Gorgeous Galapagos

We met up with our new friends Clare and Yvonne, and following a short flight, bus ride and very short ferry crossing we arrived in the Galapagos proper and were very happy to be there too! A rep from LEAD (the volunteer company we went with) took us to our first tourist spot on the Galapagos, a giant tortoise conservation centre, before taking us to our hotel on the beautiful island of Santa Cruz. These giant beauties were free to roam but tend to gather in the highlands areas. They were wallowing in natural pools and generally doing tortoise type things – moving slowly. We were able to get as close as a metre away. They also had a tortoise shell which was big enough for us to climb inside, and almost too heavy to lift. Giant tortoises were a first for both of us, so we were both blown away. There is a breading programme well underway on the islands as the tortoises are endangered due to hunting by man and due to goats being introduced to the island, which eat the tortoises food. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who would win in the food race!!!  

That's a big crash helmet

That lizard has got one on too

I guess we might get that wrinkly if we lived to be 200

500kg and slow moving 

Shortly after we met up with the 5^th member of our group – Kaileen. Just a few words about our new mates. Clare was about our age and travelling for a year, making periodic stops off back in the UK to see her family. Yvonne, was a retired married lady who left her husband at home as he doesn’t travel well, and Kaileen, a 19 year old American on a gap experience who was volunteering in the Galapagos as a teacher’s assistant. We were quite the mix and all things considered got on pretty well J

Moving on...The next day we visited the Charles Darwin Centre, explored the town and went to Tortuga Bay (Turtle Bay), the most beautiful and unique beach we have ever been to. It takes 30 minutes by foot to get there but my, was it worth it!!!  It is a very long stretch of white powder sand. Marine iguanas patrol the beach, walking in their almost pre-historic way, leaving trails of footprints and tail swishes. At the far end of the beach was a headland where we saw hoards of marine iguana both huddled up together, snorting salt water out of their nostrils and swimming in the sea. There were blue-footed boobies (no, boobies are birds!), pelicans, enormous candelabra cacti and mangroves. Behind the beach was an area of natural foliage where the tortoises bury their eggs. All in all the most natural and beautiful place ever!!!

Blue-footed boobie

Hungry pelicans watching fish being gutted

His beach. We're just borrowing it

What a beach

Next time, use a kleenex

A gold star for the Tortuga Bay

The next day we were off bright and early to start our first volunteering project called ‘Pajarro Brujo’ (Red Bird). It was an organic farm located in the highlands, not somewhere you would imagine finding on the Galapagos. To be honest the project was pretty disorganised and a long-term volunteer, Sylvie, was doing her best to keep it together, and made our time there as productive as possible. We were a very enthusiastic crowd so we worked hard and got lots done! We made a 30ft long compost heap from scratch with various layers. It was very hard work hauling the earth, banana leaves and bark shavings, ashes and horse poo by the barrow load, BUT we all had a huge sense of satisfaction once our day was doneJ. Other activities included milking cows, making cheese, watering, weeding and generally maintining a greenhouse full of sapling trees. The reason for the who project, just in case you are wondering ;) is that due to many factors including, the impact of tourism, and the accidental introduction of mosquitoes and other invasive animals and plants, many farmers have abandoned their farms, as it’s difficult to farm with the mosquitoes (we found out more about these on our second placement). So these voluntary orgs are setting up organic farms to demonstrate what can be done, and how the Galapagos can be self-sufficient once more. Growing sapling trees is done because so many indigenous trees and plants being endangered and lost, mostly strangled by non-indigenous plants, which I’ll come onto later! This is having a huge environmental impact on the Galapagos. For example, the giant tortoise only eats certain indigenous plants and trees and without them cannot prosper. The environmental status of the Galapagos is considered to be threatened.

Liz working hard

Marc thinking hard about working

Well, enough environmental ranting lol. After a week on Santa Cruz we took a boat ride to our next island, San Cristabal. This was smaller, and gave us our first up close experience of sea lions. They lounge around the pavements when the colony on the beach gets too cramped. You can go right up to them – and the pups are incredibly cute.

Cute little guy

Sea Lions on the High Street

Our second project was ‘Jatun Sacha’ (Deep Jungle). This was a much larger and better organised affair than the first. We met with around 20 volunteers aged between 18 and 60. Those SKIers (Spending Kids Inheritance lol) are everywhere, and good for them!!!

Jatun Sacha was a whole new ball game. Midges everywhere – got bitten loads, even on my face (Liz) and lots of the time we had to wear face nets! Huge brown spiders and lots of Mora to chop down (Mora is an invasive blackberry that has swept across the Galapagos strangling endemic species along the way). Again we were very productive J Our tasks included tending another nursery of sapling trees, cutting down Mora with large machetes, grinding and roasting coffee and weeding. Marc got to do some non-conventional weeding by setting light to a whole field of weeds to create space for a new pineapple plantation. I always thought he was a bit of a pyro J. We also spent time watering a huge allotment, harvesting oranges and making the best orange juice we’ve ever tasted! Hard work and again lots of fun!!! We stayed in a 100 year old wooden house on the farm, sleeping in bunks with mosquito nets and listening to all the noises of the wildlife outside. We soon got used to that, but the spiders and mouse we were sharing our room with weren’t so welcome.

Marc 'weeding'

Coffee grinding is thirsty work

Sunset from our hammocks

No star bedroom

A couple of evenings we visited a bar, which quite literally was in middle of nowhere. We believe that it only opened when people from the project went there. There were two choices of drinks, namely, Beer (lager) or Cuba Libre (white rum, coke & lime). It was actually a lot of fun, dancing salsa (Liz not Marc – seriously did you think Marc would be doing the Salsa J) and thrashing the locals at pool on the worst pool tables you’ve seen in your life.

It tastes better after all that hard work

At the start of the final week we took two rather bumpy boat rides to get to the beautiful island Isabella. It was very different than the other two Islands; not very populated and with roads made of sand. Here our time was our own. We went on a few excursions and had the time of our lives snorkelling is the best places we’ve ever snorkelled.

There were many highlights to our Galapagos experience and here are some that stand out to us! Bartolome Island, which is known for its volcanic lava and impressive views (it’s the most photographed place in the Galapagos Islands).  We had numerous snorkelling experiences, each of which was totally amazing. Some of the snorkelling had us hanging out with black tip and Galapagos reef sharks, most of which were approx 5-6 ft long! Yikes! Swimming with an eagle ray was amazing! We also shared the water with some 4-5ft turtles, at a cleaning station’ where we watched fish nibbling away at the turtle’s shells to clean them. We even got to see two large turtles taking a pop at each other (see photo). In the same bay we snorkelled with marine iguanas, which was such a unique experience. One of these fascinating creatures swam almost into Marc’s face, freaking out at the last second when it realised how close it had got to Marc.

Bartolome Island

Breathtaking view, and breathtaking climb up.

Frigate birds flying along beside our boat

  

During one of our snorkelling excursions I (Liz)became overly enthusiastic and decided to swim out on my own, with the boat close by, and was justly rewarded by swimming above two hammerhead sharks. Looking down in the water to discover these beauties look my breath away, partly because I was on my own and felt a little nervous, if the truth be told, as they too were rather large!

  

Lobos Bay was another treat, where we were surrounded on the beach by sea lions of all sizes, including cute little baby ones. Remarkably we also got to snorkel with them. Magnificent! They tend to weave around about you, blowing bubbles and being generally playful. However, when the alpha male comes into the water, it’s best to swim off in the opposite direction!!!

One afternoon, like the Von Traps we headed off on bicycles along a stunning coastline, stopping off at lagoons, lava tunnels that head into the sea, beautiful bays, and mangroves and watching the beautiful flamingos flying in and feeding in a lagoon. Bliss. This particular day we also visited the wall of tears, which is a huge stone wall constructed by convicts to keep them busy. Unfortunately, many of the convicts died building it –hence Wall of Tears. 

As with all good things our Galapagos experience came to an end. We had grown to love this place so much and I have to admit to shedding a tear on the way to the airport whilst vowing to return one day! One thing this beautiful archipelago reinforced for us is how fragile ecosystems can be. If we wish to keep such magical wonders as the Galapagos we must do more to look after and protect them. And so it was – AMEN!

Journey to the middle of the earth

Our first port of call in Ecuador was Guayaquil - it's not a very touristy city but we walked along the pier which was lovely and wondered round a few interesting shops. A strange highlight of Guayaquil was our visit to a park where the trees were full of iguanas! Quite the sight. Not sure whether or not Guayaquil has a lot of 'Iguana road kill' but as there are busy roads close to the park it's a possibility :( Hopefully not!. We then took a bus to Banos in the middle of the country, hoping to go into the jungle from there but ended up going from Quito in the end; so our highlights of Banos were mainly food related (vegetarians look away now). We had a delicious meat fondue one night. Loved, loved, loved this :) and we tried barbequed guinea pig. It's spatchcocked, then has a spike inserted into it's nether regions before being barbequed. Despite seeing them cooking, complete with heads, teeth and claws, it tasted surprisingly good - a bit like chicken or rabbit.  |After Banos off to Quito and the jungle we go....

Iguana nestling in tree to sleep

 

It might not look appetizing...

...But it tastes good

Liz tries to decide if eating cute furry creatures is wrong

Our accommodation was in La Mariscal, an area which is party-central Monday to Saturday, but which is disarmingly quiet and a bit dodgy on a Sunday. One of the few times we felt on edge in South America... Our hostel was a bit like Fawlty Towers: If you asked for coffee they brought tea etc. Before we got too frustrated with them we took a 12hr nightbus to El Lago to start our jungle adventure. All was going quite well until the nightbus broke down at 2am on a mountain road with clutch failure and cooked brakes. Not a good combo on twisty mountain roads! After several botched attempts to fix it, the driver gave up. The bus company refused to send a replacement bus, saying they couldn't afford it, so it was left for the driver to flag down 2 buses going in the other direction, consolidate all the sleeping passengers into one bus, then turn the other one around for us to use. Despite having lost about 3 hours, we made it to El Lago on time, as our new bus drivers was Lewis Hamilton's latino cousin :) After a couple of hours in a minibus and a couple more in a boat, we finally made it to Cuyabueno National Park. Not a moment too soon..Phew!

3am chaos

We stayed in a lodge where the rooms had low walls made of bamboo with  the space above open to elements - and the insects! There was no electricity in the rooms- candles giving the only light. And the mosquito nets were very welcome as there were bugs and spiders galore. We stayed for 4 days, doing a night walk, a night boat ride, and various daytime rivertrips to see the animals. We spotted Cayman (little crocodiles, whose eyes glow bright red in the dark), turtles, toucans, pink river dolphin, 5 types of monkeys, pica, spiders, weaver birds and frogs, including one in our bathroom sink! We tasted edible bugs - a type of insect larvae that lives in a seed and tastes of coconut. It was pretty tasty actually :) We also tried our hand at Pirhana fishing - we both caught one, but they were too small to eat so after having a good look at all their teeth, we threw them back. When we weren´t looking at animals, we mainly spent our time swinging in the hammocks in the communal area. Overall, a great trip!

Only a little snake, thankfully

Making Yucca Bread

Man eating pirhana? No he's just holding it.

Whizzing along the river

Colourful jungle flower

And another

Peaceful river

Strange ape-man found swinging through the trees

Another colourful inhabitant

Not a great picture, but an amazing bird

Our Lodge

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Our trip back to Quito was long but thankfully less eventful, except for a captivating sunset over the cloud forest. Next day we headed off again, to Otovalo market - one of the biggest in South America, (but actually across the equator from Quito, in the Northern hemisphere). The animal market was fascinating. Pregnant Guinea pigs were selling for $7 each, and there was pretty much every other type of domesticated animal available too. (US dollars are official currency of Ecuador). There was also an enormous market for souvenirs and everything else you an think of. We bought a few Christmas presents - not live ones - and had some delicious spit roast pig for lunch.Yum yum :)

Young market-goers

Destined for the pot?

Liz enjoying  red banana

Some particularly popular guinea pigs

Bananas or various sizes and colours

When we returned to Quito again we finally got to explore the Old Town. It's beautifully preserved with wonderful architecture and one particularly stunning church called Iglesia de la Compañía. The whole interior of the church was gold leaf...spectacular! The whole city is built on a series of volcanoes, making it very hilly to walk around- thankfully taxis are incredibly cheap. Quito can be a bit dodgy so taxi's ain't a bad idea ;) We also went to the top of the hill overlooking the town and climbed up inside the statue of Virgin Mary to a viewing platform with great views over the whole city.

Quito's historic centre

Only photo we didn't take! As 'no photos allowed' in this real gold  leaf church!!!
It was truly beautiful and magnificent

The Large Virgin statue you climb to look over the city

On our final day in Quito we had an induction for our 3 week trip to Galapagos. A biologist gave us a really interesting talk on the islands, and we got loads of practical info to make sure we didn't get too lost. We met 2 of the three others in our tour group too, so we knew who to look out for at the airport at 6am the following day. Sooooo excited to going to the Galapagos!!!

Peru Treks

We arrived in Puno to find a comfortable and warm hotel, which Liz was very grateful for as she was determined to recover from being in ill in time to trek the Inca Trail. She spent 2 days in bed while Marc went on various missions around the town to bring back mashed potato for the patient, which was all she wanted to eat. In the three days we were there I (Marc) saw 3 different festivals in the main square, which at least gave me something to do.The women in particular wear their brightly coloured traditional dress, and there's usually an effigy of the Virgin Mary involved too. Those Peruvians certainly like a marching band and a parade!

We took a bus - the most luxurious bus we've ever been on - to Cusco. This pretty little city exceeded all our expectations. It's a really beautiful place in a natural bowl, with a large main square containing 3 huge churches, and lots of narrow cobbled streets full of pretty little houses and interesting shops.It's quite touristy, but that hasn't spoilt the city at all. In fact it's the most attractive city we've seen in South America. In all we spent 6 days in Cusco, during which time we saw 3 more parades, and had a really good Indian meal (our first for 6 weeks or so).

But our main focus was the dilemna of whether or not to do Inca trail. Liz in particular had wanted to see Machu Picchu for years, and we were biooked to do the trek, the dates for which could not be changed. We'd paid a sizeable deposit before leaving the UK, which we didn't want to lose, but the remaining cost was significant too, and we didn't want to waste more money. The trek covers 26 miles of steep, high altitude terrain over 4 days, but Liz was still finding walking up small hills difficult on her lungs, and Marc had developed a sore throat and seemd to be getting Liz's lurgy. Luckily the company we were booked with gave us an extra 24 hours to decide whether to commit, before we paid our money. In the end we decided to go for it, thinking it's the the things you don't do that you end up regretting, not the things you do.

The following day we were picked up before sunrise and taken to the trail head, where we met the rest of our group. We had our passports stamped with an 'Inka Trail' stamp and set off while the rain poured down around us. Thankfully the first day is also the easiet, and we made camp in good time. We were surprised how good the food was - delicious 3 course lunches and evening meals, all cooked in a tent on portable equipment. The camps themselves were very basic, but the views were second to none! That night we were introduced to the support team. There were 17 porters, 2 guides and 2 cooks to assist our group of 12 tourists. Sounds like overkill, but all 33 people needed food, tents, sleeping bags, clothes etc to last 4 days, not to mention the tables, chairs, stoves and gas bottles. We came to realise what an amazing job the porters do. After we left camp, they would pack up, take all the equipment up the same trails that we were struggling up, set up the next camp and cook lunch before we even arrived. Then they'd do it all again before we reached the camp for the evening. They are some seriously fit people - they put all the tourists to shame!

The second day was the one we were all dreading, particularly the climb up to Dead Woman's Pass, three quarters of a mile vertically above our first camp. Unfortunately one of our group was sick, and had to return to the start, so the 11 of us remaining set off. The trail went relentlessly and steeply uphill for 5 hours. This was a real struggle on Liz's lungs, and it's amazing how debilitating the altitude is. Near the top we were going just a few yards at a time before having to stop to catch our breath. Luckily our guide was very supportive, despite us lagging a long way behind the rest of our group. Eventually we reached the top at  4215m. The views were amazing, although at times we were in the cloud. After a long break to get our breath back we set off down the other side of the hill, thankful to be going downhill at last. We were incredibly relieved to reach our second camp, because it was almost all downhill from there.

Day 3 was a breeze. A few climbs, (long and steep by normal standards, but easy compared to the previous day) followed by lots of downhill sections through beautiful terrain, in bright sunshine. This was interspersed with several smaller Inka ruins and sightings of humming birds along the trail. We were amongst the fastest in the group downhill too, so didn't have to worry that we were holding everyone up again. All in all an wonderful day!

On the final day we were woken at 4am, and left the camp in the pitch dark to reach the Sun Gate, overlooking Machu Picchu, just after sunrise. It was cloudy when we arrived, but the cloud cleared almost immediately, revealing Machu Picchu glowing in the golden light below us - really magical. The last couple of hours walking were a doddle, as the 'lost city' got ever closer. It took a few hours to explore the whole site - it's really impressive, much bigger than we expected, with incredible views. Nonetheless we were glad to leave, as seemingly millions of tourists arrived.

We took the bus to the nearest town, a spa town without any road access, but with a railway line down the middle of the high street. We had lunch and a very well deserved beer with the rest of our group, followed by a soak in the outdoor hot pools, more beer and an enormous sense of achievement. We nearly missed our train back to Cusco when one of our group developed some 'toilet problems', but we found the energy from somewhere to sprint through the town to the station in the nick of time for the 4 hour trip back to Cusco. Boy did we sleep well that night!

Over the next cuple of days we relaxed, planned the rest of our trip, and visited a couple of other Inca sites. The name of one - Sacsayhuaman - amused us: To pronounce it's name you have to adopt an exagerrated latin accent and say 'Sexy Woman'. Despite this, these other ruins paled into insignificance compared to Machu Picchu.

We were sad to leave Cusco and knew we had a lot of travelling to do in a short space of time afterwards. We had a real flying visit to Lima - we fle out 24 hours after flying in, just having time to walk alomg the cliffs overlooking the Pacific near our hostel. Then we flew to Ecuador, our last new country. But that's the subject of the next instalment...