Back from the Galapagos...

I know you’ve been missing the regular updates on supertrippin, but we’ve been sailing around the Galapagos for the past 8 days. It was a rough job, but we toughed it out. I’m kidding. It was awesome.

So we are still in the Galapagos, in a town called Puerto Ayora and tomorrow in the early afternoon we fly out to Quito. Today it was rainy and we walked to a beach called Tortuga Bay along a 2.5km path. I don’t know if it was the copious amounts of vegetables on the boat, or just general South American issues, but for the first time in my life, I pooped outside. Unfortunately, it was out of sheer necessity and it was either the side of the trail that was to be soiled or my white shorts so I took the former. Chris talked in his last blog about disrespecting the jungle, and today, I definitely disrespected the forest. After I jogged back and found Chris on the trail and retold my tragic story, he showed me the sign that said not to touch the poison leaves along the trail. Thank god I chose different leaves or I’d be writing this blog from a hospital with a rash in a very unfortunate location.

But enough potty talk, I managed to get a few shorts blogs written while we were on the boat, so they are below. Also, if wifi is working, all of the Galapagos pictures should be up in our photos session.

Galapagos Part 1

We are on day 2 of our 8 day cruise through the Galapagos Islands. We made it on the boat (after two people on our plane in Guayaquil were taken off in stretchers for severe dehydration… we think) and have been cruising around the islands, taking little land and sea excursions from the boat. We are on a yacht called the Angelito and I would recommend it. The guide is good, the staff friendly, and most important, I like the food. Our boat fits 16 passengers, with 8 rooms and most of the people on our boat are youngish and traveling as well so that’s always a bonus.

There’s much to see here so I will try and give a brief list of what I’ve seen in the past day and a half:

sea lions
penguins
lava lizards
marine iguanas
land iguanas
sea turtles
white tipped reef sharks
a lot of fish
a lot of birds

We take little walks around the islands and then snorkel in other areas. I like the snorkeling the best because there are so many fish and penguins and turtles and sea lions and sharks to see. Actually, I haven’t seen the sea lions underwater yet, but I hear it’s coming. Chris did battle with a penguin underwater today and escaped with no wounds. Actually, the thing just poked him in the back with its beak and then wanted to swim around him. That’s kind of the special thing about the Galapagos: the animals could give a shit that you’re there. You walk onto these islands and iguanas and sea lions are inches from you, and the best reaction you get is a yawn, a sneeze, or maybe they just roll over on their backs. The fish are the same way. They say it’s because people came here so late (in the grand scheme of things) so the animals aren’t afraid. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but regardless, it’s really cool to be so close to so many different species.

Now, I’m on the top deck of the boat and typing on this computer and it’s getting me a bit queasy, so I will be done for now. More updates soon.

Galapagos Part 2

We are currently on Day 4 of our 8 day cruise. The evening of Day 2 was super vomit time for me, so I wasn’t able to blog, only barf off the side of the boat. The water gets pretty choppy, so yesterday we had about 6 hours of sailing and lost about half of the guests to sea sickness. I didn’t throw up yesterday, but I think my body really wanted to. Otherwise, things are fine. Today we are in the main harbor town of Puerto Ayora and will be here for the remainder of the day. We went to the Charles Darwin research center and saw the giant land tortoises. Some of them are over 100 years old and tend to resemble our grandparents, or E.T.

Yesterday we had some nice snorkeling and saw more sharks and sea lions. Chris saw a sea turtle. Our boat is good and the 16 passengers are all pretty young and fun which is nice. Here’s a rundown of everyone:

· 4 Americans (including me and Chris)
· 4 Canadians
· 4 Germans
· 2 Dutch
· 1 Australian
· 1 French

We are a pretty international crew and spend the nights playing cards (when the water isn’t too rough).

So far, besides the vomiting, I’ve really enjoyed this trip and would recommend the Galapagos to anyone. Just bring the sea sickness pills.

Galapagos Part 3

I haven’t been the best about keeping up with my Galapagos blog, but in fairness, everyday is pretty much the same. We have breakfast at 7, do a shore excursion, come back to the boat, do a snorkel excursion, move the boat for an hour or two to a new location, eat lunch, do a shore excursion, maybe snorkel again, lay around the boat, eat dinner, play cards or Yahtzee, and go to bed and try not to vomit or get tossed out of bed as the boat moves again. It’s good.
Today is our last full day which is a bummer. Tomorrow, we are done pretty early and Chris and I are staying on the main island one more night, and then flying to Quito on Monday. Tonight we have our special goodbye dinner and we have to tip the crew and guide. This experience has been much better than the Machu Picchu Inca Trail in regards to being fed and the expertise and niceness of our guide. Last night we had tuna lasagna and that was one of my trip highlights.

The Galapagos are really cool and I recommend visiting them, but they didn’t exactly blow my mind like other people had described. The snorkeling is good, but the amount of fish we have seen isn’t that substantial. And the land trips are good but I feel like it’s just a lot of birds, sea lions, and iguanas… and lizards. It’s a good time and definitely worth the money, I just don’t think it will be the most incredible thing you will ever see. If it is, it’s time to get out a bit more.

My favorite things have been snorkeling with the sea lions and the penguins. It’s really cool to watch how fast they can move underwater. They attempt to play with us and check us out, but we’re just too slow and they lose interest quickly. I also saw a giant manta ray one day from the boat. I think it was about 6 feet wide. We saw one jump completely out of the water another day. One day a marine iguana swam between my legs and that was fun/shocking. Another highlight was snorkeling near the white tipped reef sharks, they are pretty big and it’s always cool to say you snorkel with sharks. In my opinion, the birds are boring, but if birds are your thing, you might as well leave for the Galapagos tomorrow. And the sea lions are fun to watch and they let you get really close. And I have seen two dead baby seal lions, one with a bloodied placenta, and I didn’t need that stinky yuck in my life.

When we get to Quito, we might go to the jungle. We shall see. July 1st we fly to Cartagena, Colombia for some more beach time. July 29th we fly back to the states from Rio de Janeiro. It’s going too fast; we only have about 5 weeks to go.

Sacajawea and Disrespecting the Jungle

Today we leave for the Galapagos. It should be a great time on an 8 day cruise. Before we go I just wanted to write a few things more about Ecuador as I'm not sure if we will have internet access on the boat.

First of all, as Stefani has already mentioned, Ecuador seems to be the most Americanized country we have visited so far. The first noticeable instance of this is the fact that they use the US dollar as their currency. Like every country we've been in down here, they still have trouble making change for almost any purchase you make. Normally you might think you could give someone a 10 for something that cost a few dollars and everything would be ok. That's not the case here. If you did that here, you would wait for a long time while the clerk talked to everyone around to see if they had any change and eventually, after confirming that no one had change, they would leave to go get change somewhere else. When they finally returned you would get a handful of change in coins. The most common of which here are 50 cent pieces and Sacajawea dollar coins. You probably remember the short lived Sacajawea coins in the US. They were everywhere for about 3 days several years ago. I still get them from stamp machines at the post office, but I always wondered what happened to all of them. Now I know. They were all shipped down to Ecuador. I can see this deal going down. "OK we'll pay you an extra half a cent per kilo of bananas so that you can afford to buy shoes and feed your children, but we will have to pay you in Sacajawea coins. Take it or leave it."

Another instance of Americanization here is related to the Coriolis effect. Everywhere in South America, water has swirled clockwise as it drained from sinks as opposed to the normal American way of counterclockwise. Here in Guayaquil, however, we are still in the southern hemisphere and the water is swirling counterclockwise, as it would in the northern hemisphere. Some of you out there might be thinking, isn't this guy supposed to be an ocean engineer. Doesn't he know that the Coriolis force is so small that it doesn't really effect the way water flows out of a sink. That may be so, but here in Guayaquil the myth of Coriolis is alive and well, and it is effecting the way water drains from the sinks in Hotel Ecuador.

I'm running out of time and battery juice for my computer so I just want to leave you with a story about dirty hippies and the jungle. I hope to go into the jungle from Quito after we return from the Galapagos. There are several places that offer 4 or 5 day trips where you travel first by plane and then by boat to lodges in the Amazon. Depending on where you go, you spend time checking out the wildlife, going on hikes through the jungle and possibly meeting some of the indigenous people that still live out there. While we were in Nazca, Peru there was a dirty hippy talking on the phone presumably to a travel agent of some sort. The guy was wearing pink long johns and a flannel shirt and looked like he hadn't bathed in a while even though he was staying in a hotel that had showers. Based on what I overheard of his phone conversation, I'm guessing that he hadn't showered because he didn't want to disrespect the desert by using it's water. Basically, he was telling the person on the other side of the phone conversation that he wanted to go to the jungle, but that it was extremely important that he not enter the jungle via airplane for spiritual purposes. At least three times he said something along the lines of, "it would just be so disrespectful to enter by plane. I really need to enter the jungle by boat. Do you understand?" You probably had to be there to truly appreciate what a piece of work this guy was, but hopefully you get some understanding from what is written here. I mean...to each his own, but this guy was a turd.

Right now I'm going to go disrespect the Galapagos by flying to the islands and then cruising around in a fuel burning motor boat.

Going Galapagos... I think

So far so good for the Galapagos. I don’t think they’ve gotten our money yet, but we do have plane tickets and a ride arranged to the airport and a confirmation voucher for the boat, so things are moving along. We are on the boat June 15-22 and then return to Quito on June 23rd. Yesterday, we went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie and Chris is extra excited for the South American jungle (even though the South American jungle in that film was actually shot on the Big Island) and he’s trying to arrange a trip out of Quito right after the Galapagos. I still don’t know how much it will cost and I’m not that interested in the jungle, so I might just hang out in Quito for a few days on my own, we’ll see.

But for now, we are still in Guayaquil. Out of all of the places we have visited in the last four and a half months, this is the city with the most American restaurants and shops and stuff. We’ve been to a few malls (looking for Indiana Jones in English) and they have Nine West, Tommy Hilfiger, Sunglass Hut (even thought they spell it Sunglass Hot), Pizza Hut, Chili’s, TGI Friday’s, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, and more KFC than most places in the states. I also think that all of this fast food might contribute to the fact that the people here are the fattest we have seen in all of South America. Seriously, they are HUGE. And speaking of huge, I feel like I am on my way because in the past few days I have also had Taco Bell, nutella filled churros covered in chocolate and powdered sugar, deep fried shrimp and calamari, pina coladas, and other varieties of cheesy Mexican food. Chris and I have both lost some weight recently due to constant diarrhea and short supplies of food and no fast food, so I guess we’re just packing it back on. Hopefully I don’t get another diet of vomiting and liquid poop on the Galapagos trip, I don’t know how much more I can handle right now, but at least we’ll be far away from KFC… I hope.

As for more pleasant food related topics pan de yucca, fruit juice, and yogurt in Ecuador are all awesome. From what I’ve gathered, most of the food here consists of fried chicken or some sort of grayish meat in gravy, with white rice, French fries, and maybe some beans. This does not excite me. But, they also have great fruit and yogurt stands with these delicious bread spheres called pan de yucca. The fruit stands just blend up fresh fruit (strawberries, oranges, banana, peaches, papaya, mango, pears, whatever) for about $1 and give you a huge cup of tasty deliciousness. The yogurt is not typical condensed yogurt, but more of a liquid, blended with ice and fresh fruit so you get a milkshake with yogurt, it’s good. Then you get the pan de yucca which is a small ball of bread, and when you bite into the crusty outer layer, you are greeted by a doughy cheesy warm center. It fills you up quickly and tastes wonderful. In Paraguay, they have almost similar bread called chipa, but the pan de yucca version is better as it is lighter and generally tastier.

OK, one more food story and then I am done. At one of the malls yesterday, we went to a large grocery store to stock up on essentials for the Galapagos trip. And apparently, we are unhealthy and disgusting because here are the contents of our cart:
2 bottles of rum
1 bottle of vodka
3 boxes of Kinder Eggs special Simpson’s edition – if you don’t know what Kinder Eggs are, do yourself a favor and Google it, it’s worth it
2 bottles of Coke
4 bottles of sparkling water
4 bags of Doritos

Whoa! We’re gross. From what we’ve heard, booze is expensive on the boat, hence the stockpiling, although Chris decided to have an early birthday celebration on his own in our hotel room last night so we need to restock one of the bottles of rum.

Today, I tried to use the WiFi connection at the fancy Hampton Inn down the street but it was running too slow. Tomorrow we might return to the mall to restock our booze and Kinder Eggs and they have an internet connection there I hope to use. I really want to get our pictures from Machu Picchu and Mancora loaded before we leave on Sunday. I also want to call for Father’s Day, but if it doesn’t work out, Happy Father’s Day dad!

I have a date with myself in a couple of hours to see Sex and the City in English (Chris refuses to go) so I’m looking forward to that, hopefully it’s better than the new Indiana Jones.

On (and Off) the Road Again

Chris and I survived one birthday extravaganza in Mancora, Peru, and are gearing up for another one this Saturday in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I’m sorry I didn’t check in on the blog last week, but it was time to do nothing on a beach and I didn’t have much to write about anyway.

If you like dirty, sleepy surfer towns with good food and obnoxious discos every night of the week, then Mancora is for you. It’s a stop on the surfer pilgrimage down the Pan-American Highway. The water isn’t too cold and they have long continuous breaks, and according to Chris, lots and lots of fish in the water. I was still nursing my cut and bruised shins from the Inca Trail and a trip in third world ocean didn’t seem like the most hygienic step towards recovery. But it looked pretty.

We stayed across from the beach at a place called Casa Blanca and we shared our room with an assortment of biting insects, crickets, and possibly rats on the roof. Yuck. Plus we were near the discos so I got to hear ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira at least four times a night, usually ending around 2AM. But it was cheap and we are seriously trying to save money right now. During the day, we drank $3 650ml beers and ate ceviche and fried calamari and shrimp on the beach. The seafood, from the shellfish to the tuna, was truly delicious in Mancora. And I tried to hide from the sun, because it is so strong the closer you get to the Equator. On my birthday, we met up with a couple we’d met earlier in the day from Portland, Oregon and ended the night on the beach with a fire and an assortment of international hippies and local kids. It was a good 29th celebration.

Yesterday, Chris and I took a stupidly long bus ride to Guayaquil. From here, we hope to catch a flight to the Galapagos on Sunday for an eight day cruise. That is our big money sucker, so we are currently staying in a hotel for $12.50 a night (I splurged an extra $1.50 for an air conditioner). I remember at the beginning of the trip telling Chris that I could never stay in a room filled with bugs and containing no hot water. Apparently, my standards have dropped a bit.

We have a reservation for our Galapagos trip but we still have not been able to transfer money to the travel agent to pay. They can’t accept credit cards and we need to deposit the money into an account. It has taken too many days with bank holds and I am getting nervous. But Chris just transferred a bulk of the money over, so hopefully it all works out.

But back to the miserable bus trip; it was miserable. It took us 2 hours to get through the border crossings between Peru and Ecuador. On the Peru side, we waited in line for 45 minutes for one guy to stamp everyone out on their exit card. Then, we had to go into another room and another line to get another guy to stamp our passport, because one person couldn’t possibly do both jobs. I have no idea why it took so long, because the only thing I was asked was how I pronounce my middle name (it’s Michele, not Micheley). In Ecuador, after about 20 minutes in line, I was asked how to pronounce my last name and what cities I planned to visit and then given a thumbs up by one of the guards. Good thing I chose wisely.

Between border crossings and general South American lateness, I think our bus trip took about 11 hours and we originally thought it would take about 5. Our next trip to another country (Colombia) is going to be via air, so that should make things easier.

So hello Ecuador. Chris and I went to a new boardwalk to have dinner last night and spent too much money on dinner. We had read that crab were must in this town, so for $12.99 (they use the US dollar in Ecuador) we had all you can drink beers, crab soup, crab rice, fried banana chips, some sort of weird pumpkin/raisin crab stuffed crab head, and BUCKETS of steamed crabs. They kept bringing buckets of the sad little things covered in mud and dirt. I should have known better as I usually receive shrimp with the heads and legs down here and mussels and clams with a mouthful of sand and fish with the heads and bones. Usually, when I have crab, I am just given the legs. We weren’t sure what to do with the head and when I busted it open with my mallet, it just looked like a big grey dirty mess, so I didn’t touch it again. The legs were tasty, but too much work for me, and I don’t like being given a whole animal to pick apart and de-dirt and eat. I like my animal to not resemble an animal, just a pile of meat.

Today, we are going to walk around the city. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and we already found the cinema so hopefully we can see the new Indiana Jones. On the buses, they always show these horrible bootlegs and yesterday, we got the new Indiana Jones in Spanish and filmed by camcorder in a theatre. We tried to ignore it and really want to see the film in English and not by someone’s crappy handheld. There is also an IMAX and if they have something in English, I would like to see that as well.

If we disappear for a bit, we are sailing through the Galapagos cavorting with sea lions and iguanas and giant turtles. So wish us luck.