Hola Amigos!
Yesterday we had decided to go to Otavalo just for the day so we could see the market. At breakfast we hummed and hawwed agian about whether we should take the hostel tour up or take the bus. See on the tour, we don't have to do anything, but it costs $25 a person, but on the bus it costs only $2 a person. We decided to remain with our original plan and take the bus. We grabbed a cab to the bus station. They must be cracking down on having too many people in one vehicle, becuase the cabbie didn't want to take all 5 of us. So we had to pay a little extra, then we were off. He dropped us off just outside the station, and we thought he was jipping us off by not going into the station, but the bus right in front of us was going to Otavalo, so we got on, and 5 minutes later we were on our way. The road was mountainous, and the tv was showing the shopping channel, which didn't have any good deals. About two hours later we arrived in Otavalo. We walked about four blocks and then bam, there we were in full on market. There was a large square filled completely with stalls and stalls spreading out on the streets leading to the square for several blocks in most directions. The main square was filled with tourist stalls, with the side streets having the local needs. The tourist stalls were filled with sweaters, weavings, wood stuff, etc, etc, the standard. The stall owners were polite and not really pushy at all. Sara and myself headed out, and picked up a number of things. The bargining was not aggressive either, it was pretty easy to get what you wanted, at a realitively good price. After a couple of hours it started to rain, which put a dampner on things, as many of the stalls cover there stuff up. We were getting hungry by this point and headed to a pizza place. I was still scared of pizza after food posioning in Tena, and so ordered the pasta, what a mistake as the pizza the others got was great. Sara says better than great, it was phenomenal, as it was cooked in a wood fired oven. The place was dutch owned, but they didn't skimp on flavor.
After lunch it continued to rain, but we strolled through the plaza again on the way to the bus depot. About 30 percent of the stalls were already packed up as 3pm. The buses to Quito were all lined up, and as soon as one was full, the next one started loading. We got on the second bus, and only waited 5-7 minutes for it to fill up. I napped on and off for the two hours back to Quito.
After reading for a while we went back to the place we had eaten at the night before for dinner. Red Hot Chilly Peppers, a Mexican place that served the best fajitas. You got the tortilla shells all warm with a plate of rice, guacamole, beans, and cheese, as well as a shizzlingly hot plate of beer and onions. It was very good. I had chocolate ice cream for dessert, everyone else was full, but they all were drooling over it.
Today we slept in. It was very nice to sleep in. After a late breakfast we started walking towards Old Town Quito. In the park on the way there was quite a number of vendors selling similar stuff to that which we saw yesterday in Otavalo. We found one original stall selling some nice silver jewelery, which Sara enjoyed, and purchased. Just as we got to the Grand Plaza we heard music which sounded live drifting out of a building. We entered to explore. In the inner courtyard there was a live band playing some good latin american music. We are not sure if they were from Ecuador or another country. After they played a couple of songs some dancers came out. It was very colorful and entertaining. I think from the sign they were performing part of a latin american opera. After the first set of dancing was complete, Sara got pulled up on stage to dance. She was out 'hipped' by the 10 year old dancer showing her the moves. But she held her own, and did get the moves down in the end. She ended up losing the fan voted favorite to an old Ecuadorian woman, but she placed 2/5. Sara: I think i didnt get first because Elders come first! The elder also seemed to already know the dance. Then the band came out for another set. We bought their CD. After that there was another round of dancing with some scary masked guys. It was very entertaining, we were all very happy we stumbled in on the performance.
After it was done we went into a shop and found for the first time in Ecuador, chocolate. Organic Ecuadorian chocolate, 75% coco at that. What a great find for Easter. We very much so enjoyed it.
We went back to lunch at the place we seem to always eat lunch at while in Old Quito. We finally got the soup that we wanted, and it was all that we had thought it was going to be, and maybe a little more. Probably my favorite soup so far, and that is saying alot. Sara enjoyed the cheese and potato empanada, I was getting full, and thought it was so so.
We were on a culture kick after seeing the great performance in the morning, so we were very excited to find a theater across the street from the restruant that had a performance on that afternoon. We bought our tickets at the flower shop (very cheap flowers here, a dozen roses for $1.90, if we lived here Sara would get more flowers) and went into the old theatre which was massive, but had fire damage. The upstairs had been badly damaged and the roof over the seating area was replaced. There was probably 20 people to watch the show, in a 250 person theatre. It was a clown comedy with street type acts. Juggling with errors, unicycle, and to finish off a ribbon act where they hang from the ceiling. It was all in spanish, and the actors were young and made mistakes. The performances were not as skilled as those you see in the street performance festivals in North America over the summer. However I didn't mind it. The best was the female clown who looked and acted very much like our good friend Jen Pebbles. Jen I think that we have found your Spanish speaking sister, because sometime I thought it may have been you up there. During the performance it poured outside, which made quite a drumming on the new metal roof, so much so that you couldn't hear the performance.
After the show had ended it was 4:30pm, so we jumped on the trolley and headed back to our hotel. Just after I started writing this a group of 30 young Quebec students arrived at the hotel. They are very loud. It will be interesting how much sleep we get tonight. Tomorrow in the evening we head home. I'm not sure if we are going to spend more time in Old Quito tomorrow or head to a tourist attraction on the Equator. Either way, I am having trouble thinking will all this loud french around me, so until later. Happy Easter.
Tyson and Sara
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
I'm a little moutain goat
On Tuesday morning we ate breakfast and got into our MASSIVE merceds benz van that you could play table tennis in. It was a 16 seat van for 5 people and a driver. So very roomy lol. Tyson was feeling somewhat better and we were driving most of the day anyways. We started on the Pan-american highway also called the "Volcano highway" because it is said on a clear day in Quito (I would like to see that ever happen!.. its always cloudy!) you can see 50 volcanoes (I say 10, Tyson says 50 i think he is making it up!) Anyways it was cloudy so we could only see a couple not the very big ones.
We drove through Latacunga and started up the south side of the Quilotoa loop and got out a places that we wanted to take photos and along the way there was this little village boy who asked us if we wanted to see his house and family. We knew he wanted money but we were interested anyways. So we got out and went to see his family and home. His family consisted of 3 younger sisters, an older brother and sister, and his mom and dad and his grandma who kept picking up the noisy rooster and petting it and telling it to shhhh.. like it was a family pet. There was a big sow (pig) at the back of the house and a dog who looked like Benji the dog all white and matted. There where also chickens kicking around. The house was made out of dirt cut into the side of the hill with a thatched roof. It was very small inside, Tyson says it was bigger than a Yurt but i disagree. Inside they cooked on a open fire and a propane stove. They slept on the floor with blankets and hay and there was some stuffed animals for the kids. They had a bunch of random stuff. But it looked like it would be a hard life to be a farmer as it gets cold in the Andes and no heat except a fire and there is no trees for firewood so there would not be a lot of fire happening.
After many photos we said we were only going to give them 3 dollars total, but we ended up giving them 3 dollars each as there hands were all over us. The children especially.
Once we left we could see they were sorting out who got what portion of the money most of it went to the dad. We continued driving all the way up until we got to this place that our Guide Carlos who was also our driver and the owner of our hostel in Quito said Tourists have said that this spot looks like Maccu Picchu (sp?). It will be neat to compare photos of Miriams travels to Peru to see how similar Ecuadors landscape is.
After driving for an hour or so more we stopped at Laguna Quilotoa where we had a sketchy lunch of cold rice and semi warm quina soup. All i could think about was stupid food safety class when they said you shouldnt eat cold rice. I had 2 bites just so i woulnt be starving when we started to hike. After lunch we decended down to the Laguna. It was cloudy as usual and it was a big active volcano crater with a lake at the bottom. It hasnt erupted anytime recently but it did have sulphour dioxide bubbling through the lake. There was also a man playing the trumpet and we could hear him as we were walking down which was cool. The walk down was easy peasy... but you know when you go down you gotta go back up! Leann tried the mans trumpet as he offered it to her... she was decent since she hasn't played the troumbone in 7 years or so. You could buy a donkey to ride back up but since we are a family of mountain goats and cheap we hiked the grueling way up to the top.
It was a hard hike up. Very steep and Tyson had no energy and he struggled, and Marilyn was so fast that I was determined to keep up to her! We both finished first (not that its a competition! ) but i had massive cold sweats after from being all sweaty and not getting a shower after, and i was shaky from not eating very much lunch. There were stalls selling village alpaca and wool toques, sweaters, and scraves and we walked around a bit before picking up a couple things.
We stopped at a smalls store that had very little to offer for snacks but we found crackers and cookies, and animal cookies that tasted better than we thought they would! We drove on a very bumpy dirt road that would have been better if we had a 4wheel drive vehicale and some of the drop offs were scary... shh mom were fine! We drove for about an hour and bit to a small town called Chugchilan where the town was a size of a pea. There was a main square that had 2 volleyball courts and a church. There were 3 hostals. We stayed at Cloud Forest I was freezing and so we chose a room with a fireplace in it. An old wooden stove one and it kept us toasty warm but the beds were gross and our light in our bathroom didnt work all that well, and we couldnt figure out how to get hot water. After resting for awhile we went back to watch some volleyball in the main square before dinner. While there we saw a bunch of girls getting all dressed up in what looked like costumes. We thought they were going to be rehearsing somewhere for a Easter dance/show. We joked about following them. The volleyball is played three on three with a soccer ball, and I think nets that are higher than normal. None of the players are tall enough to spike, and since they use such a heavy hard ball, they carry a lot. But they are amazing at one handed digs (as diving was a no-no on the cement court) and one handed sets.
We returned to our hotel at 7pm, and decided to wait in the common area before dinner at 7:30. Good for us, becuase that is where the little girls showed up to, and they put on a dance show. There was lots of problems with the CD boombox, but eventually they got going. They did three dances, the first just dancing around, the second with a pole which had fabric tied onto the top. They danced around and weaved the fabric around the pole in different ways as they danced around. What was more amazing was that after they had weaved all the fabic into a patten, they switched directions and undid the entire process. The third dance was an audiance participation. We all got up and danced along and were very tired by the end, as the CD kept stopping, so we'd start at the beginning again. We were all ready for dinner after the jumping dance.
Dinner was salty. Soup first as usual, I am getting sick of eating soup at every meal. Then the main course of cold rice, a sasauge type thing, and a plantane type thing. I don't know, I (tyson) still didn't have much of an appiete. The dessert was good, a chocolate filled pastry.
The next day the original plan was to walk all the way around the Laguna Quilotoa crater, but nobody was interested in walking around something we just walked down and back up. So we arranged for a local guide to take us to the cloud forest from Chugchilan. So we headed up from the village up the old Inca trail that was used to get to the coast. The guide would stop every once and a while to show some local medicinal plants or herbs. One was for stomach, the other for the back, the other for the nevous system, one for colds, and so on. To me (tyson) they either smelt like beans or mint. The others said they had distinct smells, but I don't know. We hiked up and up. It is crazy that as we reached 4000 meters above sea level there was still farms growing corn, beans, wheat, potatoes (not doing so well this year) and lot of onions. Nothing grows at that elevation in Canada. I guess that is the benefit of having no winter. The fields are not terraced at all, and sit at about at a 45 degree angle, and the soil is quite sandy. Not easy farming by any means, as most of it is worked by hand. We got to the top of the hill where it is said you can see the Pacific Ocean and the Coast but it was as usual cloudy! So we saw blue far ahead and the guide said the Ocean was only 100km away but we had our doubts. We pretended that the blue was the ocean. From the hill we descended into the Cloud Forest. Marilyn was itching to get into the National Park , I (Sara) was itching to be done the hike.
Cloud Forest has some pine trees, lichen, moss, a very moist place. Reminded Tyson of the West Coast forest but not so tall of trees. We only walked in the Park for like 10 minutes max and then we came back out. It was getting late and it was too late to go to the Cheese Factory and our guide Banardo had brought us some very stall buns to eat that he wanted to give to us at the cheese factory so we could have cheese on it. Oh well we just ate plain buns. We decided to make our way back so we wouldnt have to drive in the dark... which we ended up doing anyways.. more about that in a minute. We walked back, most of it down hill until we got to the road and then we had to climb the gravel road back up to the town. We were all tired and hungry and sweaty. We said thank you to Bernado as this is the third guide we have had on this journey that has been so knowledgable and kind. To me it just seems that people here are more connected to thier natural sourroundings then in Canada but maybe we just lucked out on really great guides. We gave him more tip than he asked for because he was so good. We had lunch of french fries and chicken and those tasty little pastry filled chocolate things. Lunch was actually pretty good, we had soup of course to begin with. For the record for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and the room and drinks, it came to 32 US dollars for 2 people.
After lunch we loaded up the benz and went back the same way we came our original plan was to stay the night in Latacunga but Carlos was worried where he would park his benz as I guess it would not have been safe there and he wanted to get us to Cotopaxi Volcano early in the morning hoping the views would be better. So we drove longer in the dark, we were all getting tired of driving we played many driving games. Such as, lets name all 50 states, lets name all European countries, "I am going on a camping trip and i am going to bring...." No you cant come! "My aunt Sally" and Tysons own version called "my aunt frank... " we were getting fed up with eachother when we couldnt figure out the pattern of the games we made up. At around 7:30 we got to this place that was 15 minutes from Latacunga called La Posada de Rey it was quite fancy we were all worried about how much the place would cost as Tysona and I ran out of money and had to borrow from mini bank Leann! The rooms were really nice with fireplaces (nicer than the Cloud Forest Hotel) and the comfiest beds in all of Ecuador and a hot shower (well we did, no one else did?) We all had pasta for dinner and it was massive and we had french fries too but didnt need them. Tyson and I also watched the ending of Americas next top model in Spanish while waiting for dinner. Tyra banks still sounds the same in Spanish.. just as annoying. We even knew which girl she was going to kick off by her facial expressions you dont even need to know what she is saying. Anyways!
Leann and us had our fire places lit and then we all went to bed as we had one more day of hiking left. The next morning we had a very thin breakfast of toast.. i was super excited for TOAST! But that was all we got... i was starving. I had to eat the crackers we bought the day before to supplement the lack of food. We then drove to a gas station where we switched our benz for a Mistibushi 4wheel SUV. It was sweet. I wanted it. There was two seats in the trunk and it had all sorts of gadgets and it would be a fun vehical to have. Tyson says if i was going off roading i could get it.. but i said it was style i was looking for. The guide we had for the park was Carlos as well we called him Carlos duex. We drove for like an hour and a half to the lagoon which was kind of boring.. not like the lagoons in Galapagos its not as fun when you cant be 2feet away from the wildlife. After walking for like 10 minutes we hopped back on the red SUV and continued our way up and up, and up to 4500meters and the parking lot. We got out and got ready for our climb first up to the Refuge and then up to the Glacier. The climb us was strenuous with the altitude and the steepness. It took us 30 minutes where as it usually takes people 45 minutes Carlos one said we were very strong fast hikers. There was snow on the ground and when we got to the Refuge at 4800meters I made a small snowman. We took a 10 minute break before we ascended up to the glacier. We were the first ones up that day as there was no trail broken for us. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the top where the altitude was 5019meters above sea level. We all had a tiny bit of headaches, Peter had the worse as he gets really bad migranes. We stayed at the top and cracked open a bag of Ripples Sour creme and onion chips. They tasted so good as we were all a little shaky. We took our photos and Tyson wanted to of course keep going up but we would need Crampons, ice axes, and ropes so it wasn't possible that day. (That is right Sara, we'll have to climb it someday, it is only 5 hours from there to the summit at 5897 meters the second highest volcano in Ecuador.
We descended down and it tooks us very little time. We wanted to hang out in the Refuge place for a bit but it was overtaken by a group of highschool kids who were loud and obnoxious as highschool students are. So we decided to keep going down after a 5 minute water and snack break. It took us no time to get down as it was soft sandy dirt so you could almost run down. We saw a fox on the way down.
After we were in the vehical I had a massive headache. It went away once we started going down though and once i drank more water. Peter however got worse. He wasnt feeling well the whole night. We were all quiet the ride back to Quito was about 2 hours or less. We asked Carlos to drop us off at a mall where this store called Marathon sports was located so we could find soccer jerseys. The mall was big and nice like any fancy mall. The prices were the same too as in Cananda, except the soccer jerseys were good prices. I couldnt find any small jerseys that were nicer fitting, so Tyson got one that he said i could borrow sometimes. We were all tired, and we couldnt get any money out of the banks as it seems only one bank in Quito will give us money. So we borrowed from mini bank Leann again. We had a small snack at the food court, Marilyn, Leann and I had cinnamon buns from Cinabon which tasted nothing like cinnamon more like chocolate bun, it was still good. Tyson had what he thought was a cheese bun but it turned out to be sweet in the middle with 2 raisons but cheese like on the outside.. wierd. He then had icecream. Carlos picked us up and we went back to the hostel to shower and check internet and get ready for dinner.
Peter didnt come to dinner as his head was that bad, so we went back to El Maples hoping for a good meal again. We were kind of disappointed as the spaghetti didnt taste as good as the last time, they were out of 3 things we tried to order. But the samosas were good and the avacado was good too. We tried to explain to the waiter we wanted nachos with no salsa just cheese and gucamole, but he didnt get it... the nachos turned to be soggy again. We then came back and went to bed.
Today we slept in a bit and got ready for the Good Friday Procession in Old Town Quito. We left the hostel at 9:30 and took the packed trolly down to the square. We arrived at about 10:15 and the procession started at 11. The parade route was already starting to fill up. At 11am the procession began. We got some spots on the sidewalk but our bums throught the procession got really sore and Marilyn is claustrophobic in large crowds so she wasnt enjoying it all that much. The procession was a little scary, men carrying huge wooden crosses like Jesus did, and dragging them through the street some men had big metal chains around thier ankles, and some even had barbwire wrapped around thier chest area, and others where whipping themselves with branches you could see the red marks on thier backs. There was alot of people dressed up in purple robes with pointy hoods that covered thier face and two holes for eyes it looked like the Kuklux Clan but it wasnt meant to be in that way we are sure, I think it was back to the Gothic age of Catholicism. But that was the whole parade, people dressed in purple robes, tons of men carrying crosses, people whipping themselves, marching bands, and 3 floats that had a virgin mary, 2 Jesus' at the end. The whole procession took 2 hours and the sun came out and it became hot.
Once it was over we decided to go out of the way to put some sunscreen on and then make our way to a lunch spot we had eaten the first day we were in Quito. However a terrible thing happened as we crossed the parade route through the MASSIVE crowd (probably about half a million people where there to watch) Leann was pickpocketed. She didnt realize it until we got out of the crowd and i could hear her swearing. We got some open space and she looked in all her pockets and backpack.. but nope her wallet was gone. It had her debit card, her visa and 100 bucks. My backpocket zipper was also open but i had nothing in my pants at all but I still felt violated that someone could have stolen something out of there. Leann was pretty shooken up as one would be. She was just happy that they didnt take anything out of her backpack which contained her camera, ipod and passport. I now have her passport in with mine in my money pouch which i wear on me under my clothes at all times. We decided after lunch that we would come back to the hostel so she could cancel all her cards to make sure no one could charge to them. But it was still shitty. At lunch we didnt get the soup we wanted as they said they were out so we got empanadas and a different soup which wasnt that good. Then as we were walking out I spotted some tourists eating the soup I wanted and I asked hey what kind of soup is that? To which they replied the first one on the board which is the one we wanted pototo and avacado i was so mad because they must have just made a new fresh batch and we didnt get any :(. NO SOUP FOR YOU! Sienfield...
On the way back to the hostel we found a bakery and we all got a little treat after going around in a circle twice on the trolly... we were confused but so where a lot of other people. Its been a relaxing day for the most part and tomorrow morning we are getting up early to take the bus to Otavalo for the morning/afternoon and then taking it back to Quito. We just want to go to the big Saturday Market that is supposed to be good for souviners, so hopefully it is because we dont really have anything for anyone or ourselves yet.
Well there you go all caught up.. we will spend Sunday in Quito around old town.
Monday night we leave Quito for Atlanta and arrive back in Edmonton on Tuesday afternoon.
Adios Amigos
Sara and Tyson
We drove through Latacunga and started up the south side of the Quilotoa loop and got out a places that we wanted to take photos and along the way there was this little village boy who asked us if we wanted to see his house and family. We knew he wanted money but we were interested anyways. So we got out and went to see his family and home. His family consisted of 3 younger sisters, an older brother and sister, and his mom and dad and his grandma who kept picking up the noisy rooster and petting it and telling it to shhhh.. like it was a family pet. There was a big sow (pig) at the back of the house and a dog who looked like Benji the dog all white and matted. There where also chickens kicking around. The house was made out of dirt cut into the side of the hill with a thatched roof. It was very small inside, Tyson says it was bigger than a Yurt but i disagree. Inside they cooked on a open fire and a propane stove. They slept on the floor with blankets and hay and there was some stuffed animals for the kids. They had a bunch of random stuff. But it looked like it would be a hard life to be a farmer as it gets cold in the Andes and no heat except a fire and there is no trees for firewood so there would not be a lot of fire happening.
After many photos we said we were only going to give them 3 dollars total, but we ended up giving them 3 dollars each as there hands were all over us. The children especially.
Once we left we could see they were sorting out who got what portion of the money most of it went to the dad. We continued driving all the way up until we got to this place that our Guide Carlos who was also our driver and the owner of our hostel in Quito said Tourists have said that this spot looks like Maccu Picchu (sp?). It will be neat to compare photos of Miriams travels to Peru to see how similar Ecuadors landscape is.
After driving for an hour or so more we stopped at Laguna Quilotoa where we had a sketchy lunch of cold rice and semi warm quina soup. All i could think about was stupid food safety class when they said you shouldnt eat cold rice. I had 2 bites just so i woulnt be starving when we started to hike. After lunch we decended down to the Laguna. It was cloudy as usual and it was a big active volcano crater with a lake at the bottom. It hasnt erupted anytime recently but it did have sulphour dioxide bubbling through the lake. There was also a man playing the trumpet and we could hear him as we were walking down which was cool. The walk down was easy peasy... but you know when you go down you gotta go back up! Leann tried the mans trumpet as he offered it to her... she was decent since she hasn't played the troumbone in 7 years or so. You could buy a donkey to ride back up but since we are a family of mountain goats and cheap we hiked the grueling way up to the top.
It was a hard hike up. Very steep and Tyson had no energy and he struggled, and Marilyn was so fast that I was determined to keep up to her! We both finished first (not that its a competition! ) but i had massive cold sweats after from being all sweaty and not getting a shower after, and i was shaky from not eating very much lunch. There were stalls selling village alpaca and wool toques, sweaters, and scraves and we walked around a bit before picking up a couple things.
We stopped at a smalls store that had very little to offer for snacks but we found crackers and cookies, and animal cookies that tasted better than we thought they would! We drove on a very bumpy dirt road that would have been better if we had a 4wheel drive vehicale and some of the drop offs were scary... shh mom were fine! We drove for about an hour and bit to a small town called Chugchilan where the town was a size of a pea. There was a main square that had 2 volleyball courts and a church. There were 3 hostals. We stayed at Cloud Forest I was freezing and so we chose a room with a fireplace in it. An old wooden stove one and it kept us toasty warm but the beds were gross and our light in our bathroom didnt work all that well, and we couldnt figure out how to get hot water. After resting for awhile we went back to watch some volleyball in the main square before dinner. While there we saw a bunch of girls getting all dressed up in what looked like costumes. We thought they were going to be rehearsing somewhere for a Easter dance/show. We joked about following them. The volleyball is played three on three with a soccer ball, and I think nets that are higher than normal. None of the players are tall enough to spike, and since they use such a heavy hard ball, they carry a lot. But they are amazing at one handed digs (as diving was a no-no on the cement court) and one handed sets.
We returned to our hotel at 7pm, and decided to wait in the common area before dinner at 7:30. Good for us, becuase that is where the little girls showed up to, and they put on a dance show. There was lots of problems with the CD boombox, but eventually they got going. They did three dances, the first just dancing around, the second with a pole which had fabric tied onto the top. They danced around and weaved the fabric around the pole in different ways as they danced around. What was more amazing was that after they had weaved all the fabic into a patten, they switched directions and undid the entire process. The third dance was an audiance participation. We all got up and danced along and were very tired by the end, as the CD kept stopping, so we'd start at the beginning again. We were all ready for dinner after the jumping dance.
Dinner was salty. Soup first as usual, I am getting sick of eating soup at every meal. Then the main course of cold rice, a sasauge type thing, and a plantane type thing. I don't know, I (tyson) still didn't have much of an appiete. The dessert was good, a chocolate filled pastry.
The next day the original plan was to walk all the way around the Laguna Quilotoa crater, but nobody was interested in walking around something we just walked down and back up. So we arranged for a local guide to take us to the cloud forest from Chugchilan. So we headed up from the village up the old Inca trail that was used to get to the coast. The guide would stop every once and a while to show some local medicinal plants or herbs. One was for stomach, the other for the back, the other for the nevous system, one for colds, and so on. To me (tyson) they either smelt like beans or mint. The others said they had distinct smells, but I don't know. We hiked up and up. It is crazy that as we reached 4000 meters above sea level there was still farms growing corn, beans, wheat, potatoes (not doing so well this year) and lot of onions. Nothing grows at that elevation in Canada. I guess that is the benefit of having no winter. The fields are not terraced at all, and sit at about at a 45 degree angle, and the soil is quite sandy. Not easy farming by any means, as most of it is worked by hand. We got to the top of the hill where it is said you can see the Pacific Ocean and the Coast but it was as usual cloudy! So we saw blue far ahead and the guide said the Ocean was only 100km away but we had our doubts. We pretended that the blue was the ocean. From the hill we descended into the Cloud Forest. Marilyn was itching to get into the National Park , I (Sara) was itching to be done the hike.
Cloud Forest has some pine trees, lichen, moss, a very moist place. Reminded Tyson of the West Coast forest but not so tall of trees. We only walked in the Park for like 10 minutes max and then we came back out. It was getting late and it was too late to go to the Cheese Factory and our guide Banardo had brought us some very stall buns to eat that he wanted to give to us at the cheese factory so we could have cheese on it. Oh well we just ate plain buns. We decided to make our way back so we wouldnt have to drive in the dark... which we ended up doing anyways.. more about that in a minute. We walked back, most of it down hill until we got to the road and then we had to climb the gravel road back up to the town. We were all tired and hungry and sweaty. We said thank you to Bernado as this is the third guide we have had on this journey that has been so knowledgable and kind. To me it just seems that people here are more connected to thier natural sourroundings then in Canada but maybe we just lucked out on really great guides. We gave him more tip than he asked for because he was so good. We had lunch of french fries and chicken and those tasty little pastry filled chocolate things. Lunch was actually pretty good, we had soup of course to begin with. For the record for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and the room and drinks, it came to 32 US dollars for 2 people.
After lunch we loaded up the benz and went back the same way we came our original plan was to stay the night in Latacunga but Carlos was worried where he would park his benz as I guess it would not have been safe there and he wanted to get us to Cotopaxi Volcano early in the morning hoping the views would be better. So we drove longer in the dark, we were all getting tired of driving we played many driving games. Such as, lets name all 50 states, lets name all European countries, "I am going on a camping trip and i am going to bring...." No you cant come! "My aunt Sally" and Tysons own version called "my aunt frank... " we were getting fed up with eachother when we couldnt figure out the pattern of the games we made up. At around 7:30 we got to this place that was 15 minutes from Latacunga called La Posada de Rey it was quite fancy we were all worried about how much the place would cost as Tysona and I ran out of money and had to borrow from mini bank Leann! The rooms were really nice with fireplaces (nicer than the Cloud Forest Hotel) and the comfiest beds in all of Ecuador and a hot shower (well we did, no one else did?) We all had pasta for dinner and it was massive and we had french fries too but didnt need them. Tyson and I also watched the ending of Americas next top model in Spanish while waiting for dinner. Tyra banks still sounds the same in Spanish.. just as annoying. We even knew which girl she was going to kick off by her facial expressions you dont even need to know what she is saying. Anyways!
Leann and us had our fire places lit and then we all went to bed as we had one more day of hiking left. The next morning we had a very thin breakfast of toast.. i was super excited for TOAST! But that was all we got... i was starving. I had to eat the crackers we bought the day before to supplement the lack of food. We then drove to a gas station where we switched our benz for a Mistibushi 4wheel SUV. It was sweet. I wanted it. There was two seats in the trunk and it had all sorts of gadgets and it would be a fun vehical to have. Tyson says if i was going off roading i could get it.. but i said it was style i was looking for. The guide we had for the park was Carlos as well we called him Carlos duex. We drove for like an hour and a half to the lagoon which was kind of boring.. not like the lagoons in Galapagos its not as fun when you cant be 2feet away from the wildlife. After walking for like 10 minutes we hopped back on the red SUV and continued our way up and up, and up to 4500meters and the parking lot. We got out and got ready for our climb first up to the Refuge and then up to the Glacier. The climb us was strenuous with the altitude and the steepness. It took us 30 minutes where as it usually takes people 45 minutes Carlos one said we were very strong fast hikers. There was snow on the ground and when we got to the Refuge at 4800meters I made a small snowman. We took a 10 minute break before we ascended up to the glacier. We were the first ones up that day as there was no trail broken for us. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the top where the altitude was 5019meters above sea level. We all had a tiny bit of headaches, Peter had the worse as he gets really bad migranes. We stayed at the top and cracked open a bag of Ripples Sour creme and onion chips. They tasted so good as we were all a little shaky. We took our photos and Tyson wanted to of course keep going up but we would need Crampons, ice axes, and ropes so it wasn't possible that day. (That is right Sara, we'll have to climb it someday, it is only 5 hours from there to the summit at 5897 meters the second highest volcano in Ecuador.
We descended down and it tooks us very little time. We wanted to hang out in the Refuge place for a bit but it was overtaken by a group of highschool kids who were loud and obnoxious as highschool students are. So we decided to keep going down after a 5 minute water and snack break. It took us no time to get down as it was soft sandy dirt so you could almost run down. We saw a fox on the way down.
After we were in the vehical I had a massive headache. It went away once we started going down though and once i drank more water. Peter however got worse. He wasnt feeling well the whole night. We were all quiet the ride back to Quito was about 2 hours or less. We asked Carlos to drop us off at a mall where this store called Marathon sports was located so we could find soccer jerseys. The mall was big and nice like any fancy mall. The prices were the same too as in Cananda, except the soccer jerseys were good prices. I couldnt find any small jerseys that were nicer fitting, so Tyson got one that he said i could borrow sometimes. We were all tired, and we couldnt get any money out of the banks as it seems only one bank in Quito will give us money. So we borrowed from mini bank Leann again. We had a small snack at the food court, Marilyn, Leann and I had cinnamon buns from Cinabon which tasted nothing like cinnamon more like chocolate bun, it was still good. Tyson had what he thought was a cheese bun but it turned out to be sweet in the middle with 2 raisons but cheese like on the outside.. wierd. He then had icecream. Carlos picked us up and we went back to the hostel to shower and check internet and get ready for dinner.
Peter didnt come to dinner as his head was that bad, so we went back to El Maples hoping for a good meal again. We were kind of disappointed as the spaghetti didnt taste as good as the last time, they were out of 3 things we tried to order. But the samosas were good and the avacado was good too. We tried to explain to the waiter we wanted nachos with no salsa just cheese and gucamole, but he didnt get it... the nachos turned to be soggy again. We then came back and went to bed.
Today we slept in a bit and got ready for the Good Friday Procession in Old Town Quito. We left the hostel at 9:30 and took the packed trolly down to the square. We arrived at about 10:15 and the procession started at 11. The parade route was already starting to fill up. At 11am the procession began. We got some spots on the sidewalk but our bums throught the procession got really sore and Marilyn is claustrophobic in large crowds so she wasnt enjoying it all that much. The procession was a little scary, men carrying huge wooden crosses like Jesus did, and dragging them through the street some men had big metal chains around thier ankles, and some even had barbwire wrapped around thier chest area, and others where whipping themselves with branches you could see the red marks on thier backs. There was alot of people dressed up in purple robes with pointy hoods that covered thier face and two holes for eyes it looked like the Kuklux Clan but it wasnt meant to be in that way we are sure, I think it was back to the Gothic age of Catholicism. But that was the whole parade, people dressed in purple robes, tons of men carrying crosses, people whipping themselves, marching bands, and 3 floats that had a virgin mary, 2 Jesus' at the end. The whole procession took 2 hours and the sun came out and it became hot.
Once it was over we decided to go out of the way to put some sunscreen on and then make our way to a lunch spot we had eaten the first day we were in Quito. However a terrible thing happened as we crossed the parade route through the MASSIVE crowd (probably about half a million people where there to watch) Leann was pickpocketed. She didnt realize it until we got out of the crowd and i could hear her swearing. We got some open space and she looked in all her pockets and backpack.. but nope her wallet was gone. It had her debit card, her visa and 100 bucks. My backpocket zipper was also open but i had nothing in my pants at all but I still felt violated that someone could have stolen something out of there. Leann was pretty shooken up as one would be. She was just happy that they didnt take anything out of her backpack which contained her camera, ipod and passport. I now have her passport in with mine in my money pouch which i wear on me under my clothes at all times. We decided after lunch that we would come back to the hostel so she could cancel all her cards to make sure no one could charge to them. But it was still shitty. At lunch we didnt get the soup we wanted as they said they were out so we got empanadas and a different soup which wasnt that good. Then as we were walking out I spotted some tourists eating the soup I wanted and I asked hey what kind of soup is that? To which they replied the first one on the board which is the one we wanted pototo and avacado i was so mad because they must have just made a new fresh batch and we didnt get any :(. NO SOUP FOR YOU! Sienfield...
On the way back to the hostel we found a bakery and we all got a little treat after going around in a circle twice on the trolly... we were confused but so where a lot of other people. Its been a relaxing day for the most part and tomorrow morning we are getting up early to take the bus to Otavalo for the morning/afternoon and then taking it back to Quito. We just want to go to the big Saturday Market that is supposed to be good for souviners, so hopefully it is because we dont really have anything for anyone or ourselves yet.
Well there you go all caught up.. we will spend Sunday in Quito around old town.
Monday night we leave Quito for Atlanta and arrive back in Edmonton on Tuesday afternoon.
Adios Amigos
Sara and Tyson
Monday, April 6, 2009
Miguel take me to your cabin!
I am crying inside, my heart is broken we are back in rainy Quito and I long for the morning when i was just waking up in my catamaran boat eating my breakfast looking at a beautiful island or checking the back of the boat to see if any sealions were sleeping there. Sigh... this may be a depressing blog as i am really quite sad to leave the Galapagos. This morning we left with our bags packed at 8:00am to where we went to the Interpretation muesum that explained how the islands where formed, the first settlers, etc, etc. It was kind of boring. Some what interested but all i could think of was wanting to be back in the catamaran getting my bathing suit on and my snorkling gear ready.
Where did we leave off? It might pain me to remember those last few days as i sit in Rainy Quito wearing layers upon layers watching my tan fade away.
Day 6 : North Seamore
Bare with me as I try to remember all of this. We went snorkling in the afternoon and in the morning we did some sort of hike, I think maybe with lots of boobies and frigate birds. I remember the snorkeling not being very good because the visibility was not good. It was a little quiet on the boat after 9 of the passangers left. A little sad too, just didnt feel the same. But lets get to what I remember and jump to day 7. Oh one more note Leann and I played some sort of card game called 40 where your on teams of 2 and she was on the bartendars team his name is William and I was on the cabin boys team his name is Peter. Now at first we were just playing for fun trying to understand the game and then we started betting on beers. Lets just say I think william the bartender was scamming us so he could get some buisness haha i love that guy though he was soo funny! Peter and I ended up losing 3 times so i had to buy leann 3 beers! Not cheap either! HAHA.
Silly Sara, she forgot all about Dragon Hill. In the morning on day 6 we woke up on the north east side of Santa Cruz, and we were all by ourselves. We went to shore, and did a walk around Dragon Hill, which doesn't actually have dragons, but they are pretty close. We first walked by another lagoon with a flamingo, saw a bunch of other shore birds before heading inland. The dragons are actually land ignunas that don't go into the ocean to feed, and because it is just after breeding season they were still a magnificant yellow and red in color. Then we sailed to North Seamore where we did a walk and a snorkle. On the walk we saw tons of nesting frigate birds and boobies. And I agree with Sara that the snorkelling wasn't the best due to the cloudiness of the water.
Day 7: Barthalamew and Rabidid (SP??)
These days were awesome. A very full day. In the morning we got up uber early 6:00am no breakfast to go climb the volcanoe of Barthalamew before the other huge cruise ship of 100 people got to it. It was nice there was on smaller ship about the same size of ours who started before us but it gave us plenty of time to do the hike with the sunrising. It was specatcular, very scenic with the other volcanoes in the distance and the ocean. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes but we were all getting a little hungry from not having eaten breakfast yet. We had breakfast and then we went snorkeling. It was pretty scary as there was a shark that was very close to my feet in very shallow water and i was really scared, but apparently these reef sharks don't bite and all the other tourists where swarming around the 3 of them as they were circling them, crazy tourists!! Those where the cruise ship tourists. The beach was kind of packed and we were all a little disappointed that the cruise ship where there! But we snorkled anyways and we saw reef sharks, tropical fish, and PENGUINS swam with us but they are extremely fast. The best part was after we went snorkeling and we were on the dingy (small raft) there where dolphins near by, so our dingy driver took us there and we got to snorkel or attempt to snorkel with the dolphins! It was hard to keep up to them and both Tyson and I saw 2 right underneath us when we jumped in but they were off in as second, and Marliyn said she had 5 around her for a brief second! SO awesome. The only thing we have not snorkled with is sea turtles but we have seen a dozen of them.
We then sailed to Rabidad where it was BLAZING hot, the guide said it was pushing 37 degrees celisus. None of us wanted to walk as there was no wildlife at this island the flamingos where not in the salty lagoon so we walked really fast only to take off our clothes very fast and jump into the water. We snorkled for about an hour and a half and it was awesome! Saw more sharks, sealions where playing with us for a bit, lots of neat starfish, and fish in general. It was a really good snorkel and we were all very tired when we got back on the boat. Also sad because we knew tomorrow we were leaving. We began sailing back to San Cristobal where we left to go back to Quito.
So now we are here at the Travellers Inn our base Hostel here in Quito. I feel like i am still on the boat and mixed with the altitude since being at sealevel i feel very light headed and like i am rocking back and forth its like being drunk for free. Our plan was to go to Latatunga right from the airport and hop on a bus but it was late when we got into Quito (445pm) later than we had wanted to go. So we are just trying to decide what our plan will be for Tuesday-Thursday, where we will come back to Quito Thursday to see the Good Friday Procession in Quito and then try to get to Otavalo for Saturday-Sunday and fly home Monday night back to Edmonton. Hopefully my tan is still there or no one will believe me that i was in a hot destination! Which is ooo so important!
I should explain the title of the blog because it won't make sense unless I do. Miguel was our captain on the Archipell 2 catamaran boat. Think of Miguel like a Ecuadorian George Cloony, or a Mc.Dreamy if you can put an Ecuadorian twist to that, the point is that he was a hot older man. So Leann and I kept cracking jokes such as "El Capitan take me to your cabin" or "Miguel show me the ways of the sea", etc, etc. It was a fun week to say the least.
But I should go Tyson isn't feeling well still, has a fever i guess, and I am getting hungry.
I think Tyson slept 18 hours yesterday. He still has a bit of a headace, but his fever is less than it was. Hopefully I can get better soon. Off to the Andes today.
Talk to you later!!!
Sara and Tyson
Missing the Galapagos already!
Where did we leave off? It might pain me to remember those last few days as i sit in Rainy Quito wearing layers upon layers watching my tan fade away.
Day 6 : North Seamore
Bare with me as I try to remember all of this. We went snorkling in the afternoon and in the morning we did some sort of hike, I think maybe with lots of boobies and frigate birds. I remember the snorkeling not being very good because the visibility was not good. It was a little quiet on the boat after 9 of the passangers left. A little sad too, just didnt feel the same. But lets get to what I remember and jump to day 7. Oh one more note Leann and I played some sort of card game called 40 where your on teams of 2 and she was on the bartendars team his name is William and I was on the cabin boys team his name is Peter. Now at first we were just playing for fun trying to understand the game and then we started betting on beers. Lets just say I think william the bartender was scamming us so he could get some buisness haha i love that guy though he was soo funny! Peter and I ended up losing 3 times so i had to buy leann 3 beers! Not cheap either! HAHA.
Silly Sara, she forgot all about Dragon Hill. In the morning on day 6 we woke up on the north east side of Santa Cruz, and we were all by ourselves. We went to shore, and did a walk around Dragon Hill, which doesn't actually have dragons, but they are pretty close. We first walked by another lagoon with a flamingo, saw a bunch of other shore birds before heading inland. The dragons are actually land ignunas that don't go into the ocean to feed, and because it is just after breeding season they were still a magnificant yellow and red in color. Then we sailed to North Seamore where we did a walk and a snorkle. On the walk we saw tons of nesting frigate birds and boobies. And I agree with Sara that the snorkelling wasn't the best due to the cloudiness of the water.
Day 7: Barthalamew and Rabidid (SP??)
These days were awesome. A very full day. In the morning we got up uber early 6:00am no breakfast to go climb the volcanoe of Barthalamew before the other huge cruise ship of 100 people got to it. It was nice there was on smaller ship about the same size of ours who started before us but it gave us plenty of time to do the hike with the sunrising. It was specatcular, very scenic with the other volcanoes in the distance and the ocean. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes but we were all getting a little hungry from not having eaten breakfast yet. We had breakfast and then we went snorkeling. It was pretty scary as there was a shark that was very close to my feet in very shallow water and i was really scared, but apparently these reef sharks don't bite and all the other tourists where swarming around the 3 of them as they were circling them, crazy tourists!! Those where the cruise ship tourists. The beach was kind of packed and we were all a little disappointed that the cruise ship where there! But we snorkled anyways and we saw reef sharks, tropical fish, and PENGUINS swam with us but they are extremely fast. The best part was after we went snorkeling and we were on the dingy (small raft) there where dolphins near by, so our dingy driver took us there and we got to snorkel or attempt to snorkel with the dolphins! It was hard to keep up to them and both Tyson and I saw 2 right underneath us when we jumped in but they were off in as second, and Marliyn said she had 5 around her for a brief second! SO awesome. The only thing we have not snorkled with is sea turtles but we have seen a dozen of them.
We then sailed to Rabidad where it was BLAZING hot, the guide said it was pushing 37 degrees celisus. None of us wanted to walk as there was no wildlife at this island the flamingos where not in the salty lagoon so we walked really fast only to take off our clothes very fast and jump into the water. We snorkled for about an hour and a half and it was awesome! Saw more sharks, sealions where playing with us for a bit, lots of neat starfish, and fish in general. It was a really good snorkel and we were all very tired when we got back on the boat. Also sad because we knew tomorrow we were leaving. We began sailing back to San Cristobal where we left to go back to Quito.
So now we are here at the Travellers Inn our base Hostel here in Quito. I feel like i am still on the boat and mixed with the altitude since being at sealevel i feel very light headed and like i am rocking back and forth its like being drunk for free. Our plan was to go to Latatunga right from the airport and hop on a bus but it was late when we got into Quito (445pm) later than we had wanted to go. So we are just trying to decide what our plan will be for Tuesday-Thursday, where we will come back to Quito Thursday to see the Good Friday Procession in Quito and then try to get to Otavalo for Saturday-Sunday and fly home Monday night back to Edmonton. Hopefully my tan is still there or no one will believe me that i was in a hot destination! Which is ooo so important!
I should explain the title of the blog because it won't make sense unless I do. Miguel was our captain on the Archipell 2 catamaran boat. Think of Miguel like a Ecuadorian George Cloony, or a Mc.Dreamy if you can put an Ecuadorian twist to that, the point is that he was a hot older man. So Leann and I kept cracking jokes such as "El Capitan take me to your cabin" or "Miguel show me the ways of the sea", etc, etc. It was a fun week to say the least.
But I should go Tyson isn't feeling well still, has a fever i guess, and I am getting hungry.
I think Tyson slept 18 hours yesterday. He still has a bit of a headace, but his fever is less than it was. Hopefully I can get better soon. Off to the Andes today.
Talk to you later!!!
Sara and Tyson
Missing the Galapagos already!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Swimming with the sharks and seeing lots of Boobies.. hehe boobies
If you read the last post you would have probably guessed that those tummy cramps would turn into something... and did they ever. Tyson woke up around 1am shivering, and by 1:30 was running to the washroom, where in the span of 1.5 minutes had emptied his entire digestive track via both ends. He slept somewhat better after that.
I also got sick but only from the bottom end and was up every hour or so! Not a super duper great way to be excited to fly to the Galapagos Islands the next day. We woke up early as we had to be at the airport 2 hours in advance for our flight to San Cristabol Island, Galagapagos. Both Tyson and I drank some gatorade and had no breakfast as we were scared it wouldnt settle down. At the airport we had to get our tourist card for the islands, which we then used to check our bags. It also worked as a piece of ID to get onto the plane. We sat in the departure lounge for a while, and it was past our boarding time, but the gate on our ticket had not been called yet. Luckily Peter went and checked, and they were boarding our plane, just via another gate. We got on, no problem and we were off, via Gualiquial (something sorta like that) to San Cristabol. We arrived and were completely overdressed. We instantly took off our sweater and socks as it was approximately 30´C outside. As we stood in a very slow line to pay our park fees we saw what we thought was a celebrity in the Ecaudor line. We thought this because there was paporazzi all around this girl, one with a camera and another with a camera. The reason the line was taking so long was that the girl that entering the information into the computer was having about a dozen MSN conversations as she was suppose to be doing her job. I don´t think many other people noticed, or else one of the sweaty overweight tourists having to stand in a hot sticky line may have said something.
The funny thing was that after we picked up our bags we found out that we were on the same boat as the celebrity girl and the paporazzi. (Sara) I thought the girl was like miss. Ecuador or something as they paparazzi were all over her like drooling! It wasn´t until later that night when we met our boat crew and our bartender made us this really alcholic drink that the paparazzi was actually not a paparrazi but they were doing a promotional video of our boat Archipell 2 to get more tourists to come over to the islands. So really these last 5 days they have been mostly interested in the Ecuadorian Girl who we later found out last night was actually a teenager and not a model but her mother knew the person who owned the boat. Both her mother and her did not speak english.. maybe a couple of words and the girl was quite a snob! She was like a princess when we went on our Island walks all scared of the non existent bugs.. there were maybe a couple of flies. When we got to the dock we saw our first wildlife, sea lions lazying around on the dock and rocks, and birds sitting on the boats in the Harbor. It was already the closest I´ve been to a sea lion. Peter didn´t see one behind a bench, and also put his bag down on top of it. Tyson and I got our room which was the penguin room and Peter and Marilyn got the turtle room and poor Leann was stuck with one of the paparazi guys and they were in the blue footed boobie room.. hehe boobie.
When we got our rooms it was lunch time... the eating times are very schedualed. Breakfast at 7, lunch at noon, dinner at 7. The food has been awesome except Tyson and I can eat very little mostly rice and fruit pretty sad... everyone else is gaining weigth while our shorts are falling off. I guess its a great weight loss management for wearing my bikini. Not really a fun one though. After lunch we sailed up the coast to a little island called Las Lobos or something of that sort. We did a short walk where we saw baby sea lions, crabs, blue footed boobies .. hehe boobies, iguanas, lava lizards, and the red breasted frigate bird. Already we were in awe! You can get so close to the wildlife.. like 50 cm but you are not allowed to touch that is the number one park rule! So hard to not want to pet a sealion! After we did our walk, we went snorkling with the baby sea lions. It was AMAZING! The sealions come right up to your face and sometimes they hit you like one hit me in the head... there so friendly, and the school of fish! Tyson was cold... clearly he needs more body fat, i was just amazed at snorkeling i had not done it since i was a kid in the Atlantic Ocean. You really dont need to dive here, as you will see when we talk about the Devils Crown Arrrr. We snorkeled for about an hour and then we returned to our boat to have a nice warm shower and read our books. Then we ate dinner at 7pm and then stayed int he San Cristabol harbour till midnight to where we sailed. Tyson wasn´t feeling well so i gave him some gravol and he was out like a light. I was feeling alright but only because i hardly ate all day. I woke up once we sailed as we hit some pretty big waves and i had to convince myself that we were just on a train and i was dreamin we were on a boat and then i fell back asleep.
Day 2. Esponala Island
We ate breakfast at 7 and then we headed off to Gardner bay! MAGNIFICIENT!!! SPECTACULAR!! WHITE CRISP SAND so fine that it felt like Velvet between your toes and a million sealions lazin around on the beach. WOW! This is what i wanted my Greece to be like.. but this is better! We had a free walk for an hour and a half on the beach, where you could walk to the end of the beach, or snorkle, or swim, or lay around with the sealions. I did all three! Leann and I made a Sand Castle that Tyson critized but hey we didnt have buckets or anything! The sealions are a highlight to this trip they are so friendly like dogs really, i kept asking Tyson if we could take one home! HE keeps telling me no..
After our free walk we swam-snorkeled to a rocky outcrop where we saw schools of fish, and some tropical fish. The water is crystal clear tourquoise blue it is just gorgeous! We snorkeled again for an hour and then headed back to the dingy... thats the little boat that we take from our big boat. We were going to lie on the beach for another 20 min but it started to rain. We have had bits of rain but not too bad we are still getting tanned and putting SPF 30 on like 3 times a day! After lunch and a siesta ( we always eat lunch and then have about 2 hours of free boat time). At 2pm we headed to the cliffs of Espanola. Where we saw more blue footed boobies as it was thier nesting time and we saw Albatroses on land which was amazing, and pelicans, other boobies, more crabs, sealions, lizards, iguanas, etc. As you can tell wildlife is everywhere. The cliffs where amazing if we can use that word enough. Its so hard to explain without having pictures to show you. There was a big blow hole and the clif was probably about 50 feetdown. There was tons of seabirds in the sky and on the cliffs. They would fly right over our head. So breathtaking, it was like i was on another planet. It is worth the millions of dollars to get here!
Day 3 Florena Island and the Devils Crown ARRRRR
Woke up ate breakfast, still feeling only so so, it wasnt until the next day where we realized to take gravol 30 min before boat takes off! We went to Post Office bay where there is a barrel where you can put postcards in and the you supposed to look at all the other postcards there and if you find one that is where you are from like Edmonton Canada or Alberta you take it home and deliver it! We put our 2 in, in hope that it gets to us one day! There was nothing from Alberta, lots of Quebec and Toronto but that is too far away, Marilyn and Peter found one from North Vancouver so they took it and will deliver it to those people in the summertime when they go to Victoria.
We then went into a Lava Tube underground. It was alright the caves in Laos were better, but it was a really big cave. reallly high ceiling. From there we went back to the boat to get our snorkeling gear and sailed to the Devils Crown ARRRR. Ok I can´t even explain how awesome the snorkeling there was. Lets just start with this, we saw 4 Reef Sharks!!! I was scared but they were pretty far down below, we say a massive sting ray or 2, tons of colourful fish, some puffer fish but they weren´t puffed up, beautiful star fish, Tyson saw a lobster that had some wierd colours, and we saw massive schools of fish. It was a little wavy and rough and there was a bit of a current and i actually cut my leg on some coral and decided to go back to the Dingy boat as i was getting tired anyways and i didnt want the shark to smell my blood from my cut! It was so crazy that when you first jumped in the water and looked down you couldn´t see the bottom, not because it was murky or too deep, but because of all the fish. That was how many there was. Hopefully our underwater camera pictures turn out! After snorkeling for an hour and a half we went back to the boat for lunch and siesta. Then we went to Turtle Bay and a salty lagoon where we saw 3 flamingos for a brief second then they hid, and at Turtle bay we didnt see any sting rays or turtles but we saw lots of turtles nests. We did see Turtles in the ocean though, swimming. There was one frigate bird that went back and forth over all the turtle nests just hoping that one little turtle would come out early and make for a lunch. He didn´t eat while we were there. The sand was really fine there and beautiful as well. Paradise!
Day 4 Isabella Island
We went to the breeding center for the Isabella Tortises and saw little baby tortises and big torties. It was mating morning because we saw 4 turtles mating... lol there were a lot of jokes to be had. From porn stars, to I have a headache get off of me, to long and steady wins the race, etc. They were not the biggest tortises int he Galapagos but i decided there not that fun to observe compared to Sealions. They dont do a whole lot.
We also went to another salty lagoon and saw 2 other flamingos. Then we went snorkeling. It wasnt very good, that was the first snorkel that actually sucked. The water wasn´t clear and there wasn´t many fish or anything, a sealion did appear out of no where and went under my legs and there was some shrimp but thats about it. Everyone was kind of bummed out and i dont even think we used our full hour. The boat is great though after every outing we come back to some sort of snack always juice and we have had banana timbits as i call them, chips, fresh bread, and so on and so forth. They put toffees out and I think we ate them all, Peter ate half of them in 2 minutes.
In the afternoon we did the super hot death walk on Lava rocks. It was probably pushign 35 degrees with the heat raidating on the rocks. We went to see if any sharks were resting in a lava tube.. but we only saw one and i spotted it! We did see a couple turtles but it was so hot even the wildlife was hiding! We saw a bunch of Marine Iguanas swimming.
Day 5 Santa Cruz Island
Today was the last day for Princess Ecuador and her mother, as well as our Israel family, and the paparazzi. So we are now down to 7 people left on the boat with 11 crew and we expect one more person to join our boat this afternoon. This morning we had a early awakening because those peoples fligth got changed to early morning flight and they still had to go see the tortises in the wild. So we ate breakfast at 6am and then were were off to the port. We saw about 5 tortises in the wild, they were much bigger than the ones in the breeding center because they are a different species. I got bored, they didnt move they didnt do anything. We walked for like an hour and then it was time to say goodbye to our friends. They left by bus to the airport while we stayed and put ourselves into old tortise shells and got great humour out of it. We when played ping pong. For the record Tyson and Peter are tied 1-1 and I beat Marilyn but loss to Tyson. We then took 2 trucks back to the port where we came to the internet place to update this long ass blog!
We have 3 days left on the boat including today. We fly back to Quito on Monday lunch time and then our plan is to go straight to the bus depot and hop on a bus to Latatugna in the Andes and do the Quiolata loop for 3 days. We will return to Quito for Good Friday to see the festivities before going up to Otavalo for the Saturday Market and maybe spend the night there and come back to Quito on Sunday where we will hav 2 days in Quito before we leave on Monday night at 11pm to fly back to Atlanta and I hope we have time for the waffle house!
Thats all for now!
Dont worry we took LOTS OF pictures!
Sara and Tyson
I also got sick but only from the bottom end and was up every hour or so! Not a super duper great way to be excited to fly to the Galapagos Islands the next day. We woke up early as we had to be at the airport 2 hours in advance for our flight to San Cristabol Island, Galagapagos. Both Tyson and I drank some gatorade and had no breakfast as we were scared it wouldnt settle down. At the airport we had to get our tourist card for the islands, which we then used to check our bags. It also worked as a piece of ID to get onto the plane. We sat in the departure lounge for a while, and it was past our boarding time, but the gate on our ticket had not been called yet. Luckily Peter went and checked, and they were boarding our plane, just via another gate. We got on, no problem and we were off, via Gualiquial (something sorta like that) to San Cristabol. We arrived and were completely overdressed. We instantly took off our sweater and socks as it was approximately 30´C outside. As we stood in a very slow line to pay our park fees we saw what we thought was a celebrity in the Ecaudor line. We thought this because there was paporazzi all around this girl, one with a camera and another with a camera. The reason the line was taking so long was that the girl that entering the information into the computer was having about a dozen MSN conversations as she was suppose to be doing her job. I don´t think many other people noticed, or else one of the sweaty overweight tourists having to stand in a hot sticky line may have said something.
The funny thing was that after we picked up our bags we found out that we were on the same boat as the celebrity girl and the paporazzi. (Sara) I thought the girl was like miss. Ecuador or something as they paparazzi were all over her like drooling! It wasn´t until later that night when we met our boat crew and our bartender made us this really alcholic drink that the paparazzi was actually not a paparrazi but they were doing a promotional video of our boat Archipell 2 to get more tourists to come over to the islands. So really these last 5 days they have been mostly interested in the Ecuadorian Girl who we later found out last night was actually a teenager and not a model but her mother knew the person who owned the boat. Both her mother and her did not speak english.. maybe a couple of words and the girl was quite a snob! She was like a princess when we went on our Island walks all scared of the non existent bugs.. there were maybe a couple of flies. When we got to the dock we saw our first wildlife, sea lions lazying around on the dock and rocks, and birds sitting on the boats in the Harbor. It was already the closest I´ve been to a sea lion. Peter didn´t see one behind a bench, and also put his bag down on top of it. Tyson and I got our room which was the penguin room and Peter and Marilyn got the turtle room and poor Leann was stuck with one of the paparazi guys and they were in the blue footed boobie room.. hehe boobie.
When we got our rooms it was lunch time... the eating times are very schedualed. Breakfast at 7, lunch at noon, dinner at 7. The food has been awesome except Tyson and I can eat very little mostly rice and fruit pretty sad... everyone else is gaining weigth while our shorts are falling off. I guess its a great weight loss management for wearing my bikini. Not really a fun one though. After lunch we sailed up the coast to a little island called Las Lobos or something of that sort. We did a short walk where we saw baby sea lions, crabs, blue footed boobies .. hehe boobies, iguanas, lava lizards, and the red breasted frigate bird. Already we were in awe! You can get so close to the wildlife.. like 50 cm but you are not allowed to touch that is the number one park rule! So hard to not want to pet a sealion! After we did our walk, we went snorkling with the baby sea lions. It was AMAZING! The sealions come right up to your face and sometimes they hit you like one hit me in the head... there so friendly, and the school of fish! Tyson was cold... clearly he needs more body fat, i was just amazed at snorkeling i had not done it since i was a kid in the Atlantic Ocean. You really dont need to dive here, as you will see when we talk about the Devils Crown Arrrr. We snorkeled for about an hour and then we returned to our boat to have a nice warm shower and read our books. Then we ate dinner at 7pm and then stayed int he San Cristabol harbour till midnight to where we sailed. Tyson wasn´t feeling well so i gave him some gravol and he was out like a light. I was feeling alright but only because i hardly ate all day. I woke up once we sailed as we hit some pretty big waves and i had to convince myself that we were just on a train and i was dreamin we were on a boat and then i fell back asleep.
Day 2. Esponala Island
We ate breakfast at 7 and then we headed off to Gardner bay! MAGNIFICIENT!!! SPECTACULAR!! WHITE CRISP SAND so fine that it felt like Velvet between your toes and a million sealions lazin around on the beach. WOW! This is what i wanted my Greece to be like.. but this is better! We had a free walk for an hour and a half on the beach, where you could walk to the end of the beach, or snorkle, or swim, or lay around with the sealions. I did all three! Leann and I made a Sand Castle that Tyson critized but hey we didnt have buckets or anything! The sealions are a highlight to this trip they are so friendly like dogs really, i kept asking Tyson if we could take one home! HE keeps telling me no..
After our free walk we swam-snorkeled to a rocky outcrop where we saw schools of fish, and some tropical fish. The water is crystal clear tourquoise blue it is just gorgeous! We snorkeled again for an hour and then headed back to the dingy... thats the little boat that we take from our big boat. We were going to lie on the beach for another 20 min but it started to rain. We have had bits of rain but not too bad we are still getting tanned and putting SPF 30 on like 3 times a day! After lunch and a siesta ( we always eat lunch and then have about 2 hours of free boat time). At 2pm we headed to the cliffs of Espanola. Where we saw more blue footed boobies as it was thier nesting time and we saw Albatroses on land which was amazing, and pelicans, other boobies, more crabs, sealions, lizards, iguanas, etc. As you can tell wildlife is everywhere. The cliffs where amazing if we can use that word enough. Its so hard to explain without having pictures to show you. There was a big blow hole and the clif was probably about 50 feetdown. There was tons of seabirds in the sky and on the cliffs. They would fly right over our head. So breathtaking, it was like i was on another planet. It is worth the millions of dollars to get here!
Day 3 Florena Island and the Devils Crown ARRRRR
Woke up ate breakfast, still feeling only so so, it wasnt until the next day where we realized to take gravol 30 min before boat takes off! We went to Post Office bay where there is a barrel where you can put postcards in and the you supposed to look at all the other postcards there and if you find one that is where you are from like Edmonton Canada or Alberta you take it home and deliver it! We put our 2 in, in hope that it gets to us one day! There was nothing from Alberta, lots of Quebec and Toronto but that is too far away, Marilyn and Peter found one from North Vancouver so they took it and will deliver it to those people in the summertime when they go to Victoria.
We then went into a Lava Tube underground. It was alright the caves in Laos were better, but it was a really big cave. reallly high ceiling. From there we went back to the boat to get our snorkeling gear and sailed to the Devils Crown ARRRR. Ok I can´t even explain how awesome the snorkeling there was. Lets just start with this, we saw 4 Reef Sharks!!! I was scared but they were pretty far down below, we say a massive sting ray or 2, tons of colourful fish, some puffer fish but they weren´t puffed up, beautiful star fish, Tyson saw a lobster that had some wierd colours, and we saw massive schools of fish. It was a little wavy and rough and there was a bit of a current and i actually cut my leg on some coral and decided to go back to the Dingy boat as i was getting tired anyways and i didnt want the shark to smell my blood from my cut! It was so crazy that when you first jumped in the water and looked down you couldn´t see the bottom, not because it was murky or too deep, but because of all the fish. That was how many there was. Hopefully our underwater camera pictures turn out! After snorkeling for an hour and a half we went back to the boat for lunch and siesta. Then we went to Turtle Bay and a salty lagoon where we saw 3 flamingos for a brief second then they hid, and at Turtle bay we didnt see any sting rays or turtles but we saw lots of turtles nests. We did see Turtles in the ocean though, swimming. There was one frigate bird that went back and forth over all the turtle nests just hoping that one little turtle would come out early and make for a lunch. He didn´t eat while we were there. The sand was really fine there and beautiful as well. Paradise!
Day 4 Isabella Island
We went to the breeding center for the Isabella Tortises and saw little baby tortises and big torties. It was mating morning because we saw 4 turtles mating... lol there were a lot of jokes to be had. From porn stars, to I have a headache get off of me, to long and steady wins the race, etc. They were not the biggest tortises int he Galapagos but i decided there not that fun to observe compared to Sealions. They dont do a whole lot.
We also went to another salty lagoon and saw 2 other flamingos. Then we went snorkeling. It wasnt very good, that was the first snorkel that actually sucked. The water wasn´t clear and there wasn´t many fish or anything, a sealion did appear out of no where and went under my legs and there was some shrimp but thats about it. Everyone was kind of bummed out and i dont even think we used our full hour. The boat is great though after every outing we come back to some sort of snack always juice and we have had banana timbits as i call them, chips, fresh bread, and so on and so forth. They put toffees out and I think we ate them all, Peter ate half of them in 2 minutes.
In the afternoon we did the super hot death walk on Lava rocks. It was probably pushign 35 degrees with the heat raidating on the rocks. We went to see if any sharks were resting in a lava tube.. but we only saw one and i spotted it! We did see a couple turtles but it was so hot even the wildlife was hiding! We saw a bunch of Marine Iguanas swimming.
Day 5 Santa Cruz Island
Today was the last day for Princess Ecuador and her mother, as well as our Israel family, and the paparazzi. So we are now down to 7 people left on the boat with 11 crew and we expect one more person to join our boat this afternoon. This morning we had a early awakening because those peoples fligth got changed to early morning flight and they still had to go see the tortises in the wild. So we ate breakfast at 6am and then were were off to the port. We saw about 5 tortises in the wild, they were much bigger than the ones in the breeding center because they are a different species. I got bored, they didnt move they didnt do anything. We walked for like an hour and then it was time to say goodbye to our friends. They left by bus to the airport while we stayed and put ourselves into old tortise shells and got great humour out of it. We when played ping pong. For the record Tyson and Peter are tied 1-1 and I beat Marilyn but loss to Tyson. We then took 2 trucks back to the port where we came to the internet place to update this long ass blog!
We have 3 days left on the boat including today. We fly back to Quito on Monday lunch time and then our plan is to go straight to the bus depot and hop on a bus to Latatugna in the Andes and do the Quiolata loop for 3 days. We will return to Quito for Good Friday to see the festivities before going up to Otavalo for the Saturday Market and maybe spend the night there and come back to Quito on Sunday where we will hav 2 days in Quito before we leave on Monday night at 11pm to fly back to Atlanta and I hope we have time for the waffle house!
Thats all for now!
Dont worry we took LOTS OF pictures!
Sara and Tyson
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Equador 1 Brazil 1 in World Cup Qualifying
Sara has gone to bed with tummy cramps, and I have them too, along with a bit of a headache. Not much to say today, as it was a travel day, but I figure we may as keep up to date as tomorrow we head to the Galapagos Islands for 8 days.
Got up this morning, in Tena and had a light breakfast of fruit. After breakfast we finished packing up and walked to the bus station for our bus back to Quito. Along the way we saw another political rally. They really take their politics seriously here, with trucks covered with posters, flags, horns blaring, and people hanging out of the window all wearing matching teeshirts. There is the 32-61 party lead by Gina, and they are white, there is the yellow 7's, and the red and white 24's. All along the way on the bus you saw homes and bus stops painted in the political party of choice. Most people seem to be involved in the process, quite a bit better than back in Canada, for visual shows of support anyways. It was raining lightly as we walked through the otherwise realitively quiet Sunday streets to the bus station. We got on our bus and made a long trip back over the Andes to Quito. The trip ended up taking most of the day as we didn't arrive into Quito unitl 4pm, quite a bit slower than on the way to Tena where we also arrived at 4pm but had an hour construction equipment stuck in the road delay, and left 1.5 hours later. It was quite a bit colder in the high Andes where it was raining and hailing, but just overcast in Quito, but still not warm.
Sara and Marilyn would say they performed a power move to get a taxi from the bus station. They said they stepped out into traffic and hailed one down, but it took them 20 minutes to get to this point. However it went down, there was more people than taxis, so they did good. We got back to our hostel just as the world cup qualifier Ecuador verses Brazil was starting, *which was being played in Quito. I took a couple of Vitamin 'I' and watched the game with the hostel owners. Ecuador controlled the play, but couldn't put the ball in the net. Brazil scored first on one of it's 3 chances all game, and Ecuador finally tied it up with 5 minutes left to play, but couldn't get another goal. They aren't out of the World Cup yet, but it isn't looking very good. Marilyn got hold of Monica and we got our tickets for the Galapagos in hand finally.
After the game we went to get money to pay our park enterance fee for the Galapagos, and then go for dinner. We ended up in this Bohimeum *sp, place that had a great atmosphere (Peter said the music was too loud) and great food. The food was very rich compared to the food we have been eating, so that may have given Sara and myself the tummy cramps. As we ate we watched through the window as tons of Ecuadorians walked and mingled on the street all wearing their yellow football jerseys. It was kind of like sitting on Whyte Ave, or 17 Stree, or Robson street after a big hockey game win with everyone in their sporting best and lots of nice cars driving by. I can only image how it would have been in Equador had won instead of a tie.
After dinner we returned to our hostel to find Leann was here. She got herself burnt on her first day in Quito, which was surprising as she said she was wearing her jacket for most of the day. So now we are a group of five, and we are off to the very pricy islands tomorrow morning. I don't know what sort of internet access if any our boat will have, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from us for 8 days.
Tyson and Sara
Got up this morning, in Tena and had a light breakfast of fruit. After breakfast we finished packing up and walked to the bus station for our bus back to Quito. Along the way we saw another political rally. They really take their politics seriously here, with trucks covered with posters, flags, horns blaring, and people hanging out of the window all wearing matching teeshirts. There is the 32-61 party lead by Gina, and they are white, there is the yellow 7's, and the red and white 24's. All along the way on the bus you saw homes and bus stops painted in the political party of choice. Most people seem to be involved in the process, quite a bit better than back in Canada, for visual shows of support anyways. It was raining lightly as we walked through the otherwise realitively quiet Sunday streets to the bus station. We got on our bus and made a long trip back over the Andes to Quito. The trip ended up taking most of the day as we didn't arrive into Quito unitl 4pm, quite a bit slower than on the way to Tena where we also arrived at 4pm but had an hour construction equipment stuck in the road delay, and left 1.5 hours later. It was quite a bit colder in the high Andes where it was raining and hailing, but just overcast in Quito, but still not warm.
Sara and Marilyn would say they performed a power move to get a taxi from the bus station. They said they stepped out into traffic and hailed one down, but it took them 20 minutes to get to this point. However it went down, there was more people than taxis, so they did good. We got back to our hostel just as the world cup qualifier Ecuador verses Brazil was starting, *which was being played in Quito. I took a couple of Vitamin 'I' and watched the game with the hostel owners. Ecuador controlled the play, but couldn't put the ball in the net. Brazil scored first on one of it's 3 chances all game, and Ecuador finally tied it up with 5 minutes left to play, but couldn't get another goal. They aren't out of the World Cup yet, but it isn't looking very good. Marilyn got hold of Monica and we got our tickets for the Galapagos in hand finally.
After the game we went to get money to pay our park enterance fee for the Galapagos, and then go for dinner. We ended up in this Bohimeum *sp, place that had a great atmosphere (Peter said the music was too loud) and great food. The food was very rich compared to the food we have been eating, so that may have given Sara and myself the tummy cramps. As we ate we watched through the window as tons of Ecuadorians walked and mingled on the street all wearing their yellow football jerseys. It was kind of like sitting on Whyte Ave, or 17 Stree, or Robson street after a big hockey game win with everyone in their sporting best and lots of nice cars driving by. I can only image how it would have been in Equador had won instead of a tie.
After dinner we returned to our hostel to find Leann was here. She got herself burnt on her first day in Quito, which was surprising as she said she was wearing her jacket for most of the day. So now we are a group of five, and we are off to the very pricy islands tomorrow morning. I don't know what sort of internet access if any our boat will have, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from us for 8 days.
Tyson and Sara
Saturday, March 28, 2009
In the Jungle the mighty Jungle the spiders come out at night a whimpa wa a whimpa wa la la la
Hola Amigos!
We are now back in Tena in our little jungle atmosphere hotel. This is going to be a long blog since it has been 3 days so bare with us!
Day 1
We left Tena at around 930 am from Kanoa Tours but before then I had to stop off at a bakery to get some buns in case jungle food was terrible. But before i got to the bakery i smashed my head on a big sign that i somehow missed the upside was that my glasses where there to stop me from slicing my forehead open, the downside is that my nice new Arnett sunglasses have a nice big scratch on them. Thankfully there not right in my vision path but i was a little sad for a minute or two. When we got Kanoa we met our guide his name was Patrick and it looked like he just got the call that he was going on a 3 day 2 night jungle excursion because on the way out of town we had to stop at his house so he could grab some stuff and he also had no idea what our tentative scheudale was. We all loaded into a Mazda truck after we got all sized up for our hot new rubber boats (a.k.a Gum boots!). The 4 of us where inside the truck and Patrick was in the back. Our driver was a talkative little Ecuadorian man who use to be a teacher but apparently being a taxi driver gets you more money than teaching.. kind of sad. But we tried to talk back in forth with the little spanish we had.. Tyson tried to tell him that we were Common law.. and finally gave up and said yes ¨wife¨. Wow so now in most countries we go to i turn into his wife but back in Canada nooooo i am just ¨common law¨. I guess maybe we should just live overseas and we will be married. (or we could learn more languages so there isn´t this confusion) what a hoser... anyways.
It didn´t seem like we were heading into a remote jungle because we drove on a nice paved road for quite some time. It wasn´t until we hit a small town where the driver new everyone all his amigos and such that we came to some gravel road down to the Napo River. From the Napo river we took a motorized long boat for 10 minutes to what we thought was our cabins for the night. However we had to lug all the food that Patrick brought for us to eat and our packs. Peter and Tyson had the main packs while Marilyn and I carried the little packs. We had to climb about 200 feet up on stairs until we got to the lodge. We were dripping with sweat by then. We thought we were staying there that night but Patrick informed us that nope we where staying the night in a community village and then the next night we would stay here at this lodge. We hoed and hummed about this for awhile and then decided it didnt really matter and we would just go with the flow which was hard for Marilyn to do.
We hung out on the hammocks for about 30 minutes or so before Patrick told us to load up all the food into all of our packs. So it went like this. Peter had some fruit, some coffee and tea and a little more of something he turned down taking the 3l of Coke because his pack was heavy enough. Tyson had 8liters of water, plus all of our clothes and books, he had the lentils, the jam and the flour. I had 2 bags of rice which ended up breaking so we had to find a ziploc bag to put them in, and Marilyn got the rest of the food. All that patrick had was this little black bag smaller than our daybag and 5l water jug which he carried in his hand. Marilyn thought that was a rip off and that we should have made him carry more but Tarzan Tyson said it was fine. We wanted the extra water so we carry it.
We headed on our 3 hour jungle march with our gum boots on. The jungle is crazy... its hot, humid, bushy, huge, and large bugs. We walked through both secondary and primary forrest. The first thing i asked Patrick was if anything was poisnious to touch.. he said no all the plants where fine but there is posinous spiders, snakes and frogs and if you drank or ate some of the bushes. So we were all relieved when we could touch things and not worry about posion ivy or anything because it was way too damn hot to have your long sleeves down. The primary forrest was wider and quite a bit cooler with little underbrush that it made jungle marching eaiser. Secondary forrest was quite a bit hotter and lots of plants fighting for sunlight we had to use the machete a bit to make walking easier. It was very hot and I have never seen Tyson look so exhasuted in all of our hiking. It was mostly uphill and sweat dripped all over us. We took only a couple breaks however Patrick was great in stopping and showing us different insects, plants, and fruit we could try. We had some Coaco (coco beans which i thought tasted good, not as good as when you dry it and grind it into chocolate), we had a jungle type of avacado, we had some sort of tomato thing i think.. i can´t remember all the different things we ate lol. Tyson got bit on the neck and he was scared.. i said i documented it and if he got sick i would remember where he got bit and the time lol. Patrick said it was just an ant and that he was fine. Tyson also put his hands into a tree where ants where and once you take your hand away from the tree you rub the ants all over your hand and arm and it is misquito repellent.. it was neat.
We arrived in the White Water community at around 230 ish and we were exhausted. The community had about 10 families, and a school. Once we sat down for a couple of minutes the children of course were intriqued by us as usual. You could tell that they had seen quite a few tourists but they were still curious. The village was Quichea and Patrick spoke thier native language as many of them don´t speak Spanish. While the men got our beds ready.. i say beds but what i really mean is a foamy on an old school house floor with a miquito net. The woman got lunch prepared. I was getting bored of just sitting around so I demostrated a soccer kick to one of the kids and they went on a mission to find a soccer ball we could play with.
Once they found it 2 boys and a little girl came out to the soccer field which was in the middle of the village to kick the ball around. Tyson tried to show off his not so impressive soccer skills while the kids laughed, and i also attempted mine Tyson says i was no better but i actually was. The little boy was trying to mimic my moves. I just want to make a note that i should get paid my salary for that day as I was doing Physical Activity and healthy eating with the children of White Water. I expect one more day of vacation at least! After getting tired of soccer our beds where ready so we took all of our stuff into the old school house and then we went to find Marilyn and Peter in the new school house.
Marilyn was learning counting in spanish.. but the teacher and the kids where laughing at her when she messed up. But we can now count to 50 in spanish.. i can´t remember it all though. The school is quite stalked. It had working erasable pens and a white board but it was still a one room school house with one side elementary and one side jr-high school. Lunch was ready around 4pm and we were starving. We had jungle yucca soup a type of root grown in the jungle which is like a potato but way more starchy and bland tasting. The soup was alright. Tyson liked the soup but he belongs in the junlge with the monkey! We also had lentils yuck, boiled yucca, and some sort of salsa thingy. After lunch we headed to a waterfall we were all exhuasted and Patrick told us it was only 12 minutes away .. so we didn´t wear socks in our gum boots! What a mistake that was it was like 30 minutes away and got some blisters! Also Marilyn and i kept switching gum boots and she would complain that i had hers on and i said no there both the same.. apparently one was a little smaller i couldnt tell the difference.
You always expect a waterfall to be some magnificient thing but everytime i get to one it really isnt that magnificient. I mean it was pretty it was a jungle waterfall but just not that big. We went swimming to which i was scared as i am not the best swimmer and there was a bit of a current. The water was warm i thought and it was good to wash the sweat off of us. I warned Tyson not to pee in the water so no penis fish would swim up him and give him a bad infection. We joked about it for awhile, and he told me he didnt pee in the water but there was a warm spot i felt. (I really didn´t pee in the water, because I really do not want a penis fish) After we swam and got cleaned we got our clothes back on and headed back. Marilyn was scared of falling on the slippery rocks that we had to cross to get to the water fall so she wanted a different way so Patrick took us up and when i mean up i mean up this huge cliff which was way more difficult and scary to climb then walking over wet rocks. We were not impressed with the decision lol. But we made it back to the village and we had a little siesta in our school house under our misquito nets while we waited for dinner.
Dinner was not so good. It was plantaine soup(family of the bananas but does not taste like a banana). It tasted more like Sunny boy porride runny and thick and nasty! Peter told me it was good, now i don´t believe anything Peter says! I could only stomach 3 tablespoons of it but them van Leusdens will eat anything and they gobbled theres down. The main course was jungle chicken, fried plantaines, and rice. I had some fried plantaines still gross, and rice. I didnt trust the chicken, but again the van Leusdens ate everyting.
After dinner we watched the stars. It was amazing the milky way was so bright and there was sooo many stars it was quite pretty! I had to pee really bad and it was pitch black so i made Tyson come to the bathroom with me. Since before dinner he was too scared to go by himself when he had to pee so i came with him. When we go to the bathroom I should say... umm more like a toliet in a shed with out a seat and no flush only bucket flush. Anyways I spotted a HUGE ass spider.. when i say huge i mean like the size of my face! We found out the next day it was a scorpian spider!! HOLY HELL I was crapping my pants.. and refused to go to the bathroom! I told Tyson i could wait till morning! He said no that i had to go and that he would keep an eye on the spider while i squatted around the toliet! I couldn´t do it.. i was petrified! Marilyn and Peter came out to see what the commotion was and they had to pee as well and Marilyn attempted to pour water over the spider.. it moved closer! So she went pee, brave soul and i still couldnt. So they left and I peed in the bush where Tyson watched for Creepy crawlies. eeee. I then insisted that i sleep with Tyson as there was beds for all of us.. but i was too scared.
It is extremely noisy in the jungle at night, because it comes alive then. Most things are nocturnal so its just constant noise. We hardly slept from jungle and the mix of crying babies, as well as the roosters started at like 3am and it was super annoying.
Day 2
We woke up at around 7am as breakfast was at 8am. We had jungle bread, fried plantains, jam, papaya, and pinnapple. It was actually the best meal of the trip. Patrick tooks us on an a more unexplored area of the jungle that he didnt know so he had to get one of the community men to come with us. It was more like bush wacking and it had started to rain but only for 10 minutes or so. Tyson tried a lemon ant... eww and they had some sort of palm root from a plant. I was tried and in a hurry to make it back to the lodge that we had arrived in from day one. We saw a massive worm it looked more like a snake but it was a worm and i saw the plant where they get anti venom for snake bites. Good to know! Other than that it was about a 2.5 hour walk. Once we got back to the lodge (sanchi soachi lodge i think) it was full out hammock time! We had a siesta till lunch on the hammocks and then after lunch we went over to this old Spaniard mans house who lived with his son both of thier wives had died and they were on the hunt for new ones. However they didnt speak Quichea only Spanish you think they would have picked up on some local language after living there for 30 years. Anyways they had the best jungle white pinnapple EVER! It was this small little pinnapple that was white on the inside and it was sooo sweet, not acidicy nice and sweet. We ate about 2 of them and had one for dessert later that night. They also had the original banana tree.. the tree that got wiped out from disease.. i dont know how they still have there tree. From there we walked down to the Napo River to pan for gold... no success. we are still poor. Patrick also gave Marilyn and I a new village look. He took some fruit like thing from the trees and it made face paint really and he made me into a village princess. Tyson thought it was funny.
We got back to the lodge and chilled out while we waited for dinner. Dinner was late.. like 9pm we were starving. The only other tourists we met where these 2 french friends a male and a female. They were nice kept to themselves. After dinner we had a vote to see who wanted to go for a night walk.. it was only going to be 30 minutes long so we all decided too although the french girl and myself where apprehensive. We got our gum boots back on and our head lamps and headed out. Patrick led the way and then Tyson and then me holding tightly onto Tyson. we got a little ways in and i was already freaking out. It wasnt until Patrick told us to turn all of our head lamps off.. holy shit was i freaking.. it was PITCH BLACK! Couldnt see anythign and creepy as hell. He wanted to show us this fungi that glowed in the dark on this tree.. it was cool but i had had enough of it. We saw a yellow poisinous spider that freaked the hell out of me, and this MASSIVE grasshopper that pretty much almost bit Peter because he was holding on to him. We almost saw a trantula.. and then i broke down crying.. i was soo scared, literally! The sounds of the mud and thinking of snakes around my gum boots and everything else was too much. Patrick then made the decision to turn back. I don´t think that anyone was upset about it because i think they were all secretly scared too! Tyson said i almost put holes in his hands from squeezing so hard. I would never want to be stranded in the jungle at night time! No jaguars to be seen, or armidillos.
Day 3.
We woke up and it was pouring rain. We had really good weather so we weren´t complaining as today was the last day and we were all ready for a hot shower to get clean! Tyson and I didnt bring a change of clothes so you can only imagine how dirty and muddy and gross we were! We had jungle pancakes and some fruit and a fried egg. I tried to bargin my friend egg to Tyson for his pancake but no dice.. he doesn´t even like breakfast anyways! Since it was pouring we hung around for a bit until 11 or so until we were told to Vamouse and pack our bags. We went by motorized canoe to the other side of the Napo River and it had stopped raining. It was a bird watching Island and Marilyn was estatic.. why i am not sure.. its not like there is a ton of exotic birds here.. not where we were anyways no Tucans ... The scenary was different more jungle grass like that were 20 feet tall and small ponds. We arrived in this little village house that had these adorable puppies. The man and women were friendly and they spoke both Quichea and Spanish. Patrick translated for us and we asked questions. We pulled Yucca out of the ground and helped the woman peel it and prepare it. Marilyn and I mashed it and then she used the water from which the yucca was cooked to make it creamy and mashed. Unlike at home where we would have put a pound of butter in. It was cool to see the house inside and how everything functioned. It made sense. Lots of machedes lying around, and they even had a TV and a fridge. We had some fresh papya as well. They were very friendly. We hung around for about 30 minutes and then we walked over to see this BIG BIRD! I wasnt impressed i didnt even see it i thought they were all crazy. But they said they saw it! It was orange like a rooster. I was getting tired of the jungle by this point and just wanted my sandles and to be clean.
We then went back to the motorized canoe back to the port. We ate lunch at the little restaurant and it was fish from the Napo River I gave mine to the guide and just at the rice and plaintaine. I am SICK of plantaine! We chilled out for awhile while waiting for our taxi ride back to Tena. Patrick had one more stop for us in a small sleepy jungle town called Mishualli or something of that sort. Side note- on our first day we swung on vines like Tarzan did it was pretty cool you have to have good upper body strength though as it was hard for me but fun!) The guide book says nothing about Monkeys in this town.. but when we got there monkeys were everywhere. They are so fun to watch! Tyson had a bad case of BSA -- backpack separation anxiety as we were told to leave our packs in the taxi.. which we would never do but apprently the monkeys grab things out of them on your back. They were halarious they stole a little girls cheezies and opened the chips and ate them, one monkey guarded them from a dog. while the other monkey grabbed the dogs tail and pulled him. They are sooo funny.. i swear humans! The look just like us.. and they can open bags and everything! If only we had tails we could do some awesome swinging.. they even walked on just two legs. I wanted to take one home! To be the next helper monkey!
After about 20 minutes of monkey watching we were on our way back to Tena. It was nice to have a hot shower and get cleaned! We all have tons of ant bites on us, more so me since i cant squat so well the ants attacked me. We also have other bites but were fine. All in all we were quite satisfied with our guide he was really good and fun and had really good english and taught and showed us lots of things. The village was good but they were running it like a business. But we survived the jungle and now we are looking forward to the Galapagos Islands and meeting up with Leann so maybe that she can lose at Yahtzee instead of me all the time.
Today in Tena we slept in, and had pancakes for breakfast i was soo giddy! Tyson even let me have 2 out of the three! We went searching for the market and just looking around. The market was really small and a just a food market. I didnt like the meat part it was stinky and gross as per usual. Peter and Marilyn bought some oranges, and pears. We watched a political rally for a bit, nothing too exciting. Then we had lunch at a really good pizza place. It was a relaxing day for once as Marilyn slowed down.
Tonight we will have some dinner and pack up, we also got our laundry done because our clothes where so dirty from the jungle. We are heading to Quito tomorrow morning on Banos bus and will meet up with Leann before we head to the Galapagos Islands on Monday for 8 days. I dont think we will be blogging unless Darwin brought a computer the last time he was there. Tyson says we will blog tomorrow maybe.
Alright Adios Amigos!
Sara Jungle Jane and Tarzan Tyson.
We are now back in Tena in our little jungle atmosphere hotel. This is going to be a long blog since it has been 3 days so bare with us!
Day 1
We left Tena at around 930 am from Kanoa Tours but before then I had to stop off at a bakery to get some buns in case jungle food was terrible. But before i got to the bakery i smashed my head on a big sign that i somehow missed the upside was that my glasses where there to stop me from slicing my forehead open, the downside is that my nice new Arnett sunglasses have a nice big scratch on them. Thankfully there not right in my vision path but i was a little sad for a minute or two. When we got Kanoa we met our guide his name was Patrick and it looked like he just got the call that he was going on a 3 day 2 night jungle excursion because on the way out of town we had to stop at his house so he could grab some stuff and he also had no idea what our tentative scheudale was. We all loaded into a Mazda truck after we got all sized up for our hot new rubber boats (a.k.a Gum boots!). The 4 of us where inside the truck and Patrick was in the back. Our driver was a talkative little Ecuadorian man who use to be a teacher but apparently being a taxi driver gets you more money than teaching.. kind of sad. But we tried to talk back in forth with the little spanish we had.. Tyson tried to tell him that we were Common law.. and finally gave up and said yes ¨wife¨. Wow so now in most countries we go to i turn into his wife but back in Canada nooooo i am just ¨common law¨. I guess maybe we should just live overseas and we will be married. (or we could learn more languages so there isn´t this confusion) what a hoser... anyways.
It didn´t seem like we were heading into a remote jungle because we drove on a nice paved road for quite some time. It wasn´t until we hit a small town where the driver new everyone all his amigos and such that we came to some gravel road down to the Napo River. From the Napo river we took a motorized long boat for 10 minutes to what we thought was our cabins for the night. However we had to lug all the food that Patrick brought for us to eat and our packs. Peter and Tyson had the main packs while Marilyn and I carried the little packs. We had to climb about 200 feet up on stairs until we got to the lodge. We were dripping with sweat by then. We thought we were staying there that night but Patrick informed us that nope we where staying the night in a community village and then the next night we would stay here at this lodge. We hoed and hummed about this for awhile and then decided it didnt really matter and we would just go with the flow which was hard for Marilyn to do.
We hung out on the hammocks for about 30 minutes or so before Patrick told us to load up all the food into all of our packs. So it went like this. Peter had some fruit, some coffee and tea and a little more of something he turned down taking the 3l of Coke because his pack was heavy enough. Tyson had 8liters of water, plus all of our clothes and books, he had the lentils, the jam and the flour. I had 2 bags of rice which ended up breaking so we had to find a ziploc bag to put them in, and Marilyn got the rest of the food. All that patrick had was this little black bag smaller than our daybag and 5l water jug which he carried in his hand. Marilyn thought that was a rip off and that we should have made him carry more but Tarzan Tyson said it was fine. We wanted the extra water so we carry it.
We headed on our 3 hour jungle march with our gum boots on. The jungle is crazy... its hot, humid, bushy, huge, and large bugs. We walked through both secondary and primary forrest. The first thing i asked Patrick was if anything was poisnious to touch.. he said no all the plants where fine but there is posinous spiders, snakes and frogs and if you drank or ate some of the bushes. So we were all relieved when we could touch things and not worry about posion ivy or anything because it was way too damn hot to have your long sleeves down. The primary forrest was wider and quite a bit cooler with little underbrush that it made jungle marching eaiser. Secondary forrest was quite a bit hotter and lots of plants fighting for sunlight we had to use the machete a bit to make walking easier. It was very hot and I have never seen Tyson look so exhasuted in all of our hiking. It was mostly uphill and sweat dripped all over us. We took only a couple breaks however Patrick was great in stopping and showing us different insects, plants, and fruit we could try. We had some Coaco (coco beans which i thought tasted good, not as good as when you dry it and grind it into chocolate), we had a jungle type of avacado, we had some sort of tomato thing i think.. i can´t remember all the different things we ate lol. Tyson got bit on the neck and he was scared.. i said i documented it and if he got sick i would remember where he got bit and the time lol. Patrick said it was just an ant and that he was fine. Tyson also put his hands into a tree where ants where and once you take your hand away from the tree you rub the ants all over your hand and arm and it is misquito repellent.. it was neat.
We arrived in the White Water community at around 230 ish and we were exhausted. The community had about 10 families, and a school. Once we sat down for a couple of minutes the children of course were intriqued by us as usual. You could tell that they had seen quite a few tourists but they were still curious. The village was Quichea and Patrick spoke thier native language as many of them don´t speak Spanish. While the men got our beds ready.. i say beds but what i really mean is a foamy on an old school house floor with a miquito net. The woman got lunch prepared. I was getting bored of just sitting around so I demostrated a soccer kick to one of the kids and they went on a mission to find a soccer ball we could play with.
Once they found it 2 boys and a little girl came out to the soccer field which was in the middle of the village to kick the ball around. Tyson tried to show off his not so impressive soccer skills while the kids laughed, and i also attempted mine Tyson says i was no better but i actually was. The little boy was trying to mimic my moves. I just want to make a note that i should get paid my salary for that day as I was doing Physical Activity and healthy eating with the children of White Water. I expect one more day of vacation at least! After getting tired of soccer our beds where ready so we took all of our stuff into the old school house and then we went to find Marilyn and Peter in the new school house.
Marilyn was learning counting in spanish.. but the teacher and the kids where laughing at her when she messed up. But we can now count to 50 in spanish.. i can´t remember it all though. The school is quite stalked. It had working erasable pens and a white board but it was still a one room school house with one side elementary and one side jr-high school. Lunch was ready around 4pm and we were starving. We had jungle yucca soup a type of root grown in the jungle which is like a potato but way more starchy and bland tasting. The soup was alright. Tyson liked the soup but he belongs in the junlge with the monkey! We also had lentils yuck, boiled yucca, and some sort of salsa thingy. After lunch we headed to a waterfall we were all exhuasted and Patrick told us it was only 12 minutes away .. so we didn´t wear socks in our gum boots! What a mistake that was it was like 30 minutes away and got some blisters! Also Marilyn and i kept switching gum boots and she would complain that i had hers on and i said no there both the same.. apparently one was a little smaller i couldnt tell the difference.
You always expect a waterfall to be some magnificient thing but everytime i get to one it really isnt that magnificient. I mean it was pretty it was a jungle waterfall but just not that big. We went swimming to which i was scared as i am not the best swimmer and there was a bit of a current. The water was warm i thought and it was good to wash the sweat off of us. I warned Tyson not to pee in the water so no penis fish would swim up him and give him a bad infection. We joked about it for awhile, and he told me he didnt pee in the water but there was a warm spot i felt. (I really didn´t pee in the water, because I really do not want a penis fish) After we swam and got cleaned we got our clothes back on and headed back. Marilyn was scared of falling on the slippery rocks that we had to cross to get to the water fall so she wanted a different way so Patrick took us up and when i mean up i mean up this huge cliff which was way more difficult and scary to climb then walking over wet rocks. We were not impressed with the decision lol. But we made it back to the village and we had a little siesta in our school house under our misquito nets while we waited for dinner.
Dinner was not so good. It was plantaine soup(family of the bananas but does not taste like a banana). It tasted more like Sunny boy porride runny and thick and nasty! Peter told me it was good, now i don´t believe anything Peter says! I could only stomach 3 tablespoons of it but them van Leusdens will eat anything and they gobbled theres down. The main course was jungle chicken, fried plantaines, and rice. I had some fried plantaines still gross, and rice. I didnt trust the chicken, but again the van Leusdens ate everyting.
After dinner we watched the stars. It was amazing the milky way was so bright and there was sooo many stars it was quite pretty! I had to pee really bad and it was pitch black so i made Tyson come to the bathroom with me. Since before dinner he was too scared to go by himself when he had to pee so i came with him. When we go to the bathroom I should say... umm more like a toliet in a shed with out a seat and no flush only bucket flush. Anyways I spotted a HUGE ass spider.. when i say huge i mean like the size of my face! We found out the next day it was a scorpian spider!! HOLY HELL I was crapping my pants.. and refused to go to the bathroom! I told Tyson i could wait till morning! He said no that i had to go and that he would keep an eye on the spider while i squatted around the toliet! I couldn´t do it.. i was petrified! Marilyn and Peter came out to see what the commotion was and they had to pee as well and Marilyn attempted to pour water over the spider.. it moved closer! So she went pee, brave soul and i still couldnt. So they left and I peed in the bush where Tyson watched for Creepy crawlies. eeee. I then insisted that i sleep with Tyson as there was beds for all of us.. but i was too scared.
It is extremely noisy in the jungle at night, because it comes alive then. Most things are nocturnal so its just constant noise. We hardly slept from jungle and the mix of crying babies, as well as the roosters started at like 3am and it was super annoying.
Day 2
We woke up at around 7am as breakfast was at 8am. We had jungle bread, fried plantains, jam, papaya, and pinnapple. It was actually the best meal of the trip. Patrick tooks us on an a more unexplored area of the jungle that he didnt know so he had to get one of the community men to come with us. It was more like bush wacking and it had started to rain but only for 10 minutes or so. Tyson tried a lemon ant... eww and they had some sort of palm root from a plant. I was tried and in a hurry to make it back to the lodge that we had arrived in from day one. We saw a massive worm it looked more like a snake but it was a worm and i saw the plant where they get anti venom for snake bites. Good to know! Other than that it was about a 2.5 hour walk. Once we got back to the lodge (sanchi soachi lodge i think) it was full out hammock time! We had a siesta till lunch on the hammocks and then after lunch we went over to this old Spaniard mans house who lived with his son both of thier wives had died and they were on the hunt for new ones. However they didnt speak Quichea only Spanish you think they would have picked up on some local language after living there for 30 years. Anyways they had the best jungle white pinnapple EVER! It was this small little pinnapple that was white on the inside and it was sooo sweet, not acidicy nice and sweet. We ate about 2 of them and had one for dessert later that night. They also had the original banana tree.. the tree that got wiped out from disease.. i dont know how they still have there tree. From there we walked down to the Napo River to pan for gold... no success. we are still poor. Patrick also gave Marilyn and I a new village look. He took some fruit like thing from the trees and it made face paint really and he made me into a village princess. Tyson thought it was funny.
We got back to the lodge and chilled out while we waited for dinner. Dinner was late.. like 9pm we were starving. The only other tourists we met where these 2 french friends a male and a female. They were nice kept to themselves. After dinner we had a vote to see who wanted to go for a night walk.. it was only going to be 30 minutes long so we all decided too although the french girl and myself where apprehensive. We got our gum boots back on and our head lamps and headed out. Patrick led the way and then Tyson and then me holding tightly onto Tyson. we got a little ways in and i was already freaking out. It wasnt until Patrick told us to turn all of our head lamps off.. holy shit was i freaking.. it was PITCH BLACK! Couldnt see anythign and creepy as hell. He wanted to show us this fungi that glowed in the dark on this tree.. it was cool but i had had enough of it. We saw a yellow poisinous spider that freaked the hell out of me, and this MASSIVE grasshopper that pretty much almost bit Peter because he was holding on to him. We almost saw a trantula.. and then i broke down crying.. i was soo scared, literally! The sounds of the mud and thinking of snakes around my gum boots and everything else was too much. Patrick then made the decision to turn back. I don´t think that anyone was upset about it because i think they were all secretly scared too! Tyson said i almost put holes in his hands from squeezing so hard. I would never want to be stranded in the jungle at night time! No jaguars to be seen, or armidillos.
Day 3.
We woke up and it was pouring rain. We had really good weather so we weren´t complaining as today was the last day and we were all ready for a hot shower to get clean! Tyson and I didnt bring a change of clothes so you can only imagine how dirty and muddy and gross we were! We had jungle pancakes and some fruit and a fried egg. I tried to bargin my friend egg to Tyson for his pancake but no dice.. he doesn´t even like breakfast anyways! Since it was pouring we hung around for a bit until 11 or so until we were told to Vamouse and pack our bags. We went by motorized canoe to the other side of the Napo River and it had stopped raining. It was a bird watching Island and Marilyn was estatic.. why i am not sure.. its not like there is a ton of exotic birds here.. not where we were anyways no Tucans ... The scenary was different more jungle grass like that were 20 feet tall and small ponds. We arrived in this little village house that had these adorable puppies. The man and women were friendly and they spoke both Quichea and Spanish. Patrick translated for us and we asked questions. We pulled Yucca out of the ground and helped the woman peel it and prepare it. Marilyn and I mashed it and then she used the water from which the yucca was cooked to make it creamy and mashed. Unlike at home where we would have put a pound of butter in. It was cool to see the house inside and how everything functioned. It made sense. Lots of machedes lying around, and they even had a TV and a fridge. We had some fresh papya as well. They were very friendly. We hung around for about 30 minutes and then we walked over to see this BIG BIRD! I wasnt impressed i didnt even see it i thought they were all crazy. But they said they saw it! It was orange like a rooster. I was getting tired of the jungle by this point and just wanted my sandles and to be clean.
We then went back to the motorized canoe back to the port. We ate lunch at the little restaurant and it was fish from the Napo River I gave mine to the guide and just at the rice and plaintaine. I am SICK of plantaine! We chilled out for awhile while waiting for our taxi ride back to Tena. Patrick had one more stop for us in a small sleepy jungle town called Mishualli or something of that sort. Side note- on our first day we swung on vines like Tarzan did it was pretty cool you have to have good upper body strength though as it was hard for me but fun!) The guide book says nothing about Monkeys in this town.. but when we got there monkeys were everywhere. They are so fun to watch! Tyson had a bad case of BSA -- backpack separation anxiety as we were told to leave our packs in the taxi.. which we would never do but apprently the monkeys grab things out of them on your back. They were halarious they stole a little girls cheezies and opened the chips and ate them, one monkey guarded them from a dog. while the other monkey grabbed the dogs tail and pulled him. They are sooo funny.. i swear humans! The look just like us.. and they can open bags and everything! If only we had tails we could do some awesome swinging.. they even walked on just two legs. I wanted to take one home! To be the next helper monkey!
After about 20 minutes of monkey watching we were on our way back to Tena. It was nice to have a hot shower and get cleaned! We all have tons of ant bites on us, more so me since i cant squat so well the ants attacked me. We also have other bites but were fine. All in all we were quite satisfied with our guide he was really good and fun and had really good english and taught and showed us lots of things. The village was good but they were running it like a business. But we survived the jungle and now we are looking forward to the Galapagos Islands and meeting up with Leann so maybe that she can lose at Yahtzee instead of me all the time.
Today in Tena we slept in, and had pancakes for breakfast i was soo giddy! Tyson even let me have 2 out of the three! We went searching for the market and just looking around. The market was really small and a just a food market. I didnt like the meat part it was stinky and gross as per usual. Peter and Marilyn bought some oranges, and pears. We watched a political rally for a bit, nothing too exciting. Then we had lunch at a really good pizza place. It was a relaxing day for once as Marilyn slowed down.
Tonight we will have some dinner and pack up, we also got our laundry done because our clothes where so dirty from the jungle. We are heading to Quito tomorrow morning on Banos bus and will meet up with Leann before we head to the Galapagos Islands on Monday for 8 days. I dont think we will be blogging unless Darwin brought a computer the last time he was there. Tyson says we will blog tomorrow maybe.
Alright Adios Amigos!
Sara Jungle Jane and Tarzan Tyson.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Disco Underwear!
Hokay..
So this morning we woke up at the god awful hour of 7¨00 am and got our stuff packed and ready for our bus ride to Tena, Ecuador. We ate breakfast and yes more Bananas! (what is wrong with the bananas? they taste good when compared to the cheese)
We got to the bus station which was actually a little overwhelming of people shouting and yelling and pointing and finally we got what we were looking for. However the lady selling tickets to Tena was leaving at 1030 and we wanted to leave earlier it was about 930 we were hoping for a 10 oclock bus. The lady took us to another booth where she said it was leaving at 10am (or so we thought) so we said ok and it was great the bus company gives you free cokes and cookies for your bus trip. We sat in the waiting room that smelt really badly of urine and waited till 10 to come around. When 10 o clock came we were rushed to this gate where we had to pay 20 cents to go through.. why we had to we are not sure, everyone did even if you had bus tickets. We got on the bus and picked a spot. The bus actually was´not leaving till 1030 so we sat on it for half an hour, typical overseas bus station lol. (our tickets upon later inspection did say 10:30, I think the woman was just giving us a place to sit until then). However we got kicked out of our seats because apparently you have assigned seats (assigned seats, we don´t even have assigned seats in Canada, not saying that Canada is the best, but really???). Tyson was not to happy about that we were right front row. The reason why we don´t like front row is that if an accident where to happen there is no seats in front of you to brace youself... but dont worry mom we are safe and the front was actually kind of nice because you could see the road up ahead. From Quito we passed over a 4500 meter pass with amazing views. (Can´t wait to go hiking!!) The bus driver and his buddy (the guy who yells ¨TENA TENA TENA¨ and loads the bags and helps the bus driver out) were actually really funny men. They would periodically stop for roadside empanadas but never let anyone on the bus off to get some and they would play there loud spanish or really awesome english Disco (think take me to FUNKY TOWN) and sing really loud. They were quite the entertainment. About 40 minutes into the ride the funniest thing happened, i was just sitting there looking out the window getting into bus zone out mode when all of a sudden a pair of underwear fell on top of me from the top area of the bus... i didnt know what the hell it was so i quickly pushed it off of me and then we realized that it was underwear and we couldn´t stop laughing for like 30 minutes. It was the oddest thing and yet the funniest thing. The bus driver was actually a really good driver wasn´t speeding and took his time. We did hit some road construction where we sat there not movign for a good hour. That sucked... but i had to pee really bad so it was good ( this is Sara writing this). All the men got off the bus to check out the construction while the wome and babies stayed on the bus.
We got into Tena around 445pm and found our hostel no problem. It is a nice area it reminds us of Laos. It isn´t super touristy right now because its off season so its a nice feel. Our room is overlooking the Napa river which is a nice green-torquise blue unlike Laos muddy brown colour. Marilyn was anxious to get a tour booked for the jungle for tomorrow morning so Tyson and I and her went looking at tour companys. Peter got a terrible migrane after the bus and has been sleeping all night hopefully he will be better for tomorrow and for the jungle tour. We talked to two companies. We decided to go for 3 days and 2 nights. One night we will be just staying in lodges and the other night in a village. We will have a guide and it will just be the 4 of us so it should be interesting. It is super hot here like sticky icky hot and really different from Quito where it was freezing... plus 10 or so. (We keep comparing it to Laos because that is the only jungle we have recently been in, and the country side from a bus window looks so similar).
So we won´t be blogging for a couple of days due to being in the Amazon but we will be back Friday afternoon sometime and will fill you in then. Maybe I can find a helper monkey this time!
So this morning we woke up at the god awful hour of 7¨00 am and got our stuff packed and ready for our bus ride to Tena, Ecuador. We ate breakfast and yes more Bananas! (what is wrong with the bananas? they taste good when compared to the cheese)
We got to the bus station which was actually a little overwhelming of people shouting and yelling and pointing and finally we got what we were looking for. However the lady selling tickets to Tena was leaving at 1030 and we wanted to leave earlier it was about 930 we were hoping for a 10 oclock bus. The lady took us to another booth where she said it was leaving at 10am (or so we thought) so we said ok and it was great the bus company gives you free cokes and cookies for your bus trip. We sat in the waiting room that smelt really badly of urine and waited till 10 to come around. When 10 o clock came we were rushed to this gate where we had to pay 20 cents to go through.. why we had to we are not sure, everyone did even if you had bus tickets. We got on the bus and picked a spot. The bus actually was´not leaving till 1030 so we sat on it for half an hour, typical overseas bus station lol. (our tickets upon later inspection did say 10:30, I think the woman was just giving us a place to sit until then). However we got kicked out of our seats because apparently you have assigned seats (assigned seats, we don´t even have assigned seats in Canada, not saying that Canada is the best, but really???). Tyson was not to happy about that we were right front row. The reason why we don´t like front row is that if an accident where to happen there is no seats in front of you to brace youself... but dont worry mom we are safe and the front was actually kind of nice because you could see the road up ahead. From Quito we passed over a 4500 meter pass with amazing views. (Can´t wait to go hiking!!) The bus driver and his buddy (the guy who yells ¨TENA TENA TENA¨ and loads the bags and helps the bus driver out) were actually really funny men. They would periodically stop for roadside empanadas but never let anyone on the bus off to get some and they would play there loud spanish or really awesome english Disco (think take me to FUNKY TOWN) and sing really loud. They were quite the entertainment. About 40 minutes into the ride the funniest thing happened, i was just sitting there looking out the window getting into bus zone out mode when all of a sudden a pair of underwear fell on top of me from the top area of the bus... i didnt know what the hell it was so i quickly pushed it off of me and then we realized that it was underwear and we couldn´t stop laughing for like 30 minutes. It was the oddest thing and yet the funniest thing. The bus driver was actually a really good driver wasn´t speeding and took his time. We did hit some road construction where we sat there not movign for a good hour. That sucked... but i had to pee really bad so it was good ( this is Sara writing this). All the men got off the bus to check out the construction while the wome and babies stayed on the bus.
We got into Tena around 445pm and found our hostel no problem. It is a nice area it reminds us of Laos. It isn´t super touristy right now because its off season so its a nice feel. Our room is overlooking the Napa river which is a nice green-torquise blue unlike Laos muddy brown colour. Marilyn was anxious to get a tour booked for the jungle for tomorrow morning so Tyson and I and her went looking at tour companys. Peter got a terrible migrane after the bus and has been sleeping all night hopefully he will be better for tomorrow and for the jungle tour. We talked to two companies. We decided to go for 3 days and 2 nights. One night we will be just staying in lodges and the other night in a village. We will have a guide and it will just be the 4 of us so it should be interesting. It is super hot here like sticky icky hot and really different from Quito where it was freezing... plus 10 or so. (We keep comparing it to Laos because that is the only jungle we have recently been in, and the country side from a bus window looks so similar).
So we won´t be blogging for a couple of days due to being in the Amazon but we will be back Friday afternoon sometime and will fill you in then. Maybe I can find a helper monkey this time!
Monday, March 23, 2009
How about them waffles
Hola!
So we got stuck in Atlanta overnight. The hotel had seen better days, but was a free bed. The next morning Sara and myself were awoken by the cleaning staff at around 9am, but Peter and Marilyn were left to sleep, so that is when we filled in the blog and wrote some emails. After meeting up with my folks we decided to get some brunch and/or go for a walk. We walked to this green space, but it was really just green space seperating the hotels from the freeway, and there was people already living in there, so we decided to leave them alone. Across the street was the "Waffle House" so we went in. It was a perfect southern spot, with a few booths, people eating at a bar, and packed with people that did not look like us (Big jewelery chains and baggy clothes) as well as young families ya'll! Dad you would have loved this place it was totally gangstar and all African Americans in the entire restaurant. There was one other white person in there.. it was AWESOME! You should have seen how they ran this joint yelling orders around. The waffles were delicious! This older woman served us. Marilyn asked for herbal tea, or low fat milk, neither of which they had. We all ordered OJ, waffles, and hashbrowns. The food turned out to be delicious, and the atmosphere, was right out of the movies. After brunch we packed up and headed to the airport, where Sara and myself spent a good hour or two determining the best way to blow the remaining $21 of Delta food coupons. We decided on chips and guacamolie, frozen yogurt, and mixed nuts and fruit. We killed the time, and boarded our plane to Quito.
We arrived in Quito after enjoying Slumdog Millionaire for a second time. Cleared customs without a problem, to find only 3 bags had made it. Tyson's bag was nowhere to be seen. So we started to fill in the paperwork, beside a very upset business man who also lost one of his bags. Serves him right, he kept turning off my tv on the plane. Anyways while waiting for them to photocopy my passport, the guy thought to look in already received baggage room, and what do you know. There was my bag!!! We figure that Sara, Peter, and Marilyn's bags had made the original flight to Atlanta or the same flight we actually sat on, but mine didn't. Mine ended up getting transfered through LA on another airline, but whatever, it made it before me.
Got to our hostel late, and went to bed, in a very hard bed. It is surprisingly cool here, and there is no heating in the rooms. It rained and dogs barked, but we made it through the night.
We enjoyed scrambled eggs, a banana, a bun and jam, and a fruit smoothie for breakfast, before setting out to explore Quito. We walked South along Amazonia street through the park to the start of old town. Then we turned west and headed up a hill. See the bottom of the valley is flat, but there are lots of hills around and Quito extends up most of them. We walked up steep streets and stairs until we ended up on top of a hill by a soccer pitch and a soon to be opened fancy restruant. We had a great view of the city from there. After enjoying the view we headed down to Basilica del Voto Nacional, a huge gothic catherdal built in 1926. Notable: instead of gargoyles it has iguanas and turtles. The highlight is the massive clock towers that you can see from most of Old Town. Me and Sara paid our $2 each to climb up them, and by that them mean all the bloody way. You start up steps, then on a spiral staircase, and finally you are on ladders, until you are above to clock, the bells, and even the stone. You finish up at the beginning of the roof tiles. We had to dare each other to climb the last ladder, but we did it. On the way down, you can go over to the spire over the center of the church. So you walk on a wooden boardwalk above the nave of the church, then climb up three sets of ladders until you are on the spire. Not as high as the clock towers, but a good view of the clocks.
After that we walked down to the Grand Plaza. Just as we got there it started to rain. So we took cover and figured out where we were going to eat. We decided on a LP highly recommended place, and it turned out to be very good. Potato soup with popcorn on the side (Sara thinks you are suppose to put it in the soup, which while tasting good, is weird). A fruit plate and an empanada. After we finished we thought the rain would have stopped, because we had been told that when it rains it only rains for 15 minutes. What a lie, it rained for the rest of the afternoon. We checked out a number of other plazas and churches, but they were all pretty quiet due to the rain, and because it was Monday and half the places were closed.
We decided to start walking back to the hostel so we could stop on the way and ask some travel agents what we could do to get into the Amazon, but without knowing exactly what we wanted it turned out not to be a good way to spend our time. So we walked all the way home in the rain, and were quite cold when we got back. I had a shower, to warm up, which helped while Sara shivered and had a snack instead.
We then had a meeting and decided we would go to Tena for the rest of this week and then go with Leann to Otavalo when we get back from the Galapagos. After this we went for dinner. The first resturant was too expensive so we walked out before ordering. We had planned on going there, so we didn't bring our guidebooks or a map, so we walked around for a while looking for a busy place. We ended up a Mama's which was Ecuadorian, and decent. Sara says it lacks flavors and they were a little cheap on the Avacado but the potatos are very good here! The cheese however is not that good it tastes like tofu cheese if there was such a thing. Also who would have thought you can make corn in so many different ways. For example.. i thought it was cauliflower on my plate but it was white corn that tasted like soggy popcorn... but it meshed well with the mashed potatos.
So tomorrow we head to Tena by bus (shiver... )
Tyson and Sara
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Amazing Race Style
Hello!!!
Well this is our first post of our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands and well we aren't in Ecuador yet.. ha-ha.
Yesterday we woke up at 3:00am to get to Edmonton Airport by 4:00am. Tyson drove us down and then got a Taxi at a crazy rate of 17.50 for a 5 minute drive from Leduc to the airport. Tyson only had 13.00 dollars and said this is all i have take it or leave it and the guy took it.. but that seems like a crazy rate!!! Anyways our plane was supposed to take off at 6:10am to Salt Lake City, Utah and we were all ready to go except they questioned Tyson and I on why we had so many stamps and visas in our passport and they asked me if i travelled alot for "buisness" to which I replied.. no I am a school health facilitator and he just looked at me like i had 3 eyes... The plane could not leave because there was too much fog in Edmonton.. by "too much" we mean "barely". So we sat on the plane for an hour and a half and couldn't go anywhere with a screaming baby behind us.. not cool!
We finally took off at 7:30 am and got to Salt Lake City at 9:45... we were off the plane by 9:47 and we booked it to gate c6 where our connecting flight to Atlanta was. We ran like amazing race style.. seriously our lungs were burning and people were staring at us... but when Tyson got to C6... Sara kept going to C9... they had just closed the gate and said nope sorry we can't let you on. We were peed -off but what really happened was that stand by took our 4 seats because we weren't there .So we there was no more room anyways. We sat and watched the plane on the tarmac for 30 or so minutes. It was so hard to see, and Marilyn was not impressed that the plane was still sitting there probably with our bags getting loaded. The people at Delta have been understanding though. The lady we spoke to was trying her hardest to find a way we could get to Ecuador today but there is only one flight a day so that wasn't going to work but she wanted to get us to Atlanta so at least we would be there for tomorrow's flight to Ecuador. However the people beside us also missed thier flight (same flight) but they had a Galapagos Cruise that was starting Sunday (today) ... they now have to miss a day or two of thier cruise and hopefuly be able to find it which sucks even more! Anyways we got on a flight to Jackson hole, Wyonming (sp??) what a hole that place is.. well really its just a big skiing resort and the US people think its the nicest spot in America... it wasn't terrible but the airport was tiny with no food and we were hungry. Oh the lady at Delta got us on first class to Jackson hole and first class to Atlanta with breakfast, lunch, and dinner vouchers and hotel voucher so we were taking good care of. We waited 2 hours in Jackson hole to our conncecting flight to Atlanta. There was an incident on the run way at Jackson hole (nothing to do with our plane) but we had to wait 30 minutes on that plane before we got the go ahead to taxi and take off to Atlanta... they almost shut down the run way over night (we would have been stuck in Jackson hole!!!). Anyways we got into Atlanta at 8:30pm and got our hotel vouches and dinner and breakfast vouchers as well as an overnight kit as our bags are in Atlanta but they stay in the International space and then get on our plane to Ecuador when we leave. We still need to confirm of this.
Atlanta is big, with a nice southern bell feel. Ha-ha! We tried to get free tickets to March Madness but the Delta airline people weren't buying our bid. Its warm here, there are flowers and green grass.. shocking! And the avacado tastes delicious! It really did feel like the amazing race yesterday and Tyson and I have no questions that we would have totally been top 2 teams racing to get onto the connecting flight (i am sure if it was the actual amazing race they would have let us on!)
Thats all for now... going to go eat a southern breakfast.. mmmmm grease. Hopefully tomorrow you will hear from us in Ecuador!!!!
Adios...
Sara and Tyson
Well this is our first post of our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands and well we aren't in Ecuador yet.. ha-ha.
Yesterday we woke up at 3:00am to get to Edmonton Airport by 4:00am. Tyson drove us down and then got a Taxi at a crazy rate of 17.50 for a 5 minute drive from Leduc to the airport. Tyson only had 13.00 dollars and said this is all i have take it or leave it and the guy took it.. but that seems like a crazy rate!!! Anyways our plane was supposed to take off at 6:10am to Salt Lake City, Utah and we were all ready to go except they questioned Tyson and I on why we had so many stamps and visas in our passport and they asked me if i travelled alot for "buisness" to which I replied.. no I am a school health facilitator and he just looked at me like i had 3 eyes... The plane could not leave because there was too much fog in Edmonton.. by "too much" we mean "barely". So we sat on the plane for an hour and a half and couldn't go anywhere with a screaming baby behind us.. not cool!
We finally took off at 7:30 am and got to Salt Lake City at 9:45... we were off the plane by 9:47 and we booked it to gate c6 where our connecting flight to Atlanta was. We ran like amazing race style.. seriously our lungs were burning and people were staring at us... but when Tyson got to C6... Sara kept going to C9... they had just closed the gate and said nope sorry we can't let you on. We were peed -off but what really happened was that stand by took our 4 seats because we weren't there .So we there was no more room anyways. We sat and watched the plane on the tarmac for 30 or so minutes. It was so hard to see, and Marilyn was not impressed that the plane was still sitting there probably with our bags getting loaded. The people at Delta have been understanding though. The lady we spoke to was trying her hardest to find a way we could get to Ecuador today but there is only one flight a day so that wasn't going to work but she wanted to get us to Atlanta so at least we would be there for tomorrow's flight to Ecuador. However the people beside us also missed thier flight (same flight) but they had a Galapagos Cruise that was starting Sunday (today) ... they now have to miss a day or two of thier cruise and hopefuly be able to find it which sucks even more! Anyways we got on a flight to Jackson hole, Wyonming (sp??) what a hole that place is.. well really its just a big skiing resort and the US people think its the nicest spot in America... it wasn't terrible but the airport was tiny with no food and we were hungry. Oh the lady at Delta got us on first class to Jackson hole and first class to Atlanta with breakfast, lunch, and dinner vouchers and hotel voucher so we were taking good care of. We waited 2 hours in Jackson hole to our conncecting flight to Atlanta. There was an incident on the run way at Jackson hole (nothing to do with our plane) but we had to wait 30 minutes on that plane before we got the go ahead to taxi and take off to Atlanta... they almost shut down the run way over night (we would have been stuck in Jackson hole!!!). Anyways we got into Atlanta at 8:30pm and got our hotel vouches and dinner and breakfast vouchers as well as an overnight kit as our bags are in Atlanta but they stay in the International space and then get on our plane to Ecuador when we leave. We still need to confirm of this.
Atlanta is big, with a nice southern bell feel. Ha-ha! We tried to get free tickets to March Madness but the Delta airline people weren't buying our bid. Its warm here, there are flowers and green grass.. shocking! And the avacado tastes delicious! It really did feel like the amazing race yesterday and Tyson and I have no questions that we would have totally been top 2 teams racing to get onto the connecting flight (i am sure if it was the actual amazing race they would have let us on!)
Thats all for now... going to go eat a southern breakfast.. mmmmm grease. Hopefully tomorrow you will hear from us in Ecuador!!!!
Adios...
Sara and Tyson
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