Ecuador, El Fin

Most of the 12 divers on our trip got off the plane in Guayaquil, to return to the States immediately, or to hang out on their own for a few more days. Scott and Karen, Marty and Erin, and I flew on to Quito. Scott and Karen were leaving for home the very next morning, so we went out for one last dinner, back up to El Panecillo where there's a higher class restaurant called Pims. The five of us dined on Prime Rib, with apps and drinks, for less than $130. Nice.

Marty and Erin were hanging out for one more day, so we hired Bernardo to take us out for the day. Papallacta is a remote hot springs in the upper Amazon about two hours outside of Quito. We drove up to a 14,000-foot mountain pass and back down the eastern side of the Andes where this hot springs, spa, and hotel were nestled in this gorgeous valley. It was a bit cloudy, so we missed a great view of Antisana, one of Ecuador's many volcanos. Bernardo led us on a 90 minute hike through some... jungle? It looked like jungle, but I would probably just call it jungle with a lowercase "J", if you know what I mean. We didn't exactly expect any 6 inch tarantulas to jump out at us. Bernardo confirmed that technically it was the Amazon, but my feeling was that it was more like Amazon-light, the zone between Andes and Amazon where it's a little of both? In any case, it was a cool little hike.

We then splurged on spa treatments. Now... this was the RIGHT way to end this trip, let me tell you. We jumped in the hot springs for a good 30 minutes, then went in for our separate individual appointments. I had what I can only describe as a "Fire Hose Massage". This lady put me in what was basically a large shower stall, then proceeded to spray me down with a high pressure hose, and I loved every minute of it! After a nice fruit smoothie, she then took me in for a very, very nice massage. Needless to say, I was hoping for more, but that was it. We drove back to Quito, and had another marvelous dinner at Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next morning, the Marty and Erin headed home.

On my last day, Bernardo took me on a personal tour of Old Town Quito. Lots of old architecture, with a very obvious Spanish influence. I felt waaay out of place, though. After walking about for two hours, I hadn't seen one other white person. Not one. I was glad I was with Bernardo!

Just thought I would mention one little oddity I saw at the start of this day. A lady selling goats milk on the side of a street. With the goats in tow!! Straight from the udder, man. As fresh as fresh can get. I passed.

We followed Old Town with a trip up the Teleferico, a gondola people can take up the eastern slopes of Pichincha. You'd think it'd be disconcerting having a volcano in your backyard, but Quito's been here for hundreds of years, so I think they're used to it. The top of the Teleferico is at around 13,000 feet. We hiked for a bit, but I was in my flip-flops, so we didn't go far. Maybe a mile.

We ended the day going back to Mitad Del Mundo. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had gone there when we first arrived, but I didn't take part in the interactive tour, so I wanted to go back and take my shot at it. There were some pretty interesting phenomenon at the equator. For starters, as most people know, when you drain a tub of water (i.e. a toilet?) in the northern hemisphere, the water drains clockwise. In the south, counterclockwise. Well, when you're standing on the equator, it goes straight down. Here's a pretty good explanation. For the same reason, you can balance an egg on the head of a nail at the equator. I would challenge you to try it anywhere else! They didn't have any scales there, but apparently you're 6 pounds lighter on the equator than you are everywhere else. Couldn't prove that one. There were also a few strength and balance tests that we did away from the equator line, then on the equator line. Sure enough, being on the equator effects your balance and your strength. I haven't done any research into why that is, or if it was just my mind playing tricks on me, but I experienced it firsthand so that's what I'm going with. For now.

So that was pretty much it. I headed back to Folklore for one more night, then hopped on a flight back to the States the next day. Overall it was quite a trip. Trip of a lifetime, although I'd love to have a few more of those "trips of a lifetime". We've been throwing around the idea of diving the Red Sea in 2010, so maybe I can have a trip of a lifetime every two years or so!!

Thanks for reading, and again, thanks for all your compliments!!

Galapagos, the final days

OK, so it's been a hectic few days, what with coming home from the slope and being sick since, but I need to finish this up. I appreciate all of your compliments on my blog entries!

After cruising from Wolf Island back down to the main cluster of islands overnight, we arrived at Isla Santiago. Off the eastern side of the island is a small islet called Cousins Rock, which is where we'd dive twice, in search of micro-life. The water temperatures here were at least 5 degrees less than those up north, so wearing a hood was a good idea. We saw literally thousands of these little fish schooled up under outcroppings. I think they were Goby's, but don't quote me on it. There was a pretty playful Sea Lion here, as well as a few stingrays, and a school of Needlefish. We saw a couple of Scorpionfish, which are not fish to be trifled with. They have poisonous barbs on their backs that will kill pretty quickly. Marty, or as we all now know him as, Galapagos Superman, saw two Frogfish, which is apparently pretty rare. Galapagos Superman has some kind of sonar for that kind of thing.

After lunch, we went down to Isla Bartolomé, just a few miles to the south, and went on a shore excursion. We hiked up this preordained path to the top of the island and got a pretty astounding view. This was by far the best views we had of the islands all week. In fact, the movie Master and Commander used a clip from the top of Bartolomé, which is the picture at the top of this page.

Bartolomé is where we saw the only Penguins on the entire trip. Just a couple little ones hanging out on the rocks, not a care in the world. A couple more Blue Footed Boobys were perched up on a cliff, and Sally Lightfoot Crabs were everywhere, as usual. Not to many Sea Lions here, but again, as usual, there were some there.

The next day, we did one dive at Gordon Rocks, just off Santa Cruz Island. Our last dive. Didn't seem real. After all the build up, all the excitement, all the training, the week flew right on by, and I wasn't happy about it.

The Gordon Rocks dive was pretty uneventful for me, but Marty and Erin saw a Manta Ray. I was jealous, but glad that someone on the trip got to see one. Later that morning, we did another shore excursion at South Plaza Island. Lots of Sea Lions, more fat Iguanas, and lots of birds. The south side of the island was basically a cliff, and the birds took full advantage.

We spent the afternoon in Puerto Ayora, a small community on Santa Cruz Island. The Darwin Research Station is located there, and there is where we would see the very famous Giant Tortoises. Lonesome George, who is believed to be the last survivor of his subspecies, has his own setup here, as well as at least a dozen other tortoises. They even have a breeding program, so we saw some little ones.

We walked down through Puerto Ayora, doing the tourist thing. It was our last stop before heading back to San Cristobal. It was the perfect way to wrap up such an amazing week, but one thing was for sure... I knew that I'd try to come back someday. On Thursday the 18th, we packed all of our gear, did one more walk through San Cristobal, and boarded our plane back to the mainland.

Tomorrow, my last days in Quito.

Galapagos. Ecuador, part 4

Dive Day 3: Darwin Island

Feeling much better, I was looking forward to all four dives this day. This was where we would have the greatest chance of seeing Mr. Big, the elusive Whale Shark. The dives at Darwin all take place around Darwin's Arch, a rock formation that basically just eroded over the years into an arch. Simple as that. Heavy currents around the Arch, just like at Wolf. And the same drill as Wolf, too. Drop in, kick like mad till you find a rock, hold on. The currents weren't quite as strong as Wolf, so we could move around if we wanted to. But with the sealife all over the place, there really wasn't the need.

Solon and the other dive masters would dive with these little stick that they'd bang on their tanks if they wanted to get your attention. At Darwin, they told us before we went in that the only reason they'd bang the tanks on these dives was if they saw a Whale Shark. So there I was with my dive buddy Mark, perched on a rock watching more Hammerheads, turtles, and tons of fish, but hoping to hear that stick. Sure enough, not much more than a few minutes in, we heard it. But where was it? We weren't all together, so Mark and I looked around, but didn't see anything. If memory serves me correctly, only 4 people saw the first sighting... just enough to get a serious Whale Shark buzz going!


We didn't see any Whale Sharks on the next dive, but a Hammerhead got within about 10 feet of me. Raised the adrenaline a bit, but not too bad. They've never had any issues with shark/diver confrontations, so I wasn't too worried. A massive school of Jackfish came by and briefly blocked out the sun. There had to be thousands of these things. They look a bit like a tuna, but much smaller. Very cool!

Dive 3. Dive 3, day 3. Mark and I went down to our perch, with Teresa and Lew not too far away. Solon was with us just perched up on a rock with his camera, keeping an eye out. Not 10 minutes in, Solon makes a break for the open ocean pounding his tank with his stick. We bolted after him, and just like that, right before my very eyes, was the biggest creature I've ever seen. This thing was 40 feet long if it was an inch. Tiburon Ballena. A Whale Shark.









Oh my God!









I was kicking as hard as I could, and Mark was just to my left. I remembered Solon telling us earlier not to touch the animals, so I resisted the tempation to grab the dorsal fin. It was moving pretty fast, so row after row of this majestic creature's spots moved past me as I tried to keep up.









Oh, my God!









I checked my computer and saw that we were at 88 feet, pretty close to our 100 foot max depth. I was so excited I didn't know what else to do, so I pulled up to watch the rest of it roll on past, then looked at Solon and did the only thing I could think of to do at that moment. Pump my fists! I turned around with Mark, Lew, and Teresa, and we headed back to the rocks. I think in hindsight we could've swam with it for a little longer, but not much. Even Solon with his super-long free-diving fins couldn't keep up for much longer than we did. Even though it only lasted for a minute at best, I did what very few people on this planet can say they've done. I swam right next to a whale shark, and it's a moment I will never forget! But now I have a glimpse of what a Super Bowl Champion thinks after he's won his first Super Bowl. "I want another one!"

Mark sat out the last dive of the day, so I dove with Sheri. We didn't see much until we started up. As we were waiting at one of our deco stops, we rode the current past a school of Hammerheads. They were juuuust within visiblity, so I'd say maybe 40 feet away. But even at that distance, 50 or so Hammerhead Sharks look mighty impressive!

What a day.



Day 4 was split between Darwin and Wolf. Didn't see much on the two Darwin dives. Now, let me just say... there were neat little fish on every dive, and I didn't put down in my notes every time I saw a turtle, so I may very well have seen some cool critters, but I just didn't write it down. On the second dive, I did see another Whale Shark, but I was about 40-50 feet above it with only about 900psi left in my tank. My dive buddy (not Mark or Sheri) pulled me back as I was trying to get to it. Nope, we're not going, says he. I ended the dive with 500psi left in my tank, so I know we could've done a bounce down and back. It would've been quite unsafe, yes, but we could've done it. It's a frickin' Whale Shark, man! Of course I'd push it!



The dive at Wolf that day was more of the same that we had seen there before. Hammerheads, Galapagos Sharks, turtles, and fish. We saw another school of Jackfish, but this time as we watched it, a Bottle-Nosed Dolphin went screaming right through the middle of it. Needless to say, it parted like the Red Sea pretty quickly. I forgot to mention in my last entry that we saw tons of dolphins on our first stop at Wolf Island. They rode our wake for quite a while, and at one point were so thick right in front of the boat it looked like you could walk on water.






Tomorrow - the last three dives and Lonesome George

Galapagos. Ecuador, part 3

My goals for the Ecuador before I left Anchorage were 1) see a Whale Shark, 2) see Hammerheads, 3) see a Manta Ray and 4) don't get mugged. Once I left Quito for the first time, I knew what it would take to make sure I met goal #4 when I went back there after Galapagos. It was goals 1 thru 3 that were the big question marks. Everyone was saying before we left, "No. This isn't the right season for whale sharks. Don't get your hopes up." Well, the Captain's Log on the Aggressor website said that the group they had in November saw whale sharks, so my hopes were up.

When we arrived in San Cristobal, we were met by our Aggressor crew, led by Solon Intriago. They took our gear away on the back of a tiny pickup truck, then piled all of us onto a bus. Solon spoke the best English on the crew, so I knew right away he was pretty much going to be the main man. After getting out and seeing our boat, getting our gear organized, etc., we were shuffled back to shore for our first shore excursion. We were supposed to do our check out dive that day, but due to... something (coast guard documentation? dead battery? I don't know.) kept us from getting out of the harbor. No problem. There's a sea lion colony right in the harbor, and they let us get very close to get our pictures. Noisy, smelly, but very cute. Especially the pups! We followed that with a guided trip through a still unfinished tourism center. Not much to see here. Let's go diving!!

Dive Day 1: Mosquera Island

A tiny little sliver of land, Mosquera Island is located in the passage between Baltra Island and Seymour Island. Our checkout dive was on the leeward side of the island, away from the current. Checkout dives are used basically to make sure you're properly weighted and the rest of your gear is copacetic. 25 feet for 22 minutes - piece of cake. Saw some garden eels, stingrays, and some very playfull sea lions. A very nice intro to Galapagos diving. Dives 2 and 3 were on the opposite side of Mosquera. Nothing to see here but loads of tropical fish!

As part of our week, we had land excursions as well as dives. After diving as Mosquera, we went up to Seymour Island and went for a hike. The wildlife on land, over the course of the week, would be almost as rewarding as what we saw underwater. Almost. Seymour gave us an up close look at dozens of nesting Frigates, a few Blue Footed Boobys, the biggest iguanas I've ever seen, marine iguanas, and lots more sea lions. As the week went on, it was obvious to all that the shops in the Galapagos were more than happy to take full advantage of the Blue Footed Booby's name. Tee shirts with every Booby joke you could imagine were proudly on display for every jokester out there who was to come along and fork over 20 bucks for a shirt that said "I love Boobys" on it. I figure if I wore a shirt like that to a party, it'd be funny once. For a few seconds. Then I'd have to explain what a Blue Footed Booby is and why they call it a Booby at LEAST a dozen times. Not worth the 5 second laugh.

Dive Day 2: Wolf Island

Here's where things get REALLY interesting! After boating all night from Mosquera, we arrived at Wolf Island, one of the two northernmost islands in the Archipelago. We'd be spending the next three days here and at Darwin Island - 11 dives in all. The currents at Wolf were the strongest I've ever dove in. We'd have to drop down, kicking the whole way, then grab onto a rock. Pretty much felt like I was in a wind tunnel with my legs flapping in the wind behind me. But because of the current, we didn't have to look for the sealife. The current brought the sealife to us!

The waters were pretty rough and as we were coming back from our second dive, I started to feel it. It came on quick and when I got back onto the Aggressor, I went straight to the toilet and hurled. I hadn't been seasick to the point of puking since a swim team trip to Cordova my freshman year of high school. Waters so rough in Prince William Sound that pretty much everyone on the ferry was taking turns in the stalls. I distinctly remember Todd Rosen running in right after I had deposited, yelling "get outta the way!!". But I digress. I wasn't happy, needless to say. I went ahead and gave the third dive of the day a shot, and felt great through the whole thing. Right up until I got to the surface. Once they got me onto the skiff, I was over the side. Damn. Oh, well. It is what it is. Teresa was kind enough to give me one of her seasickness patches, but that takes a few hours to kick in. I had to take some Dramamine and skip the last dive of the day. Well, the day wasn't a total loss. During our first day at Wolf, we saw Hammerhead Sharks (goal #2 taken care of), Galapagos Sharks (similar to a Mako), schooling Spotted Eagle Rays, Moray Eels, lots of fish I'd never seen before, and some very curious fish with a huge underbite and a yellow vertical stripe on it's back. Whatever it was, it came right up to me without a lick of fear. Nice.

Tomorrow, Darwins Island and the search for the Tiburon Ballena... Señor Grandé... the coveted Whale Shark.

And for the record, I can't take credit for any of the underwater photos.

Guayaquil. Ecuador, Part 2

Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador. Yep, took me by surprise, too. In fact, they have nearly a million more people than Quito. Located on the Guayas River just a few miles upriver from the Pacific, it is Ecuador's main port city. Our original intention was to take a bus from Quito down to Guayaquil, but there were safety concerns, what with muggings and rapes and all. So we all hopped on an AeroGal flight and headed on down to the coast.


After checking in at the Howard Johnson's, we had ourselves a nice meal outside along with our first taste of the Pisco Sour, an Ecuadorian mixed drink. Muy bueno, I must say. We didn't have time for much after that so , we just went down to this hill in the Las Peñas district, the artsy part of town. The hill has 444 numbered steps up to this old fort, complete with a lighthouse and a church. Great views of the city at night. We wrapped up the night with a few beers at this bar built into an old ship, or at least a replica of a ship.



On the 9th, we went down to the Malecon 2000, Guayaquil's recently renovated riverwalk. Millions were spent on this thing, as it's by far the most modern part of the city that we saw. It's probably the safest part of the city, and remarkably, it doesn't smell!! We went to a huge marketplace and bought our share of bags, Alpaca scarves, tee shirts, and Panama Hats. Love negotiating! "$20? No... how about $15?" This walk ended at La Rotunda, a statue of Ecuador's famous leader Simon Bolivar and some other dude.

For our last full day in the Guayaquil area, we chose to hire a driver to take us to the coast. We stopped first at the small beach "resort", Playas. Looking more like an abandoned former beach resort, our driver took us out of Playas and down a dirt road to a smaller fishing village. A more pathetic and sad scene I could not imagine. Garbage everywhere, half-haired pigs running around freely, and a rotting horse carcass on the road into this craphole, no one wanted to even get out of the van. We saw one guy in the doorless doorway of a house with no windows looking at his Blackberry. What the...? Stray dogs were everywhere. The smells of hot garbage, diesel, and death were enough to ruin your appetite, and the sights were enough to make you beg God for forgiveness for every time you complained about your job. I love being an American.

"Get us out of here" was the concensus, so we headed west to the larger resort town of Salinas. Now Salinas was more like it. Nice beach, boats in the harbor, and even a few bikini-clad latinas. We walked down the beach for a bit, and then our driver, through much effort, got us into the local military base to watch a sky diving exhibition. Unfortunately, the clouds were too low, and we didn't get to see any action, but we did meet a few Americans and downed a few much needed pieces of pizza.

Back in Guayaquil, we had another round of Pisco Sours after I scrubbed myself down in the shower with steel wool.

The next day, the entire crew was in town, and we were ready to pack up and head to the Galapagos.

Ecuador

Well, I'm back. And "Trip of a Lifetime" describes my trip perfectly. I have so much to tell, I'm going to break it up into parts, so enjoy. Hopefully, I can do the trip justice.

I was quite a bit nervous/anxious/excited when I arrived in Quito on the 5th. After all the waiting, the training, and the expenses, I wanted this trip to go off without a hitch. It took 21 hours to get to Quito from Anchorage. Fortunately, Scott and Karen were at the Folklore Hotel when I pulled up. Friendly faces. We giggled like schoolchildren for a bit, then headed down to Red Hot Chili Peppers for dinner. Hailed as the best fajita spot in all of Ecuador, it was on our list of places to eat. Not at all disappointing, I must say. Great food, great drinks, and they even pulled up Kalifornication on the stereo while we were there. They probably play the Chili Peppers at least once an hour there, but we thought it was funny anyways. $50 for three people to stuff themselves and down a pitcher of Pina Colada isn't a bad deal, regardless of how their fajitas were rated.

The "Founders Day" celebrations were ongoing throughout the first weekend we were there. Quito's birthday was that Saturday, so big crowds pretty much everywhere, bands on flatbeds or in buses driving around just playing music, and fireworks on Saturday night.

The travel caught up to me on Saturday, so dragging myself out of bed was somewhat of a chore. We didn't do too much that day. Scott needed eyeglasses, so we went on a hunt. We didn't get very far out the door when the Andean sky opened up and let loose a downpour that I can only describe as Biblical. Now, I'm not from the south, and have never even been there, so rain like this is an unfamiliar sight to me. I don't know if anything in the US could match this, but what I do know is that for about an hour, the streets of Quito were turned into rivers and Scott, Karen, and I were stuck hanging out under sidestreet awnings just to stay somewhat dry. Great stuff! When the rain lightened up a bit, we walked down to the SuperMaxi (grocery store) with no luck on the eyeglasses. We grabbed a cab that took us to the Mall El Jardin, a modern mall with all the amenities of a North American mall except English. Again, no luck, so we went back to the Folklore without new glasses for Scott, but still having had a fun day. Marty and Erin arrived later that night, and we watched the fireworks display while a little schnauzer yapped from the top of a house across the street. This isn't exactly a great picture of him, but you get the idea.

The next day, Scott was laid up all day from still unknown reasons. I think it was the beans he had at KFC on Saturday, but it could've been the water at the Folklore I used to rinse out his wine glass. In any case, he was out for the day tour, so Marty, Erin, Karen, and I went about the town with our guide Umberto, who spoke very little English. There's a hill called El Panecillo in the middle of Quito with a 45 meter tall statue of a woman at its peak. We all thought this was the Virgin Mary, but a bronze placard on the statue says "this is the woman from Revelations 12."

From El Panecillo, we went to Mitad Del Mundo, or the Center of the Earth, the Equator. There's a monument marking the equator surrounded by tourist shops and such, but as it turns out, when GPS was invented, they realized they were just a few yards off, so this monument is actually NOT on the equator. We went over to the actual Equator, where Marty went through an interactive tour that shows a few wierd phenomenon only found on the Equator. The rest of us didn't think it'd be all that interesting, so we skipped. Much to my regret. But I went back later, so I'll explain all that cool science stuff later on.

We finished the day up with a trip to an Inca ruins site, then to the Pululahua crater.

Driving around Quito was a pretty sobering experience in some ways. The stink of diesel fumes combined with the garbage we saw pretty much everywhere was enough for a bit of nausia every now and then, and the street vendors at every stoplight were a not-so-subtle reminder of how poor most people in Ecuador are relative to those of us in the West. On our way to Pululahua, we drove past a cafe that had rotisserie guinea pig out front. Guinea Pig. There were more than enough moments to remind me of how blessed my life really is.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about our time in Guayaquil.

Quito

I´ve arrived in Quito! The trip was long (21 hours total) and I sat next to a guy to Seattle who seemed to want to cuddle, but other than that it went off without a hitch. The stop in LAX was actually kind of nice. I had a chance to stretch my legs out for a few hours, get some reading done, and have a few brews. In order to get over to New Mexico for Christmas on my way home, I basically just purchased three round trip tickets with LAX as my centerpoint. It was the cheapest way to go and the only downside is long layovers there and I´ll have to pick my bags up and check them back in three times. Not a problem.

I´ve been looking forward to this trip for nearly a year and it´s finally here. This time next week, we´ll be in Galapagos. We´ll be touring Quito and Guayaquil until then, hoping and praying that no one gets mugged! Not to be too negative, but apparently it happens alot down here. Don´t worry - we´ll take all the right precautions! We´re staying at a B&B here in Quito, and it´s not exactly... ummm... well, Scott called it ¨Spartan Living¨and I think that sums it up. It´s clean and cheap, though, so I´m not complaining. And they offer tours, too, so I´m planning on taking advantage of that.

more to follow...

Giving it a rest (for now)

One week from this very minute, I will be sipping lazily from some kind of South American brew (with my flip flops on) in Quito, Ecuador. More thrilled I could not be, my friends. I've never been south of Costa Rica, so this will be an entirely new experience for me. 3 days in Quito, 3 days in Guayaquil, 7 days in the Galapagos, and 2 more in Quito on my way back. That's the plan and I'm stickin' to it.

I just bought my first DSLR camera (a Nikon D60) so I'll take lots of pictures!