Ecuador - Gaby's last day

OK, I have had limited internet access, so this is going to be a long update, you have been warned. I am currently in the US, with my last few days of travelling ahead of me, can't believe that I am catching a plane back home on Friday afternoon. Not sure how I feel about that. Don't think that I will know until I am home and have allowed it to sink in a bit. Suffice it to say, if I had more money, I would be doing more travelling, but I don't, so I won't.

OK so back to my Ecuadorian trip as my earlier blogs only really covered the first two weeks and when we had left off we had just come back from Cuenca, so back in a time when both Ecuador and England were still in the World Cup.. how quickly times change. All the hope dashed. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... um I'll stop talking shit now. Sorry, I am in a strange mood, possibly due to consuming copious amounts of ice cream (yes I know it has lots of calories in it, all I will say to diet Nazis out there is "bite me!" - the alternative weight loss solution, you get people to eat you until you reach your goal weight). OK I really will shut up now.

Last few days with Gaby

OK so we get to the Friday after Cuenca and Gaby's last weekend, as she was flying back to California on the Monday (19th June for those that have lost track, as I almost have). That Friday Gaby's cousin Johnny drove us to the Historical Park in Guayaquil and his daughter Anita stayed with us to go on a guide tour round it. It was fabulous as they have 3 sections. The first has examples of indigenous wildlife from around Ecuador (I made friends with the cutest deer), the second has old style buildings reconstructed to show us what Guayaquil used to look like and the third shows a country farmers house, plus examples of the crops that grow in Ecuador. It was really fascinating and our guide spoke very good English, which is always helpful.

After the historical park we went back to Johnny's for a lovely lunch with his family. They all speak good English which made life very easy for me, given my limited Spanish (although I have used the little that I know as much as possible. Cerveza anyone?). Once again we were treated to fabulous Ecuadorian dishes, I love the food there.

After lunch we headed back to Sonia's as we were going with them all that evening to Salinas and their summer house there. Salinas is on the coast and while it is currently off season there, it is a very busy there buzzing with people escaping the city for weekends by the sea when it is very hot. The journey was uneventful and we were taken out for some lovely seafood that evening on arrival (the food theme continues, my stomach was being spoilt rotten).

The next day it was kind of cloudy so not really good beach weather. Haskel and Sonia drove us all along the coast, stopping so that we can taken photos and explore some of the more dramatic beaches. They were really beautiful. We even went to visit Montanita, a small surfer town that has a bit of a dodgy reputation, with the police turning a blind eye to open use of canabis (OK it is Gaby that thinks the reputation is dodgy, I would have quite liked the place if it hadn't been overly full of tourists).

Before going to the club that Sonia and Haskel belong to for lunch we stopped in Ulon to pick up some cakes, as in the middle of nowhere along the coast road, there is this fabulous baker and cake maker that Haskel and Sonia swear by. A famous Ecuadorian hairdresser (his face is on billboards in Guayaquil, I knew he looked familiar) had the same idea and was also buying naughty pastry goodies while we were there.

That night back at the summer house, we ate pan de yuca (i love that stuff) with yoghurt drinks and attempted to put a dent in the cakes that we had bought. I lost the battle with my slice of chocolate cake, it was gorgeous but I just could not finish it.

The next morning it was Sunday and also Father's day so we headed back to Guayaquil at a reasonable time in order to go round for lunch at Sonia's dad's flat. Her sister and brother were also there with their families. It was really good fun. Haskel kept plying me with vodka and sprite (not joking either, they were strong and I had at least 8 of them), while I chatted on the balcony to Sonia's dad who was so sweet. He kept saying "beautiful woman, drinking with me" to me, which kind of covered most of his English, as well as reciting the lyrics to the Marseillaise, which covered all his French but he knew more of the words than I do!

There was salsa dancing at one point (I observed, as yet another vodka sprite had appeared that required my attention) and lots of laughing. The food was fabulous, Sonia's mum deserves here reputation as a good cook. It was great fun, it really was.

Sadly we had to leave early when Gaby's cousin Patty came to get us, as we were due to meet up with the other side of the family for Gaby's last day in the country. We were round to her Auntie's where lots of people arrived to see us off. Lots of familiar faces from my two weeks in Ecuador. All so lovely and friendly. It was nice to have an offical send off in order to say goodbye to them all. It felt sad though. At least I knew I was going to see Johnny's family again, as I was staying with them the next night before leaving for the Galapagos.

So that was Sunday. Lots of chatting and lauching. Monday morning, Gaby got up very bright and early, so early in fact that I could hardly open my eyes in order to hug here and say good bye. After she had left I myself had to get up and get ready for my 8am pick up to go to Johnny's house. We dropped of my stuff and than I went in to the university where he works with him. It was good fun though. I met some of his students, and chatted to them. We went to visit some of them on their placements (1 primary school and 1 nutrition centre for children) which was definitely eye opening. Really glad that I got the opportunity to go there. I even had lunch with the language department (me hanging out with a group of teachers! never!)

Later I went to the mall and downloaded all my photos on to disk (so that would have been just before I updated blog with photos from previous entry). I tried to get an early night (failed as I couldn't sleep) before getting up early to head to the airport and my trip to the Galapagos.

The Galapagos

OK you are going to be relieved to hear that I am not going to do a day by day, blow by blow account of my Galapagos trip as it would be very samey and very very long!

Here is a summary of what went on. First when we started out there was drama as they had over booked the boat by 3 people. It was OK though as 3 people agreed to get off, based on getting back on the boat at a later time and having all their accommodation and tours covered for the time being. I tell you if I had had the time, I would have gone for that deal too, was good to see that they did well. Fortunately there is a change over of passengers twice a week (Tuesdays and Saturdays) as some people don't do the full week trip and overs do but started on different days. Obvioulsy I was starting on the Tuesday.

After that we settled in to a routine of walking on islands, looking at fabulous wildlife, being reminded not to touch said wildlife, snorkelling and lounging on the boat. I even managed to get a couple of scuba dives in (I dived with hammer head sharks - how cool is that? plus lovely giant turtles, schools of baracuda, lots of white tipped reef sharks and sea lions).\

The trekking was interesting seeing really tame endemic or just plain rare to see wildlife from really clost up. My favourites are probably the blue footed boobies (the boobie dance rocks), the albatross (they fence each over with their beaks as part of the mating ritual, plus as so clumsy on land that they sometimes full over quite dramatically on landing), the sea lions (they are wonderful with their cheeky whiskered faces, amazing swimming with them in particular), the tortoises, the marine igaunas, the land iguanas, the penguins, the frigate birds (with their red pouches to attract the females), the pink flamingos, the turtles, the pelicans, all the sharks and well everything!

I just loved it. We had a lovely bunch of people on the boat, 20 to start with, with only 15 after the changeover on Saturday but with Jo (english girl that agreed to get off due to the overbooking situation that I mentioned) coming back on, which was great as we got on like a house on fire. Most of the time we were in the middle of nowhere at sea, with only wild life on any of the islands that we visited (only change to that being Friday night prior to changeover Saturday when we were in Porto Ayura and lots of us ended up getting horribly drunk and going out to a club playing some truly cheesey tunes).

Otherwise we were pretty well on the boat or looking at stuff on islands. It was great. I liked the crew (although sadly only truly got to bond with them all on my last night, when Jo and I ended up staying up drinking cuba libres out of a bucket with a lot of them until 4am, before getting up at 6m to go visit an island and pretend that we weren't drunk still). Our guide, the gorgeous but kind of boringly depressing Victor, never got sloshed with us, which is a shame as I think he really needed a good drinking session to cheer himself up a bit (he was missing his labrador, Chester). But he was nice to look at, so was a useful back up in the scenery just wasn't catching your attention that particular day.

The sea lions will definitely remain the biggest highlight of the trip though, they were great fun to snorkel with. I was diving around, doing somersaults with sea lions turning all around me. They love to play! They'll swim to within an inch of you very quickly, looking right at you, before streaking off again. It is very funny! Seeing hammerheads on my second diving trip was good too, but they just as much fun as your average sea lion.

So that is how my 8 days in the Galapagos went by, mainly in a haze of wildlife visits, snorkelling and lounging on the deck half asleep. I loved it and would do it again in a minute! Especially since I didn't get sea sick, which is very unusual, as I normally do and a lot of over people were. It wasn't that calm. Those ginger travel sickness pills I got in Aus really rock!

Life after the Galapagos

I spent one night in Porto Ayura after the trip (which I basically slept through thanks to cuba libre night) before heading to the airport (by taxi, bus, boat and bus) on Baltra, on a plane back to Guayaquil, a long walk to the bus station and 2 buses to Ayampe on the coast as I wanted to stay at an Eco lodge there, which Al Williams (for those of you that know him) was going to try and join me for a few days. I didn't know if he would be able to make it as his passport had been stolen in Peru just days before so I didn't know if he would be cross the border without one

I arrived in Ayampe (tiny village not much in it) in the dark and could not find the hotel so stayed in a different one, where I was the only one in it and felt like I had walked in to the shining. I was out there first thing in the morning and realised that I had been metres from where I was supposed to be staying, but couldn't see any of the signs in the dark. Arse. Anyway, I checked in to the Finca Punta Ayampe, a lovely place that I was so glad to finally found. I settling in to a hammock with my book and the kitten (so cute, wanted cuddles). I can't tell you what time it was but a while later (back in hammock following lunch break, kitten back in purring position on my tummy) I looked up to see Al walk in. Although it took me a few moments for my brain to register that it was Al.

It was great to catch up with him. We chatted, ate the worlds largest burritos (ok the record is unproven but I will be on to the guys at the Guiness books to tell them that they need to check them out) and watched some truly bad/weird films of tv. The luxury of being about to watch films was great, didn't really matter what they were.

The next day we hit the beach with 3 of the hotel dogs (Doobie, Foufa and Pepper) who kept distracting us from our reading when they covered us in sand so that we would stop what we were doing and throw stones for them to chase. It was good fun. The beach there was beautiful, very dramatic given the weather. An Indian couple (from New Delhi but currently living in Washington DC for 2 years due to a work contract thingie) that had checked in as we were heading out stopped to say hello. They were heading over to Porto Lopez to book on for whale watching the following day and kindly agreed to book us on to the same trip while they were there. Al and I had been the only people staying at the Eco Lodge up until that point and they mentioned that another girl was checking in as they left so that brought the total up to 5. I did say to Al that the girl might turn out to me my lovely cabin mate Emily from my Galapagos trip. Sure enough it was! I tell you that place should start paying me a commission! So we were a family of 5 and it was great.

That evening we had the great Rummikub tournament (after a very bad attempt at playing Risk by me, Al completely beat me so I had to annihiliate him at Rummikub) with all 5 of us playing (well 2 had to play together as only have 4 boards, but it worked).

Whale watching and Al gets his zen back

The next morning we got up early and got on the bus to Porto Lopes. We had from the guide that there is a place there, called the Whale Cafe that did great coffee. We had to see if this was true (ironically while places like Ecuador and Colombia produce some of the finest coffee in the world, all they drink is Nescafe. it is insane and Nestle have a lot to answer for). We were very excited by the prospect of good coffe and it was good! it was really, it came in mugs and they did refills. I had pancakes and fruit salad to accompany my coffee, it was all lovely.

After that we got on the boat and headed out Isla de Plata to explore (saw Albatross, blue footed boobies actually mating and not just doing the whole boobie dance flirty bit, masked boobies, frigate birds and stuff like that) which was good for Al, as he was going to make the Galapagos Islands. Some of the people than went snorkelling, including Al. I, however, having felt the temperature of the water, decided that they were all insane and stayed on the boat where it was much warmer. Turned out I was right not to go in as the visibility was poor and there was nothing exciting to see.

Now we reach the crucial part of our day trip, the whale watching element. We were on the look out for humpback whales. My 2nd time ever looking for them (saw loads in Boston about 9 years ago) but Al's first. We saw loads after a bit of a slow and worrying start. At first we would only see them fleetingly before they would dive and vanish, which was really not that satisfying but towards the end we saw a group of about 5 of them together. Looked like they might do the same thing (dive and leave) but no, one of them breached (jumped out of the water and went back in with a big splash) and he just kept doing it. It was amazing to watch. It was fantastic and Al managed to get the photo of the trip, catching the whale in full breach, so when I get my hands on a copy of his photo I will pop it on here for all to see.

So that was our Saturday. It was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot more than sitting in a cafe watching England get knocked out of the World Cup by Portugal. Feeling very zen about the whole football thing. In fact Al, who was definitely showing no zen like qualities before (he blames it on having his passport stolen) was pretty zen like after seeing those beautiful whales!. We got back to town, snuck back to the whale cafe for some coffee and some cakes to celebrate Al's birthday (it had been a few days before but kind of being ruined by the thieves) back at the Finca. Unfortunately we had missed the last bus back to Ayampe (a good 30 minute drive) but luckily some guys were heading in that direction so we got a very cool lift on the back of their pick up trucks. It was so much more fun than getting a bus.

When we got back, as it was all of our last nights at the Finca, we all ordered our favourite dishes (yummy giant burrito), drank a few beers and chatted. We were quite exhausted by the time we had our cake at the end.

The next morning e-mails were exchanged, goodbyes were said and I head back to Guayaquil with Emily (who was going straight on to Banos). I had one last night at Johnny's house before getting up very early Monday morning and getting my flight back to the US of A.

So yesterday (Monday) was spent on planes and in airports as I didn't hit LA until 10.30pm due to delays. I did speak to some lovely people at the airport though, so that really passed the time and made me realise just how many great people there are around, such a shame I don't have time to get to know them all

Independence Day

Today is the 4th July. Had a lovely bbq at the Negretes and ate the ice cream that I was promised. It has been a lovely day. Sandy is here with the girls, Gaby, Eduardo and Jenny are all well. Plus Reuben (Gaby's brother), Carlos, Olga and Asim (friends of the family) all came round for the bbq too. We watched Italy beat Germany and drank a few beers. It was all good.

Shortly we are heading out to see the fireworks in Disneyland (well we aren't going in to Disneyland at all but going to a spot near it where we can see their fireworks, as it gets far too crowded in there and we have a naughty two year old to take care of).

I have two full days in California left before I fly back home on Friday, getting in on Saturday. Where did all the time go? Good thing I have kept a blog, that will remind me!