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In the airport waiting for our flight. Becky, I guess I only cut
off your head when I posted it, on Instagram
because here I have everyone in the picture. |
05/07/2017(Sunday) - On
the morning of the 7th, we met Dave and Becky and Christine and
Steve at the SLC airport, Phil and Charlotte were flying on Delta, but they
joined us in the waiting area of our United flight to visit with us until it
was nearly time for both flights to leave.
We left Salt Lake to head to Houston, Texas at 9:40 am. We arrived around 2:00 pm (Houston –
time). We had a roughly 4 hour
layover, which was enough time to see Elise and family, but because she’s
coming in a few weeks, and because of the logistics of leaving the terminal, we
decided we’d meet up with her at the end of the month. Finally, we departed around 6:15 pm, arriving
around 11:00 pm at Quito, Ecuador. After
about 45 minutes we met up with everyone (We had a short wait for Glenn and
Rosaline to arrive). We took a 45 minute
bus ride to journey to the old town. The
hotel didn’t look like much from the outside but was quite quaint on the
inside. We slept on uncomfortable double
beds for a couple of nights, but the breakfast was awesome. Some of our family were lucky enough to have
king sized beds.
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| Becky and Dave |
BREAKFAST AT THE HOTEL
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| Christine and Steve |
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| Roy, Catharine and Dave |
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| Ranae and Shane Peck |
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| Christine and Lyle Peterson |
05/08/2017(Monday) - Touring
in Quito
Monday after a delicious breakfast with a variety of usual
and unusual fruits, granola, yogurt, and pastries we met our guide who gave us
a walking tour of downtown Quito. Quito looked
a lot like some of the cities we had seen in Chile when we traveled in South
America two years ago. We did go into
one Catholic church that was more ornate than any I had ever seen. There was gold leaf everywhere, and hardly
any surface that wasn’t decorated.
Interestingly, the décor was largely of middle eastern design, I don’t
remember why, except that it had something to do with their conquerors. We stopped at another church that was
currently having services, so we did not go in, but it was connected to a
series of tunnels that held gift shops, so we spent a little time walking
through the tunnels and buying souvenirs, in our case, dark chocolate.
After the city tour,
we boarded a bus and headed towards the “middle of the world.” On our way, we stopped for lunch. Our guide lost some serious points because,
after asking us if anyone had food allergies, and finding out that Charlotte
and David both are celiac, he took us to the restaurant of his choice. It did not have any options for them, so they
ate some granola bars and fruit that Christine had taken from breakfast. We had some fried chicken and potatoes covered
with a sauce, and served also with rice (it is uncommon for us to have both,
but not for Ecuadorians).
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| City Tour |
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| Lunch--Char and Dave couldn't eat anything here |
Following lunch we stopped at place with a large winged
Madonna, built out of aluminum. We could
go inside this statue and climb up a couple of flights, where we obtained a
fine view of the city of Quito. We could
see the old part of the city (where we were staying) along with the newer parts
of the cities with taller buildings.
Again, the city was similar to other South American cities we saw—very
colorful, yet old looking.
 o |
| Overlooking the city of Quito |
As we headed to the “Middle of the World, we didn’t know
what to expect. We had visited Ushuaia
(the “end of the world”, in 2015, and thought it would be something similar,
just a place where we could stand and say we’d been there. In this case we thought we could stand with
one foot on each side of the equator. It
turned out to be much more interesting.
There was a museum on the site, and we were shown various things of
interest in South America. One thing we
saw was a real shrunken head. It was
over 150 years old (thankfully), but the tribes that shrink heads still live in
the Amazon. Our guide said that the
tribe claims to shrink only animal heads, but that they’re not sure if that is true. She (Miriam) explained the process of
shrinking the heads, which was rather morbid.
She also showed us another group of people that still reside in the
Amazon. They wear little clothing,
probably because of the heat. The
interesting point of their dress was that the men tied up their penis’ with a
string that wrapped around their body.
This was done because of a fish that is now called the “penis
fish.” If you swim in the Amazon river
and decide to pee, this fish will be attracted and can swim right into the
urethra. Once inside, it extends its
barbs and cannot be easily removed. At
times, only removal of the penis could remove the man of this torturous
fish. Dad took a picture of the statue
that showed this unique style of clothing.
Apparently, this indigenous group had come to the museum a few years ago
to build a hut that was the same as the huts they live in. It took them only three days to build, but
the men suffered because in Quito it is 9000 ft. above sea level, and to them
it was very cold. They were quite a draw
to the public who took many pictures which was also uncomfortable to these
people. We were told that we could visit their tribe,
but we would be required to dress as they do.
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This isn't the statue, it's a picture of the tribe when
they came and built the indigenous hut at the museum. |
We also were shown demonstrations of how the magnetic pull
of the earth is noticeable at the equator.
If you walk in a straight line with your eyes closed, putting one foot
in front of the other, a little away from the equator line, then you have
balance (even though it’s still hard), but on the line it’s virtually
impossible because of the pull from either side. Also, they showed water going down a
drain. It moves clockwise on one side,
and counterclockwise on the other side, and straight down when you're on the
equator. We also tried to balance an egg
on a nail right at 00.00 degrees (latitude and longitude) None of us could do
it, but the guide did it easily. The
trick was feeling the weight of the egg yolk, which would center in the fat part
of the egg, and then balance.
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| The siblings: Christine, Bruce, Dave, Glenn, Phil and Catharine |
The group split up at dinner, 6 eating at the hotel, and 10
eating at a hotel down the street. The
guide recommended it because, he said, they had men dressed in purple robes bring the ice cream out (the robes look like KKK robes but are purple instead of white). They symbolize the penitents, those men who
went before Christ with the palms, sweeping the way clear for Him. He said the KKK is an offshoot from this group. The original use of the clothing was not evil, but as with many things, it was twisted into something evil. At the restaurant, Catharine ordered ceviche, which she has come
to love. It was served with popcorn,
corn nuts (of a sort) and fried plantains). We didn’t realize that these sides went with Catharine's meal and therefore didn’t
put any of them on the ceviche (in fact, we thought they were probably Roy’s and
left them for him to eat). Later in the
trip we were served ceviche and told to put the popcorn on it, so we learned a
new and delicious way to eat ceviche.
Roy had some large shrimp (with the heads on). We had ordered dessert when we ordered our
food, but the rest of the table hadn’t.
When we saw our ice cream all dished up, we were worried that it would
melt while everyone else ordered. We
needn’t have worried because, right before they served us, they lifted the
inner bowl and poured water over dry ice to make the dish smoke, they then brought the ice cream and stood behind
us in their purple robes. They were rather creepy.
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| Shrimp |
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| Ceviche |
It happened to be Roy’s birthday, so the table sang to
him. After a few minutes, we heard music
playing Happy birthday, and the purple robed penitent returned with a piece of
cake complete with candle.
On Tuesday morning the 9th, we had a very early flight to
catch to go to the Galapagos islands. We
had to leave the hotel by 4:45. In the
USA, this would have meant no breakfast, but our guide talked with the hotel
and they graciously agreed to provide breakfast. It was a little early to eat, but it was
good, and we had a long wait for lunch (It was about a 3 hour flight, including
a layover in Guayaquil).
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| Becky and Dave at the airport in Baltra |
We were met at
the airport by some of the crew from our ship--the Ocean Spray. We took a bus to the dock where a Panga
(rubber inflated boat) took us over to the Ship. We settled into our cabin, and then
immediately went snorkeling to the Island Bartholomew. Within 45 minutes we saw a couple of blue
footed Boobies, sharks, Galapagos Penguins, Saly lightfoot Crabs, fish, white tipped sharks, and Galapagos Sea Lions –
when we got out of the water the mosquitos were bad but most of us didn’t get
bitten because we were covered in salt water.
When we got back on board, we stripped off our wet suits and were
covered with a warm towel --this happened
each time when we came back from snorkeling.
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| In the Panga |
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| Razor Sturgeon fish |
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| Saly Lightfoot Crab |
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| Galapagos Penguins |
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| Steve, Dave, Christine and Ranae and penguins |
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| Roy |
We had a nice lunch, a short rest and then went ashore for a
hike to the top of the Island. It was very
humid as it had just rained. Roy was
drenched in sweat, but it was very beautiful with a great view. We saw Galapagos grass hoppers, lava lizards
and a lot of the Saly Lightfoot crabs.
Each night we had a briefing about what was going to happen
the next day. The first night the crew
introduced themselves and we were served a "cocktail," in this case juice. Later in the trip we asked our guide if he'd ever had an entire
boat of non-drinkers. He laughed and
said that when we first told him that none of us drank, he thought we were
joking.
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| Briefing |
On Wednesday we arrived to the island of Genovesa. We started early and went on a snorkeling trip
in the morning, close to the ship and around the edge of the bay. The visibility wasn't great, but we did see
some hammerhead sharks (well, I only saw one and very briefly).
After a delicious
breakfast, we went on a shore
excursion. The path was very short but there
were several different bird species nesting (Frigate Birds, Red Footed Boobies,
Finches, some land iguanas, red crabs and there were several Galapagos Sea
Lions on the beach.
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| Frigate Bird |
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| Galapagos Mocking Bird |
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| Swallow Tail Gull |
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| Swallow Tail Gull |
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| Masqued Booby |
Ranae Peck, (one of
the friends that was with us on the ship), decided that it would be a fun
picture if she was lying by the sea lions, so she laid down between 2 of
them. It was definitely a little tighter
than the suggested 6 feet. She didn't
count on one of the two sea lions being an alpha male. He grunted loudly at her. She was on her feet and out of the way VERY
quickly. Unfortunately, no one got the picture ;) Six of us were able to go
kayaking around the bay. The rest of the
group stayed on shore. The idea was that
they could get in the water and keep cool, but the same alpha sea lion made
sure that he controlled the bay; so no one got in. He would swim across the bay, then come and
nudge one of the sleeping sea lions to swim with him, then swim, then nudge
another one to get in. It was very
definitely his territory.
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| Red-Footed Booby |
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| Our cabin |
While
kayaking, we saw some small marine iguanas and lots of birds nesting along the
cliff line.
The ship then took us to El Barranco – We had lunch, a short
rest, and a nature walk. This time wee
saw Masked Boobies, more Frigate birds with their puffed up red chests making
their mating calls (they sounded like turkeys), lots of birds on their eggs (the
daddy birds took turns in every species we saw), and newly hatched baby
birds. Our guide showed us the Incense
trees which are very plentiful on the Islands.
The locals used to (before they were protected) use the wood for smoking
incense in the churches and to keep the mosquitoes away.
Everything on the islands are now protected. Even the locals cannot eat the crabs or fish
in the area. I didn't think the crabs
would taste very good, but our guide said they were delicious. He said the problem was that he, as a small
boy, could easily eat about 25 crabs in one sitting.
05/11/2017(Thursday) We arrived in Santiago Espumilla Beach
and Buccaneer Cove
We got back on the ship for a real breakfast and then were
taken back to shore to snorkel on the black sand beach. Here, at the very end of our hour of
snorkeling, we were rewarded because Catharine spotted our first sea
turtle. We (Christine, Steve, Roy and Catharine)
watched him for several minutes, and then Roy spotted a 2nd one. We called Phil and Glenn and Dave over, but
only Phil was quick enough to get a glimpse.
We went on a 2nd snorkel, this time in Buccaneer Cove. Our guide Carlos let us hold a sea urchin that
sucked on our hand. We were looking for
sharks and sea lions. Carlos had told us
that we could play with the sea lions by blowing bubbles in the water. If they responded, it meant they wanted to
play. However, we didn't see any sea
lions either.
Roy and Phil asked the guide for a quick panga ride before
lunch to take some pictures of the surrounding area. He took them, even though we all went on the
same ride later in the afternoon. We saw
sea lions, Blue Footed Boobies, noddys, and more crabs, but the best thing was
on the way back. We were looking out
front of the Pangas we saw some fins which we initially thought were sharks but
it turned out to be a Manta Ray. We
followed it for some time. It was huge,
probably 9 – 10 feet wide. It was swimming right below the surface, and was very
beautiful. We also saw sting rays jumping out of the water. Some even did flips. They were a little distant, but we could tell what they were.
After lunch we set sail in the middle of the afternoon. The idea was to see if we could spot any whales
or dolphins Only Dave and Glenn had a
quick view of a couple of dolphins. Roy
and I gave up and had a nap. After all,
we aren't used to getting up at 5:30.
05/12/2017 (Friday) - Arrive
North Seymour
We then went on a snorkel activity along the coast. Right after jumping in we saw a white tip
shark below us. There weren't as many
fish here, but the ones we saw were pretty.
After about an hour of snorkeling, the pangas were loaded. Roy and I were about the last ones to climb
out of the water--but not quite. Barbara
was in the water, several yards away from everyone else. Bruce was nowhere to be seen. He'd climbed aboard the 1st panga without his
snorkeling buddy--Typical!
After cleaning up, having lunch and a short rest we took the
Pangas to a nearby port where we boarded a bus in order to go to the Tortoise
Reserve on the Island. A farmer had created
a protected area of a few hectors for the turtles habitat even though the
turtle have full run of the entire island. We asked the guide why, when everything is protected, and no one is
supposed to interfere in the habitat of the animals, is a private group allowed
to create a sanctuary for them and make money.
He said, "it's a fine line."
If no one cleared the land and filled up ponds for them, it would be
very hard for the tourists to see them.
We saw a large turtle on top of a medium sized turtle in the
process of mating. It was very interesting. The tortoises were of various sizes, some
over several hundred pounds. They were
somewhat shy. If you got too close to
them they would suck in their heads. The
decompression of their body made a hissing noise that sounded like they were
warning us off.
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| What is he doing??? |
We also saw carpenter finches (these finches break off twigs
and dig in the holes of the tree to get grubs--they even measure twigs against
each other, if the first one failed to get the grub out), and some poisonous
apple trees. They are very poisonous, even fatal to
humans, but the tortoises can eat a small amount of the fruit. The reserve offered yummy lemongrass, ginger,
mint, iced (herbal) tea in their refreshment area. (Bruce thought that was very nice since they
didn't charge an admission fee :) We
assured him that they most certainly did charge, it's just that we paid for
everything in advance. He also thought
the guide at the middle of the world was a volunteer, as they didn't charge an
admission fee there either. :) He gave her a very good tip because of
it!
05/13/2017(Saturday)
- Arrive Puerto I Ayor –
Santa Cruz
Another early morning--we had to fit in one last nature walk
on a sand bar frequented by the local sea lions. It was a good reason to start early!
But, sadly,
we had to end our catamaran tour right after breakfast. We boarded a bus and went into the city on
the island of Santa Cruz.
Several people may have gotten stomach bacteria
from this city, maybe the water or dinner. After we settled into the hotel,
Phil, Dave, Steve, Christine, Catharine and I set out on a walk to Tortuga Bay
(Turtle Bay). It probably took us 40
minutes or so just to get to the main gate that had a long path to the beach. We bought ice cream bars (we hadn’t
had lunch yet), Coconut for Roy and Guanabana for Catharine. They were really good. We then hiked on a brick path to the beach
for about 50 minutes. It was hot and
sweaty but it felt really good to do a more rigorous hike, and of course, when
we finally got there, we were able to cool off in the ocean. We enjoyed the beach, though the waves were
red flag rough. However, we managed to get out into the surf (wading height--for dad. Mom got all the way in and jumped the waves--she even rode a couple. The water was bath water warm, to our surprise
(on all of the snorkeling trips the water was pretty cool, maybe 76 degrees).
We hung around on the beach for a while and then headed back. We were in the mood for another ice cream bar
to cool us down but by the time we got back to the entrance they were closed
(it must have been siesta time). We
hiked back to the hotel. It was mid-afternoon and we still hadn’t had lunch so
we ate at the outside café that was part of the Hotel Silberstein. We had snack size lunches which were
adequate. Roy had fish and chips and
Catharine had a mozzarella and tomato salad.
We then had showers as we were very sweaty and then were able to take a short
nap. When we got up we did a little
shopping nearby and then met everyone for dinner at 7:00 pm. Our group was so large that we split up. The Petersens, Pecks and Bruce and Barbara
went to a pizza place. The rest of us
went to a restaurant in an open air deck.
The food was pretty good but not the best that we had had. Glenn and Rosilene were sick with colds and
they said that they couldn’t find the Pharmacy, so Phil, Char, Catharine and
Roy went on a mission. We found it down
the street and got some type of Robitussin for them. It's hard to buy medication with a language
barrier.
During the night we were disturbed when some delivery boy
came by the hotel with his car radio on full blast. This went on from about 4:00 – 5:00 am. Dave and Glenn both thought it was their
neighbors and knocked on their walls to
try to get them to be quiet. It was very
obnoxious to be forced out of a sound sleep.
05/14/2017 (Sunday) – Depart Baltra to Quito to Cloud Forest
Sunday was a long traveling day. We had a mediocre breakfast. The helpers seemed to be annoyed when we
asked for water, cups, spoons, etc.
We hopped on the bus at 8:00 and headed to the airport. We drove for about 40 minutes to the dock,
got off the bus onto a ferry, then after a 15 minute ride to Baltra Island, we boarded another bus
to the airport (10-15 minute) ride. We
then had to wait about 2 ½ hours for our flight. Catharine had some Ceviche and
Roy some rice and shrimp for lunch.
We then flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador (a layover), then on to
Quito. Our guide met us at the
airport. We boarded the bus and since it
was kind of late in the afternoon and we had a 3 hour ride to the Cloud
Forest (Bella Vista Hotel), we decided to have some dinner on the outskirts of
Quito. The restaurant was next to del
Mondo (Middle of the World). The food
was okay, Catharine and I had strip steaks with (2) over easy eggs on top, with
rice and salad.
It was very windy and
when we were about an hour away from our destination, we ended up on a very
bumpy dirt road (part of the main road was impassable due to mud slides). That road was also windy, wet, etc. and it
was dark. It was quite the adventurous ride.
We arrived around 10 pm, found our rooms and crashed. Our room had a queen bed. It was not as hard as some of the beds that
we had had, but not everyone had as nice of accommodations as we had. Char and Phil shared a double bed and were
pretty uncomfortable.
05/15/2017 (Monday) –Bella Vista Cloud Rain Forest
The first "hike" offered was at 6:30 am. Roy and I figured we'd get up the first
morning and sleep in the 2nd. It was
beautiful, but Catharine found she is not patient enough for bird watching. Dave was, though, and got some great bird
pictures. Steve and Christine saw
toucans. At least the humming birds were
beautiful and abundant and we enjoyed watching them.
The breakfast was pretty good, granola,
yogurt, homemade bread, and scrambled eggs.
At around 9:00 we went on a hike with the owner (Richard) for our
guide. It took about 2 ½ hours, but we
went slowly. It was fun. Half of the group went with a different
guide, and I think they saw more than we did.
We passed them about half way (we were on the same trail going in
opposite directions), they told us they saw a frog, so I was on the
lookout. If finally saw one hop. It was about 1/8 of an inch tall and wide. Tiny!
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Our guide, Richard. He and his wife run
the place, but it seemed that they did
a lot of things separately from each other. She was
not there when we were. They had also chosen
not to have children, which, he said, he was beginning to regret
a little bit. |
At lunch we had the first downpour, and I mean
downpour. They must have had 4 or 5
inches of rain in an hour--if their rain gauge was correct, they did. There was another hike at 3:00. The rain had mostly stopped, but we still
opted for a nap and missed the hike.
Only about 3 of our group went.
In the evening, we played Hearts with Steve and Christine, and after
dinner we played the animal game with everyone.
It seems no one really knew how to play it, so it was hard to get anyone
out (we realized towards the end of the game that when our family plays, we always change signs when
we change chairs). We laughed like
crazy, though, but you would have had to be there. Dinner was hardly worth eating.
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Tyra--a sort of weasel |
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| Our room |
05/16/2017 (Tuesday) – Last day at the Cloud Forest
There were no hikes included on this day, but 7 of us (Dave, Phil, Char, Lyle and Christine Petersen, Renae Peck, Catharine and Roy) paid for another one anyway, and we were so glad we did. It was muddy everywhere, and slippery in places. The sign said difficult, but we didn't realize what that meant. We both thought that it would probably get steep (especially as we lost quite a lot of altitude at the beginning). It did get steep, but part of the hike up was hiking up the waterfall. It was awesome. We climbed a rope ladder, rappelled across a large rock, and got wet. We had been so careful not to step in the deep water and get water in our boots--and then we had no choice. We were all soaked. Lyle Peterson, another friend, ripped the seat of his pants open trying to avoid getting water in his boots. This time we had the other guide. She was fabulous! All of us tipped her well.
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Glenn and Rosilene. Unfortunately, they both struggled most of the
trip with sickness. |
Thankfully, lunch was better than the dinner had been. Roy
had trout and Catharine had broccoli souffle.
We had another downpour (how we timed our hikes just right, I'm not
sure) throughout lunch. We had to run
through the rain to get on the bus, I think we were delayed a little because it
was raining so hard the driver didn't want to load our bags. We were a little nervous about the ride down,
but we took a different road and it was much less treacherous. We were warned by our guide that we might
have trouble getting to the airport because there had been so many mudslides
due to the excessive spring rain in Quito.
We didn't have problems, but we did see mudslides.
Before we went to the airport we were able to have one last
adventure. We stopped at a chocolate
factory in Mindo. It was really just a
miniature factory, set up for tourists, but they did a nice job explaining the
process of making chocolate. We also had
samples and Catharine was chocolated out before we got out of there (do you believe
that's possible?)
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| This is what the raw cocoa bean looks like. It's really kind of gross |
We arrived at the airport in Quito at 7:30 pm. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until
12:35 am. Some of the family left at
11:30. We had plenty of time for
dinner. Some of us had a very nice
meal. Part of the group ate at Johnny
Rockets, and their meal, though probably tasty enough, was twice as expensive
as the meal that we bought.
Overall, it was a wonderful trip, with great people and with
beautiful birds, animals, and scenery.
We made some new friends (we already knew the Pecks from our Antarctica
trip, and they brought along the Peterson's who are from Bountiful).
05/17/2017 (Wednesday) –There's no place like home
. Getting back to
normal wasn't as hard as expected because we only ever had a 1 hour time
difference. It was just trying to sleep
in the airplane all night that was (all right, I'll say it)--miserable. It was worth the bad flight for the great
experience of going to the Galapagos.
 |
Each night we found new sculptures on our bed, but the best was when
they put a person in everyone's bed (see below). Several of the women
were startled when they walked in the room to see someone else in their room,
wearing their husband's (or their) clothes, reading a book |
|
