Day XI- January 12th, 2oo7
We loaded the bus nice and early and prepared ourselves for the two-hour ride to Otavala (a famous market). Our first pit stop was a look out point where you could see two volcanoes (Cotopaxi and another) We took some photos, stretched our legs and hopped back on the bus.

Self-Portraiture

I could lie and say this one is Cotopaxi, and I don't know if anyone would ever question it. I do know however, that it is in fact a volcano. And a cool one at that.

The second stop was another mirador which featured a lava lake which had been formed by the volcanoes, a store with little souvenirs and a little old lady dressed in native garb with two llamas. How great must that be to be a little old lady and one day wake up and say "I could be my own tourist attraction! I'm cute enough people will pay to take my picture!" The view was absolutely stunning.

She's a genius and she may never know it.

Scenic view of the lava lake and surrounding area



Matt and myself in front of the lava lake (don't mind my hair- it was a bit windy)

Back on the bus, we had less than an hour left to our destination. When we entered the town of Otavalo, it seemed like we entered a completely new world. There were children all around- we even stopped the bus because a baby started crawling in the middle of the street (how scary is that!?)
When we arrived at the market, we were given an hour to wander. Because my ATM card wasn't working, I was on a tight budget. I got a few souvenirs and some interesting handcrafts.
What we found out later, which I wish I had been aware of prior to our arrival at the market, was the fact that the entire market was composed of handcrafts and each family spent endless hours producing these goods to sell. This was their entire livlihood- to the extent that families would have more children to ensure more work hands- thus producing more goods. This also led to their poverty, conversly. They would have more mouths to feed than they could support and their children had little opportunity to break out of the cycle. If I had known we weren't just going on a shopping spree, I would have been more observant, maybe take the opportunity to talk to the locals, been a little less frugal.
After the hour was up, we met back at the bus and went to meet our lunch reservation. I was a little upset because we had drove for over two hours to shop at a market similar to the one right next to our hotel in Quito, for only an hour- not nearly enough time for the haggling necessary for these types of endeavours.
The place we went for lunch was an old estate where we were greeted by a band playing indigenous music and we were escorted inside. We were informed later that this place used to be a hacienda (Hacienda Pinsaqui) in colonial days when the lord (typically a European) owned his property as well as the rest of the town. Everything was decorated in a colonial fashion- there were horses and stables on the grounds, gardens and peacocks surrounding. Lunch was delicious, but relatively short before we hopped back on the bus to visit another town which was known for its leather works.

The entrance of the hacienda

Our welcoming squad



Ashley wasn't too sure about the food



They had beautiful flowers all over the grounds



So pretty



Peacocks perched in the courtyard



The view



We had some enjoyment with the horse after our lunch

We had about half an hour in the pueblo with the leather. I bought a beautiful leather bag for ridiculously cheap. Matt bought himself a new wallet. After our second speed-shop, we went back to Quito where we had a few hours before everything closed. The ride back took over two hours through the mountains. I fell asleep almost five minutes into the ride and I would wake up every now and then and think - WOW! this is AMAZING!- and then shortly after pass out again. When we got back to Quito, Darian, Matt and myself split up from Justin, Tiffany and Ashley as we had different things to accomplish on our last night in Quito.
We finished up our souvenir shopping and decided to go get the Canelazos we missed out on the night before. They were so much more than we had anticipated them to be! They were 2 x $1.80 either Mora (blackberry) or Naraja (orange) juice mixed with aguardiente (a very strong native liquor) and served warm. Quite possibly the best drink I have ever had. We got several rounds and decided to go for a light dinner.
Darian had been wanting to go to La Boca del Lobo since the first night we got to Quito- so we decided to end with a bang. It was supposedly a little pricey, but the place had great ambiance. We sat on funky couches and relaxed. The ceiling was painting as a sky with flying sheep chillin' in the clouds. The food was amazing and not nearly as expensive as we were expecting it to be. We said our goodbyes to Quito and returned to pack our back. The next morning, the bus was leaving early to Arashá- a resort in the Cloud Forest.

Darian was obviously excited

Matt and myself waiting for our dinner to arrive

Day X- January 11th, 2oo7
Another early morning, we checked our, had breakfast and hiked back down to the water taxis.

My last Galápagos sunrise, ¡Que triste!

At the port we all got on a bus that brought us to the opposite side of the island (which was absolutely beautiful) where we transferred to a ferry which brought us to Baltra, a military base/airport.

So beautiful!



Tiffany and Darian on the ferry, so sad to be leaving

Outside the "airport" there were stands where we could go shopping. I bought a cute "I ♥ Boobies" patch (Blue-footed Boobies, that is!). We sat around the airport for awhile, played cards, ate some empanadas and had some mango gatorade (only in Ecuador! - and it was delicious) We moved to a large crowded room which had absolutely no air conditioning. After ten minutes (five minutes before our plane was scheduled to take off) they changed our flight from a connection at Guayaquil to a direct flight to Quito. All the people who were going to Guayaquil got on the first flight while the rest of us waited around, sweating and packed until they finally called our flight. At this point, it became a free-for-all with no seat assignments and people were running across the tarmac to get a good seat. About an hour later, we made it back to Quito where we had a free day to explore the city.
We wanted to get $2 haircuts, but only Ashley knew where they were located and she was doing a group project. We waited around for awhile, hung out in Matt and Darian's "bank error in your favor" penthouse suite with a wrap around balcony, king size bed, digital cable (half of our group got luxury accomodations because they lost our reservations...of course I got the room with the view of the air conditioning system below, crickets in the bedroom, a crooked bed, broken light in the bathroom, etc...) We wandered around for a bit and went to an Artisan Store next to the hotel, finally found Ashley and decided to head out for dinner. We went by a little bar that served 2x1 canelazos and Matt had been wanting to try it since we had arrived. However, the place was far too crowded, so we decided to just go for dinner.
We all went back to my favorite place, La Chacha, and ordered ridiculous amounts of food, once again- crema de aguacate soup, garlic bread (3ocents an order!) pizza, pasta, empanadas, crepes- six of us ate for $25.

Darian posing in his Ecuadorian cowboy hat at La Chacha

With a luxury suite waiting for us back at the hotel, we had no need to find a party- we could make our own! It was on the way back to the hotel, however, when I realized I was out of money, but also, that my PIN was not working for my ATM card. I was going to have to be very careful of how I spent my money for the rest of the trip, because I was going to have to rely on Matt for funds.
We headed back to the room for some intense games of cards and were eventually invited to the suite across the hall- they were having their own private get together. After intense amounts of American culture (save for the CLUB cerveza, of course), we exhausted ourselves and called it a night.

Day IX- January 1o, 2oo7
It occured to me this morning how wild it is that I'm talking about swimmingand sunburns and it's January! I've never been to a warm place in the winter time before.
Our "early" morning turned more into a 9:30 departure- not so late, but no our usual 6:30 wake up. Matt was feeling a little better than the night before, so we decided to make the most ouf our free day and hike to Tortuga Bay.
First, the hike to the water taxi, then walk through town, then walk from town to the trail, a 2.5 km trail to the beach, a hike across the beach to the bay- There and back worked out to be about 7 miles.
We arrived at the park in horrible heat at 1o:3o. 2o minutes later, the beach. We were so hot all we wanted was to be in the water. the first beach, Tortuga Bay, was too strong of a current to swim- plus we found out later there were sting rays and sharks! We continued to another little bay where the water was calmer and very shallow. It was too murky to snorkel though. The other group (about 15 of them) showed up only a few minutes after we jumped in the water.
I got freaked out that I couldn't see what was in the water, so we decided to go back to the big bay. Picking our things out of the limbs of the trees we left them on (to dry from all the sweat!), Matt battled some bees, I cleaned off the sand from all my stuff, and we walked back. Along the way, we found little bitty crabs in the mangroves who lived in little holes. As soon as you came close enough, they scuttled away in their little holes.

Matt and myself trailing a marine iguana (he wasn't too happy about the whole situation)



We're kinda cute sometimes


Finding some shade in the mangroves

We kept walking until we found a very small bay- maybe even a tide pool. The water was so clear, we decided to check out what was living in it. The second I stood in the water, I could see literally thousands of fish beneath me. With my snorkel gear on and my camera in my hand, I explored the pool. Thousands of fish- all different kinds- were just swimming around. Some of them wanted nothing to do with us and swam away at first glance, but others just swam right up to the camera, almost posing for the picture.

Chinito a.k.a. Justin


Fishies!



These little guys were hams for the camera



So pretty


More fish



This guy was really cool- he would burrow himself and camoflauge into the sand so all you could see were his little red eyes. Then, when you got a little to close, he was jet out of his hiding spot and swim away.

For over an hour we just swam, observing the fish. It started to rain mid-swim and the other group started their trip back to the hotel. We stayed and found some pretty interesting things. A little British kid and his father found an octopus- probably one of the coolest things I've evevr seen- it was like a chameleon- black on black surfaces, white on light surfaces. The rock it was living on looked exactly the same as the surface of it's skin- you could barely see it! Matt picked it up and it suctioned itself to his hand. The little kid scared it in the water and a chunk of ink came out. The Matt found hermit crabs and possibly shrimp. We had fun trying to apply what we had learned from the Naturalists with the hermit crabs. Supposedly they come out of their shell when they smell carbon dioxide because they like to eat dead things and when things decompose, they emit Co2. We were putting them in our mouths and blowing on them trying to get them to come our of their shells. We were successful with a few of them.

Our friend, the octopus



Pulpo Incognito


No, Darian isn't eating the hermit crab



Round two of getting the hermit crab out of his shell. Round one Ashley threw the poor thing because it scared her when he finally came out!

After we had spent enough time in the tide pool, we went to bigger waters and got beaten up by currents and extremely big, strong waves. When Ashley saw the shark, we knew our time was up. We packed everything up and started our hike back to the resort.
On the beach, we found tons of crabs manning their holes. These ones were much bigger and much faster. As soon as they saw us coming, they would get closer to their holes, shove their butts in, and as soon as we got too close, they would duck their heads in. We all had a good laugh watching Matt chase one who wasn't close enough to his hole. He was fast and angry (the crab, not Matt).
As we had had our fun trailing a marine iguana on the way in, we decided we had had enough tormenting of the animals and it was time to get some lunch. We hiked back into town, stopped off at our favorite, Free Soul Cafe, ordered ridiculous amounts of food, stopped by a grocery store and headed back to the resort. We all showered and met back up for some cards, tinto de verano and cuba libre before dinner (a BBQ hosted by the resort). After dinner, everyone decided they were going to go out to a Salsa Bar and meet up with the Naturalists one more time before leaving the Galapagos.
The place was loud and very hot and I was too exhausted to dance (not that I really dance all that much anyway) So we headed back to do some packing and get ready for our departure the next morning.

Day VIII- January 9th, 2oo7
We finally got a day to sleep in! (the bus didn't leave until 8:45!) We headed into town to the bus and to the guide of "the twins" (Los Gemelos) which are two giant sink holes found on the island. The drive there was very interesting to see the change of scenery from dry desert to tropical jungle. Everything was so green and exotic looking in contrast to the lower altitude area.
We hiked around the twins for awhile observing the vegetation (cocoa plants, coffee plants, the only species of tree fern) and beautiful birds- we even spotted a very rare vermillion fly catcher!

Gemelo I


Gemelo II



Coffee plant- this species is very rare, but you don't want to drink this kind anyway!



Pretty flowers along the way



The Vermillion Fly Catcher- this one makes the life list!

We headed back to the bus and a few minutes later we arrived at a tortoise farm. Tortoises were free to roam the farm, feed and defend themselves- unlike the research center.
We watched them bathe themselves in a mud pool where they sit for about 24-48 hours to maintain body temperature. It's so strange looking in ponds all over the islands because I'm expecting to see frogs or little turtles or something- but because the islands are so isolated, their species and populations are restricted as well.

Me an' Jose


Yellow Warbler

This guy was hiding


Chillin' in the pool...it was actually horribly gross to be honest with you.

After we took plenty of pictures, we relaxed for a bit and had some watermelon before we headed to our next destination: the lava tubes.
The lave tubes were pretty much huge caverns in the ground where magma once came out of the earth. The outside parts cooled and solidified first, forming "tubes" about 15' high. We walked through them as a group. At one point in the tube, there was a passage only about 2' high and we each had to crawl through to the other side. I of course tried to crawl on my hands and knees instead of slithering through like everyone else and got my butt stuck! I made it through though and we headed back to the bus again.

The entrance to the Lava Tubes


Inside the tubes



It was a jungle out there!

Once back in town, we stopped for lunch at a place called "Free Soul Cafe" and had sandwiches and platanos. Four of us ate for $9! Then we quickly got back to the hotel for our meeting time to go ocean kayaking.

Myself, back at the port, waiting for a water taxi

Ocean kayaking is infinitely more difficult than any other type of kayaking I've ever done before- we were going to go with the second group, but I was exhausted from the first round! We first landed at a beach where we found an Italian woman who Matt and I talked to for awhile in Spanish. She was very sweet and talked a lot- she says we should learn Italian next. Our purpose for getting out was to spot sharks and considering there were no sightings, we decided to get back in and continue our tour.

Ashley and Tiffany sea kayaking


In the cavern (possibly the beginning of Las Grietas)


mmmmm....look at all that guano

We went through caverns and mangroves and even searched for the passage through las Grietas - no luck! We found a half sunken ship, a manta ray, sea lions and lots of other birds. As soon as we got back to shore, we decided to pack up, get some snorkeling equipment and hike back up to las Grietas. Some other guys on our trip came with us. We had hyped it up so much and when we arrived, there was a group of about 10 or 15 people lounging on the rocks and snorkeling. The water wasn't still and blue as we had found it the day before. Once we had started snorkeling, most of the fish had been frightened away and aside from the 3o' (we think) cavern below us, there wasn't much to see. I personaly thought it was absolutely beautiful, but I think the other guys were expecting a little more.
On the hike there, we ran into our little Italian lady friend again. She had hiked through from the ocean to las Grietas in the opposite direction. Once we started swimming, we decided to try and swim through.
Armed with flippers, tevas and masks, we (Matt, Darian and myself) began our quest. The other guys stayed behind, intrigued by the locals who were jumping from 30' cliffs and ledges into the 10' wide cavern- seemed a little risky to me! Plus, the guys who were doing it were doing either belly flops or landing in terribly awkward positions. After we swam through the first section we happed up on the rocks and into the second section. There we found three guys hanging out in the water, swimming through a tunnel in the rocks. They tried to convince me to swim through it, but I was too nervous. We crossed the rocks into the thirds section where the water was very deep. We swam around a tall rock into the last section where los tiberones (sharks!!!) were supposed to be (according the the guys we met). Hesitantly, I swam forward, expecting at any moment for an ominous shadow to pass under me. We all ran into another wall- a dead end. The wall was at least 4o' above us- nearly impossible to cross. Supposedly there was a tunnel under the water where we could pass through to the next section, but we couldn't seem to find it.

Crazy local jumping into the cavern

We were all tired and adequately pleased with our quest- as well as cold from the deep, sunless water. We made our way back, pool by pool. By the last pool, I was exhausted and cold and didn't want to jump in again. I stood on the rocks for about 1o or 15 minutes, staring at fish, watching them swimming in and out. Matt and Darian were already on the other side and out of the water. I decided to finally face it and jump in. I made it back to the hotel in a daze.
We jumped in the pool as soon as we got there. I was sandy and salty and hot. After swimming around for awhile, I was going to take a shower when we found Mary and Lyndsay getting in the jaquzzi. We decided to join them. We got some blue footed boobies and relaxed in the tub for a bit. The hot tub was located in an elevated deck/veranda with a trelace over it, a hammock and beautiful exotic flowers growing all around. Aside from the fact that the hot tub never really heated up, it was very relaxing and fun.

Aah, Marist Jaquzzi Party

We all got showered and ready and made a covert operation to town in attempt to avoid the big crowd. We found a cute little restraunt on the outskirts of town, but by the time the waiter came to take our order, Matt felt really sick and I didn't want him to walk home alone- especially feeling the way he did. We called it another early night.