Galapagos Islands

Ok, so Kristin caved to the enormous pressure and we´ve now been to the Galapagos Islands. It was one of those "now or never" type things, so we took the plunge.

It all started with a flight from Guayaquil on Monday morning...

We touched down on Darwin´s undiscovered archipelago...with about three or four hundred other intrepid travellers (mostly white, rich seniors). The airport is small and is the only thing on Isla Baltra. From there it was 1.5 hours by bus, boat and another bus to Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz where we missed lunch (thanks to the handy tip from our travel agent to take the later flight) onboard our trusty, "economy class" vessel, Yate Gaby I. Our boat was filled with white, poor, young people like us, which was nice. Our first stop was to see the Giant Tortoises of Santa Cruz. They truly are giants, and are completely unfazed by the multitude of tourists traipsing around their field. Amazing!!

I won´t bore you all with a blow by blow account of every adventure, but some of the highlights were definitely snorkeling with penguins and sea turtles, sitting for hours watching the sea lion pups on the beach about 2 feet from us, amazing volcanic landscapes, and imitating our guide (Wilmer) as he whispered information to anyone close enough to hear (Ad, you would have had a field day...). Some of the downsides were the bathroom, the stench in the bathroom, the fact that we shared a bathroom with people who couldn´t remember to unlock the door to the bathroom, and the bathroom.

I had really wanted to see the famous Blue Footed Boobies up close, but somehow it wasn´t included in our itinerary, but as luck would have it, we had an extra day to kill at the end of our trip, so Kristin and I went to the beach and what to our wondering eyes should appear?? Two blue footed boobies, who were quite happy to pose for as many pictures as I could bear to take. You all will get to see the pics when we return!! At the same beach we saw enough marine iguanas to last a lifetime.

Oh and the stupidest thing we have seen someone carrying in his backpack so far...a thirty pound dumbbell. Come on...

Tomorrow we are taking the 24 hour bus to Lima. We think we may have booked the Inca Trail/Machu Picchu for November 18th, but we won´t know for sure until Tuesday. So far our timing is placing us in Bolivia just in time for their riotous elections being held the first week of December. Great.

Hope everyone is well at home...
Cam and Kristin

Following the sun...

...not so much. We have taken shelter today in the Internet cafe from a torrential downpour of rain and hail, not to mention some pretty wicked thunder and lightning. It seems to be a thing here in South America- gorgeous and hot during the morning, and then amazing storms in the afternoon. At least it´s consistent, so we know when to be inside. Anyway, we are now in Cuenca, which is the ¨colonial¨city of Ecuador which means it has tonnes of amazing architecture, and lots of museums. The hostel we are staying in is on the 6th floor and has great views of it all. We are right beside the New Cathedral, ¨new¨ here means that construction started in 1885. The Old Cathedral, across the street, was started in 1557. Since we last wrote we have moved from Baños to Riobamba, and then here to Cuenca. We had stopped in Riobamba to ride the train down El Nariz del Diablo- the Devil´s Nose. Most of the railway in Ecuador has been washed away over the years, but they maintain the Devil´s Nose as a tourist attraction. You get to ride on the roof of the train, but the whole ride was pretty anticlimatic. We ended up sitting on the roof for over 4 hours in the baking equatorial sun and for most of that time the train wasn´t even moving. The highlight was when we derailed, the cars of the train had to be decoupled, and about an hour of work was done on the track before we started off again. Either that, or when the American tourist threw candy down on to the tracks for the little Andean kids who dashed out infront of a moving train to collect it... Overall the experience was a bit touristy and disappointing. The unexpected highlight of Riobamba was our mountain biking excursion down the side of Volcan Chimborazo. We started at 8am, driving to the first refuge of the volcano (4800m) and then climbing to the second refuge (5000m). It is an 800m walk (200m vertical) that takes about 30 minutes, if you´re reasonably fast. Climbing to the actual summit is for expert climbers only, and has claimed many lives over the years. If mountains were measured from the center of the earth (rather than sea level) Chimborazo would be considered the tallest mountain in the world, dwarfing even Everest by 2000m. It´s all about the equatorial bulge! This also makes the top of Chimborazo the closest point on earth to the sun. Anyway, after we did our climb we got on our bikes and rode 35km down the mountain- mainly off road, through beautiful landscapes, a tiny little village, past Inca ruins and many angry dogs, and more. We stopped for lunch at the Inca ruins where there was nothing and nobody except two Andean women tending their cows and alpacas. We drank from a natural mineral spring where the water is carbonated! It was really untouched and amazing. Except for the fact that we couldn´t sit down, and could barely grip our handle bars after about 20km, the day was one of our favourites so far. Our two guides were awesome, and gave us tons of information about the area´s history and people. One of them, Rodrigo, has climbed Chimborazo 38 times- he says he would have done it more but he doesn´t want to get bored of it... We left Riobamba yesterday and took a 6 hour bus ride to get to Cuenca. We haven´t done much here except wander around, but that´s fine with us. We need a break from all this work ;) We may stay here another day to do more of nothing, or head out tomorrow to Machala which is on the coast before heading down to Peru. We are still waffling on heading to the Galapagos Islands, but the cost will be about $1500 each, which is way out of our budget and we´re on opposite sides on the issue (guess who´s on which side...). So far we´ve been living on $40US per day, for both of us so $3000 for a week is a lot to stomach. Tonight we are going to have a home cooked meal! This is the first hostel we´ve been in with a communal kitchen, so we´re going to take advantage of it. We´ll see if we remember how to wash dishes... That´s all for now- Hello to everyone back home! Cam and Kristin.

The Magic Roundabout

The Magic Roundabout,
originally uploaded by camandkristin.

We´ve finally got some pictures uploaded. Still figuring out the best way to get them online...

This one is of the Magic Roundabout. The hostel sits on 30 hectares of land, which you can buy for about $1000 per hectare. The owner, Ali, moved to Ecuador from England 5 years ago and now runs the hostel pretty much single handedly. At the moment he has one volunteer, Sibele, who works about 14 hours a day for free food and lodging. It´s a great place to wind down since it´s miles away from anywhere.

Chalk one up for St. Christopher...

I wasn´t actually wearing my St. Christopher pendant at the time, but I´ll attribute my recent life saving moment to him... It all started on Thursday, when Cam and I went rafting with 7 others that we´ve been travelling with. We arranged the trip through an Irish run company in Tena- it´s a great company, run completely by one family that moved to Ecuador 13 years ago. The whole family rafts and kayaks competitively. Anyway, the trip was amazing- we started our day by hiking 45 minutes down hill to the river- it´s a river that nobody else rafts in Ecuador because it´s too tough to get all the gear down. Down at the river we climbed up a waterfall, through a cave and into a grotto that was the most beautiful place I´ve seen yet. After climbing up the waterfall you had two options- jump off a 7 meter cliff, or climb back down with your tail between your legs :) There were only two girls, and we both jumped quickly, so the pressure was on the guys, who all jumped as well. After swimming there for a while we piled in to the boats and rafted 40km down 2 rivers. The scenerey was unbelievable. There were butterflies with wings so blue that you could see them shimmering from 100m! Anyway, after lunch we swapped boats so Cam and I were in the smaller boat with our friends John and Hannah, and our guide Ben. The second half of the trip had much bigger rapids, and the small boat was really feeling the waves. We made it through all the big water, and then it all went bad... On one rapid we got on the wrong side of the wave, and were pushed into a vertical wall of rock. The boat lifted on it´s side, and John and Hannah fell out immediately. From my perch on the high side, I was staring straight down at Hannah and realized that the boat was about to flip right on top of her. Which it did. The next moment I was underwater and wasn´t coming up (we had life jackets and helmets) and the most amazing thoughts were going through my head. I finally surfaced after being thrashed around for what seemed like ages, and when I came up I couldn´t find Cam or Hannah. The boat was upside down. The reason I couldn´t find Cam was because he was UNDER the boat, and Hannah had been washed downstream already. Cam found his way out, but we all continued to be swirled around in the water for several minutes. I made it to shore once, but then got sucked back out. Cam got trapped between the boat and the rock wall and swallowed a good portion of the river in an attempt to stay hanging on to the raft. We finally all got pulled onto the raft, paddled it to shore, and flipped the boat. At this point I was in tears and hyperventilating like the girl that I am. The worst part was that we had to get back IN the boat, and cross the same rapid that had just flipped us, and with one less person paddling since Hannah was now way down stream with the second boat. Anyway, we all survived, but it was one of the scariest moments I´ve had in my life. Overall, the trip was amazing, and well worth the money. Despite the scare it was the best day we´ve had so far.

On Friday we caught a bus to Baños, which is where we are today. Baños is a very touristy city nestled at the foot of an active volcano (and I mean active- you can see it erupting constantly). The city is cool and has a lot to offer a tourist, but it is just that- touristy. We´ll stay here for a few days to relax and then will head south. We may head out to the coast eventually, or save that for Peru. This is probably where we´ll part ways with our entourage also.

Now, we´re off to try and upload some pictures. Seriously frustrating...

We love hearing from you all!
Kristin and Cam

Football anyone?

When you travel with Europeans, you spend a lot of time talking about ¨football¨. We get mocked when we call it soccer. We have converted now- it´s easier. Today we are with a group of 7 others, including 2 Swiss, and 2 Irish. There happens to be a Switz. vs Ireland match on today- a qualifier for the World Cup. We have spent ALL DAY looking for somewhere to watch it. Not easy to do in South America. Lots of matches on TV, but Switz vs Ire isn´t exactly top priority... The poor guys have resorted to getting updates via internet.

Anyway, we have arrived in Tena today. We left Quito on Sunday and bussed it to a tiny place called Las Palmas, just past Baeza. The bus ride was about 3.5 hours long, and cost $3.50. The hostel is called The Magic Roundabout (British run) and is in the middle of nowhere. Nothing to do there but eat, sleep, and hike in the cloud forest. We did all three. Oh, and the guys took machetes up into the bamboo and spent a few hours being ¨men¨. I slept in the hammock on the porch :)

Tena is the rafting epicentre of Ecuador- tomorrow we (9 of us) are booked in for a day trip. Should be great, since it´s very hot here. We are coming down out of the mountains, so it´s the hottest we´ve been. We actually met the British rafting/kayaking team at the hostel the other night. The World Cup (for rafting and kayaking) starts today just outside Baeza, so the owner of the hostel (British) invited them over for dinner. Well, when they showed up they were all women! You should have seen the guys jump :)

We´ll be leaving for Baños on Friday, at which point I suspect our group of 9 will part ways. It´s kind of an intersection point, and travelling with nine is a bit tough (although fun)!

Still trying to find an internet cafe that is fast enough to deal with uploading pictures. We´ve managed to get 6 done in 45 minutes... Baños is bigger so we´ll try there.

Hello to everyone!
Hasta luego!

Kristin and Cam.

Soy no hablo Español...

So, the thing is, Ecuador is a Spanish speaking country. And not "Spanish speaking but everyone speaks English", like in Mexico. They speak Spanish. Only Spanish. We speak English. Only English. It proves to be fairly difficult. We have taken 15 hours of Spanish lessons now, and we can string together a few key sentences like "How much is this?" and "Does this bus go to...?", but speaking it and understanding the response are two totally different things. Anyway, we are plugging along. Hand signals help.

We are still in Quito, but are heading out tomorrow. We are heading east to a town called Tena, which is in the Amazon Jungle. We are stopping at a hostel called the Magic Roundabout along the way, which is sort of a sister hostel to where we are now.

The last few days have been busy. We've been to the equator- both of them. The first one is where some French guy thought it was a long time ago, but he hadn't compensated for the fact that the Earth bulges or something... The "real" equator is about 50m north. This one has been located by GPS. At the fake equator there is a huge monument, a bunch of museums, and people wearing uniforms. At the real equator there is some dude in a Hang Loose shirt pouring water into a basin to show you that it will spin in different directions depending on which side of the equator he puts it on. Oh ya, there is also a shrunken head, and the skin of a 10m anaconda.

We got to the equator by taking the bus. 4 busses, actually. The bus system here is crazy- the bus drives down the street and one guy hangs out the door yelling where that bus is going. If you want on, they'll slow down (not stop) and you jump on. When you want off, you jump off- timing it with a stoplight helps. Anyway, we made it there and back, and felt pretty accomplished.

Yesterday we climbed a volcano called Pichincha. The total climb was only 600 vertical meters, but we started at an altitude of 4200m, which makes it much more difficult. It's a wierd feeling- your legs aren't sore, and your lungs don't burn, but you just can't walk very fast or very far without resting. Cam felt a bit dizzy, more so than me, but we all made it to the top eventually. Unfortunately the view was obscured by cloud and fog, so we did't really get the full benefit of the climb. It took us about 2 hours 45 minutes to get up (to 4800m), and about 30 minutes to get down (basically sliding down a sandy cliff). Descending that quickly gave us nice headaches...

Last night we went out with a group from the hostel. On our way home one of our friends got pickpocketed by a 6 year old girl, who had a baby strapped to her back. This was at 3am. He felt it happening, and grabbed her arm, but the money was gone so fast, handed off to one of the other many children there who were swarming us and the others. That's why we use zippered pockets...

Right now we're trying to upload some pictures. If it works, we'll post again later...

All is well here, 7 days in...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Cam and Kristin

Quito- day 2

Hola from the southern hemisphere!! We're 22kms below the equator and 3000m high. We arrived in Quito on Sunday night after having spent a painful night at a Miami beach hostel. We had planned on a taxi from the airport (since I think Miami at night may be scarier than Quito) but it was $28 so we risked transit instead. 2 hours later we made it to the hostel- which was not, at all, worth the trip. The next morning we did manage to get to the beach for all of 10 minutes, packs and all, before catching the bus back to the airport. At the checkin for our flight they told us we had to have proof that we were leaving Ecuador (since our next flight is actually from Chile). I guess having 10 more flights booked isn't proof enough... They booked us a 'fake' reservation, which indicated we were flying from here to Santiago, but fortunately we weren't asked for it at Immigration.

Made it to the Secret Garden Hostel, which is awesome. A small, really vertical, space with a terrace on top with an amazing view of the Old Town. Yesterday we spent sightseeing around the Old Town. Lots of interesting buildings, and lots and lots of people. We made it back to the hostel just before the daily downpour and thunderstorm. The hostel terrace has been hit by lightning a couple of times recently. Had dinner at the hostel and then played Deathball 2000 with about 10 others. They call it Shithead here, but it's apparently the travellers card game. After dinner we went out for some drinks and pool with the group to the New Town. It's not safe to travel alone at night here, but in a group and with taxis (and with a few fluent in Spanish) it's fine.

Today we are doing a bit more wandering, and then back to the hostel for the start of 20 hours of Spanish lessons! We'll see how that goes...

All is well. We are homesick already, which is weird since we are often away for more than 2 days, but it's the anticipation of an entire year away, I guess...

Might go to the Ecuador vs Uraguay soccer match on Sunday- a qualifier for the World Cup. Probably pretty cool.

Bye for now,
Kristin and Cam