. They are adorable, but a little frightening when they start coming toward you – especially when there are so many of them on the beach with their babies. BTW, I’m staying hidden away – so far – so good – my “out of sight, out of mind” strategy seems to be working quite well so far – let Ed and Cathy deal with these monstrous beasts!
So – here is the wildlife overload! Our walk through Espanola was just too incredible to really describe in words. We saw the sea lions (probably 200 on each of 2 beaches), marine iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs (SLC), BFBs, Nasca Boobies (which Cathy thought they were calling NASCAR boobies…..did she really get her hearing checked?), finches and mocking birds. The amazing thing is that none of them were afraid of us as predators, you could get as close as you wanted to most – although we weren’t supposed to get closer than 5 or 6 feet. But that proved nearly impossible as the animals were all over the path and there were instances when you had to step over the iguanas trying to cool off in the shade – or walk around boobies nesting. You never knew where to look – over here is a BFB mommy with 2 chicks under her wings to keep cool, over there, a male marine iguana perched on a rock, up ahead under the brush, more iguanas resting; BFBs everywhere, chicks (that look like goslings), full grown with the startling blue feet. Then there was the abandoned egg at the top of the hike – near the albatross “landing strip. So sad, but the necessary evils of survival of the fittest.
After walking along the rocky shore filled with SLCs, and climbing along on boulders and rocks through the scrubby vegetation in search of finches and warblers (which we found along with a pair of mating lizards), we arrived at the bluffs on the other side of the island overlooking the water. A Short rest sitting on really HOT rocks, but enjoying a good breeze, and we were off again for the completion of our hike. (Along the way, unbeknownst to us, Richard really had to go! In his initial talk, Jorge had jokingly showed us a picture of the bushes and told us this was Galapagos bathroom. Richard took that to heart and wanted to use the bushes. Maggi steadfastly refused to let him “introduce anything foreign” into the island. So, after a few more painful minutes, Maggi ended up chugging down her water bottle and giving it to Richard to use. He then transported it back to the ship in his back pocket!)
The 2nd half of the walk was a spectacular as the first with various creatures basking in the sun or lounging under bushes to avoid the heat. We passed by a magnificent blow hole, saw many iguanas, and, as we were passing by a couple of sea lions, we spied a plastic bottle laying empty on the beach. Geovanna retrieved it using our walking stick as protection (the bulls can be very aggressive).
By the time we made it back to the sea lion beach to get our zodiac, the tide had come in – as well as the sea lions! They had moved inland and were blocking our path. We had to pick our way off the trail through rocks to get back to the jetty. The sea lions are playful creatures, but you don’t want to mess with them r their babies. Speaking of babies, at the 2nd beach, a teeny baby, maybe 2 weeks old, was crying for it’s mother. We stood mesmerized as it went from female to female trying to feed and then begin chased off. We left without knowing whether it found it s mother or not – but Geovanna said it was normal and that the mother was probably out fishing or just ignoring the pup.
The tide being in meant we now had a semi-wet landing! We had to time our “run” to the zodiac with the waves. As we waited, we could see sea lions surfing in the waves – it was so surreal! You have to pinch yourself to convince yourself it’s real and not computer animation!
After a few minutes wait, we all hopped off the zodiac on the jetty like rock formation and began walking down the path, careful to step around the bright red crabs and marine iguanas in our path.
Today’s activity is a 2-hour walk around the island to a blow hole on the other side. It’s a rough hike because most of it will be over rocks and boulders. The bonus with our small group is we’re all pretty athletic and can handle the terrain fairly easily.
We begin our exploration on a sandy beach right off the jetty filled with a colony of sea lions. They are adorable, but a little frightening when they start coming toward you – especially when there are so many of them on the beach with their babies. BTW, I’m staying hidden away – so far – so good – my “out of sight, out of mind” strategy seems to be working quite well so far – let Ed and Cathy deal with these monstrous beasts!
So – here is the wildlife overload! Our walk through Espanola was just too incredible to really describe in words. We saw the sea lions (probably 200 on each of 2 beaches), marine iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs (SLC), BFBs, Nasca Boobies (which Cathy thought they were calling NASCAR boobies…..did she really get her hearing checked?), finches and mocking birds. The amazing thing is that none of them were afraid of us as predators, you could get as close as you wanted to most – although we weren’t supposed to get closer than 5 or 6 feet. But that proved nearly impossible as the animals were all over the path and there were instances when you had to step over the iguanas trying to cool off in the shade – or walk around boobies nesting. You never knew where to look – over here is a BFB mommy with 2 chicks under her wings to keep cool, over there, a male marine iguana perched on a rock, up ahead under the brush, more iguanas resting; BFBs everywhere, chicks (that look like goslings), full grown with the startling blue feet. Then there was the abandoned egg at the top of the hike – near the albatross “landing strip. So sad, but the necessary evils of survival of the fittest.
After walking along the rocky shore filled with SLCs, and climbing along on boulders and rocks through the scrubby vegetation in search of finches and warblers (which we found along with a pair of mating lizards), we arrived at the bluffs on the other side of the island overlooking the water. A Short rest sitting on really HOT rocks, but enjoying a good breeze, and we were off again for the completion of our hike. (Along the way, unbeknownst to us, Richard really had to go! In his initial talk, Jorge had jokingly showed us a picture of the bushes and told us this was Galapagos bathroom. Richard took that to heart and wanted to use the bushes. Maggi steadfastly refused to let him “introduce anything foreign” into the island. So, after a few more painful minutes, Maggi ended up chugging down her water bottle and giving it to Richard to use. He then transported it back to the ship in his back pocket!)
The 2nd half of the walk was a spectacular as the first with various creatures basking in the sun or lounging under bushes to avoid the heat. We passed by a magnificent blow hole, saw many iguanas, and, as we were passing by a couple of sea lions, we spied a plastic bottle laying empty on the beach. Geovanna retrieved it using our walking stick as protection (the bulls can be very aggressive).
By the time we made it back to the sea lion beach to get our zodiac, the tide had come in – as well as the sea lions! They had moved inland and were blocking our path. We had to pick our way off the trail through rocks to get back to the jetty. The sea lions are playful creatures, but you don’t want to mess with them r their babies. Speaking of babies, at the 2nd beach, a teeny baby, maybe 2 weeks old, was crying for it’s mother. We stood mesmerized as it went from female to female trying to feed and then begin chased off. We left without knowing whether it found it s mother or not – but Geovanna said it was normal and that the mother was probably out fishing or just ignoring the pup.
The tide being in meant we now had a semi-wet landing! We had to time our “run” to the zodiac with the waves. As we waited, we could see sea lions surfing in the waves – it was so surreal! You have to pinch yourself to convince yourself it’s real and not computer animation!
2/25 San Cristobal
After breakfast, Richard joined us and went ashore to San Cristobal island, one of 3 populated islands in the Galapagos. Maggi stayed aboard to relax and have some quiet time. The zodiac ride was fast – and fun. Sea lions were spotted lounging on many a “tender” boat – the little boats attached to the bigger sailing vessels in the harbor. When we approached the dock, you could see sea lions sunning on the steps up to the pier. We unloaded at a ramp that the sea lions must not have liked for the sun.
Hopped on a little bus to take us for a “2 minute” ride to the interpretation center. Open windows, breeze flowing through, it was very nice and comfortable. The bus took us through the town – and in 2 minutes we were on the outskirts of the town by the beach and the lighthouse at the center. A nice little diversion, the center has a self guided pictorial history of the Galapagos, from the plate shifts that began the development to the volcanic eruptions that created the island chain, all the way through the Spaniards, Darwin and up to today. There is an absolutely fantastic map at the entrance which is a caricature rendition of the entire island chain, complete with little penguins at Bartolome island and blue footed boobies in their habitats. No gift shop – the only time Cathy had ever wanted one!!! - to buy a paper copy of the map. Photos will have to suffice.
After 10 minutes, we were all done, and were going to head back into town to explore. But we stumbled on a nature walk, and after some debate, within which we (read: Cathy) saw on the sign it was an estimated 15 minute walk – we decided to strike out through the wilderness. It was a very fun walk, but these people need to get their estimations right. The 3 of us, walking fast, took 45 minutes and we didn’t even finish the darn thing!! Richard was in the lead with his stick – acting as the “web slayer” – and keeping Cathy safe from Spiders. There were many iguanas, a finch and a mockingbird along the route. The trail finally came to the coast, with a nice view of the lighthouse. Pictures, quick rest, water, then back down to the center. The original plan was to be back on the bus and in town within 15 minutes, now almost an hour later, we headed back with a bus full of other Xpedition passengers.
Disgorged into town, we all went our separate ways: us to the Internet café ($1.25 for 30 minutes) and Richard in search of a post office. The little town is picturesque sitting on the quiet harbor at the foot of the island. Completely focused on the tourist trade, there were many shops and a few restaurants to keep the shoppers and hungry happy. We shopped for a bit, found some t-shirts for Ed and some Tagua gifts for others, and ran into Richard in the process. We had originally thought of having a beer at one of the marina side restaurants, but then thought that would be silly, since we could go have one on the ship at no charge and be out in the water. So, off we went to the pier.
Arrived and got our gear, then jumped on the 2nd zodiac back to the ship. A sea lion jumped up on another zodiac that was docked right next to us. They are wild little creatures.
Back on board, we sat in the Discovery bar, had a beer/wine (this wine, Viu Manent is better than the San Carlos we had last night) and wrote a little in the journal. Checked out the Beagle Grill for lunch, salads, tuna salad sandwich, grilled hamburger, hot dog and jack fish (don’t know, little fillets, white, but fishy smelling). Decided to hit the buffet instead where we both had cerviche (really good – today with octopus and white fish, no shrimp), Ed had red snapper in a sauce with nuts, vegetables and salad. Afterwards, headed to the room for a bit then met up with Richard and Maggi to go get our snorkeling gear.
If only we would have had our cameras! Oh my gosh, all these people in a rather confined space trying to wiggle into neoprene suits over top their “street” clothes in 100 degree heat. Too funny. And then, trying on the masks. It was a sight to see, one that we wish we had captured on digital.
Later we listened to Jorge explain about the snorkeling excursions and the differences between High Activity and Low intensity (low being basically “sissy snorkeling”). Of course, we are all sissy snorkeling, but that’s ok. We will have an opportunity every day to get in the water according to Jorge and that will be a nice respite from the heat.
Hopped on a little bus to take us for a “2 minute” ride to the interpretation center. Open windows, breeze flowing through, it was very nice and comfortable. The bus took us through the town – and in 2 minutes we were on the outskirts of the town by the beach and the lighthouse at the center. A nice little diversion, the center has a self guided pictorial history of the Galapagos, from the plate shifts that began the development to the volcanic eruptions that created the island chain, all the way through the Spaniards, Darwin and up to today. There is an absolutely fantastic map at the entrance which is a caricature rendition of the entire island chain, complete with little penguins at Bartolome island and blue footed boobies in their habitats. No gift shop – the only time Cathy had ever wanted one!!! - to buy a paper copy of the map. Photos will have to suffice.
After 10 minutes, we were all done, and were going to head back into town to explore. But we stumbled on a nature walk, and after some debate, within which we (read: Cathy) saw on the sign it was an estimated 15 minute walk – we decided to strike out through the wilderness. It was a very fun walk, but these people need to get their estimations right. The 3 of us, walking fast, took 45 minutes and we didn’t even finish the darn thing!! Richard was in the lead with his stick – acting as the “web slayer” – and keeping Cathy safe from Spiders. There were many iguanas, a finch and a mockingbird along the route. The trail finally came to the coast, with a nice view of the lighthouse. Pictures, quick rest, water, then back down to the center. The original plan was to be back on the bus and in town within 15 minutes, now almost an hour later, we headed back with a bus full of other Xpedition passengers.
Disgorged into town, we all went our separate ways: us to the Internet café ($1.25 for 30 minutes) and Richard in search of a post office. The little town is picturesque sitting on the quiet harbor at the foot of the island. Completely focused on the tourist trade, there were many shops and a few restaurants to keep the shoppers and hungry happy. We shopped for a bit, found some t-shirts for Ed and some Tagua gifts for others, and ran into Richard in the process. We had originally thought of having a beer at one of the marina side restaurants, but then thought that would be silly, since we could go have one on the ship at no charge and be out in the water. So, off we went to the pier.
Arrived and got our gear, then jumped on the 2nd zodiac back to the ship. A sea lion jumped up on another zodiac that was docked right next to us. They are wild little creatures.
Back on board, we sat in the Discovery bar, had a beer/wine (this wine, Viu Manent is better than the San Carlos we had last night) and wrote a little in the journal. Checked out the Beagle Grill for lunch, salads, tuna salad sandwich, grilled hamburger, hot dog and jack fish (don’t know, little fillets, white, but fishy smelling). Decided to hit the buffet instead where we both had cerviche (really good – today with octopus and white fish, no shrimp), Ed had red snapper in a sauce with nuts, vegetables and salad. Afterwards, headed to the room for a bit then met up with Richard and Maggi to go get our snorkeling gear.
If only we would have had our cameras! Oh my gosh, all these people in a rather confined space trying to wiggle into neoprene suits over top their “street” clothes in 100 degree heat. Too funny. And then, trying on the masks. It was a sight to see, one that we wish we had captured on digital.
Later we listened to Jorge explain about the snorkeling excursions and the differences between High Activity and Low intensity (low being basically “sissy snorkeling”). Of course, we are all sissy snorkeling, but that’s ok. We will have an opportunity every day to get in the water according to Jorge and that will be a nice respite from the heat.
2/25 – Kicker Rock, San Cristobal and Espanola Island
Kicker Rock
Up very early today for a 7 am zodiac ride to Kicker Rock. The rock towers out of the ocean, formed by ejecta and ash from a volcanic explosion eons ago. Called Leon Dormide in Spanish, sleeping lion, it is a resting place for boobies, frigates, crabs and other wildlife. Ed and Cathy were up way too early, don’t know what they were thinking, but they set the alarm for 6 and then had a lot of time to kill before the ride. So, up to the Beagle grill they went – coffee and croissants (not for them…croissants, that is, but coffee – yes!) in the dark of the aft deck. The morning was warm with a nice breeze, portending another beautiful day. Maggi and Richard arrived close to 7 (smart!!!0 and they all waited on deck for the zodiac call.
As they lined up for the zodiac, it dawned on them that 1st may not be best. Waiting until last to load meant that possibly they might have a zodiac with less than the full load of 16. Duh! So last out – and – what do you know? Only 8 people in the zodiac. Cool!
Riding around Kicker rock was worth getting up early. The rock formation is incredibly majestic rising up out of the ocean. The boobies and crabs competing fro space, clinging to the sheer rock walls was a sight to see. The formation has a couple of splits that are very picturesque and will show up in our tabblo! Don’t worry!
Rode around for about 45 minutes, soaking in the sheer enormity of the formation. On the way back to the ship, we came across a sea lion “fishing” for breakfast. He was flipping his tail and slapping it on the water to kill the fish. Then it would grab the fish in its mouth and bit and toss it hard on the water, maybe even slapping it again to cut it up into small enough pieces to eat. All this is going on less than 10 feet from the zodiac!
Back on board, we feasted on made to order eggs, pastries, bacon, chicken and pork sausages – neither of which tasted like chicken or pork! (Obviously food will not be a problem on this trip!!!)
Up very early today for a 7 am zodiac ride to Kicker Rock. The rock towers out of the ocean, formed by ejecta and ash from a volcanic explosion eons ago. Called Leon Dormide in Spanish, sleeping lion, it is a resting place for boobies, frigates, crabs and other wildlife. Ed and Cathy were up way too early, don’t know what they were thinking, but they set the alarm for 6 and then had a lot of time to kill before the ride. So, up to the Beagle grill they went – coffee and croissants (not for them…croissants, that is, but coffee – yes!) in the dark of the aft deck. The morning was warm with a nice breeze, portending another beautiful day. Maggi and Richard arrived close to 7 (smart!!!0 and they all waited on deck for the zodiac call.
As they lined up for the zodiac, it dawned on them that 1st may not be best. Waiting until last to load meant that possibly they might have a zodiac with less than the full load of 16. Duh! So last out – and – what do you know? Only 8 people in the zodiac. Cool!
Riding around Kicker rock was worth getting up early. The rock formation is incredibly majestic rising up out of the ocean. The boobies and crabs competing fro space, clinging to the sheer rock walls was a sight to see. The formation has a couple of splits that are very picturesque and will show up in our tabblo! Don’t worry!
Rode around for about 45 minutes, soaking in the sheer enormity of the formation. On the way back to the ship, we came across a sea lion “fishing” for breakfast. He was flipping his tail and slapping it on the water to kill the fish. Then it would grab the fish in its mouth and bit and toss it hard on the water, maybe even slapping it again to cut it up into small enough pieces to eat. All this is going on less than 10 feet from the zodiac!
Back on board, we feasted on made to order eggs, pastries, bacon, chicken and pork sausages – neither of which tasted like chicken or pork! (Obviously food will not be a problem on this trip!!!)
2/24 Evening on the ship
Back on the ship, we all headed to the cabins for hot showers and freshening up. Ed exercised for a bit (the machines are outside on the top deck of the ship – a treadmill, bike and a weight machine), Cathy freshened up in the relative cool of the cabin (no where on this ship is it very cool – except for the dining room – but we’re skipping ahead). Met Maggi and Richard back in the Discovery lounge for the Captain’s welcome and evening briefing. First time ever, the staff was brought champagne but the guests were not! Guess they figure since the cruise is all inclusive and we can get anything we want – why bother with champagne?
Briefings are nice, short little synopsis of what the next day will hold. After the talk, everyone signs up for what they want to do and then we head to dinner. First night dinner was good – and no Hake – which made Ed very happy!! (Celebrity serves Hake for the first night dinner on all their other ships!) Everyone had Red Snapper, except Cathy who had Veal Marsala with mushrooms and ham (the ham is very pale, almost white! Since virtually everything has to be sourced from Ecuador, it must be a local thing.)
After dinner, drinks in the Discovery lounge bar capped off a great first day!
Briefings are nice, short little synopsis of what the next day will hold. After the talk, everyone signs up for what they want to do and then we head to dinner. First night dinner was good – and no Hake – which made Ed very happy!! (Celebrity serves Hake for the first night dinner on all their other ships!) Everyone had Red Snapper, except Cathy who had Veal Marsala with mushrooms and ham (the ham is very pale, almost white! Since virtually everything has to be sourced from Ecuador, it must be a local thing.)
After dinner, drinks in the Discovery lounge bar capped off a great first day!
2/24 North Seymour Island Excursion
At the end of Jorge’s talk, we all signed up for our first afternoon excursion. We signed up for the high intensity walk around North Seymour island. It’s survival of the fittest just to get on the Zodiac! First come, first served; old people do well at pushing – let me tell you! But all 4 of us managed to get on the first zodiac with Manuel, who is really great. Off we motor to the island – a very smooth crossing – but boy is it hot! And there’s no shade – anywhere!! Took only a few minutes and we were greeted by sea lions on the rocks and a male sea lion who was really angry and screaming at us! Welcome to the Galapagos.
We scrambled out of the zodiac and up the rocks to the path, where we began to wind our way along the shore. Low scrub and short brambly bushes and trees cover the interior. Rocky inclines lead to the shoreline. Colors are extremely vivid – blues, greens and browns. Manuel told us that with the rain last week, the vegetation is now green – it was brown and gray before that. Good timing on our part (like we had anything to do with it!) We started down a rocky path on the shore, picking our way along the sea lions and lizards. Rules are to stay in between the guide posts that mark the trail to avoid hurting possible egg lairs (of course some folks listened, some did not!) and stay together. Ok – groups of 16 sticking together? Actually, it worked pretty well – almost too well. There are always some people who have no concept of space and/or their surroundings. So picture taking – even in the “wilderness” – can be a challenge. You get good at shooting over people’s shoulders and between their legs!
Here’s where I will try not to bore everyone to death with the wildlife stories – needless to say – there’s WILDLIFE! Amazing – and of course the objective of the trip, but still! The preface to the ensuing lists of sights, sounds and senses, is that none of these animals are afraid of humans – so they pose quite nicely. And of course you can get close up. The photos – we hope – will be fabulous – but eh experience of just being there, of course, trumps it all!
So – back to North Seymour – one-half of the walk is along the beach – sea lions, black iguanas, hiding under business to keep cool (coz remember – it’s HOT HOT HOT!). Frigate birds all over – Grand Frigates, Magnificent Frigates – the difference? Ahh, hard to really remember (that’s another preface here – we are so overwhelmed with information – we’ll never get it all right – so you’ll probably end up with more misinformation than not!!!). With Frigates, anyway, one of the differences is the sound they make – one of them makes a sound like a drum or basketball dribbling, the other one makes some other sound – and darned if we can remember which is what! One species (the Grand Frigate?) has a red ring around her eyes. The male Frigate has a red “balloon” type pouch on it’s next that he blows up to indicate he’s ready to mate. He will sit on a perch until a female comes to join him. There were many red breasted/necked Frigates on our walk. The rain must be working!!!
As we rounded the side of the island and began our inland trek, we began to see many more blue footed boobies – along with their young. The babies are furry, fuzzy little adorable things. Also saw a grown iguana climbing up on a tree/bush. Manuel said this was most unusual for a full grown iguana to climb – he/she/just have been looking or had seen some food. Many, many, many more pictures of the BFB’s (blue footed boobies) later, we founded the corner to the zodiac landing area.
As we were getting ready to don our life jackets and climb down the steep hill to the zodiac, the male sea lion that was angry before charged us. The guides used the life jacket bag to block it and try to scare it back away. It made these incredible screaming noises as it tried to protect a baby from what he perceived as a threat – us. Pretty scary – but – hey – it’s nature and that’s what we’re here for (of course – I’m just along for this ride – not my 1st choice of a trip – so I stayed very safely tucked away in my backpack while Cathy and Ed dealt with the darn screaming sea lion!).
We scrambled out of the zodiac and up the rocks to the path, where we began to wind our way along the shore. Low scrub and short brambly bushes and trees cover the interior. Rocky inclines lead to the shoreline. Colors are extremely vivid – blues, greens and browns. Manuel told us that with the rain last week, the vegetation is now green – it was brown and gray before that. Good timing on our part (like we had anything to do with it!) We started down a rocky path on the shore, picking our way along the sea lions and lizards. Rules are to stay in between the guide posts that mark the trail to avoid hurting possible egg lairs (of course some folks listened, some did not!) and stay together. Ok – groups of 16 sticking together? Actually, it worked pretty well – almost too well. There are always some people who have no concept of space and/or their surroundings. So picture taking – even in the “wilderness” – can be a challenge. You get good at shooting over people’s shoulders and between their legs!
Here’s where I will try not to bore everyone to death with the wildlife stories – needless to say – there’s WILDLIFE! Amazing – and of course the objective of the trip, but still! The preface to the ensuing lists of sights, sounds and senses, is that none of these animals are afraid of humans – so they pose quite nicely. And of course you can get close up. The photos – we hope – will be fabulous – but eh experience of just being there, of course, trumps it all!
So – back to North Seymour – one-half of the walk is along the beach – sea lions, black iguanas, hiding under business to keep cool (coz remember – it’s HOT HOT HOT!). Frigate birds all over – Grand Frigates, Magnificent Frigates – the difference? Ahh, hard to really remember (that’s another preface here – we are so overwhelmed with information – we’ll never get it all right – so you’ll probably end up with more misinformation than not!!!). With Frigates, anyway, one of the differences is the sound they make – one of them makes a sound like a drum or basketball dribbling, the other one makes some other sound – and darned if we can remember which is what! One species (the Grand Frigate?) has a red ring around her eyes. The male Frigate has a red “balloon” type pouch on it’s next that he blows up to indicate he’s ready to mate. He will sit on a perch until a female comes to join him. There were many red breasted/necked Frigates on our walk. The rain must be working!!!
As we rounded the side of the island and began our inland trek, we began to see many more blue footed boobies – along with their young. The babies are furry, fuzzy little adorable things. Also saw a grown iguana climbing up on a tree/bush. Manuel said this was most unusual for a full grown iguana to climb – he/she/just have been looking or had seen some food. Many, many, many more pictures of the BFB’s (blue footed boobies) later, we founded the corner to the zodiac landing area.
As we were getting ready to don our life jackets and climb down the steep hill to the zodiac, the male sea lion that was angry before charged us. The guides used the life jacket bag to block it and try to scare it back away. It made these incredible screaming noises as it tried to protect a baby from what he perceived as a threat – us. Pretty scary – but – hey – it’s nature and that’s what we’re here for (of course – I’m just along for this ride – not my 1st choice of a trip – so I stayed very safely tucked away in my backpack while Cathy and Ed dealt with the darn screaming sea lion!).
2/24 – To Galapagos
So, the little black cloud over our luggage continues. At 5:45 the phone rings – hello, this is Hugo with Celebrity, do you not have any bags to check this morning? Oh dear lord – here we go! Cathy explains they should be in the luggage check because we sent them down late last night. So – off they go downstairs – a little bit earlier than expected to check out the bags before breakfast. They get to the bar where the boarding passes and luggage is being sorted, walk up to the table and see their bags sitting off to the side. Geez! After identifying them and getting them put with the other bags begin loaded on the truck, Cathy and Ed can now relax and eat their breakfast in peace!
At breakfast, they met Maggi and Richard, and after regaling them with this luggage tale, Richard, who also has the luggage tags, goes off to search for their bags. Lo and behold – they were in storage too and would have missed the ship had he not gone looking! Someone had knocked on their door and asked them about the bags earlier, they told the bus boy the same story and thought it was handled. Cathy and Ed at least had a note on their boarding passes to ask about the luggage – Maggi and Richard didn’t – it could have been very ugly aboard the expedition for 7 days with the clothes on their backs!
Baggage all claimed and settled. We all checked out of the hotel and boarded our buses to the airport. A charter flight awaited us – but we still had to go through security and wait in the boarding area with the regular passengers. We all just milled about for a while – no one was really in charge – so we all just kind of fended for ourselves. Finally, our flight was called and off we went! We boarded a brand new Embraer 190 – and we mean brand new. We don’t think the thing was in service for more than a week – if that. It smelled new – looked new – just gorgeous! Everything was branded Celebrity too! A big plaque on the bulk head with the Celebrity logo, head rest covers, cups, white linen cloth for the tray table with a Celebrity badge on it, you name it – it had Celebrity on it! We took off at 8:30 and flew to Guayaquil for refueling (don’t ask us why – we thought it very odd – but what do we know!).
On the way to Guayaquil we looked out over acres and acres of flooded land. There had been torrential rain the past few weeks and over 250,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes. It looked just awful – an oasis of flooded fields with towns popping up in the middle of what looked like a lake. Took pictures and really thought it was so awful (later found out, that while the flooding was indeed terrible, what we were seeing was in good part rice and shrimp farms! The main farming/production in the Guayaquil area is rice and shrimp! So the flooding turned out to be controlled for the farms, but it still looked worse when we flew down, compared to when we flew back the next week – but more on that later!).
After refueling, we took off again at 9:50. Fruit plate with lots of pineapple and cantaloupe and a mini sandwich, or a sandwich and a mini fruit plate were our food options. Plus wine and beer and drinks – but at 10 am that’s a bit early even for us! Arrived in Galapagos around 11:45. Stairs were rolled up – and off we hopped, into the heat and sun of the little teeny Galapagos airport.
We all headed down the tarmac to the passport and immigrations area. Stood in line for about ½ hour while everyone on our flight (and a flight before us) was checked, stamped and double checked. The passport folks had a whole list of everyone who was arriving on flights – not just Celebrity passengers – and each individual person was literally checked off as they arrived. It’s amazing the control they are keeping over the islands to keep them safe from over development and over population.
By 12:05 we were on the bus and heading to our ship! Richard and Maggi were ahead of us in the line, so they were already on another bus. As we headed out for the 5 minute ride to the dock, we marveled at the landscape – the colors so crisp and vibrant. Wide open fields of scrub and small cactus, low vegetation, and nothing else – not a building, a shack, nothing. Only the road we are using to travel to the little harbor area.
We meet one of our Naturalists, Manuel, at the dock which is simple concrete structure with Sea lions lounging all over (and Sea Lion Surprise all over the dock and ramp as well! Lovely! Our first experience with nature – watch where you are stepping!). The sea lions are cute – but stinky – let’s head for the zodiac please! Manuel gives us our first zodiac lesson – always put your life jacket on first, keep your hands free, use the Galapagos hand shake which means grab onto the naturalists arm when you board, and move to the back of the zodiac. Our first zodiac ride! Yippee! We are finally here! The wind and sun felt great on our faces as we made our way calmly out to the Xpedition. How fun! This will be a great trip!
Once on board, we all sat in our zodiac groups (Maggi and Richard were already aboard in another group) and Manuel gave us the spiel. He told us that it has been very dry for the last year. The rainy season is typically from December through May, but it has only just begun to rain 3 weeks ago. Before that, it was very dry and gray, but now, it is green and the animals are more active. Selfishly we are glad that the rain has come so we can see the islands and the animals better, and unselfishly, we’re glad because the rains are very much needed. We just hope it doesn’t rain too much on our little weeklong parade through the Galapagos.
Once the pursers were ready, we were all escorted to our cabins. #305 for Ed and Cathy, #308 for Maggi and Richard. Cabins are small, but seem roomy even if they are a little Spartan. Best part about them is the refrigerator that is filled with water! Cathy is in heaven! Free water! Almost better than the free beer and wine….well, ok, almost! Everyone gets settled in, bags come, unpack, head up to the Discovery lounge for our first briefing.
Every evening we will have a briefing on the next day’s activity. Today, the first briefing, by Jorge our Cruise Director, will explain the ship, etc., and what we will do on our first excursion at 4 pm that afternoon. We are not changing our clocks – so we are keeping continental time – not island time, which is one hour behind us. This way, we will have more light for our excursions (smart!) and it typically isn’t really an issue since we are only going to be in 2 towns in 7 days. Our naturalists are introduced: Jorge (#2) from Galapagos, Ivan (Galapagos), Manuel (Guayaquil), Rogelio (Galapagos), Jessica (Guayaquil) and Giovanna (Quito).
Each Naturalist will take a group of no more than 16 people on each excursion. Galapagos National park rules limit the size of each group to 16 – so as not to over run the park. Each evening we will sign up for our chosen activity on a list passed around after the briefing. Then each day when we leave for the excursion, Jorge will be at the zodiac loading station checking off the names of the passengers heading ashore. When we return, it is our duty to check ourselves back in on the list at the foot of the stairs. Totally low tech – totally manageable – very friendly and family like. As we are soon to find out, that’s the way the whole ship, and cruise, is run. It’s really a great environment!
At breakfast, they met Maggi and Richard, and after regaling them with this luggage tale, Richard, who also has the luggage tags, goes off to search for their bags. Lo and behold – they were in storage too and would have missed the ship had he not gone looking! Someone had knocked on their door and asked them about the bags earlier, they told the bus boy the same story and thought it was handled. Cathy and Ed at least had a note on their boarding passes to ask about the luggage – Maggi and Richard didn’t – it could have been very ugly aboard the expedition for 7 days with the clothes on their backs!
Baggage all claimed and settled. We all checked out of the hotel and boarded our buses to the airport. A charter flight awaited us – but we still had to go through security and wait in the boarding area with the regular passengers. We all just milled about for a while – no one was really in charge – so we all just kind of fended for ourselves. Finally, our flight was called and off we went! We boarded a brand new Embraer 190 – and we mean brand new. We don’t think the thing was in service for more than a week – if that. It smelled new – looked new – just gorgeous! Everything was branded Celebrity too! A big plaque on the bulk head with the Celebrity logo, head rest covers, cups, white linen cloth for the tray table with a Celebrity badge on it, you name it – it had Celebrity on it! We took off at 8:30 and flew to Guayaquil for refueling (don’t ask us why – we thought it very odd – but what do we know!).
On the way to Guayaquil we looked out over acres and acres of flooded land. There had been torrential rain the past few weeks and over 250,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes. It looked just awful – an oasis of flooded fields with towns popping up in the middle of what looked like a lake. Took pictures and really thought it was so awful (later found out, that while the flooding was indeed terrible, what we were seeing was in good part rice and shrimp farms! The main farming/production in the Guayaquil area is rice and shrimp! So the flooding turned out to be controlled for the farms, but it still looked worse when we flew down, compared to when we flew back the next week – but more on that later!).
After refueling, we took off again at 9:50. Fruit plate with lots of pineapple and cantaloupe and a mini sandwich, or a sandwich and a mini fruit plate were our food options. Plus wine and beer and drinks – but at 10 am that’s a bit early even for us! Arrived in Galapagos around 11:45. Stairs were rolled up – and off we hopped, into the heat and sun of the little teeny Galapagos airport.
We all headed down the tarmac to the passport and immigrations area. Stood in line for about ½ hour while everyone on our flight (and a flight before us) was checked, stamped and double checked. The passport folks had a whole list of everyone who was arriving on flights – not just Celebrity passengers – and each individual person was literally checked off as they arrived. It’s amazing the control they are keeping over the islands to keep them safe from over development and over population.
By 12:05 we were on the bus and heading to our ship! Richard and Maggi were ahead of us in the line, so they were already on another bus. As we headed out for the 5 minute ride to the dock, we marveled at the landscape – the colors so crisp and vibrant. Wide open fields of scrub and small cactus, low vegetation, and nothing else – not a building, a shack, nothing. Only the road we are using to travel to the little harbor area.
We meet one of our Naturalists, Manuel, at the dock which is simple concrete structure with Sea lions lounging all over (and Sea Lion Surprise all over the dock and ramp as well! Lovely! Our first experience with nature – watch where you are stepping!). The sea lions are cute – but stinky – let’s head for the zodiac please! Manuel gives us our first zodiac lesson – always put your life jacket on first, keep your hands free, use the Galapagos hand shake which means grab onto the naturalists arm when you board, and move to the back of the zodiac. Our first zodiac ride! Yippee! We are finally here! The wind and sun felt great on our faces as we made our way calmly out to the Xpedition. How fun! This will be a great trip!
Once on board, we all sat in our zodiac groups (Maggi and Richard were already aboard in another group) and Manuel gave us the spiel. He told us that it has been very dry for the last year. The rainy season is typically from December through May, but it has only just begun to rain 3 weeks ago. Before that, it was very dry and gray, but now, it is green and the animals are more active. Selfishly we are glad that the rain has come so we can see the islands and the animals better, and unselfishly, we’re glad because the rains are very much needed. We just hope it doesn’t rain too much on our little weeklong parade through the Galapagos.
Once the pursers were ready, we were all escorted to our cabins. #305 for Ed and Cathy, #308 for Maggi and Richard. Cabins are small, but seem roomy even if they are a little Spartan. Best part about them is the refrigerator that is filled with water! Cathy is in heaven! Free water! Almost better than the free beer and wine….well, ok, almost! Everyone gets settled in, bags come, unpack, head up to the Discovery lounge for our first briefing.
Every evening we will have a briefing on the next day’s activity. Today, the first briefing, by Jorge our Cruise Director, will explain the ship, etc., and what we will do on our first excursion at 4 pm that afternoon. We are not changing our clocks – so we are keeping continental time – not island time, which is one hour behind us. This way, we will have more light for our excursions (smart!) and it typically isn’t really an issue since we are only going to be in 2 towns in 7 days. Our naturalists are introduced: Jorge (#2) from Galapagos, Ivan (Galapagos), Manuel (Guayaquil), Rogelio (Galapagos), Jessica (Guayaquil) and Giovanna (Quito).
Each Naturalist will take a group of no more than 16 people on each excursion. Galapagos National park rules limit the size of each group to 16 – so as not to over run the park. Each evening we will sign up for our chosen activity on a list passed around after the briefing. Then each day when we leave for the excursion, Jorge will be at the zodiac loading station checking off the names of the passengers heading ashore. When we return, it is our duty to check ourselves back in on the list at the foot of the stairs. Totally low tech – totally manageable – very friendly and family like. As we are soon to find out, that’s the way the whole ship, and cruise, is run. It’s really a great environment!
2/23 – Quito
Finally underway! After 14 hours of actual travel (and untold additional hours of stressful pre and post travel wakefulness!) our tour begins. The good and the bad about the first 10 days of our travels is that we have booked the whole Celebrity tour. WE go where they want us to go, when they want us to go. For the first time in a long, long time, Ed and Cathy are braking their steadfast rule (borrowed from Anthony Bourdain – Thank you Tony!): Don’t get on that bus!
But, sometimes, you just gotta take the easy way – and, quite honestly, since the Machu Picchu portion of this trip is pretty much self service (even though it is a “tour” per se), Ed and Cathy figured this one time wouldn’t kill them!
So – up and out for breakfast in the Atrium Café. No exercise this morning – Cathy has a bit of the Altitude Sickness (just a minor headache and some wooziness the night before, and then a little acid indigestion that she is treating with Mate de Coca tea – its not all that bad with enough Splenda!) and Ed decided to wait until the afternoon. Breakfast is a full continental with hot and cold buffet – great selection of fruits (which Cathy even tried! Taza and something that reminded her of a cantaloupe with an interesting – read weird – texture), breads, anything you’d want.
As they were eating, the hostess comes over and asked if they were Mr. and Mrs. Stevens. The bag had arrived! Grand celebrations all around as Ed and Cathy rushed to the bell station to retrieve their precious Galapagos bag! A great sigh of relief! Now they trip can go on as planned! And talk about service? To come and find them in the restaurant? Just great!
Bag secured – they finally retrieved me (I’m getting a little lonely up here in the room, plush as it is, all by myself) and off we headed to find Maggi and Richard. Met up with them in the café for another cup of tea and coffee, then out to the portico to wit for the city tour.
Tour buses left at 9 am. – unbeknownst to us (we were outside enjoying the fresh air and having a smoke – well – Maggi was smoking!), the rest of the Celebrity group congregated around the lobby around 8:45 and suddenly, we turned around, and the whole horde was coming towards us – already broken up into groups. Oops! We’re the outcasts already – and we’re not even trying!
We latched onto a Celebrity guide – Javier – who told us to go to bus #4 – we ran – hoping to avoid a few of our slower moving compadres. We were rewarded with a very congenial group of 23 other who we pleasantly shared the rest of the day.
Javier is an excellent guide – he gave us the overview of Quito. Located in the middle of the Andes, Quito is situated in a valley at about 2800 meters. It is the 2nd highest capital in South America, after……. It’s a long city, stretching for 45 miles, but only 10 miles wide, basically stuffed in a crevice of the Andes with Volcanoes and majestic peaks presiding over its 2 million inhabitants. As the 2nd largest city in Ecuador (Guayaquil is the largest), Quito is the governmental center where 8 presidents have been in office in the past 11 years. Not exactly the most stable of countries! There is currently no Parliament, but a new President is in office that everyone hopes will pull the government together.
The weather is very changeable, and in the wet season (which is now) rainy and cloudy. They say you can experience every season in one day in Quito – and we find this to be true as we experience glorious sunshine and warmth in the morning (it is beautifully sunny and about 65 degrees in the am - just enough for the fleece, but eventually you didn’t even need that), cloudy and cooler skies toward afternoon, then cold, chilling winds – and rain in the evening!
First stop is the main cathedral of Quito (the name of which completely escapes me! Forgive me – but the travel weariness has set in and my notes are not as complete as I would like Ed and Cathy are of little help here – they are also feeling the travel affect – or they just aren’t paying attention – whatever – the first Quito day is a little sketchy!). It’s huge, and cold and of little interest. But, we do have 10 minutes to ourselves, so we all head down to the catacombs. Now those were really neat. Just amazing the monuments and memorials people leave for the deceased. Some are beautiful, some are heart wrenching (particularly the children’s tombs). We wander for a bit, then head back to the dreaded bus!
Back on the bus we headed toward the old town, through embassy row and the business district. Our next stop is the presidential palace – an old colonial structure where we could look at the courtyard through locked iron gates (to gain admittance even to the balustrade, you had to pass through armed guards). At the entrance to the courtyard, there were 2 royal guards on platforms. They reminded everyone of the royal guards of England, just not as rigid or controlled. We looked at a miniature model of the presidential palace and heard more about the government and coups and the adoption of the US Dollar as the official Ecuadorian currency (and how at the time no one was happy with the conversion because it caused huge inflation).
Back through the balustrade, we headed toward the Iglesia de Jesus Jesuit church. This church is magnificent with more gold leaf than you could imagine. The whole inside of the church really just sparkles and almost glows with the gold. The church has a lot of Moorish influences from symbols in the gold leafed ceiling to the traditionally Moorish domes in the sanctuary. There are lots of sun lights, all positioned to catch the sun at specific elevations so that it will reflect directly on the altar. It was truly awe inspiring, and with no photos allowed – you’ll just have to take our word for it!
Another interesting feature is the vestibule, so to speak, at the entrance. It is an entryway with a wall directly in front of the doors with symbols signifying the sun god, Inti. All traditional Ecuadorian churches are built in this fashion – with homage to Inti, the main god for the Ecuadorian people, situated in front, but separated from the church. This allows the Ecuadorian people to still give thanks to the Inti god, along with the Christian god.
From the Jesuit church, we headed to the Franciscan monastery for a quick tour. Cathy almost started an international incident when she took a picture of Richard talking to a little boy trying to sell crayons made of tree branches. The boys (a little one with shoe shine equipment who kept hounding Maggi) started in on Cathy asking for money for the photo. She said no of course – she was taking a picture of her friend Richard, not the boy. They went on hounding them for a while, but let up a little bit after a while. Richard surreptiously handed the shoe shine boy some pennies and we quickly scurried away to the monastery.
Surrounding a lovely fountain and garden area, the monastery is a huge complex with grand white lime stone (maybe) walls. We toured the choir room that looked out over the sanctuary (while a service was going on), and marveled at the wood used to build the entire structure. Cathy found the door handles on all the doors fantastic – they are in the shape of a map of the whole convent. You will always be able to tell where you are from the door handles! After wandering about for a bit, we finally boarded the bus and headed out of Old Town and up through the city to the Crater restaurant, past the Equator. The drive took about 35 minutes and the bus wound through little streets, now teeming with people, out the major Pan American highway which provided views of the city. Quito is jam packed together in those 10 little miles of width. Houses and apartments on top of each other, following the rough terrain of the Andes valley. As we headed further out of town, there was quite a bit of new construction, from the looks of it, higher end apartments/flats for sale, perched right on the highway and overlooking the town. One sign promoted 2 or 3 bedrooms for $37,500. A steal!
Past the Equator (the middle of the world town), we followed the highway up a steep incline, back into the altitude again. A sharp turn to the right, and our 50 passenger bus was off roading up this dirt track, ending in a little teeny courtyard of the Crater restaurant. A tourist stop for certain, it did have a magnificent view of the volcano crater and we were lucky enough to be there before the mist and clouds completely overcame the view. After photo op’s, with yours truly finally getting some fresh air and a look at the Ecuadorian scenery, our little 12 person group trekked into the restaurant and sat down at a long table. We all got to know each other a little better. There was Anita and Peter (from Virginia Beach of all places!!!!), Ellen and Michelle (Mother and daughter – from CT and DC, respectively), Barb and Maggie (sisters from Chicago) and Helen and Dick (from Sacramento). Meals were served, beer and water drank, mist watched from the window, and then the bus ride back down to the Middle of the Earth.
It had warmed up nicely in Quito, but now the weather was turning again. The wind picked up and the rain threatened. We all trudged up a very long path to the Equator monument and 00’ 00” line. Pictures, wind, lots of people, we headed inside to the museum, only to find the elevator was broken. The museum houses a history of all the regions of Ecuador, on 9 floors! The only way to see them all was to walk it. Cathy and Maggi weren’t inclined to do it – especially Cathy with the altitude thing going on – but Ed said he wanted to do it as a test for MP. How can you argue? So our little troopers all began the ascent. It actually wasn’t that bad (ha! I’m just riding, so what do I care, and let’s face it, I’m from Bavaria, what do I know from Altitude Sickness? I get sea level sickness!!!), and the museum was pretty interesting looking at all the variations and differences between the people of Ecuador. Trooping down was much easier and the gang got their equator stamps (on a piece of paper since none of them had their passports), then headed to a gift shop before boarding the bus.
The prices of local crafts, even in the tourist shop, are quite reasonable. In the first shop, everyone bought postcards and stamps for their passports. $2 for 2 stamps and 2 postcards, or 2 stamps and 1 poster/picture. Cathy scored a great necklace and earring set for $3 in another shop. It’s a deep red color and in the shape of square fangs almost. When asked what type of stone, the girl tried to explain it wasn’t stone, but kept pointing to a figurine on a shelf.. Couldn’t understand her, so Cathy and Ed figured it was that composite material that they use for figurines, not ceramic, but the cheaper stuff. Anyway, they started calling it Lucite, and Cathy was very enamored with it for $3 – what the heck. Richard was unsuccessful in his search for a post office.
Back on the bus and back to the Marriott. A few hours of rest and then on to the group dinner and show. Before resting up, Ed, Cathy and Richard went to check out the out the Marriott Gift Shop (again reasonably priced) in search of Coca candies for the altitude, They were out of the candies, but Ed and Cathy spied some little figurines made of Tagua – a vegetable root that is hard enough to carve. Aha! The light bulb goes on. This is the material from which the necklace and earrings from the Equator are made. The shop girl was saying Tagua! Well, now, Cathy’s even happier! It’s a real native product – and she was happy when she thought it was Lucite!!!
Gym for the gym rats (Cathy survived, Altitude sickness is obviously getting better), nap for Richard and Maggi. Everyone met up again in the lobby for the dinner bus. The skies have opened up and the beautiful day is no more. But the bus ride is dry and it’s a quick sprint into the Theatrum for the dinner show. Don’t know what else is in that place, but the Celebrity group was seated in an upstairs room, packed with large tables and a few other smaller groups. We were joined at our table by Anita and Peter and Meryl and David (from outside of London).
Dinner was good – we had chosen our meals at the beginning of our tour that morning – Richard and Ed – beef, Cathy Chicken, Maggi pasta. Food was very good, surprisingly enough. The only down side was that wine was not included in the price. Bummer. But Maggi and Cathy split a bottle and were fine. The show as an opera singer, which didn’t really please Cathy all too much. He was nice and had a lovely voice, but after two or three songs, (what in the heck is he singing?) she was really bored. He then redeemed himself with Oh Solo Mio, I did it My Way and Over the Rainbow. Not exactly opera fare, but very nice to listen to – and something Cathy actually recognized and enjoyed.
The rain had stopped as we left the Theatrum, we boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel bar for a night cap. Bags had to be out by 5 am, and Javier had said we could call the bus boy and have them taken down to storage until the morning agricultural check instead of leaving them out all night. Both C&E and R&M did that. Ed was concerned with the bus boy kept pointing to the other 2 bags left in the room and saying storage. Ed kept saying no, we’ll bring them down later, these 2 you have go to Celebrity on the boat tomorrow. Yes sir, yes sir. He handed Ed 2 claim tickets and took off with the bags.
But, sometimes, you just gotta take the easy way – and, quite honestly, since the Machu Picchu portion of this trip is pretty much self service (even though it is a “tour” per se), Ed and Cathy figured this one time wouldn’t kill them!
So – up and out for breakfast in the Atrium Café. No exercise this morning – Cathy has a bit of the Altitude Sickness (just a minor headache and some wooziness the night before, and then a little acid indigestion that she is treating with Mate de Coca tea – its not all that bad with enough Splenda!) and Ed decided to wait until the afternoon. Breakfast is a full continental with hot and cold buffet – great selection of fruits (which Cathy even tried! Taza and something that reminded her of a cantaloupe with an interesting – read weird – texture), breads, anything you’d want.
As they were eating, the hostess comes over and asked if they were Mr. and Mrs. Stevens. The bag had arrived! Grand celebrations all around as Ed and Cathy rushed to the bell station to retrieve their precious Galapagos bag! A great sigh of relief! Now they trip can go on as planned! And talk about service? To come and find them in the restaurant? Just great!
Bag secured – they finally retrieved me (I’m getting a little lonely up here in the room, plush as it is, all by myself) and off we headed to find Maggi and Richard. Met up with them in the café for another cup of tea and coffee, then out to the portico to wit for the city tour.
Tour buses left at 9 am. – unbeknownst to us (we were outside enjoying the fresh air and having a smoke – well – Maggi was smoking!), the rest of the Celebrity group congregated around the lobby around 8:45 and suddenly, we turned around, and the whole horde was coming towards us – already broken up into groups. Oops! We’re the outcasts already – and we’re not even trying!
We latched onto a Celebrity guide – Javier – who told us to go to bus #4 – we ran – hoping to avoid a few of our slower moving compadres. We were rewarded with a very congenial group of 23 other who we pleasantly shared the rest of the day.
Javier is an excellent guide – he gave us the overview of Quito. Located in the middle of the Andes, Quito is situated in a valley at about 2800 meters. It is the 2nd highest capital in South America, after……. It’s a long city, stretching for 45 miles, but only 10 miles wide, basically stuffed in a crevice of the Andes with Volcanoes and majestic peaks presiding over its 2 million inhabitants. As the 2nd largest city in Ecuador (Guayaquil is the largest), Quito is the governmental center where 8 presidents have been in office in the past 11 years. Not exactly the most stable of countries! There is currently no Parliament, but a new President is in office that everyone hopes will pull the government together.
The weather is very changeable, and in the wet season (which is now) rainy and cloudy. They say you can experience every season in one day in Quito – and we find this to be true as we experience glorious sunshine and warmth in the morning (it is beautifully sunny and about 65 degrees in the am - just enough for the fleece, but eventually you didn’t even need that), cloudy and cooler skies toward afternoon, then cold, chilling winds – and rain in the evening!
First stop is the main cathedral of Quito (the name of which completely escapes me! Forgive me – but the travel weariness has set in and my notes are not as complete as I would like Ed and Cathy are of little help here – they are also feeling the travel affect – or they just aren’t paying attention – whatever – the first Quito day is a little sketchy!). It’s huge, and cold and of little interest. But, we do have 10 minutes to ourselves, so we all head down to the catacombs. Now those were really neat. Just amazing the monuments and memorials people leave for the deceased. Some are beautiful, some are heart wrenching (particularly the children’s tombs). We wander for a bit, then head back to the dreaded bus!
Back on the bus we headed toward the old town, through embassy row and the business district. Our next stop is the presidential palace – an old colonial structure where we could look at the courtyard through locked iron gates (to gain admittance even to the balustrade, you had to pass through armed guards). At the entrance to the courtyard, there were 2 royal guards on platforms. They reminded everyone of the royal guards of England, just not as rigid or controlled. We looked at a miniature model of the presidential palace and heard more about the government and coups and the adoption of the US Dollar as the official Ecuadorian currency (and how at the time no one was happy with the conversion because it caused huge inflation).
Back through the balustrade, we headed toward the Iglesia de Jesus Jesuit church. This church is magnificent with more gold leaf than you could imagine. The whole inside of the church really just sparkles and almost glows with the gold. The church has a lot of Moorish influences from symbols in the gold leafed ceiling to the traditionally Moorish domes in the sanctuary. There are lots of sun lights, all positioned to catch the sun at specific elevations so that it will reflect directly on the altar. It was truly awe inspiring, and with no photos allowed – you’ll just have to take our word for it!
Another interesting feature is the vestibule, so to speak, at the entrance. It is an entryway with a wall directly in front of the doors with symbols signifying the sun god, Inti. All traditional Ecuadorian churches are built in this fashion – with homage to Inti, the main god for the Ecuadorian people, situated in front, but separated from the church. This allows the Ecuadorian people to still give thanks to the Inti god, along with the Christian god.
From the Jesuit church, we headed to the Franciscan monastery for a quick tour. Cathy almost started an international incident when she took a picture of Richard talking to a little boy trying to sell crayons made of tree branches. The boys (a little one with shoe shine equipment who kept hounding Maggi) started in on Cathy asking for money for the photo. She said no of course – she was taking a picture of her friend Richard, not the boy. They went on hounding them for a while, but let up a little bit after a while. Richard surreptiously handed the shoe shine boy some pennies and we quickly scurried away to the monastery.
Surrounding a lovely fountain and garden area, the monastery is a huge complex with grand white lime stone (maybe) walls. We toured the choir room that looked out over the sanctuary (while a service was going on), and marveled at the wood used to build the entire structure. Cathy found the door handles on all the doors fantastic – they are in the shape of a map of the whole convent. You will always be able to tell where you are from the door handles! After wandering about for a bit, we finally boarded the bus and headed out of Old Town and up through the city to the Crater restaurant, past the Equator. The drive took about 35 minutes and the bus wound through little streets, now teeming with people, out the major Pan American highway which provided views of the city. Quito is jam packed together in those 10 little miles of width. Houses and apartments on top of each other, following the rough terrain of the Andes valley. As we headed further out of town, there was quite a bit of new construction, from the looks of it, higher end apartments/flats for sale, perched right on the highway and overlooking the town. One sign promoted 2 or 3 bedrooms for $37,500. A steal!
Past the Equator (the middle of the world town), we followed the highway up a steep incline, back into the altitude again. A sharp turn to the right, and our 50 passenger bus was off roading up this dirt track, ending in a little teeny courtyard of the Crater restaurant. A tourist stop for certain, it did have a magnificent view of the volcano crater and we were lucky enough to be there before the mist and clouds completely overcame the view. After photo op’s, with yours truly finally getting some fresh air and a look at the Ecuadorian scenery, our little 12 person group trekked into the restaurant and sat down at a long table. We all got to know each other a little better. There was Anita and Peter (from Virginia Beach of all places!!!!), Ellen and Michelle (Mother and daughter – from CT and DC, respectively), Barb and Maggie (sisters from Chicago) and Helen and Dick (from Sacramento). Meals were served, beer and water drank, mist watched from the window, and then the bus ride back down to the Middle of the Earth.
It had warmed up nicely in Quito, but now the weather was turning again. The wind picked up and the rain threatened. We all trudged up a very long path to the Equator monument and 00’ 00” line. Pictures, wind, lots of people, we headed inside to the museum, only to find the elevator was broken. The museum houses a history of all the regions of Ecuador, on 9 floors! The only way to see them all was to walk it. Cathy and Maggi weren’t inclined to do it – especially Cathy with the altitude thing going on – but Ed said he wanted to do it as a test for MP. How can you argue? So our little troopers all began the ascent. It actually wasn’t that bad (ha! I’m just riding, so what do I care, and let’s face it, I’m from Bavaria, what do I know from Altitude Sickness? I get sea level sickness!!!), and the museum was pretty interesting looking at all the variations and differences between the people of Ecuador. Trooping down was much easier and the gang got their equator stamps (on a piece of paper since none of them had their passports), then headed to a gift shop before boarding the bus.
The prices of local crafts, even in the tourist shop, are quite reasonable. In the first shop, everyone bought postcards and stamps for their passports. $2 for 2 stamps and 2 postcards, or 2 stamps and 1 poster/picture. Cathy scored a great necklace and earring set for $3 in another shop. It’s a deep red color and in the shape of square fangs almost. When asked what type of stone, the girl tried to explain it wasn’t stone, but kept pointing to a figurine on a shelf.. Couldn’t understand her, so Cathy and Ed figured it was that composite material that they use for figurines, not ceramic, but the cheaper stuff. Anyway, they started calling it Lucite, and Cathy was very enamored with it for $3 – what the heck. Richard was unsuccessful in his search for a post office.
Back on the bus and back to the Marriott. A few hours of rest and then on to the group dinner and show. Before resting up, Ed, Cathy and Richard went to check out the out the Marriott Gift Shop (again reasonably priced) in search of Coca candies for the altitude, They were out of the candies, but Ed and Cathy spied some little figurines made of Tagua – a vegetable root that is hard enough to carve. Aha! The light bulb goes on. This is the material from which the necklace and earrings from the Equator are made. The shop girl was saying Tagua! Well, now, Cathy’s even happier! It’s a real native product – and she was happy when she thought it was Lucite!!!
Gym for the gym rats (Cathy survived, Altitude sickness is obviously getting better), nap for Richard and Maggi. Everyone met up again in the lobby for the dinner bus. The skies have opened up and the beautiful day is no more. But the bus ride is dry and it’s a quick sprint into the Theatrum for the dinner show. Don’t know what else is in that place, but the Celebrity group was seated in an upstairs room, packed with large tables and a few other smaller groups. We were joined at our table by Anita and Peter and Meryl and David (from outside of London).
Dinner was good – we had chosen our meals at the beginning of our tour that morning – Richard and Ed – beef, Cathy Chicken, Maggi pasta. Food was very good, surprisingly enough. The only down side was that wine was not included in the price. Bummer. But Maggi and Cathy split a bottle and were fine. The show as an opera singer, which didn’t really please Cathy all too much. He was nice and had a lovely voice, but after two or three songs, (what in the heck is he singing?) she was really bored. He then redeemed himself with Oh Solo Mio, I did it My Way and Over the Rainbow. Not exactly opera fare, but very nice to listen to – and something Cathy actually recognized and enjoyed.
The rain had stopped as we left the Theatrum, we boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel bar for a night cap. Bags had to be out by 5 am, and Javier had said we could call the bus boy and have them taken down to storage until the morning agricultural check instead of leaving them out all night. Both C&E and R&M did that. Ed was concerned with the bus boy kept pointing to the other 2 bags left in the room and saying storage. Ed kept saying no, we’ll bring them down later, these 2 you have go to Celebrity on the boat tomorrow. Yes sir, yes sir. He handed Ed 2 claim tickets and took off with the bags.
2/22 – Travel Day
Awake and up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 am (oh, Maggi is probably so happy still sound asleep in her own little bed!!!). Guess what? Looked out the window and…..no freaking snow!! Not a flake! Oh, yeah, rain, but it’s RAIN! For heaven’s sake! The bright side of that is – No FREAKING SNOW! So getting a taxi will be easier and the drive to the airport a lot smoother – but come on! Weather! Weather forecasters! Skittish airlines!
Ed (who of course couldn’t sleep and got us all up early – we had planned on 4:30) started checking email. Good thing he’s so anal! The American Airline confirmation email on all the flight changes was so wrong! Had the 7 am flight series to Miami, but no Quito flight. Big Oops! Then it also had a bunch of flights on Saturday! So, back to the phone for us. Only ½ an hour this time and our Quito flight was back, and all was well, so far!
In the meantime, Cathy had called down to the desk to ask for a cab at 5:15. At 4:30 the desk call and says “Your cab is here”. Duh – don’t need it now – heck Ed was still on hold with American Airlines at that point! Luckily after packing up and going downstairs a little before 5, the cab was still there! Or our adventure officially begins. (Poor cabbie! Waited around for ½ hour cooling his heals. Wasn’t at all happy with “that fat desk clerk”, when we apologized, he said “it’s HIM!” OK!)
Now its kind of sleeting, but we’re on our way to the airport – so all is good. It’s 5:15 am, but looks like rush hour….in Richmond! Cars everywhere – amazing for that time of the morning, but that’s DC traffic for you. Cabbie got us to the terminal in not time. $17.95 fare – needless to say he got a big tip.
Walked right into Delta ticket area, only about 10 people in line. It went really quickly until…..got to the agent and she can’t issue our tickets because American Airlines hasn’t booked the flight, they’ve just made the reservations. So, off we trundle, bags in tow, to the American Airlines desk to get our tickets. Thankfully there’s no line there either and the agent prints out our cancelled 11:15 flight ticket. Back we go to Delta. The precious ticket gannet looks at the ticket and still can’t get us everything. American has it all messed up still. So – with a “I’m not supposed to do this but…” under her breath, off she goes to the American counter to straighten them out!
Thank heavens we got here early! The poor thing is gone FOREVER! We’re standing at her empty ticketing position, staring forlornly down the concourse, knowing in our heart of hearts something else has gone horribly awry and we’ll never get to Quito! Finally, after Ed goes down to check it out, our little angel had 3 American agents all huddled around the computer but she managed to come back with our entire itinerary printed out and proceeds to check us through to Quito – we might just make it!
Off we go to the gate – we’re the lucky couple who gets the extra security scan – patted down, luggage scanned for substances – the whole kit and kaboodle (I hid in my back pack and tried to look very inconspicuous and innocent during the whole ordeal!). Finally to the gate, actually got seats together – last row, back of the bus, closest to he rear exit J The plane is packed – and they are assigning seats at the gate to distribute the weight evenly – I’m feeling good about this! No changing seats – they keep saying! Oh boy!
Ed gets hungry (I’m not supposed to tell you this – but I will) and he eats a Sausage egg McMuffin! Yuk! Cathy wisely chooses only coffee!
We board right on time; pilot Dave must have been taking lessons from SouthWest airlines – he’s Personality Plus, joking, telling us we’re flying South towards New Orleans. No we’re not going to New Orleans, he’s just checking to make sure we’re all awake! Robert the co-pilot is flying, so we’re blaming anything bad on him. But so far, Robert gets good marks! De-iced and off the ground at 7:32. Promised to get us in early, which will be helpful sine we need to catch our connection to Miami.
Robert got us to Atlanta 15 minutes late (shame on him!!) but in one piece. Unfortunately, visibility in Atlanta was about 0, so we weren’t quite certain about the flight to Miami. Off we raced to the next terminal. The flight was actually listed on time, boarded right on tine we had bulkhead seats – Nice! But unfortunately, we didn’t have any pilots. Not nice! Oh well – we did have time. Scheduled on time arrival at 12:37, the Quito flight wasn’t until 3:40 – a 3 hour window. Pilots can be late!
They arrived around 11, we were taxi-ing by 11:20, but there is a long line of planes waiting to depart in front of us. At 11:30 we are 4th for take off, finally up and out, we arrive in Miami at 1:30. Not too bad considering the East Coast weather situation. Of course, since we were now back to flying American, we were in a completely different terminal. Got our exercise walking from one end of the Delta terminal to the other end of the American one. Then had to wait forever in security line to re-enter the gate corridor – they are doing construction and you couldn’t get from the corridor we came in to the American corridor behind security. What a pain!!!!!!
Phew! 2:00 and finally at the gate!!! Got a beer and chocolate covered peanuts to celebrate! Then proceeded to wait for boarding call. In the meantime, checked messages and found that Richard and Maggi made it to Richmond and managed to successfully change their return tickets to fly back into RIC as opposed to DCA. Yea! But, their plane was late arriving in RIC and they were boarding at 2:25 (original departure time was 2:20). They have a tight connection but if they arrive at the gate we think they will, they will be literally right next to the Quito flight gate. All should be fine - left voicemails telling them which gate and that it was really close to where they would come in.
Boarding our Quito flight, we were 2 people behind some Xpedition cruise mates – cabin 302 (they had their baggage tag on their carry on). Couldn’t reach them to say hi, but will have plenty of time over the next 11 days. Got to our seats, they boarded really early, but the A/C wasn’t working. Yeah, Miami, plane full of people, no Air, Ed in a sweater, we’re all ready to pass out! Me especially, fur, extreme heat, I’m not used to this! I’m a Bavarian pup for Pete’s sake! Get me back to at least a little more temperate climes! I’ll settle for Atlanta right now…..argh!
Seems to be a problem with the on-ground air conditioning system (no lie? Really?). It won’t affect us in flight, but the mechanics won’t sign off on the paper work to let us fly because it’s malfunctioning. Come on, we want to leave!
3:25 – Engines finally on, air finally on – we’re at least comfortable.
3:50 – Doors finally close, pushing back
Landed ½ hour late – but the flight itself was fine. Food….was food….alcohol $5 each, no more freebies on American. Sigh.
Our seatmate was a lovely gentleman from Ecuador, Jack. He alternates between Charlotte and Quito (export fruit and veggie business) and was a wonderful companion. Talked about the language, Ecuador, Politics, South America – particularly Argentina which he likes a lot. Nice way to spend a 4 hour flight learning a little more about where we will be visiting.
Landed and made our way through the very small Quito airport. From the gate to Passport control takes no time at all. On the way, you walk along a 2nd floor corridor which is open to the terminal. Big glass windows allow people waiting to watch arrivals come through. There were, no kidding, 100’s of people there pressed up against the windows. Also in the corridor were gigantic vases with roses – probably 200 – 300 roses in each vase. Ecuador is famous for it’s flowers, the number 1 export, and roses in particular. These were incredible and Jack had already told us how cheap they are here - $1 for 24 roses!
Smooth passage through Passport control – but very disappointing immigration stamp! It’s an electronic print out. Boo hiss! We stamp collectors are not pleased with this new electronic development! Baggage claim was right outside passport control and the bags were already circling the carousel when we got there (told you it was a small airport!). Fifteen minutes later, carousel stops, no mas equipaje. Oops! Ed and Cathy are missing the one bag they need – the Galapagos bag. Well, this is not good, not good at all. Off they truck to the American baggage folks, along with several others from the flight (at least they aren’t alone). Baggage claim guy was incredibly nice – told us this happens all the time because of weight. Bags normally will come in on the next Quito flight in 2 hours. Filled out the paperwork and he assured us he’d call the hotel and deliver the bag to us immediately.
Disheartened, but ever hopeful, we head out through agricultural control and found the Celebrity rep in the melee outside the security control (where 100’s more people were waiting for arrivals!). The Celebrity reps walked us to the bus – one girl actually taking our bag and walking it through the rain to the bus with us. Being every paranoid, particularly now, Ed and Cathy watched their remaining bags loaded on to the bus, then followed to join the 16 or so others already there.
Celebrity guide boarded the bus, then asked if the Stevenson’s were there. Si! Do you have all your luggage? No! OH! Filled out papers? Yes. OK – we go! Headed out of the airport through the dark and rainy night.
It’s a very short 15 minute ride from the airport to the JW Marriott. Of course the airport should be a short ride from anywhere – it’s smack dab in the middle of the city – and I mean literally! Houses and buildings surround the airport with no more than a few hundred yards separating them from the #35 runway – the only runway I might add! It’s an amazing flight in and out of that place!
On the way to the hotel, the guide gave us an overview of the city then, warned us on security in Quito: don’t take purses, passports, wear jewelry, always be aware of pick pockets. It’s a safe city, no guns, or bombs, but beware of pick pockets. Eat chocolate for altitude sickness. And more. It’s really funny, because later we find that other guides had a completely different spiel to their passengers! Never said anything about jewelry or purses, etc.
Greeted with glasses of fruit juice (not the Celebrity mimosa style, but still nice) and hot towels. Check in was at a table set up across from the main registration. Filled out form, handed over credit card, received room key and schedule. Marriott rooms are fantastic – plush, king size bed, bathroom almost as large as the guest room, huge garden tub and separate stalls for toilet and shower. Closet light turned on when the doors are opened. Ed and Cathy got settled and then abandoned me for the bar to wait for Maggi and Richard. Darn! I could use a good Pilsner right about now!
Before heading downstairs, they checked out the Executive lounge (somehow – maybe the Celebrity Elite status? – they had scored an executive floor room). They settled into comfy chairs with snacks (desserts from 8-10, but also peanuts and crackers) and the obligatory beer and wine. Just what they needed to soothe their tired, tortured bodies!
After checking out the lounge, they headed down to the Exchange bar with David the Bartender. American rock music serenaded them as they ordered drinks and waited for Maggi and Richard to arrive. Cathy ended up drinking Argentinean Chardonnay (thanks to David who let her try a Riesling which was way too sweet!) and Ed had his Club beer.
Maggi and Richard arrived a little after 11, no worse for wear! Checked them in and proceeded to the bar to celebrate the 1st night of the great Xpedition! They all recounted their travel horror stories. Maggi and Richard’s Richmond flight was late, they only had 10 minutes to connect – but made it on board safely and connected with all their luggage intact!
A few beers and wine later, they all groggily headed up for a well deserved night’s sleep.
Ed (who of course couldn’t sleep and got us all up early – we had planned on 4:30) started checking email. Good thing he’s so anal! The American Airline confirmation email on all the flight changes was so wrong! Had the 7 am flight series to Miami, but no Quito flight. Big Oops! Then it also had a bunch of flights on Saturday! So, back to the phone for us. Only ½ an hour this time and our Quito flight was back, and all was well, so far!
In the meantime, Cathy had called down to the desk to ask for a cab at 5:15. At 4:30 the desk call and says “Your cab is here”. Duh – don’t need it now – heck Ed was still on hold with American Airlines at that point! Luckily after packing up and going downstairs a little before 5, the cab was still there! Or our adventure officially begins. (Poor cabbie! Waited around for ½ hour cooling his heals. Wasn’t at all happy with “that fat desk clerk”, when we apologized, he said “it’s HIM!” OK!)
Now its kind of sleeting, but we’re on our way to the airport – so all is good. It’s 5:15 am, but looks like rush hour….in Richmond! Cars everywhere – amazing for that time of the morning, but that’s DC traffic for you. Cabbie got us to the terminal in not time. $17.95 fare – needless to say he got a big tip.
Walked right into Delta ticket area, only about 10 people in line. It went really quickly until…..got to the agent and she can’t issue our tickets because American Airlines hasn’t booked the flight, they’ve just made the reservations. So, off we trundle, bags in tow, to the American Airlines desk to get our tickets. Thankfully there’s no line there either and the agent prints out our cancelled 11:15 flight ticket. Back we go to Delta. The precious ticket gannet looks at the ticket and still can’t get us everything. American has it all messed up still. So – with a “I’m not supposed to do this but…” under her breath, off she goes to the American counter to straighten them out!
Thank heavens we got here early! The poor thing is gone FOREVER! We’re standing at her empty ticketing position, staring forlornly down the concourse, knowing in our heart of hearts something else has gone horribly awry and we’ll never get to Quito! Finally, after Ed goes down to check it out, our little angel had 3 American agents all huddled around the computer but she managed to come back with our entire itinerary printed out and proceeds to check us through to Quito – we might just make it!
Off we go to the gate – we’re the lucky couple who gets the extra security scan – patted down, luggage scanned for substances – the whole kit and kaboodle (I hid in my back pack and tried to look very inconspicuous and innocent during the whole ordeal!). Finally to the gate, actually got seats together – last row, back of the bus, closest to he rear exit J The plane is packed – and they are assigning seats at the gate to distribute the weight evenly – I’m feeling good about this! No changing seats – they keep saying! Oh boy!
Ed gets hungry (I’m not supposed to tell you this – but I will) and he eats a Sausage egg McMuffin! Yuk! Cathy wisely chooses only coffee!
We board right on time; pilot Dave must have been taking lessons from SouthWest airlines – he’s Personality Plus, joking, telling us we’re flying South towards New Orleans. No we’re not going to New Orleans, he’s just checking to make sure we’re all awake! Robert the co-pilot is flying, so we’re blaming anything bad on him. But so far, Robert gets good marks! De-iced and off the ground at 7:32. Promised to get us in early, which will be helpful sine we need to catch our connection to Miami.
Robert got us to Atlanta 15 minutes late (shame on him!!) but in one piece. Unfortunately, visibility in Atlanta was about 0, so we weren’t quite certain about the flight to Miami. Off we raced to the next terminal. The flight was actually listed on time, boarded right on tine we had bulkhead seats – Nice! But unfortunately, we didn’t have any pilots. Not nice! Oh well – we did have time. Scheduled on time arrival at 12:37, the Quito flight wasn’t until 3:40 – a 3 hour window. Pilots can be late!
They arrived around 11, we were taxi-ing by 11:20, but there is a long line of planes waiting to depart in front of us. At 11:30 we are 4th for take off, finally up and out, we arrive in Miami at 1:30. Not too bad considering the East Coast weather situation. Of course, since we were now back to flying American, we were in a completely different terminal. Got our exercise walking from one end of the Delta terminal to the other end of the American one. Then had to wait forever in security line to re-enter the gate corridor – they are doing construction and you couldn’t get from the corridor we came in to the American corridor behind security. What a pain!!!!!!
Phew! 2:00 and finally at the gate!!! Got a beer and chocolate covered peanuts to celebrate! Then proceeded to wait for boarding call. In the meantime, checked messages and found that Richard and Maggi made it to Richmond and managed to successfully change their return tickets to fly back into RIC as opposed to DCA. Yea! But, their plane was late arriving in RIC and they were boarding at 2:25 (original departure time was 2:20). They have a tight connection but if they arrive at the gate we think they will, they will be literally right next to the Quito flight gate. All should be fine - left voicemails telling them which gate and that it was really close to where they would come in.
Boarding our Quito flight, we were 2 people behind some Xpedition cruise mates – cabin 302 (they had their baggage tag on their carry on). Couldn’t reach them to say hi, but will have plenty of time over the next 11 days. Got to our seats, they boarded really early, but the A/C wasn’t working. Yeah, Miami, plane full of people, no Air, Ed in a sweater, we’re all ready to pass out! Me especially, fur, extreme heat, I’m not used to this! I’m a Bavarian pup for Pete’s sake! Get me back to at least a little more temperate climes! I’ll settle for Atlanta right now…..argh!
Seems to be a problem with the on-ground air conditioning system (no lie? Really?). It won’t affect us in flight, but the mechanics won’t sign off on the paper work to let us fly because it’s malfunctioning. Come on, we want to leave!
3:25 – Engines finally on, air finally on – we’re at least comfortable.
3:50 – Doors finally close, pushing back
Landed ½ hour late – but the flight itself was fine. Food….was food….alcohol $5 each, no more freebies on American. Sigh.
Our seatmate was a lovely gentleman from Ecuador, Jack. He alternates between Charlotte and Quito (export fruit and veggie business) and was a wonderful companion. Talked about the language, Ecuador, Politics, South America – particularly Argentina which he likes a lot. Nice way to spend a 4 hour flight learning a little more about where we will be visiting.
Landed and made our way through the very small Quito airport. From the gate to Passport control takes no time at all. On the way, you walk along a 2nd floor corridor which is open to the terminal. Big glass windows allow people waiting to watch arrivals come through. There were, no kidding, 100’s of people there pressed up against the windows. Also in the corridor were gigantic vases with roses – probably 200 – 300 roses in each vase. Ecuador is famous for it’s flowers, the number 1 export, and roses in particular. These were incredible and Jack had already told us how cheap they are here - $1 for 24 roses!
Smooth passage through Passport control – but very disappointing immigration stamp! It’s an electronic print out. Boo hiss! We stamp collectors are not pleased with this new electronic development! Baggage claim was right outside passport control and the bags were already circling the carousel when we got there (told you it was a small airport!). Fifteen minutes later, carousel stops, no mas equipaje. Oops! Ed and Cathy are missing the one bag they need – the Galapagos bag. Well, this is not good, not good at all. Off they truck to the American baggage folks, along with several others from the flight (at least they aren’t alone). Baggage claim guy was incredibly nice – told us this happens all the time because of weight. Bags normally will come in on the next Quito flight in 2 hours. Filled out the paperwork and he assured us he’d call the hotel and deliver the bag to us immediately.
Disheartened, but ever hopeful, we head out through agricultural control and found the Celebrity rep in the melee outside the security control (where 100’s more people were waiting for arrivals!). The Celebrity reps walked us to the bus – one girl actually taking our bag and walking it through the rain to the bus with us. Being every paranoid, particularly now, Ed and Cathy watched their remaining bags loaded on to the bus, then followed to join the 16 or so others already there.
Celebrity guide boarded the bus, then asked if the Stevenson’s were there. Si! Do you have all your luggage? No! OH! Filled out papers? Yes. OK – we go! Headed out of the airport through the dark and rainy night.
It’s a very short 15 minute ride from the airport to the JW Marriott. Of course the airport should be a short ride from anywhere – it’s smack dab in the middle of the city – and I mean literally! Houses and buildings surround the airport with no more than a few hundred yards separating them from the #35 runway – the only runway I might add! It’s an amazing flight in and out of that place!
On the way to the hotel, the guide gave us an overview of the city then, warned us on security in Quito: don’t take purses, passports, wear jewelry, always be aware of pick pockets. It’s a safe city, no guns, or bombs, but beware of pick pockets. Eat chocolate for altitude sickness. And more. It’s really funny, because later we find that other guides had a completely different spiel to their passengers! Never said anything about jewelry or purses, etc.
Greeted with glasses of fruit juice (not the Celebrity mimosa style, but still nice) and hot towels. Check in was at a table set up across from the main registration. Filled out form, handed over credit card, received room key and schedule. Marriott rooms are fantastic – plush, king size bed, bathroom almost as large as the guest room, huge garden tub and separate stalls for toilet and shower. Closet light turned on when the doors are opened. Ed and Cathy got settled and then abandoned me for the bar to wait for Maggi and Richard. Darn! I could use a good Pilsner right about now!
Before heading downstairs, they checked out the Executive lounge (somehow – maybe the Celebrity Elite status? – they had scored an executive floor room). They settled into comfy chairs with snacks (desserts from 8-10, but also peanuts and crackers) and the obligatory beer and wine. Just what they needed to soothe their tired, tortured bodies!
After checking out the lounge, they headed down to the Exchange bar with David the Bartender. American rock music serenaded them as they ordered drinks and waited for Maggi and Richard to arrive. Cathy ended up drinking Argentinean Chardonnay (thanks to David who let her try a Riesling which was way too sweet!) and Ed had his Club beer.
Maggi and Richard arrived a little after 11, no worse for wear! Checked them in and proceeded to the bar to celebrate the 1st night of the great Xpedition! They all recounted their travel horror stories. Maggi and Richard’s Richmond flight was late, they only had 10 minutes to connect – but made it on board safely and connected with all their luggage intact!
A few beers and wine later, they all groggily headed up for a well deserved night’s sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)