Day 43 Wednesday, April 17th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos. Swimming with sharks!

We take a quiet day as this is our last full day here and we hike the 30 minutes to Tortuga Bay and enjoy the swimming and sitting in the shade of the mangroves at the back of this very nice beach. We both go snorkeling and I search for the White Tipped Reef Sharks (supposedly harmless) and find one a little bigger than me and almost step on him. Then his mate comes gliding under me and settles alongside the first guy. They both look long and sleek and very sharky and I decide to get out of there.

Day 42 Tuesday, April 16th back to Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

The sandy streets of Isla Isabella don’t compensate for the fact that it is very sleepy with nothing going on. We walk to the tortoise reserve and that’s fine but not terribly inspiring. We decide to leave and get back to Santa Cruz island and so catch the 3.00pm boat for the two hour journey back.

Later that day we are told of a day boat full of tourists that went to the lava tunnels area to snorkel. A rouge wave came in and took the boat to its crest and then dropped it into the following trough. One broken arm and several people with severe muscle and ligament pulls. No MRIs on the islands and so several unhappy tourists were waiting to get off the Galapagos and back to good medical care.

We arrive back at Isabel’s and she’s happy to see us and gives us some Guanabana juice, it’s very good.

Day 41 Monday, April 15th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We catch the 2.00pm boat to Isla Isabella today. $30 each one-way. Just like the day-trip to Isla Floreana, the boat takes about 20 people and we are all jammed into the cockpit and unhappy as the boat, with its three 200HP outboard engines crashes noisily through the ocean swells at 50knots for the two hour journey. We are constantly braced for the smack into the next trough and I’m hoping that the hull holds out but I don’t mention that to Christine.

We arrive safely enough and then go wandering down the sandy streets looking for somewhere to stay. Someone has mentioned the Casa Rosata (The Pink House) and we find it but it’s full so we find a great sea-view room in the Hotel Volcano opposite ($50/night) and just use the Casa Rosata for Happy Hour drinks at sunset. This whole island is a sleepy place and we just watch the Iguanas and enjoy the beach in front of our hotel. Mediocre dinner of fried fish at Caesars.

Day 40 Sunday, April 14th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We walked to the nearby Darwin Center and are hugely disappointed. It was poorly built and with a very modest vision. Now it’s poorly maintained and staffed. Someone with brawn and a vision needs to chase for funds. I wonder if there is a Darwin Center in the UK and must Google to find out. His “Voyage of the Beagle” book is charming.

Day 39 Saturday, April 13th Isla del Floreana, Galapagos Archipelago. Ecuador.

Sorry, couldn't help the flourish with the title. Can't stop myself channeling Darwin-"look at that strangely shaped leaf!".

We paid $75 each and took a day trip to the nearby island of Floreana. The boat has about 20 people on board plus our guide Jorge. He’s a fun and happy guy with lots of enthusiasm and so I end up tipping him $10, he was worth it. He’s 58, short, brown and fit. He shows all the old pirates hideaways and I ask if he knows where they buried their treasure. (If he knows he doesn’t share that with me). He picks the local (and strange-looking) fruit as we walk along and we all try it. Delicious.

On this island we heard his happy grunts before we saw the mating couple. At 18 heart beats a minute it will take him 6 hours to complete his love-making but then I admire the guy. He and his lovely tortoise girlfriend are each more than 100 years old and each weigh twice as much as me. Quite a feat and we cheer him on.

 

Day 38 Friday, April 12th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We eat at Café Hernand every day, it’s a great place and overlooks the central square and the pier.

We walked to Tortuga Beach. A long and hot 30 minutes but worth it. A great long white beach. We walked the length of it and then to the right to a small and sheltered cove where there was shade under the mangroves and great swimming in the warm water with soft sand. The Iguanas are just your average beach neighbour. Dozens around us.

We like Puerto Ajora, it’s a small town and we are already bumping into people that we have met-it’s a lot of fun.

 

Day 38 Thursday, April 11th Quito to the Galapagos!

Up at 5.15am for a 6.00am taxi to Quito’s new airport ($25). It’s one hour outside of town.

Our flight is at 9.00am and we are pushed back from baggage drop and told we have first to get the suitcases screened so that they can make sure that we are not bringing any plants, fruits etc that would pollute the sensitive eco-system of the Galapagos.

The airport ATM rejects our ATM card (unreadable) and we again realise that we have been careless in making ourselves dependent upon one card for cash. Almost all vendors on our trip to date have insisted on cash and it would be a major calamity to run out of cash or lose our ATM cards. We do get another bank’s ATM machine to accept the card and provide cash but it’s a period of anxiety we would prefer to have avoided. More alternate cards next time.

We arrive in The Galapagos (and pay the $100/person conservation fee) and it’s wonderful, eleven days may not be enough but we can easily extend our stay here. We take the free bus from the airport to the ferry (75c) to the main island of Santa Cruz and then (waving away the hoards of persistent taxi cab drivers/touts) take the bus to Puerto Ajora ($1.50) and walk to the Café Hernand to meet Mark’s friend Laura whom he has arranged to meet and help us. (Mark was the fellow traveller that we met and spent time with in Banos, Ecuador). We are late and Laura isn’t there and so we take a taxi ($1) to the place that Mark has recommended we stay while on Santa Cruz. Isabel’s place is great and she proposes $30/night-which we accept- and we meet her extended family. Hugs and kisses all around and we settle in. No hot water-there isn’t a hot water tap in the shower-but cold water is OK here, you just don’t linger.

Back to Café Hernand for some shrimp and beer and a look around the town. We look in at a pretty swanky hotel and ask the room rate ($330/night) and walk through to the deck overlooking th

e harbour only to find a seal sleeping by the swimming pool! We go to the local supermarket to buy some bottles of red wine and whiskey to keep in our room

Day 37 Wednesday, April 10th Quito

Up late for breakfast at Casa Verde and then we just hang-around the lounge and spend an enjoyable few hours chatting with Mark, Carolina and her boyfriend-Stav.

The taxi picks us up at 12.30pm and we head into Banos for the 1.00pm bus to Quito. $3 each for the 3 ½ hr trip with all the locals. We pull into Quito’s brand-new bus station (all glass, marble and steel) and find our way to the trolley station for the trip downtown to our hostel. A man is praying to a statue of Madonna that is in the corner of the Men’s Bathroom. The trolley speeds along dedicated roads and through about twenty stations. One lady points at her eyes and then our suitcases-warning us not to take our eyes off them. Several people stop me putting my backpack with the suitcases and mime to me that I should keep it on me. Then the whole trolley bus of locals participate in helping us find the right station to get off. We have a lot of fun miming and trying to speak Spanish with them. We get off and the whole bus waves goodbye to us.

An old man gets off at the same stop and warns us of getting mugged by putting himself into a choke-hold. We lug our roll-aboards up the steep cobbled street to the Secret Garden Hostel and then up the five floors to reception. The altitude here is painted on the last step-an explanation of why we feel puffed.

 

A double room with en-suite is $40 but basic although it does have hot water. The people running the place are pleasant enough and there is a great roof-top terrace with bar and kitchen and a terrific view across Quito and its Basilica as night falls and the lights come on.

The hostel has a full-time security guard. He helps us use our street map and find a good place to hunt for dinner and we set off walking the streets of Quito at night. We always leave most of our cash and all the credit cards locked in our suitcases in our room and then spread the remaining cash around several pockets before we head out.

We have been advised to take a taxi (safer) and after a short walk another security guard (they are positioned around the city every few hundred meters) helps us get one. $2 gets us to where we have been told to go and so we then start to walk and look for a restaurant. All of them are seedy and have unappetising menus and we have to settle for one of them and we pay $24 (too much) for chicken which has been hammered flat and then pan-fried and french fries (plata-fritas) and warm red wine.

Quito does look interesting with well-built colonial style buildings and attractive squares but the undercurrent of street crime puts us off spending more time here.

Day 36 Tuesday, April 9th

Misty outside and so we have a lazy breakfast at Casa Verde. We need to get laundry done and I’m trying to book flights to the Galapagos so we can stay there about 10 days and mooch amongst the islands there. We’ll have to get up to Quito and stay there one night so that we can catch the early morning flights out to the Galapagos.

We take a nice hike up behind a large waterfall-the one that Sarah and Ryan did and that she told us about.

Day 35 Monday, April 8th Banos , Ecuador

The bus to Ambato costs just $8 each and leaves Cuenca at 9.30pm and arrives in Ambato at 3.15am. The seats are like coach class plane eats and we cannot sleep, also the bus is moving through hair-pin bends and so we have to clutch the armrests the whole way. Perhaps good that we can’t see the road..

We arrive at Amb

ato bus station and wander around amongst all the local travellers (no-one speaks any English at all) trying to find a bus to Banos but can’t seem to find one. Eventually someone understands us and we get pushed toward the next bus and we pull out at 4.00am and arrive in Banos at 4.45am and are dropped on a dark street corner. I think that we are wearing a sign to all muggers that says “here are the muggees” but there are local people all around us beginning to start their days. It is still very dark.

We manage to find a taxi and he takes us to our hostel for $3 and wakes the place up. Carolina lets us in (we don’t have a reservation but she has spaces). Sarah stayed here at Casa Verde last year and recommended it to us and it’s great. $52/night for a big double room with a king-sized bed. Great breakfast with home-made jams and honey, toast and coffee.

We go on a steep 4-5 hour hike with Mark, a fellow traveller, and we meet other hikers, and we all hike together and then have dinner together in town at the “Swiss Chalet”

Day 34 Sunday, April 7th Guayaquil, Ecuador to Cuenca, Ecuador.

We catch to open topped red tourist bus for a look around Cuenca old town and it’s outskirts. Not bad, it needs that UNESCO help-not sure why my taxes should help a local hotel owner repair his balcony though.

The hotel charges us just $8 to keep the room until 6.30pm and we have booked an overnight bus leaving at 9.30pm to Ambato (arrives at 3.30am unfortunately) so we catch a 45minute bus-ride to Los Banos which is our next destination.

Day 33 Saturday, April 6th Guayaquil, Ecuador to Cuenca, Ecuador.

Usual tedious border crossing (Peru/Ecuador) with a slow-moving one hour line toward bored officials who stamp/stamp/stamp documents that no-one will ever read while equally bored men with guns look on. Arrived in Guayaquil bus station at 5.45am (big, efficient place) and immediately jumped onto a 6.00am departure bus to Cuenca. Just had time to use the bathroom and grab and coffee and a muffin.

This regional bus was almost empty at first but stopped every mile or so to let on locals until the bus was absolutely overloaded with people squashed into standing positions around our seats. One young lady was on the verge of throwing up all over us for a good part of the journey. The bus was full of the rich aroma of all the overdressed woman and men from the farms and we could smell goats, chickens and the vegetables that they grow. Really interesting to people watch- and they watch us. We are usually the only tourists (time of year) and no-one speaks English. The Ecuadorian countryside is very pleasant to look at and seems fertile. We chat to the locals as best we can with our few words of Spanish. We tell them our names and ask them their names. We tell them we are English but live in California. We tell them we have three daughters-we get by and we all have a lot of fun. They are very happy to help us learn Spanish and some of them want to learn English. There is a lot of laughter (at us). It’s tough when the conversation needs to get serious and so we are trying hard to improve our meagre Spanish.

We get to Cuenca at 1.00pm after a seven hour journey from Guayaquil (so with Mancora to Guayaquil that was 16 hours on buses).

We picked up an hotel leaflet at the Cuenca bust station and take a cab to Rio Piedra. They give us immediate access to the room which is on the 5^th floor (no elevator). US$52/night. The American Dollar is the official currency of  Ecuador.

We have settled into a pretty good way of moving around in South America. We catch the overnight buses which have the fully reclining and large seats that we can sleep in. That means we avoid the tedium of long bus journeys and we save a night’s accommodation. We typic

ally arrive early morning and then go and look at hotels/hostels. At this time of year we don’t need to book. We pay what is needed for a good clean place with private room and bathroom but try to pay about $30/night although we have ended up paying $50/night very often. We usually have wifi access.

Cuenca is an old colonial town with cobbled streets, old building with balconies and charming squares. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We wander around to find a place for lunch and stumble across Café Eucalyptus where a Salsa Class is going on and they are prepping for a Saturday night Salsa party and so we decide to go back for dinner and dancing.

It’s a really charming building with a huge central room with an internal balcony. We arrive about 8.00pm (wondering if we will be able to stay awake after our all-night travelling) and have dinner while we wait for the music to start. Pisco Sours are great but the wine is horrible. It’s an 8-piece band (5 on percussion) and the music is terrific. Everyone just can’t wait to dance. Around 10.00pm some sort of dance competition starts and the contestants are all dressed to kill with sparkling outfits. Everyone else is in tight jeans and heels. I need some hair oil. Christine says “look at that man’s maracas!” and she soon has me dancing. We dance until 1.00am and chat to all sorts of interesting local people. A great time.

Day 32 Friday, April 5th Mancora, Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador.

We are sad to leave Las Olas, Mancora. This has been a great three night stay. Great hosts, s150/night (about US$57) and room 14 was great with its private balcony overlooking the ocean. Plenty of hot water, room made up every day. This is also the best part of town. Mancora is being developed further south with new hotels spread along the coast. The beach isn’t so good there, it’s further from town and lacks character.

We are talking about using Mancora as a future destination vacation spot-it provides hop-off points to Guayaquil (9 hr. overnight bus ride $24pp including a fully reclining seat/bed (cama)) from where you can get flights to the Galapagos.

We have booked our bus seats for the 9.00pm departure tonight to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We’ll have dinner at our favourite restaurant, Sirena, before we leave town.

Day 31 Thursday, April 4th Mancora, Peru.

Still at Las Olas because we love it. I borrow Gustavo’s board again and go out and a young man is out there with flippers on and helping people. Since I’m puffing away (I haven’t surfed in three years) he paddles up next to me and I ask “Cuanto-Cuesta?” S5 ($2) for him to help me and he’s just great. I have another Spanish lesson while surfing but he pushes me out and into the waves with the help of his flippers. “Hercy” (sp?) is 19. I pay him s10 and may go out with him again this afternoon.

We try to book the Galapagos on the internet and with the help of some recommended agents but we can’t seem to get a deal that we would be willing to consider sensible and we wonder just how much we really want to go. So far we are at $4,500 for the two of us (airfare, round trip from Quito included) for just three nights on the boat and that just doesn’t equate to what we are doing generally. We think that we are spending about $150/day and so to spend $4,500 for three days isn’t compelling.

Day 30 Wednesday, April 3rd Mancora, Peru

We go to the same restaurant every day for both lunch and dinner-Sirena (Mermaid?) and I want their Lucaffe sign but they won’t sell it to me.

I’m sick today. No discernible cause, just general malaise-perhaps I have been travelling too much. No surfing-bummer.

Day 29 Tuesday, April 2nd Mancora, Peru

All grumpiness gone-Mancora is everything we need right now. We take a tuc-tuc to Las Olas, which is on the beach and we negotiate with Gustavo for an ocean-front room with a private balcony and bathroom for $57/night but I forget to ask if breakfast is included-oh well, we are given immediate access to the room at 8.00am., take a hot shower and get an eggs and black coffee breakfast. Surf is up and right outside our room so I borrow Gustavo’s board and go surfing. Great!

We meet Pablo Pozo and his wife Elina Carrio from Aregentina-fellow guests here. She is a graphic designer of wine labels in the Mendoza area of Argentina. They are really nice, about late thirties and have one son (left at home) of 5. We invite them to come and visit us in California.

Evening on our balcony with pre-dinner Manhattans as we watch the local surfers and some kids playing soccer on the beach. We may delay our return home.

Day 28 Monday, April 1st Huanchaca, Peru

We arrive in Trujillo from the overnight bus from Huarez. A misguided stewardess has passed out cherry cordials in small plastic cups with loose lids. She puts them into the rear seat pockets in front of us while we are asleep and we both manage to get the tops off as we wriggle around in our sleep during the eight hour journey and waken to find blood stains all over our pants. We catch a taxi to Huanchaca and then look for a place to stay and decide on Naylamp, which is quite good at $28/night. We get immediate access to our room at 8.00am or so and get a shower and a breakfast with eggs.

Huanchaca is a small surf town and, off-season, is disappointing and scruffy. We are tired and grumpy after sleeping on the bus and so decide to move on to the next town that same evening. We have to take a local bus into Trujillo (tres soles for two = $1) and ride with the locals for an hour and then wander around dusty and noisy streets looking for a bus company that will take us further north.

We book another overnight bus journey ($28/person) to Mancora-further up the Peruvian coast.

After catching a bus back to Huanchaca, to use the Naylamp room that we will never actually sleep in, we mooch around and then taxi it back to the Trujillo bus-station for our 10 hours onward journey to Mancora.

Day 27 Sunday, March 31st. Teaching English in Peru

I want to learn Spanish and they want to learn English and so we swap favors. This man wanted to discuss the space station (at least I think that’s what we were talking about) and so I teach him the English words for “space station” and he seems pleased. Two hours earlier the taxi driver pokes and pushes me to wear my seat belt and so I teach him “seat-belt” and he drives off practicing. Three weeks ago in Lima a Peruvian gentleman wanted me to help him say the Indian word for bread in English and so we spend a happy 10 minutes practicing “Poppadom”.

I’m proud of my efforts teaching English in Peru and feel confident that, should these three ever meet, they will be able to enjoy a nice English conversation.

After three weeks in Peru I can now master some complex phrases such as “you are standing on my foot” but only long after they are no longer relevant.

Day 27 Sunday, March 31st. Easter Sunday

We are woken by marching bands as Holy Mary is paraded through the streets to the church in time for Mass. All the locals are in their Sunday-best outfits.

We are woken by marching bands as Holy Mary is paraded through the streets to the church in time for Mass. All the locals are in their Sunday-best outfits. I think that's Jesus and he seems to be wearing a dress.

We book an overnight bus to Trujillo (10hrs) for $30 each and will have seats that almost fully recline into a bed.

Day 26 Saturday March 30th Huarez

We get picked up by a small mini-bus and together with a 34 yr old Swedish lady (Charlotte) and are taken to the Huascaran National Park Glacier. It’s a 2 hr bumpy ride and a little more than we bargained for. We are expected to hike down to Huarez and everyone tells us that it’s a modest hike but it’s very clear that it’s at least a tough 6-8 hr hike along a boulder strewn road. We start and after about 3 hours are lucky to be picked up by a passing Peruvian family and taken the rest of the way into Huarez. We are very tired and enjoy some whiskey in the hotel room before, once again, heading out to Café Andino.
Cordillera Blanca, Huarez, Peru. S America has 30 peaks over 6,500 mtrs and Peru has 25 of those. N America has three and Europe none that high. It's still the tail-end of the rainy season here and so we just get occasional views

of them but they are spectacular.