Home, via Madrid

Well From the jungle camp it was quite a long trip back via Madrid, I was basically 3 days travelling till I got to Madrid. The trip back up the river in the boat was fairly uneventful, likewise the jeep back to Lago Agrio, though I got stuck in a terrible downpour just as I changed over to the car, very glad it wasn't 10 minutes before. There was also quite an aggressive passport and document check (again, it's all due to the proximity of Columbia). When I got to Lago Agrio I had to get my bus ticket back for that evening. Cue a very long and frustrating attempt to communicate with the driver where I wanted to go and what my plans were. I don't know why I couldn't communicate with him at all, as I could communicate with the woman at the bus station (where I got my ticket) and the man in the city bus office (where I left my bag and would catch the bus from) fine, though they had no English either. Anyway,  had quite a bit of time to kill as I wanted to get the overnight bus (you don't want to arrive in Marsical Sucre neighbourhood at 4am). I Internetted and had my tea and so on. The bus left at 1130pm and again we all had to get off for a document check. The story I told about guys playing music videos all night actually happened on this trip, not the way out, so I slept quite poorly, we got to Quito around 630.

In Quito I had a long lazy breakfast and just internetted and tried to shop (not much success, I wasn't that impressed by what the craft markets had on offer, I mainly bought pirate dvds!) until I headed to the airport around 5pm. The flight was via Guayaquil (Ecuador's largest city) and I had quite a long wait there before we could get back on the plane. I actually slept reasonable well on the plane, possibly because I was so tired, but also they didn't actually show any movies on this flight.

I got to Madrid and got the subway to the hostel I'd booked. This turned out to be pretty nice, with a lovely old courtyard and a good bar. By the time I had a much needed shower and ate it was getting pretty late, so I headed down to the bar to see what was happening. There I met Matthias (ze german) and Murray from Australia who knew how to make things happen. He managed to corrupt 2 Canadian girls who'd planned on not drinking into joining us in some card games. From the hostel a pub crawl was run, and being Madrid it departed at 1am. We headed off on this but at this point things do start getting hazy. I'm not quite sure how I navigated back to the hostel, but I did find the right dorm, wrong bed though, at least it wasn't occupied. 

When I surfaced the next day I went for a looong walk all around the city to see lots of plazas and churches. This wasn't so wise as my legs were already fairly screwed up, and dancing and long walks never help. Anyway, Madrid was nice, but it didn't get that certain something that other cities have. I finished the walk at the Prada art museum which has everything up to 1850 including lots of Bosch, Goya, Velasquez, el Greco and othere masters I forget right now. It was good, but vast, and as always with that period you get sick of all the same religious images after a few hours! That night I bumped into Matthias in the bar again and headed out on the pub crawl again (we got for free this time) where I met the same two English guys who I ended up exchanging Partridge quotes with, for some reason. I had a lot of fun, and even remembered most of it this time! Next day I had to head to the airport at 2 so I went to the Reina Sofia art museum for a few hours. This is everything since 1850 and includes lots of Picasso and Miro, Guernica being the centrepiece. Again this was an excellent collection!

Well I'd got this far and done a lot of long journeys, but it was still annoying when my flight was delayed by 3 hours. This meant I didn't get home in time for the Scotland game! It was 930 pm when I got to Edinburgh and my dad was there to pick me up and whisk me of to the house, 350 days after I set off.

At the Grand Place (my camera was dying by this point).

The Amazon Jungle (Cuyabenyo)

First I'd just like to point out that after the last post I added photos to lots of preceding posts, so if you've not seen them you can go have a look!

Well it was an overnight bus from Quito to Lago Agrio, departing around 11pm. You had to buy the bus ticket yourself at the station, even though I was on a tour to the jungle, as people had the option to fly if they wanted to (pay for it). Anyway, I thought there'd be some other gringos at the bus station heading to the jungle, but no, I was on my own again. I slept pretty badly at first, especially since there was a group of guys playing music videos on their laptop just behind me. Eventually I did sleep pretty soundly, evidenced by the fact I had to be woken when we arrived in Lago Agrio and everyone else was off the bus.

Lago Agrio was a crappy little town with nothing to offer, and supposedly a bit dodgy (quite near to the Columbian border here). It was 0630 when I arrived and I found my way to the hotel where I was supposedly to meet the guide at 930. There was still no other gringos, but I settled down and had my breakfast. Before I finished a driver from the company turned up for me. Unfortunately he had no English and indecipherable Spanish, only a little sticker with the tour company's name on it. Despite the fact it was much earlier, and I was expected to be met my an English speaking guide, I went off to the car with him, relatively confident that I wasn't going off to tea and scones with FARC. It was going on for 2 hours in the car through the junglish scenery before we got to the checkpoint on the river where I was to switch to a boat. Unfortunately I couldn't communicate with the wee driver guy so didn't know how long it would be. After hanging around for an hour or so the boat came and I got lunch with 4 guys who were on their way out form the jungle before I got onto the wee motor canoe to head down the river. It was just me, the driver, and a small hyperactive child who seemed determined to sink or capsize us. It was nearly 2 hours down the river, with stops to view monkeys and an anaconda before I got to the camp. Here it was deserted, with the English speaking guides out on trips with people, so, not too impressed, I just went to my hut and had a snooze. Eventually people got back from trips and I went to find out what was going on. There were a lot of people around, each day around 10 people had came, except my day, when it was just me. Basically I was just going to be stuck in the other groups randomly, again not too great.

Anyway, that evening I was to go off and see the sunset with one of the groups. Eventually it was decided which one and I was off with the guide George and his group of around 12 to go for a swim in the Lagoon and watch the sunset. The swim in the lagoon was good, despite being told many of the group went piranha fishing nearby the day before. The water was warm compared to the Galapagos, but not so deep - you could often feel the weeds on the bottom. It was a pleasant swim and the lagoon was a lovely place for sunset. We waited a while for the sun to go down and then went hunting for caimans and other wildlife. To find a caiman you go along the river in the boat an shine your torches along the river's edge (or rather other people so as my torch is small and pathetic). When you see the two firey red dots, that's their eyes and you go up for a close look. As we were told the eyes really were obvious. After quite a while searching we found quite a small one, which hung around a bit when we pulled up to it, and a large one which buggered of quite quickly when we got close. We also saw a tree boa, which is quite a small snake. We waited interminably while energetic Frenchman and weird Spanish photo-boy took thousands of photos of this tiny snake and then headed back for tea. Food was fine, but not as good as the Inca trail or Galapagos. There was actually a lot of really nice people here and the beer was reasonably free flowing in the camp at night. There was supposed to be a night walk to see insects I could go on, but no one told me and they went without me. I did meet some good people, including two Aussie girls, a Dutch guy, a Dutch couple and an Anglo-Spanish couple. Unfortunately most of them left the next morning. That night a large tarantula did appear on the roof of the dining area. I didn't take a photo as I thought there'd be plenty more, but turns out this was the only one (I'd heard stories of people waking up with 3 of them sitting on top of their mozzie nets).

The next day I was messed around again. Today was to be a canoeing trip. There were two groups going. First I was to go with one and then the other and then back again. I got so far as getting into the motor canoe to go off with one group before being told it was too full and I had to go back. I was told the second group would go at 10am, so I went for a wee nap and returned at 950 to find they'd gone without me!! I was pretty grumpy now, but the guide who was heading into town with the group who were leaving (he needed medical treatment after getting a chunk bitten out of his finger the day before, part of the reason for the guide problem) managed to get me a taxi out to meet them on the river somewhere. Thankfully he found them reasonably quickly and I was just about able to squeeze into the canoe with the 4 others plus guide, though I didn't have a seat and had to sit on some cushions. Well the canoe trip proved quite a trial. I was second, behind a big Mr Muscle Dutch guy, with his Norwegian girlfriend, Sarky English girl and Canadian girl behind me. You'd think Mr Muscle could put some power down, but he turned out to be the most lazy useless eejit going, and it soon became clear he and his girlfriend didn't have 2 brain cells to rub together. The canoeing was actually good fun and the scenery nice as we paddled through lagoon after lagoon. However, Eduardo who was guiding us had no English, and we had little Spanish. After 2 and a half hours we began to wonder if we were back, but no, that was when we turned around and went back exactly the way we came. We'd had no idea how long we'd be out for and it was pretty hot. It took another us 2 and a half hours to drag the lazy Dutchman's ass back to the camp and we were well knackered when we got there. 5 hours was a long time to be out paddling in the sun, and we were a relatively young, fit group. Anyway, we agreed we'd enjoyed it though it was exhausting and we didn't see too much wildlife. Back at the camp we had a very welcome lunch and had a bit of time to kill before we went Piranha fishing and to see the sunset and hunt Caimans. Most of this was spent reading in hammocks at the camp, and playing with the resident tame monkey (Pancha) who was very friendly, but gets a little excited and looses control of her bladder. The other resident animal is a cat who can barely walk. This is probably to do with her tendency to lie under the dinner table and thus get stood on repeatedly. We were bitching about our long canoe trip dragging lazy dutchman (who compounded his bad favour with an impressive display of snoring from his hammock) when we found out the other group had fared far worse. They were in two canoes, had been unable to steer, and had managed to capsize one of them after someone had abandoned ship to avoid banging into a spiky palm. Cameras had been saved but there was a lot of wet equipment and passports.

Anyway, the piranha fishing was fun, though again we were with Eduardo who had no English. The 3 others fishing had done it the day before when they had English instruction. I'd like to think that was the reason why I was the only one, including the guide and driver, who didn't catch anything. Those who caught big ones did get to eat them. We were still fishing when the sunset came, so didn't get to go back to the lagoon and swim. However, it was a nice spot and the sunset was a good one. We didn't really get to see any Caimans on the way back. After dinner English and Canadian girl continued with their gin-rummy addiction and I chatted to some of those from the night before, and also met two nice Belgian girls (Maaike and Karolienen) who'd just arrived that day. Once more the night walk went off without telling me! 

Next day, once again my group from the day before left, but I was put in a nice group with the two Belgian girls, a German guy and 8 German girls! We also had a good English speaking guide who really new his stuff. This day we were to go down the river to the local village. We took our time on the journey down and stopped a few times to view wildlife. We saw an anaconda, and some monkeys and sloths. A highlight was we stopped and saw a pigmy marmoset, this is a tiny monkey, the smallest in the world. Goodness knows how the guide could see it! We also stopped to hear marching wasps marching, which they did when we shouted at them. In the village we got lunch, then saw a demonstration of a woman making Yucca bread (only ingredient, Yucca) right from the stage of pulling up the tree. This was more interesting than it sounds and quite tasty. Next we got to meet the Shaman! I'd been warned by other groups that this was a bit of a charade, and that hit when age was provided by a random number generator. I think he was 95 when we met him. He made some kind of exotic cigarette for our guide before giving a bit of spiel and cleansing one of the group of bad spirits. His house featured quite an incongruous calendar with pictures of kittens on it, but he seemed quite cool, and had very freaky feet with his toes all splayed. I file this one under not to be taken too seriously.

We headed back at a reasonable speed and had a bit of time in the afternoon to go swimming in the river right by the camp. Here there was quite a current, and you couldn't help feeling you got the occasional nibble from something now and then! Occasionally a boat with some more elderly tourist would come by and look rather bemusedly at us. But this was a lot of fun. In the evening we went back to the lagoon for sunset and then finally off on a night walk. We saw some good wildlife on the lagoon, including the moonbird, which sits very still and is incredibly hard to spot, but has an enchanting song at night. Off on the night walk we saw a variety of insects that reminded us to make sure our mosquito nets were very secure at night. There were various large spiders (wolf, scorpion, tiger), jungle lobsters, snails, ants, grasshoppers and the like. We got the boat back to camp for tea, and then had a nice evening where I was compelled to break open the remains of my Crystal, which the guide seemed to think was good stuff. We played jungle speed, a game which the Belgians kindly provided. I was still trying to use my few Dutch words and pick up some more, but I made an embarrassing mistake due to a word having different meanings in Holland and Belgium, but I think this says more about how the Flemish think! I also learned something our Inca trail guide was getting us to say when we took photos was rather unsavoury too! In the end we were up quite late watching an approaching thunderstorm and the shooting stars (Vollensterren!).

As always I was about last to bed and first up in the morning 5 hours later as I had to be packed before the morning trip as I was the only one leaving. Of course I completely overestimated packing time and ended up sitting there for half an hour before breakfast. That mornings trip was for a walk in the jungle and to see some more wildlife hopefully (most of the activities had been water based so far). We even managed to see some river dolphins (and more tortoises) on the boat trip out to the walk. On this walk we ate some ants, did a Tarzan vine-swing, saw a rather phallic plant, had a photo op in a hollow tree, saw some very hairy caterpillars and crossed some rather swampy land in our wellies. I also learned some more Dutch, so now know how to say useful things like 'Armadillo' if it comes up when I get there to work (we saw armadillo burrows, but not the armadillos. On the way back we stopped for a welcome swim at the lagoon, which was as always pretty fun, though idiot-boy here didn't learn his lesson and lost another contact lens mucking around (I'd lost one in the Galapagos, fortunately in the other eye). Then it was back to the camp for a quick shower (my next 2 nights would be on transport) before saying my goodbyes and getting in my private canoe for the long trip back.

I really enjoyed this trip to the jungle, though at first it was a bit frustrating not being in the one group and being passed around. The last two days were much better though. The camp was a nice place and very laid back. I managed to see all most of the animals you could hope to see, though they were nothing like as abundant and tame as in the Galapagos. This was a really good way to effectively finish off my travels.

Photorama time here:

This is the canoe heading to the camp, complete with small boy to ward of headhunters.

Canoetime, it was a long trip...

Mr Muscle bags a piranha.

A pygmy marmoset, its very wee and far away, this was where my camera earned it's keep.

The shaman and his weird toes.

A moon bird.

Sunset on the lagoon.

I think he's called a jungle lobster.

Wolf spider!

Me Tarzan, or maybe Indiana Jones.

Quito

The plane got into Quito about 4pm after having to get off and on again in Guayaquil. Unfortunately our luggage didn't seem to be there... of 7 of us who went through to Quito 2 got their luggage straight away and the other 5 had a long uncomfortable wait for another 90 minutes fearing the worst. However, the bags did turn up eventually and I was able to share a taxi part of the way into town and walk the rest and get a hostel. I'd made vague arrangements to meet some people from the first half of the Galapagos trip that evening, but the directions were crap, so I ended up in the wrong place, but they weren't at the other place anyway, so I just internetted a bit and had quite an early night. Finally I had a large bed, that wasn't being tossed about on the sea, however, it took me quite a while to shake the feeling I was on a boat.

Next day I had some stuff to sort out - I managed to book a trip for myself to the amazon, get the bus ticket for that and put in my underwater camera to the shop. Then I did manage to meet Zoe, Mark and Allison from the first trip for lunch despite them giving me dodgy directions again. It was nice to catch up and we agreed to meet again in the evening. Then I headed on a long walk through the mean streets of Quito to find the office of my airline company - I'd booked online and hoped they really existed and would give me a ticket! Thankfully they did. I then took another walk up a big hill to visit the Guayasamin museum. He was a popular Ecuadorian expressionist artist who'd also collected pre-columbian artefacts and colonial art. These collections were on display along with his own work, which I quite enjoyed. Also further up the hill was his apparently amazing 'chapel of man'. Alas, it was shut on Mondays. At least there was a reasonable view over the town from up on the hill. I took the long walk back to the Mariscal area where I was staying. I met Zoe, Mark and Allison again for dinner. They were heading off on another long trip on a bus and their other three passengers, Sven, Qwen, and Tootji were there along with there two crusty south african guides. The rather strange venue the guides had chosen was an Irish bar. After dinner the 4 of us Galapagos adventurers headed on and tried a few bars, including a small edgy salsa/shisha bar with no-one in it. In the end we looked for a club but only Zoe and I went on. Cue more bad dancing from me, no wonder my legs are still sore. The place wasn't bad and it was £1 for 2 bottles of beer. That might explain the slightly stinking sorehead I had most of the next day!

Tuesday was my day to see the old town of Quito. I walked to the old town and aimed to go into the big national museum, but it was closed for refurbishment. I continued on to the Basillica de Voto National. A relatively modern church on a hill, whose main attraction was that you could go climbing up all the towers and on the roof in various ways that probably wouldn't get past health and safety in the uk. There were good views and I had fun scrambling around, I spent quite a bit of time here. I then wandered on to the plaza grande, which was quite nice and had the obligatory protest march present in all South American cities. Next up was the compania de Jesus, a very ornate church gilted with 7 tonnes of gold. It also had some rather interesting pictures of what awaits us all in hell, with specific punishments for specific sins. Pity the traitors whose fate seems to be being stabbed in the nads with a giant trident. Then I headed up to the Plaza San Francisco where the San Francisco Monastery was also closed for refurbishment. I wasn't quite having the best of luck on this visit to Quito. I then walked back via a circuitous route and ate (I found a curry house, mmm) and did a lot of internetting (this blog takes time you know!) before taking a dodgy walk with my rucksack at 11pm to the bus station for my bus to the Lago Agrio, down in the Ecuadorian Jungle.

Iguana Detail on the Voto National.

The clock towers of the Voto National and view over Quito old town.

Me up umpteen ladders very high in the left hand clock tower in the photo above.

Galapagos Part 2

On the evening of day 4 I returned to the pier with Augustin and Simona to meet the 9 new passengers. We had a Dutch/German couple, an older Australian couple, and 5 Japanese girls. 4 of the Japanese were travelling together, and the other Takako (my new roomie) has spent the last year in Ecuador so had good Spanish. We had dinner and a briefing as usual, and a few people even made an effort to stay up past 10pm!

This half of the trip was to involve much more travelling between Islands than the last one, much of this was done at night, and although I was one of the few who didn't get too sea-sick, it still made sleeping near impossible as I was still trying to hold on to my little top bunk.  Day 5 was at Floreana Island. The first stop was at Post Office Bay, where there's a store of postcards and notes which have all to be hand delivered: you search through and see if there's any for where you going to, it's been there since the days of the whalers. Nearby was another lava tunnel, this one a bit smaller, with no lights, so we had to use torches. After a certain point you were wading through water, but it was reasonably warm. This was quite fun! Afterwards we had some snorkelling from the beach. This is where we got to snorkel with giant turtles, being able to follow right behind them for quite some time as they swam along. At one point I could see three of them around me. Unfortunately I left the underwater camera I'd just bought on the beach as it was overcast and I thought I'd save it for better light!

After lunch we went round the corner to the Devil's Crown for more snorkelling. This is meant to be a top snorkelling site. It's, as it says, the crown of an old volcano, so it's a small island atoll a few tens of meters in diameter, there are reasonably strong currents and you snorkel from the dingy which is not so easy, and some people were clearly uneasy in the water. It was good, but not the best sight we saw.

The third day of the second trip we headed out to Espaniola Island, 8 hours overnight, nobody slept much, and a few were rather ill. It was compared to being inside a washing machine as the boat bobbed around on the open sea.  Here the main new attraction was Flamingos, there was a huge lagoon where we managed to see some up close, there was also another beach where you could see lots of sting rays.

Day 4/7 was first of all San Christobal, very early in the morning, where we say albatrosses for the first time, including babies, and baby boobies, bluefoot and Nazca. There was also a blowhole where the waves sent a jet of water into there due to the rock-formations. From this Island we also had the chance to snorkel: there was an island you could swim out to if you felt up to it, and Taco and myself took up the challenge, and spied another reef shark when we were out there. Then we had a bit of a gap until the next island when I stayed on deck and some of us managed to see a humpback whale, and I got a photo! The next island was Santa Fe Island, where we were meant to see more land Iguanas, unfortunately this was the only time we didn't see something we thought we might see. As usual there were hunners of seals. Before going to this second Island we snorkelled from the boat, where I had great fun playing with the seals, and got some great photos too.

On the final day before heading back to Baltra and the airport we had a pre breakfast trip to North Seymour Island. The big new attraction here was male frigatebirds in all their glory, inflating there chest sacks, quite a sight!

The airport was fairly chaotic to check in, but we got on our way eventually after a little souvenir shopping.

The trip wasy pretty amazing, there were just so many animals and so tame (very different to my jungle trips!). A slight let down was the groups didn't bond so well and so evenings were very quiet (though often lots of people were ill!). There were real language divisions, with Spanish, French and Italian groups on the first boat, and a big Japanese group on the second. Don't get me wrong, everyone was really nice. It was only really the last two nights that I managed to crack open the cheap Ecuadorian spirits I'd brought on board!  By this time the boat had ran out of red wine, whisky and tea! This was pretty poor considering we'd drunk about 1 bottle of red wine and 1.5 whiskies! Anyway, the final night it almost got lively, and we got Shakira on the stereo, and, as you do, had a bit of an oragami session, before some poor attempts at starting Karaoke. I think some of us even made 11pm. Rock and Roll!

Here's an incomplete list of animals I saw:

• Sealions (two kinds)
• Sea turtles and Giant Tortoises
• Land and Sea Iguanas
• Lava Lizards
• Herons: Night, Lava and yellow crested.
• Various Darwin Finches: Lava, Cactus, etc
• Frigatebirds
• Pelicans
• Boobies: Blue-footed and Masked (Nazca)
• Oyster Catchers
• Cattle Egrets
• Flamingos
• American Golden Warbler
• Mockingbirds
• Galapagos Doves, Hawks and Ducks
• Black headed gulls and little gulls (Noddies)
• Storm Petrels
• Sting Rays and Eagle Rays
• White tipped Reef sharks and Dogfish
• Octopus
• King Angel-fish
• Surgeon Fish
• Moorish Idols
• Cornet Fish
• Puffer Fish
• Parrot Fish
• Humpback Whale
• Others saw dolphins, I missed them though I was on deck and looking where they pointed :(

Going down a Lava Tunnel

Flamingos

Me by a pair of Boobies.

A baby Albatross

Me on a beach by more seals.

A frigatebird (Male).

Galapagos Part 1

The flight got into the airport on Baltra Island around lunch time. It was quite a basic wee airport with not much in the way of walls, and baggage reclaim meant they came and unloaded from the buggy in a pile. We were met by our guide Juan, and it became clear my group was not going to be as young and backpackery as previous trips (well the Galapagos was very expensive) and was rather coupley too! For the first half of the trip we had an older French couple, two older Italian ladies, an older Ecuadorian/Spanish couple, an Ecuadorian/Italian couple, Mark and Allison, who were an Anglo Australian couple, Zoe from England and me. That's 12 people, and we had 6 crew with us on our little boat called the Encantada which we took a short bus ride to from the Airport in time for lunch on board.

The boat was a little red motor-sailer, much nicer looking than all the other boats, but pretty small and 'cosy'. I was sharing with Zoe, and I'll rip-off what she said in her blog about me and the room:

The cabins are small but the guy I'm sharing with - Neil..a laid back Scottish guy who has been traveling for one year and is sporting a pair of blue bathers with a split up the side held together with safety pins...graciously offers me the bottom bunk which is the size of a double bed and comfy. Neil has to lie like a starfish with its suckers spread out on the small top bunk nearly falling out as the boat motors through the first night . We adapt to sharing a small space but on the first morning Neil comes out of the shower as i am dressing and i hear a muffled "oops" from behind me as he retreats back into the shower waits a polite few minutes before knocking and coming out again...i stifle a laugh because it is so English...like some kind of carry on film!

Ah well, yes, about the bathers, they had a small rip in them from Australia, which I was always quick to claim was a nip from a crocodile. I was aiming to buy some new ones before the Galapagos, but never saw any, and they would have been fine, but as I was wearing them almost all the time in the Galapagos for snorkelling and wet-landings they very quickly deteriorated so they had a slit all the way up one side and one began appearing on the other! Fortunately they were lined, and I did what repairs i could with some safety pins I had to hand for such an emergency.

Anyway, lunch, like all the other meals on the boat, was excellent, in both quantity and quality The dining room was pretty cramped with a little bar in the corner, for Hulio the barman/waiter/cabin cleaner to lurk at, but it was big enough. After lunch was our first excursion, which was to black turtle cove. This was a water-borne trip in the little dinghy, and we pootled around the mangroves looking at the bird and sea life. The stars of the show were the blue-footed boobies, who, in a similar way to penguins, are rather stupid and clumsy looking in the water, but in their preferred element are very dynamic and graceful. The boobies dive amazingly fast and plunge a few feet underwater looking for fish. Many a photo was taken trying to catch them at the prime moment. There were also pelicans doing the same thing, not so gracefully, and frigate-birds circling far overhead. Meanwhile in the water we could see fish, but were more interested in spotting sharks, turtles and rays, which we did. The turtles were hardest to see as they were quite shy and only stuck there heads above water to breathe. This site was the most tropical looking we went to and was quite hot when we were out there. Afterwards we tried on our snorkelling gear and had a swim off the back of the boat. Here you realise that the water here is 20 degrees - far colder than in Goa or Thailand where it was like a bath, but warmer than the sea in Scotland! Generally you start feeling the cold after 30-45 minutes, and some opted to go in in wetsuits. After the swim we got snacks before dinner, and then some time to hang around. After dinner we got a briefing about the next day, and then everyone headed off to bed about 9 (those were the late ones) as they were all knackered!

Next day breakfast was at 630, which was fairly standard over the next week, with us disembarking early to be ahead of other groups, which seemed to mainly be older people travelling in more luxury. First up was Rabida Island. Here we saw many lava lizards, seals, Galpagos hawks, sea iguanas and many smaller birds. One of the seals sneezed a giant snotter out as we were watching, what a photo opportunity! After this was our first snorkelling opportunity where we saw many coloured fish and had our first aquatic encounter with the seals, who are very friendly and swim around you wanting to play. After lunch we went to Santiago Island. This was much more volcanic and had interesting lava formations including bridges you could walk over. There were many more iguanas and crabs here on the rocky coast, and fur seals, which are rarer and smaller than the sealions that are everywhere. There was another snorkelling opportunity and after a long day at sea in the sun everyone was so knackered again that when they stuck on a documentary on the islands about 830, I was the only one awake by the end. Not the party boat it could have been!

Day 3 and the first stop was Bartolome Island. This was one of the best islands, very barren and volcanic it has little life on it's slopes, but you can climb the little peak for a great view over some lovely beaches. However the highlight was seeing penguins in the water nearby where we disembarked. They really do zip around quite fast, and it was guaranteed to see them as they are not that common and relatively shy. After that we took the boat round the corner to one of the beaches we'd been looking down at and went snorkelling. Here some of us saw a white tipped reef shark, which was pretty cool. I think this was one of the best snorkelling sights. After this we walked across to the beach on the other side and had a look around. Still plenty of crabs, sea-lions and iguanas. The second stop this day was at Sombrero Chino Island (Chinese Hat) where we walked along by the beach where the landscape was extremely volcanic, with black lava formations with lots of hollow bubbles underneath and cracks. Here again we snorkelled from a nice beach where again the seals came out to play when we snorkelled. As it was the last night for many of us we thought we'd make it a late one, and made it till about 10pm!

Next morning was a bit of and early one though, we went to South Plazas Island before breakfast and this was one of the more singular islands. The landscape had strange red and green coloured vegetation, some cliffs with many sea-birds and cactus forest where we saw the land iguanas. These are bigger and yellower than the sea iguanas. After breakfast we got to Puerto Ayora, the islands' biggest town, where we disembarked (9 of 12 for good). We were here to see the Charles Darwin research centre. Here they have lots of giant tortoises as they have a major breeding profile. A star of the show is lonesome George, and we got to see his backside only! He's now not so lonesome as he successfully bred with the 2 females from a neighbouring island that he was given to help him out, though he did take his time about it. They also run an eradication programme to get rid of introduced animals. After lunch in a restaurant we went up to the highlands of the island and saw more giant tortoises in the wild before going through a huge lava tunnel which was quite impressive. It included a section you had to crawl through. Then it was back to Puerto Ayora for some free time, when I was able to finally get some new swimmies, some nice red ones! I had a drink with Mark and Allison before heading off to meet the new people for the second half of the week.

The Encantada.

A Sealion.

A land Iguana.

Me on Bartolome Island, behind to the right we snorkelled, and walk round to the beach on the left.

Penguins!

Strange vegetation on Plazas Island.

Peru

Time spent: 13 days

On budget/time: Got into Ecuador with not much time to spare for my flight out to the Galapagos.

Lost/stolen: My I survived the Inca Trail certificate was lost in the confusion coming back from Aguas Callientes. After sufficient therapy I may be ready to face the world again.

Sound of Peru: History of Rock and classic rock'n'roll in Aguas Callientes.

Taste of Peru: Had alpaca a few times, never managed the guinea pig though.

Highlights of Peru: As you might imagine the Inca trail and Machu Picchu were great. Quite liked Lima as a city.

Drink of Peru: Pisco sour at the Hotel Bolivar was class. Had chicha moreno and "Macho Tea" on the Inca trail

Didn't make a lot of stops in Peru, but really enjoyed myself there. There was lots more places to see, but I don't think I really had the appetite for many more Inca ruins, I'd seen some of the best. I'm quite happy with the pace I've travelled at.

Lima and Guayaquil

The bus to Lima was 24 hours, I was the only Gringo on board. The scenery was nice enough, descending through the Andes to the coast. I had the front seat at the top so I had a good view. The bus was comfortable but a bit manky. All the locals were chewing coca leaves and the floor was pretty covered with discarded stalks by the end. It got pretty cold at night and the woman next to me was kind enough to share her blanket.

I got into Lima in the afternoon, checked into the Loki hostel, which was fairly lively. After eating I headed to the Museo Larco, which again had a lot of high quality pre-columbian art, with less pseudy captions this time. There store rooms were also open to the public where you could see row upon row of artefacts just stacked up, including hundreds off zoomorphic jars, divided into sections for different animals; pumas, owls and so on. However, the highlight of the museum is its collection of erotic pre-columbian pottery - I kid you not! There was some weird stuff here. As well as every available orifice being put to use, there were also skeletons getting in on the act (I'm pretty sure there isn't actually a bone there), animals, diseases, and a weird selection where the woman was breastfeeding a child at the time. And yes I have photos of some of that.

To get out to the museum was almost an hour in a little mini-bus (due to traffic rather than distance). I was happy to save on the taxi and Lima seemed pretty safe to me, contrary to the lonely planet etc. That night I went to the bar in the hostel. I played a bit of pool and then got talking to various people including some guys that worked in London and some Welsh girls. In the end I headed out to a club in the Barranco district called Dragon, with Katie from Fenwick and Edel from Ireland. We were promised 80´s and 90's music, but when we got there the music was pretty dire, until they played about 5 good songs, then it faded. Anyway it was a good night, but we headed back at an almost civilised hour as Katie and Edel were heading home. I somehow ended up with Edel's alarm clock that her ex-boyfriend gave her that I have to dispose of in a suitably dramatic fashion. As you do.

The next day I headed into central Lima. wandered around the square and visited the cathedral and the San Francisco monastery, where the tour takes you into the catacombs below where the bones of 27000 people are, buried hundreds of years ago. I also went to the museum of the Inquisition, which was pretty small and mediocre. After that I strolled in the drizzle to another of the plazas, which features a statue of a woman with a small llama on here head (a crown of flames was commissioned, but llamas is the word for both in Spanish apparently). I then went into the posh bar in the Hotel Bolivar for one of their famous pisco sours (I'd already had a pisco sour ice-cream that day). It was of course excellent. Then I headed back to the hostel and again went to the bar in the evening where it was fairly quiet at first, but I got 3 free large beers and 2 tequilas just for blowing up some balloons and tying them up for a party that was happening the next night. Perhaps that was why although I went to a club later on with all the bar people (called Sargento Piemenientos, Sargent Peppers!) and I was dancing, I couldn't even tell you what kind of music they played. I came home in a cab with some Peruvians, at some point we realised we didn't have any common language. That night in the bar had seen the appearance of these three characters who were travelling around in matching white Adidas tracksuits smoking cigars and in possession of a giant cookie monster outfit (yes there are photos). That's travelling in style!

The next day with a slightly fuzzy head I went to the Inca Pyramid thing called Huaca Pullanca. There was a quite informative guided tour, but the site wasn't hugely impressive. There had been human sacrifices found there. My bus to Guayaquil left just after lunch and was another 24 hour affair (it actually took 29!) this time it was quite a luxurious bus and half empty, and there was 2 French Canadian and 2 German girls on board as well. For the second time I saw a Spanish movie about a boy who has a Loch Ness monster for a bet (Mi Mascota est un Monster, or something like that). It was later than I planned when I got into Guayaquil, Ecuador`s biggest city, and I managed to get myself a shitty hotel in a dodgy neighbourhood with a joke of a shower! I walked down to the Malecon 2000, the developed waterfront, which was actually quite nice of an evening, and had my tea, got some cash and intenetted before getting some much needed sleep. Next morning the flight to the Galapagos left at 10am, so I was up at 7, and got to the airport no problem, ready for the next exciting trip!

Err, some of the tamer erotic pottery.

Crown of llamas!

Another evening in the Loki hostel in Lima.