Equadorian Adventures – Galapagos, Amazonia and the Andes

Hello all!

So as most of you will have gathered from the comments or from being in the know, Desperate Mom and ICCM had arranged to join us for 3 weeks here in Equador.  We all arrived in Quito, despite the erupting volcanoes and a detour via Guyaquil for DM and ICCM, on the 30th of May, and Fab and I got our first taste of luxury for the past 4 and a half months when we checked into the 5 star hotel in Quito. Since then, it has been a whirlwind of plans, guides, planes and tours. We started off with the Galapagos islands – somewhere that we have really only dreamed of going while looking through biology and travel magazines. A 5 day 4 night overland trip had been arranged by DM and ICCM in advance. The other option is to do the sea version, where you spend most of your time with a pair of binoculars on a cruise ship, but that sounded a bit too much like Butlins. It was a bit of a surprise for us all when we arrived. You expect more or less deserted islands populated by extremely friendly reptiles and the like. You don’t expect plane load after plane load of tourists, often of the high-heeled and plastified variety, arriving to be bundled into busses that pour out black smoke. Welcome to the Airport! It does improve – the bus takes you to a ferry and then you get in (not in the back of, it is illegal) the pickup truck that transports you to the luxury hotel. Tourists become a bit more spread out. Your guide is with you most of the time though in case you have queries, and if you were wondering what you were going to do next (a nice beer on the terrace perhaps) he will inform you of the plan. We had a great afternoon, luckily in a very small group of the 4 of us and an american couple on their honeymoon, snorkling and checking out the marine life, sea lions, crabs and later on, on the beach, a small shark that we went paddling with. We met some of the lizards, who are a lot smaller than they look in the pictures, and then were transported back to the hotel for dinner and an early night where we slept like logs.

The next day it was up and off to another island, Florentina, to meet the tortoises. Oli discovered that she does in fact get sea sick, but managed to hold it in. We met many giant tortoises, Fab pretended to be one (pics to follow when we have faster connection), and then there was time for swimming, beach walking and snorkeling. Fab came face to face with a sea lion, which was quite interesting.

After that, we were off to Isabella, for some more animal spotting. We also saw the Galapagos Penguin up close while snorkling, looking at us like we were complete retards for needing snorkle gear. There were also some white tipped reef sharks, lots of lizards, heaps of different darwin finches, a-aa lava (sorry about the spelling) reefs, lava tunnels, collapsed lava lakes, and pahoehoe lava in other spots. It was really an incredible experience, being able to wander around the creatures!

After the trip to the Galapagos, we came back to Quito for a while and met up with friends of ICCM who live here, who have taken us around natural parks to see some of the wonders of continental Equador, which are stunning. From volcano lakes to refuges up volcanoes, we travelled from sea level to the dizzying height of 4810 meters  (higher than Mont Blanc!) where the going was slow, oxygen thin, the snow rather painful on the face and the sensation of getting up there absolutely thrilling.  FAb and Oli are going to do it again shortly once DM and ICCM have left, when we plan to go trekking in 3 of the national parks here. 

However, our adventures did not stop with active volcano hiking. We have just returned today from the amazon basin where we had an amazing guide with hawk eyes who helped us spot everything from the channel billed toucan to the south american violin spider (at close quarters when we couldn-t run off… and it was very big, larger than a hand). Next we are back off to the countryside to a place called Mindo to see the rock chicken (apparently more spectaclar than its name) and lots of hummingbirds. We shall try to upload pictures soon, but the connection here is very slow and they have to be done one at a time, which is frustrating.

Right, so its a bit of a short post considering all that has happened. We haven-t had any pc time at all over the past couple of weeks, so apologies for it all coming in a bit of a quick babble now! Hope that you are all well!

Lots of love from us in Quito!

Faboli xxx