Isla de la Plata, Quito, and Galapagos

Hey everybody -- Carrie and I are now in Cuenca, Ecuador, preparing for their independence celebrations coming up this weekend. Unfortunately, our stay in Ecuador will be coming to an end soon, and we will be moving on to Argentina. We've decided to skip Chile, because we really want to make sure we have enough time to do Argentina and Brazil some justice. In any case, my last post left off on the coast of Ecuador...

One day trip we did from coastal Ecuador was Isla de la Plata. Our hostel set us up with a tour, and we headed to the nearby town of Puerto Lopez to board a boat. We were told that we might get so see whales on our way to the island, but that the mating season was coming to an end, so we might not. Let's just say we got lucky!

From Coastal Ecuador

From Coastal Ecuador

We also got a glimpse of some dolphins, but were unable to get them on camera. When we finally got to the island, we hiked for a couple hours and got our first look at the blue footed boobies.

From Coastal Ecuador

We found it especially amusing when the birds would set up their nests in the middle of the tourist path!

From Coastal Ecuador

We also got a look at the masked booby (one of my favorites):

From Coastal Ecuador

The last bird we saw was the frigate bird (the male is puffing out):

From Coastal Ecuador

After the hike, we went back to the boat and did about 30 minutes of snorkeling. This photo is from the boat before we jumped in and went swimming with the fishes...

From Coastal Ecuador

Overall, we enjoyed the Isla de la Plata experience! If Galapagos is too expensive or time-consuming, this is a great alternative. It is especially great if you can go during whale mating season (I know September is included, but I don't know how much earlier it goes).

After our stay on the coast, we boarded an overnight bus to Quito. As usual, we didn't sleep much, but we eventually made it. Here we found our staple Quito hotel, Hotel Pickett. We settled in a bit here, and then headed for the jungle, which Carrie detailed in her most recent post.

After the jungle, we had a couple days in Quito before we headed for the Galapagos. We decided to head to Mitad del Mundo, or the "Middle of the World", where the true equator is located. First, there was the large monument, which actually isn't at the true equator:

From Quito, Ecuador

After that, we headed to the Museo del Solar, which had the true equator:

From Quito, Ecuador

At this museum, they had a demonstration of water draining in different hemispheres. Carrie and I of course decided to take videos:

At the equator:


In the southern hemisphere (only a couple meters away):


In the northern hemisphere (also a couple meters away):


At the equator, Carrie succeeded at balancing an egg on a nail (due to the fact that there are no sideways gravitational forces):

From Quito, Ecuador

After the Mitad del Mundo, we got incredibly lost on our bus ride back to Quito, so after trying 4 different local buses, we eventually gave up and took a cab. Remarkably, it turned out we had gotten to only a few blocks from our hotel! After that, we got ready to head to the GALAPAGOS!!

A quick note on Galapagos planning: We booked our trip before we headed to the jungle, or about 1 week in advance, in Quito. We paid our travel agent IN CASH, which resulted in many trips to the ATM! With Galapagos, if you have the luxury of time, I do recommend booking your tour "last minute," since that's when the prices drop more, even for nice boats. For truly last minute bookings, you can actually fly to the town of Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos, and book right then! We had booked our tour on a "tourist superior" boat, which basically had small bedrooms with private bathrooms, decent food, transit to the islands, and not much else. When we got back from the jungle, we found out that our original boat had been canceled, and we were re-booked on a nicer, first class boat for the same price!

Our travel agent told us that the boats reserve seats on airplanes so that all of the tourists can fly together. We were given stickers with our boat's name, so we could easily find our guide and group when we landed. However, in the airport, we didn't notice other people wearing our stickers. Our plane was then delayed, and we ended up boarding a plane with a different flight number, which took us to Guayaquil. From there, we switched planes to a Galapagos bound plane, although everything was extremely confusing. Carrie and I suspected that they canceled our original flight, but just wouldn't admit that they did.

When we finally got off our plane, we didn't see anyone from our boat. Suddenly, this older man came up to us and told us that he was the one to take us to the boat, but that we were very late and the entire group was waiting! We told him that we needed to get our bags, and then we'd be all set. While we waited for our bags, he came back up to us and said he was leaving with the rest of the group! We were left behind, and told to join this other group to go to the port, where he would meet us and take us to our boat. Of course, the guide of the group we joined didn't have money to pay for our bus / boat transfers, so we had to pay them ourselves, which was unexpected.

Once we got to the port, the old man rejoined us, and introduced us to our actual tour guide. The guide proceeded to tell us that this was supposed to be his afternoon off, and joined us on a water taxi to our boat. On the boat, the rest of our group had just finished lunch, and Carrie and I ate our meal while they finished off dessert. Luckily, the rest of our group was extremely friendly and understanding, and things got better fast.

What we ended up learning was that in the Galapagos, the logistics can be completely messed up, but nothing can screw up the islands themselves... the rest of the trip was pretty fantastic! After lunch on the first day, we went to the Charles Darwin Center, where they are breeding endangered Galapagos tortoises:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

After the Darwin Center, we headed back to the boat for dinner and sleeping. The next day, we went back to the same island we had started in and viewed some lava tubes and did a short hike. After lunch, the boat left for the first time and we went to the Island of Santa Fe for snorkeling and a hike. I don't have photos of snorkelling, but we saw some colorful fish, and Carrie had a sea lion swim directly underneath her! When we got to the beach, we were introduced to the Galapagos sea lions for the first time:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit! The incredible thing was that the animals were mostly unafraid of humans! This is likely due to the fact that the islands have been protected for so long, so humans haven't bothered the animals much here... only taken lots of photos!

For the third day, we went to Española island, where we saw more amazing things. Here are some highlights:

Marine Iguanas and Lava Lizards:

From Galapagos Isl...

I join a beautiful moment between mother and child:

From Galapagos Isl...

Carrie and I at the edge of the island:

From Galapagos Isl...

Masked boobies up close:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

A sea lion joins Carrie on the beach:

From Galapagos Isl...

For Day 4, we headed to Floreana Island, which featured some good snorkelling that proved to be difficult due to the strong current. We also got our first look at Galapagos flamingos (supposedly the most pink in the world), a beach full of stingrays, and more sea lions!

From Galapagos Isl...

Notice the flamingo's path visible in the water:

From Galapagos Isl...

Luckily the rays didn't give anyone the Steve Irwin treatment:

From Galapagos Isl...

We liked this pose:

From Galapagos Isl...

On Day 5 in the early morning, we got our first look (in the Galapagos) at the male frigatebird showing off for the females:

From Galapagos Isl...

We also got a look at a newborn sea lion with its mother, and a bird attempting to eat the placenta. The mother had to keep growling to keep the bird at bay:

From Galapagos Isl...

Unfortunately, during day 5, the boat spent a long time at Baltra, the airport island. This is because some tourists opt for 4 or 5 day Galapagos tours, and those tourists are mixed in with the 8 day people (like us). For the 8 day people, we basically had to kill 6 hours of a beautiful afternoon doing nothing, because they were dropping off and picking up tourists, as well as cleaning the boat. After some coaxing, at least they let us hang out on an army beach for a couple hours, which wasn't particularly exciting, so Carrie built this fortress around a sleeping sea lion:

From Galapagos Isl...

For Day 6, we headed to Genovesa Island. It was here that we got our first look at the red-footed booby:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

The very beautiful red footed booby with white feathers:

From Galapagos Isl...

The swallow-tailed gull (one standing on top of the other):

From Galapagos Isl...

This day also featured some great snorkeling, where we saw SHARKS and giant turtles. Unfortunately, I do not have photos.

For Day 7, we spent time in Bartolome, as well as Santa Cruz's Black Turtle Cove. Here we saw the Galapagos Penguin:

From Galapagos Isl...

We also had some nice views (you can see our boat in the background):

From Galapagos Isl...

Bartolome also featured one of our unforgettable moments, when we snorkeled with sea lions! We had snorkeled before and had sea lions swim by, but this time the sea lions actually swam WITH us and really seemed to be playing with us. They would do barrel rolls and jump out of the water, and even pose underwater. While we don't have any photos of this, I doubt I will ever forget it.

In the afternoon of day 7, we moved to a different area of Santa Cruz. While in transit, two frigate birds followed us for the entire time! Notice how happy I look at this moment:

From Galapagos Isl...

I was lounging on the boat's top deck, when suddenly one of the frigate birds that had been following us decided to relieve itself:

From Galapagos Isl...

I cleaned up, and for our afternoon excursion we went in small boats through some mangroves, reminiscent of the jungle. We saw some pretty neat stuff.

Mating turtles:

From Galapagos Isl...

SHARKS!

From Galapagos Isl...

Turtle underwater:

From Galapagos Isl...

On Day 8, we did a brief (and fairly uneventful) hike before heading back to the airport. In summary, I would HIGHLY recommend the Galapagos to anyone who loves wildlife. If you have the luxury of time, I would certainly recommend the 8 day tour, booked in Ecuador. Just make sure you have something to do midway through the trip when the 4/5 day passengers switch. Also, get the nicest boat you can afford, since you'll be spending a lot of time on it! We took a lot more pictures than were posted on this blog, so please feel free to look at the full photo albums if you like what you see.

The Cuyabeno Jungle

Our first day in Quito, Ecuador, we arranged for a five day trip exploring the jungle in the Cuyabeno National Reserve. Due to a relatively recent war with Peru, Ecuador no longer has any of the actual Amazon river, but the Cuyabeno river feeds into the Amazon and the surrounding area is part of the Amazon rainforest. Cuyabeno is considered primary rainforest because it has never been cut down and regrown like many other areas. This means that there is much more wildlife to see!

To start our trip, we first had to take an eight hour, over-night bus ride to Lago Agrio. The roads were very windy and mostly dirt, so we didn´t get much sleep that night. We arrived at 6 am in pouring rain, but we weren´t supposed to meet our group until 9:30-10, so I had a short nap in the lobby of the hotel where we were supposed to meet. I´m not sure the hotel was too happy about me napping in their lobby, but fortunately they didn´t say anything.

Our travel agent had given us stickers to wear so we could locate our group. There appeared to be a couple of other groups meeting at this hotel as well, but no one else from our lodge, Samona. As 9:30 turned into 10 we started to worry because not only was nobody there to meet us, but no one else was wearing the stickers (the travel agent had told us there would be seven people in our group). Then, at 10:00 a man introduced himself as Naicer, our guide, and told us to get in his unmarked jeep. There was another dude driving, who we later learned was Naicer´s brother. We asked where the rest of our group was, and he said we had to pick them up from the airport. A little strange, but we went along with it.

First, we drove to Naicer´s parents house where we switched to a Volkswagon van. Then, on the way to the airport, Naicer got a call informing him that two of the people in our group had cancelled and the other three people were actually scheduled to come next month. We weren´t sure if us being the only two in the group was a good or bad thing, but it was definitely strange. We drove to the airport anyway where we picked up some papers. Then we drove to a gas station where Naicer appeared to have an argument with the attendant. Strange again! We later learned that the gas prices are much cheaper in Ecuador, so people often smuggle gasoline across the nearby Columbian border. The papers we had picked up from the airport were authorizing us to fill up several tanks of gasoline to use for the jungle boats.

After getting a little lost in downtown Lago Agrio due to construction, we next drove to a restaurant and picked up a few take-out boxes. Finally, we were ready to start the three hour drive to the Cuyabeno reserve. We stopped halfway through the drive at a tiny restaurant in a tiny town. There, we ate the take-out food, which turned out to be really yummy fried chicken with white rice. The restaurant owners didn´t seem to mind that we had brought our own food and weren´t buying any of theirs. Strange!

From Cuyabeno (The...

The rest of the ride was bumpy, although very scenic. At the entrance to the park, they transferred all of our supplies to a dug out canoe. Since it was just Dan and I, we also picked up two hitchhikers, a woman and her young son. It had been raining all morning, so they gave us heavy ponchos to wear. Fortunately, the rain dwindled to a stop within the first half hour of our two hour ride. On the ride we saw many animals including macaws, yellow handed titi monkeys, stinky turkeys, and a river otter. We were very lucky to see the river otter because they were almost extinct. We knew this was special because Naicer got really excited when he saw the otter, quickly scrambled to get out his camera AND video camera from his luggage, and took photos/movies the entire time the otter was in site. Naicer was a really great guide because he would get really excited about the wildlife and you could tell he loved being in the jungle. In the below picture, Naicer is at the front of the boat and you can see the otter´s head to the left of the boat:

From Cuyabeno (The...

The Simona lodge actually consisted of a bunch of separate huts all connected by a wooden walkway a few feet above ground. We were there during the dry season, but apparently during the wet season the entire campsite is filled with water and you can actually fish for piranha right off the walkway! Our hut was the largest, with two floors and a total of six rooms. Each room had a private bath with shower. However, the toilet, sink, and shower water were all from the river so the water was a little brown. There was no electricity in the rooms, but there were two candles that were sufficient for everything but reading.

From Cuyabeno (The...

There was also a large hut that contained the kitchen and a large room for dining/lounging. On the first night we were instructed to not keep any food in our room because of the insects, so I put my bag of snacks in the communal refrigerator in the kitchen (I still had some Cliff bars I´d been hoarding for emergency snacks). However, despite our precautions, our room was swarmed with giant cockroaches every night. Most of them were about the size of my big toe! Below is a picture of two crawling through some clothing I had put on a shelf (after taking this picture I quickly shook out all my clothes and started keeping everything in plastic bags).

From Cuyabeno (The...

When we got to the lodge, it was filled with tourists. However, it turned out that all but three of them were leaving the next morning, so we ended up with a nice group of five. There was a brother and sister who were about our age and another older woman, coincidentally all from Switzerland. Our first morning at the lodge we went for a hike. However, before we left, we were equipped with water-proof, knee-high boots, which turned out to be essential for jungle hiking. I was constantly amazed by all the different plants and animals we saw, but the two highlights were when a GIANT grasshopper landed on one of the guy´s backpacks and hiking through this big mud pit:

From Cuyabeno (The...

In addition, on our way back to the lodge we saw a pink river dolphin, which is somewhat uncommon during the dry season. Unfortunately, river dolphins are a little shyer than their oceanic cousins, so this was our only picture:

From Cuyabeno (The...

After getting back to the lodge, we had lunch and relaxed until mid-afternoon. Then we went piranha fishing! Our poles were sticks with fishing line and hooks, and our bait was STEAK. Piranhas usually hang out around tree roots and the technique is to first thrash your pole around in the water like an animal in distress, and then wait for the fish to bite. Right away Naicer caught a little Piranha (about six inches), but the crazy part was that it had a parasite living in it´s throat! Naicer pulled out the parasite and let the fish live. The parasite was very light yellow and looked more like a bug than a worm. Unfortunately, Dan and I were unable to catch anything.

From Cuyabeno (The...

After piranha fishing, we moved the boat to slightly deeper water and went swimming. The water was so murky you could only see about two inches into it, so Dan and I opted out of this activity. It was dark by the time we headed back to the lodge, and Naicer spotted a baby boa constrictor hanging off a branch. He coaxed it onto a fishing pole so we could get a closer look. I tried to pet it, but it kept trying to bite me, so I decided against petting.

From Cuyabeno (The...

That night, after dinner, we went for a night hike! There we learned the trick of putting your flashlight in front of your nose to make all of the animal´s eyes shine back at you. This even worked for fish in a stream, and I was amazed by how many eyes appeared out of nowhere. We came across a very photogenic tree frog, but the highlight of the trip were the fisherman spiders. These spiders can be as big as my hand and actually catch fish out of streams! Below is a picture of the fisherman spider with its dinner (but I must admit that Naicer killed the fish himself and fed it to the spider for pictures):

From Cuyabeno (The...

From Cuyabeno (The...

The next day we took a boat ride up the river to see the medicine man. He showed us a bunch of different plants and explained how he uses them. While on the tour, we came across a giant fluffy caterpillar. I really had to restrain myself from petting it, because apparently they are covered in poison and are terribly painful.

From Cuyabeno (The...

After the tour the medicine man performed a short cleansing ceremony on me. I didn´t notice much of a change.



Later that afternoon, while everyone else was taking a siesta, I decided to try my luck at piranha fishing again. After an hour of the fish stealing my bait, I finally caught a tiny little piranha. However, despite his small size, his teeth still looked a little menacing and I was afraid to take him off the hook. I threw the fish, still with the hook in its mouth, back in the water and put the pole on the dock. Then I ran and found someone to help get the hook out. However, by the time we got back, the little guy had either managed to free himself, or a bigger fish had come along and eaten him, because he was gone. I still had half a cup of steak pieces left, so I decided to keep going, and half an hour later I caught a really big one. At this point there was a girl there to help me unhook and release him, but in retrospect, I wish I had saved him for eating. Supposedly, piranhas are bit boney but make great stew.

From Cuyabeno (The...

Even later that afternoon we paddled a canoe down the river to the nearby lake. On our way, we came across a caimen. It´s head was over a foot long and Naicer steered us to within a few feet of him. He didn´t move the entire time, but was definitely watching us.

From Cuyabeno (The...

We also came across a group of about 30 squirrel monkeys. There was a break in the trees that they were jumping across. A few of them missed the branch they were aiming for, but they managed to catch the next branch before falling to the ground.



At the lake we saw a beautiful sunset. However, we started seeing lightening in the distance so we hitched a ride with a motorized canoe boat back to the lodge.

From Cuyabeno (The...

That night, back at the lodge, we found a GIANT walking stick insect in the dining area that I let it crawl on me. I think he liked me because he didn´t want to let go of my shirt.

From Cuyabeno (The...

The next morning we went for another hike where we saw bats, toucans, turtles, stinky turkeys, and thousands of mosquitoes. Both of the below pictures where taken through Naicer´s telescope:

Toucan:

From Cuyabeno (The...

Stinky Turkey (named because the meat is too smelly to eat):

From Cuyabeno (The...

The last afternoon turned out to be pretty frustrating because we were basically abandoned by our guide. The three Swiss had left and Naicer had to go pick up another group of tourists. Naicer said that we could join another group that were going on a boat ride to look for anaconda. Our travel agent had said our group would be no bigger than eight people, because larger groups tend to scare away the wildlife, but from the boat we didn´t think it would be too big a deal. However, it turned out that they were actually going piranha fishing and then hiking back to the lodge on the same route we had taken that morning. By that point we were pretty tired of hiking through hot, mosquito-filled jungle, so we asked if we could just go for the boat ride and not hike back, but the other guide said that was not possible. We were pretty frustrated because we had just hiked that same route that morning, and hiking with such a big group would not be very fun, so we decided to stay at the lodge.

When Naicer got back just after sunset we explained what happened. He was very sorry and said he could take us out to look for anaconda. Apparently, the anaconda like to hang out around a section of the lake filled with giant tree stumps. Navigating the boat past all the dead trees was pretty challenging, and a few times Naicer had to get out of the boat, and standing on a branch a few feet under the water, push the boat by. We were undable to find any big snakes, but the boat ride itself was fun and I appreciated Naicer trying to show us a good time.

The next morning we had to wake up at 4 AM to start our journey back to civilization. However, all the new tourists that Naicer had picked up that day were still on city time and kept us up until midnight with all their noise. The next day we had took the two hour boat ride back to the road and the three hour van ride to Lago Agrio. Fortunately, instead of then taking an eight hour bus ride back to Quito, we instead took a one hour plane flight.

When we finally got back to Quito at around midday, we headed straight for our hotel, showered, and took a much needed nap. Strangely, all of our clothes we had brought to the jungle felt wet because it was so humid there, so we also had to have everything washed. In addition, a GIANT cockroach crawled out of our bag.

The entire time we were in Quito we stayed in a great hotel called Hotel Pickett. It had friendly staff, cable TV, and somewhat reliable hot water for $20 a night. We stayed there before the jungle, after the jungle and before Galapagos, and after Galapagos, always in the same room. However, it wasn´t until getting back from Galapagos that we started noticing cockroaches in the hotel. They were much smaller than the jungle version, but we had to wonder if we had something to do with their sudden appearance...

Every day we were in the jungle got a little hotter, and every day we got more mosquito bites. I applied 98% deet at least 3 times a day and slept under a mosquito net, but by the end of the trip I had about 30 bites on my legs. However, overall I loved our jungle adventure! I had always heard so many stories about the jungle, and it was really neat seeing it for real. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend a 5 day trip to the Amazon jungle!

From Cuyabeno (The...