Our final morning on the Galapagos Islands was short but sweet. We managed to find somewhere open in Santa Cruz at half six in the morning to get a nice brekky to send us on our way then jumped in a pickup-style taxi that took us to the ferry to Isla Baltra. We were both really sad to leave, but really pleased with made the most of it with an extra few days after our cruise finished.
Our previously modified plane tickets were due to take us back to Quito, but as we had somewhat extended our stay we decided if we could we would hop off at Guayaquil and make our way out the southern end of Ecuador and into Peru, we would save ourselves considerable time. Fortunately to our surprise, yet again, this proved to be no problem whatsoever with TAME airlines. What a top bunch of people!
Landing at Guayaguil after a pleasant and uneventful flight we got straight into a taxi to the bus station, and in the usual way were immediately sent off in mad dash up to a bus that was just leaving. We just managed to squeeze into the last two seats right at the back of the bus for a truly stunning journey through the vast heights of the Parque Nacional Cajas on to Cuenca, Ecuador's most beautiful southern colonial city.
It was quite late by the time we arrived in Cuenca and we were well chuffed to find the beautiful Hostal Macondo had a genuinely lovely room for us. Both of us were proper pooped by this point so we nipped out for some grub before climbing into bed.
The next morning we headed out to see the sights. The old cathedral was vast and had this stunning main entrance.
The vast frontage of the cathedral. Then main plaza was beautifully planted and really made the buildings around it look lovely.
The rear of the cathedral was made up of 3 picturesque blue domes.
A beautifully ornate colonial building on the plaza.
Clairy loved this pic of the old men on the left playing chess and others just generally chilling out in the plaza.
Me checking out the directions against the backdrop of another gorgeous old building.
We sauntered down the speedy boulder filled Rio Tomebamba to the south of the city centre.
The sharply painted facades sometimes hid the not to sturdy looking mud bricks underneath.
Lovely ornate ironwork balconies.
Some gorgeous old buildings.
The next day we were off to the bus station to grab one to our next destination of Loja our last stop in Ecuador. On the way we spotted this chap chearfully leading his herd of goats along the pavement.
It was a 6 hour journey to Loja, so we decided to break up the journey by hopping off after 4 hours to have lunch in the little market town of Saraguro. This region, which means 'Land of Corn' in Quechua is home to the indigenous Saraguro, the most successful indigenous group in the southern highlands. The Saraguro once lived in the Lake Titicaca region of southern Peru, but were forcibly relocated through the empire's system of colonization known as mitimeas.
The Saraguro still mainly wear their traditional dress. The men sport a single long platted ponytail, black knee-legth shorts and a black poncho, and the women wear heavy pleated black skirts and shawls fastened with ornate silver pins called tupus, which are handed down from mother to daughter.
There was another well tended plaza in the centre of town.
The main reason I wanted to stop here was this place pictured below called Mama Cuchara (Mother Spoon). It was set up as a cooperative for local women and served downright gorgeous Almuerzos (set lunches). Obviously it was meat or meat, but Clairy put her portion on my plate and wolfed down the rest. It was bloody lovely, and cost just a tiny 75p each for soup with meat and plantains, a huge plate of meat rice and veg, and a glass of juice. We left a hefty tip to make ourselves feel a little better at getting such a bargain off the lovely ladies. Clairy also got a stunningly gorgeous woven necklace from the ladies selling the wears outside.
Soon after we jumped back on the next bus and carried on the last couple of hours to Loja. We passed some pretty scenery on the way. Check it out. Wild pampas grass!
The Andes stretching off into the distance.
Our main aim in Loja was to get most of our mahoosive Galapagos blogging up to date. We didn't end up taking many pictures although it was a pretty town with lots of huge murals that we meant to photograph but ran out of time. Here is one attractive building that we did get a piccy of.
On the morning we were leaving we snapped a couple of pics from the taxi.
Loja is known for being a particularly musical city, and just next to the bus station was this musically themed overpass.
From here we took a bus that would take us across the Peruvian border to Piura in the deserts of Northern Peru.
Oh Hi! We had one last day to spend on Santa Cruz and decided to dedicate this to visiting Tortuga Bay. We got our swimming stuff together and walked across town to the gates that marked the start of the walk. Here we had to sign in and pay the entrance fee to the park, as well as get an ice cream for the 4km walk to the beach.
The trail was paved all the way, just as well to protect the wildlife and flora. It was a very peaceful walk. We were accompanied by the sounds of finches. Hundreds of Lava lizards were basking on the path and scurried out of our way.
The beach looked amazing and just like Isla Gardner the sand was absolutely beautiful.
Beautiful as it is though, you can´t swim here because of the strong rip currents...unless you are an Marine Iguana of course! These two were taking a stroll on the miles of white sand. Where are you going?
We walked along the deserted beach passing only a few people. At the end of the beach was a rocky point were puffer fish had been trapped by the tide going out and swam in the shallow water with other small fish.
We spotted a Lava Heron waiting patiently for its quarry of Sally Lightfoot Crabs or Ghost Crabs.
As the beach curved around the point, the mangroves took over the shore line with their roots poking up through the sand like a mini forest.
Oh hi! A very large and static Grey Blue Heron hunting in the mangroves.
A trail was clearly marked around the coastline and it was really pleasant to follow this ourselves.
Another static Grey Blue Heron...they really are enormous at over a metre in height. We can see you! In the background is a Opuntia forest.
A group of large Marine Iguanas just off the trails edge, had their eyes closed and were totally crashed out.
The trail took us across some mega lava formations. Here's Wiji at the waters edge with Tortuga bay in the backgound. It was here that we looked over the edge and saw a Marine Iguana swimming in the water below. We rushed to film it in a comedy way. We hadn't seen any swimming so this was brilliant!
After following the trail on to the bay we swam in the warm shallow waters. We were later joined by our German friend from Isabela, Monica who lent Wiji her snorkle to see some of the Puffer Fish swimming about around us.
We hired a sea kayak from the Galapagos equivalent of coconut man in Tortuguero. We paddled around Tortuga bay in search of Turtles. We saw one at close range as it popped its head out of the water and was instantly surprised to see us pearing back. It was huge and probably a Green Turtle. We saw some other smaller turtles around the bay as we paddled about having a happy time of exploring the mangroves and the Sally Lightfoot Crab encrusted lava rocks. Wiji paddled at times like a maniac making the Kayak go really fast and lifting the front end that I was in out of the water nearly! We managed to amuse ourselves for some time, and had the bay mostly to ourselves.
Finally amoungst the mangrove roots on Tortuga Bay, a Ghost Crab that was out of its hole for more than a second!
Big Daddy Marine Iguana holds on tight to a rock as he sunbathes with his eyes shut.
When we decided to head back I instantly wished I had taken a few more photos so legged it back to the trail getting this piccy of Wiji in the distance on the main beach swinging our carrier bag about his legs to unsucessfully fend of the rather large horse flies that bit our calves. I wanted to get a picture of this part of the beach from the trail.
On each side of the trail were millions of Sea Urchin spines lying amongst the sand and small shells.
Looking back at part of the trail we followed. It was a very peaceful hot day.
Lots of Finches on the Sea Purslane.
Back on the main beach, a lone Marine Iguana heads back to the mangroves and towards Tortuga bay.
Wiji waits patiently for me...now stuck in the sand!
We decided that having really explored Tortuga Bay we should maybe chill on the main beach for a bit and watch the sea, as this would be our last chance.
Soon enough we were accompanied by the Common Cactus Finch, who hopped about our legs.
We watched the finch for ages...it was so close.
Here is a film of the swimming Marine Iguanas, a perfectly stationary Lava Heron and a couple of the lovely little Finches we came across.
After watching the Finch we took a last look at the beach and headed back on the trail path again with lots of Finches in the late afternoon sun.
This one was really looking at me.
A bit like a teasel on the outside, some kind of vine growing fruit.
A close up of a cactus trunk with its oozing papery bark.
The fruit that we first saw and ate the seeds of on our walk in the highlands of Santa Cruz with Lobo and the group. It tasted like passionfruit. We didn´t pick this one.
We really did dordle back from Tortuga Bay, having had such a lovely time. When we reached the gate we signed out and brought another lovely mora berry ice cream for the walk back into town.
Later that evening we visited our favourite Cevicheria. Here is Wiji enjoying the raw fish. This was our last meal here. We later went for a drink at the Limon Y Cafe then called it a night.
We had a totally amazing time in the Galapagos and were really glad that we had extended our stay. We hope that we can come back here one day and visit the north islands, Bartolome, Genovesa and Fernandina. Maybe when we are in our 50's?!
Oh hi! After booking our trip to Isabela all we had to do was catch the boat at the harbour on Santa Cruz. We rocked up with plenty of time and the good advice from the nice lady at Moonrise travel...'sit at the back of the boat!' We took her seriously and did so, only to find ourselves surrounded by three American families. With all of us wedged in on bench seats in what amounted to barely more than a speed boat with two massive outboard engines. Yikes, it was hardly believeable that we were going to make an open sea crossing of about three hours in this small boat!
We did though. At incredible speeds for the size of the swell that was around us. Looking out of the back of the boat we left a huge, huge wake behind us. Frequently the boat slammed into the waves, making it difficult to hold on as we were jolted against the bench seat. The Lonely Planet described it as 'a crossing some may find terrifying'. It was easy to see how someone might. Neither of us did feel terrified or seasick, which was great. However immediately one of the teenagers was puking into multiple bags and eventually was moved to the back of the boat where she nearly fell in (naturally the boat didn't slow down!)
One of the American dads felt the need to continually swig Rum from a bottle, whilst drinking beer, shouting and gesturing wildly (he was excited). This became a problem when he moved for the third time and sat next to me. I felt sure that he was going to elbow me in the face each time he waved his arms in the air and cheered. I asked him not to and he eventually moved again which involved getting up and hanging onto the other passengers as he made his way to the back of the boat to swig more rum and shout at the girl being sick. It was at this point that we both had an awful feeling that we had made a hideous mistake by taking this trip...what if these were the people that we had to spend our whole time with!!!? I already wanted to push them overboard.
The distance of the journey was made more visible as we approached some small islands...it seemed to take forever for them to pass even though we were flying along. Randomly another boat doing the same trip would appear and our driver, seeing this would then try to speed up even more to race them. This scenario was in progress when another of the teenagers needed the loo. He made his way to the front of the boat into the luggage cabin toilet compartment that. The boat had to be slowed for this, that was when we really got a good feel for how much bigger the swell seemed if you weren't moving. It was fucking insane. Drunk dad then needed the loo as well making our time idling in the waves much longer leading to one of the mums puking into multiple bags next to us. Ideal.
But hey, eventually we made it, and I managed not to kill any of them. I really wish that we had taken some pics of them and the wake of the boat. Nevermind.
We got taken to our hotel and had a lovely room with a queen size bed and en suite which we appreciated even more because we thought that we would be in a dorm room! We met the rest of the group (sans American family, phew!) in the hotel garden, then went for a walk through Puerto Villamil with our guide Dario. He had his impression of Borat off down to a tee! He even ended sentences with 'no, a, aha?' This we found hilarious, but managed to keep ourselves in check. It was made even more funny when we came to the lake where we were going to see flamingo's. We stood on the viewing platform and in the middle of the lake was one, solitary flamingo. It was so funny. We had a nice walk around the sleepy rural town, the main settlement on Isabela . The roads were covered with wind blown sand and it wasn't anything like as commercial or developed as Santa Cruz. We really liked it. We ended the evening with a lovely meal at the hotel and retired to our room to watch chod on cable TV.
The next moring we had breakfast and chatted to some of our group, laughing about how Dario described todays activity of horseriding up the volcano as 'dangerous, many accident when horse slips'. Oh how we laughed.
Here we are after short distance in a mini bus at the foot of the volcano. We were accompanied on the journey by some American teenagers who said 'like' and 'really' literally after every other word. We would have been staring at them open mouthed if they hadn't been sooo American and insisted in talking to us. They were going to walk up the volcano and were wearing flipflops and beachwear. It seemed to be a shock for them when we got out of the minibus at altitude into wet, thick fog. We found this very amusing! LOL.
We set off on the trail up hill and climbed for some distance into fog before this thankfully cleared and we saw the colossal crater of Sierra Negra. It is the second largest crater in the world and is nearly 10km in diametre.
Wiji´s horse wass lovely and so was mine. Other people in the group weren't so nice and wanted to run at or bite the other horses.
As we trotted on we kept getting glimpses of the crater through the fog.
Wiji and Dario.
Looking at part of the crater to our left.
Looking across Isabela to our right.
This was where we stopped, dismounted and left the horses to graze. It was here that we bumped into Lobo and his wife who had camped up here overnight.
The soap tree, so called because the fruit can be used like soap. In the tree is a tiny flycatcher.
Not spotted very often so far, a cactus in flower.
Looking towards the north of Isabela, with some lava in the foreground.
We left the crater of Sierra Negra behind us and started walking on the old lava flow of Volcan Chico. The volcanic landscape stretched out before us for miles.
A lava tunnel exposed.
It was instantly hotter and the sun beat down and was reflected back up from the lava.
I found the landscape hostile, arid and quite horrific.
Steam rising from a volcanic fumarole. We couldn't get near the edge or see how deep this crater was, but we followed the path around it.
Another smaller gaping hole with the colours of the metal oxides more visible.
Wiji leant over to get a snap of this next furmarole. I could't look!
This shot was looking across to Isla Fernandina and Volcan La Cumbre.
And to the North of the immensely vast Isabela, the largest and youngest of the Galapagos Islands. It is essentially 5 large volcanos, strewn together.
This is where I could go no further, and Dario tried to pursued me that the edge wasn't very high. Oh yeah? Wiji went on to a vantage point where Dario wanted us to eat our lunch. To me this seemed insane. Why would we want to sit in this baking environment and have a picnic. I love this photo though. I decided to have my lunch next to one of the furmaroles pictured earlier. Madness.
We then made our way back across the trail to the horses. My horse decided to run away and had to be caught by the man looking after them. I didn't really blame it.
We were all a bit saddle sore by this point and the ride, now being down hill and slippery, was a bit of a concern. Dario made hissing noises behind the horses who then started to gallop off in a group...is it just me or was that quite a dangerous thing to do with inexperienced riders?! I asked him not to do that again, thanks. He didn't. The horses were obviously used to these conditions, but it was easy to see how they could fall over. Both our horses were very responsive and we tried to lead them off the muddiest paths that Dario kept hurding everyone onto. When we arrived back at the minibus we were both bent over at the knees...apparently our stirrups were too short for our legs...we had been riding in a horseracing jockey stylee. Lol. We were just glad that the horses didn't crush us!
We met up again with the American teenagers who were covered in mud up to their thighs. They had muddy platforms stuck to their flipflops...they seemed a bit quieter now. Lol. Off we headed in the minibus smelling of soggy horse and fogging the windows up as we trundled through the wet single track lanes down from the volcano Sierra Negra. The lane was lined with large groups of Datura trees in flower. These looked spectacular...I had never seen so many!
We got out for a quick look around the Isabela division of the Charles Darwin Research Station giant tortoise repatriation programme. Just before we went in I chased a black Carpenter bee around the reception garden area. They are so fast. I had tried to get a piccy of one loads of times before, but finally succeded. This is it!
We also spied some colourful Lava Lizards basking on some rocks.
The Cerro Palma Giant Tortoises were on the verge of extinction after they were hunted for meat. In 1994 scientists took blood samples from various species to study their genetic variations. They found that the Cerro Palmo Giant Tortoise was different from the others. At the time they had four males and two females in captivity, so they collected some more females and started a sucessful breeding programme. Here's some of the offspring mainly crashed out asleep in the sun.
'On Isabela each volcano has a different race of Giant Tortoise'. Here are the five main volcanos.
We had a very quick wander around the centre and saw some very old Giant Tortoises tucking into some cactus paddles and generally taking it easy before we were off again in the minibus back to the hotel to get changed for the snorkelling at Bahia Villamil. We were super excited because we were eagerly awaiting the chance of seeing some Penguins!!! We were fitted up with some shoddy snorkle gear then off went in a lancha.
Here is our first glimpse of some penguins!
Oh god yeah...look at him swim. It was brilliant!
A Grey Blue Heron stationed like a standing stone on the lava.
We can see those Penguins! Our boats all then headed off to the nature trail in the opposite direction...ooooh we hoped they would still be around later!
We landed at the trail and immediately saw hoards of Marine Iguana's sunbathing on top of one another.
The landscape was so different to the other islands we had visited. The Marine Iguanas here seemed so suited to this volcanic landscape.
'Shark Roasting Area?'. Ok. This is where White Tipped Reef Sharks are sometimes seen in the shallows. We didn't see any up close but saw a fin out in the water as one swam away.
The trail was quite small and we missed some of it out because a large Sealion was blocking the way...but we got the general impression. Excitedly we headed back to the boat to go snorkelling. In reality they wanted us to snorkle in a small inlet, but we hopped out and swam around the other side to try to get a good look at those much sought after Penguins.
Here they are chilling on the rocks, totally disinterested. It was all well worth it!
We swam around the shore line to get these shots from the water.
It was quite overcast so the others in the group were not as enthusiastic to get in. As a result it was quieter for us to view the Penguins.
We swam around the mangrove enclosed bay and tried to look for some Penguin's in the water. Wiji spotted some that we tried to follow, but they were super quick, ducking down and swimming off below the surface.
We swam about searching for them whilst cursing our shonkey snorkle masks and found some cornering a shoal of fish! They were incredibly hard to photograph and we were soon accompanied by a Sealion who wanted to play with us.
When we saw them wizzing around underwater it was spectacular!
Flapping their wins they belted about with little effort in their rubber dinner jackets.
The Sealion half heartedly wanted to get in on the fish cornering action.
Here is a film I managed to take as the Penguins corner the fish in a depression in the seabed. At the end of it are some different fish swimming in the rocky cracked seabed.
After actually seeing the Penguins fishing up close we were elated! It was what we had hoped for and were so lucky we felt as there were so few of them about! We headed back to the rocks to get one last look at the group there.
Swimming around the mangrove roots with the tiny fishes.
Brilliant!
The return journey early the next morning to Santa Cruz wasn't quite as horrific as the one on the way over. We were accompanied by Barbara and her partner (whose name I can't remember...sorry!), a really friendly German couple who had made the various excursions a lot of fun. Also with us was Monica who's company we enjoyed for our last couple of days on the Galapagos. None of us actually spoke during the endless crashing of the boat on the swell on the way back, but everyone seemed to have recovered by the evening (just about anyway), and it was all worthwhile to see those Penguinaunins!
