Getting there is half the fun! Really!

Just a little flight out to the Galapagos. Onto the ship and off to visit the islands. What could be simpler, right?

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/samerica/lgcolor/gpcolor.htm

Staying home, actually. But we were already there, so we did the usual airport mambo. We had an escort, which was a good thing, because we had to go to four different places to get out of the darned place. In case you're unaware, you have to pay to leave EVERY airport in South America, domestic (to them) flights included. So you pay, and you check in, and you get a luggage inspection, and you show your ID someplace else, and a guy from the travel agency trots around with you to make sure you hit all the stations in the right order. Thank goodness!

Once we passed through the security station, we found ourselves in an enormous departure lounge. And our flight was cancelled. And then on again, and then off, and then consolidated with another one. Okay. Fine. It still left on time. And it STILL wasn't full. Forty minutes later we were in Guayaquil. I don't know why, but the deal is, all flights to the Galapagos take place in the morning (and so do all flights out of Lima to Cusco). So no matter when you arrive in Ecuador (Quito or Guayaquil) you have to stay there overnight, at least, and fly the following morning again. I suspect it's a way to get tourist dollars, but you know what? I don't care, because we had a great time around Quito, and I don't even LIKE cities. Some people stay in Guayaquil instead, which is a beach town, and supposed to be very nice as well. You can't lose.

Off on time again, another meal and an hour and a half later we arrived in San Cristobal, one of the two airports that serve tourism. They have two others as well. They have, in fact, EIGHT entry points into the Galapagos, which kind of shocked me. It's a lot more populated than I thought. But it's also very restricted, which protects the environment.

The airports are not modern. By this I mean, you climb up and down in and out of the planes and walk across the tarmac into an open-air terminal where your luggage eventually ends up thrown on the concrete floor. They do, however, have the computers needed to check you in and take your money for the National Park, which is, essentially, all the islands. You can't go there and not go to the "Park."

Our guide, Franklin, collected us all in one spot for the bus to the harbor. There we met Candace and Greg and Teresa and Greg. So that made six, and no one else showed up, and the boat, Millenium, carries 16 passengers. He warned us to be prepared to encounter a very unpleasant couple. We thought this was odd, coming from a professional guide, but it turned out to be good advice. Franklin said everyone else was on the boat already so we assumed they had arrived that day on an earlier flight.

Not so. They had arrived four days earlier on a different island, Baltra. Enter the Euro-trash. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The bus with no air conditioning took us through the town to the harbor. I mean, it was very close, like five minutes. And as soon as we got off the bus we saw that, instead of dogs lying around, sea lions were lying around, all over the docks and the sidewalks. Well, better than dogs! Franklin told us not to step on them.

We went down a ramp to where a panga awaited. A panga is the same thing as a Zodiac, or, if you like, a rubber dinghy. The way you get in is, you grab two crewmembers and leap: pier - rubber gunwale - hard step - hard deck. You also get out that way. How much of a leap depends on how calm the water is. Or not. It's not that hard for me, even though I'm heavy. I'm strong and have good balance. The problem is, the crew doesn't get it at first how big I am, and it takes a couple of times before they don't get knocked on their butts.

Here's one of our "hard" landings, which means bow first onto a more or less dry surface.

In this one, you can see there's nothing but other humans to grab onto, and no mooring of any kind. It may not look like much, but it's one of those things you don't think to question in advance. We had already been in and out of Zodiacs, and all landings were wet. The height of the jumps to the various levels weren't an issue then, so we didn't give it any thought when we booked.

For Joyce, the problem is different. She doesn't weigh as much, but she is tall, (and Ecuadorans are shorter by far) and has bad knees. The Zodiacs in the Antarctic didn't pose as much of a problem because they were secured to the boat better and there were things to hold onto. To hold a panga to the boat, you just run the engine real hard in "forward." So that began, basically, a week of terror for her. She was never sure she wouldn't slip between the panga and the Millenium, disappear and be killed. Luckily this never came even close to happening, but when you think it might, that changes how you feel about going ashore.

A wet landing is stern in, and you roll over the side into the water. You get back in the same way. But every landing onto the boat itself is dry. And when the waves are high, you may not be stepping up onto the boat, but down from the panga onto the boat. It's tricky and the timing has to be perfect.

Okay, so we cleared that hurdle, and at the same time, developed a system for disembarking: let everyone else off first. Then Joyce approaches the bow, and when she says "go," I shove her up the step, over the gunwale and onto the deck while the crew catches her. Hope they ate their Wheaties!

Our cabin was right inside the main deck fantail, very handy for when you crawl back aboard. But we didn't go there first, we went to the salon for lunch and a briefing instead. The lunch was an omen. It was small and bland. I ate the pasta out of it. Warm water was served, with paper napkins. And this was supposed to be an upgrade from our original reservation. Only the new people ate, because the ones already on the ship had eaten earlier, and were hanging out in the salon, waiting for us so we could get the briefing. At that point we couldn't really tell who they were.

Here are the dining room and the two sides of the salon/lounge.

The side with the bar has the whiteboard where Franklin draws whatever we're going to do. The seasoned travelers were there, and the rest of us had to sit on the other side where we couldn't see, until Franklin told them to move or make room. This was our hint that we came from different civilizations. And here is a link to some definitions of that other civilization.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eurotrash

At the first briefing we learned two things. The boat was going to a protected reef where the newbies could check out their snorkeling gear, and you can't flush paper down the toilets. On a boat. Hello? Ever heard of marine toilet paper? So that was unpleasant as all hell. Ashore, if we accidentally flushed, we weren't staying there, but if we did it here, the whole boat would be plunged (ha) into chaos. There was a basket, of course, which they said would be emptied twice daily. We immediately said it had better be more often than that.

But first we had to go swimming. and the boat was already under weigh, so we had to run change. There were a lot of other little rules having to do with shoes and the environment and safety and so on, but they're way too numerous and boring to list, and they really didn't have much of an effect on the trip, so forget about those.

Joyce immediately opted out of snorkeling. Said she had tried it and didn't like it and the water was too cold for swimming, so forget it. I said I would at least attempt to snorkle, and the water was not too cold, so I would swim, too. For Joyce, the water has to be giving off steam in order to be warm enough. That changed real fast, but not the first day.

We anchored off Los Lobos Island. I went alone with Franklin to re-learn snorkeling, and I did it. I saw marine tortoises, fish, coral, rocks and starfish. And then the next day or so I came down with a cold. Wonder how well they cleaned that snorkeling gear. As usual, we were carrying an entire pharmacy, so I was able to take care of it until we hit our next port. Anyway, back to the rest of our itinerary.

Here's our cabin, and our two bathrooms, one for showers and one for other ablutions. Guess which is which. We also had a patio, but it was impossible to take a picture of it.

Snazzy, huh? We were lucky. The closet door never fell off till the last day, and I saw only one waterbug. That explained the can of Raid in the salon.

After the snorkeling, we had a hard landing on Los Lobos to see sea lions, blue-footed boobies and a frigate bird rookery. The "landing" was a crumbling chunk of cement, again, with no railings and no means of securing the panga or yourself, after which one was supposed to walk over black lava rocks that looked like irregular bowling balls, and felt just as stable. I managed to jump over a few rocks to a sandy area, and wound along a path with the others, not realizing Joyce wasn't behind me. She couldn't make those jumps, got off the cement, got stuck on the rocks, and eventually managed to get back up. In the meantime, we reached another pile of broken bowing balls with no end in sight, and I said, "I don't care what's on the other end, I'm not wrenching my knees to see it." I mean, there's no doctor or medical facilities on that boat.

So I worked my way back through the sea lions, taking pictures and wondering what had become of Joyce. I was thus able to see her efforts to right herself. She was up before I could reach her, and pretty pissed, too. We had no idea there was no way to land without killing yourself, and that there were no paths that could just be walked on instead of rock-climbed. I even had my walking stick with me, but there were no places to plant it securely to use it.

Here are some of the very first pictures I took in the islands. You can't really see how many, but there are numberless sea lions under the trees and around the rocks. They yell and cough and spit and holler all the time. As one of our traveling companions said, "It sounds like a tuberculoisis ward."

Regardless of their noises, they're very good about posing. People don't bother them at all, as long as they don't feel surrounded or cut off. Then they bite.

So, after that abortive attempt at looking around Los Lobos, we waved to the Millenium and they sent a panga over. We took our beer up to the top of the ship and waited for the others to return. They said the entire hike was like that, very hard to manage your footing. Later we asked Franklin if there were any landings we could actually do and enjoy, and he said yes, especially the wet ones. So we were still game to try going ashore. After all, we were there to see the animals, and there weren't a lot of options.

After the snorkeling and abortive hiking, we were happy to go unpack and go to bed right after dinner. There was another landing the next morning at 8 AM!

Ecuadoran Geography

In case I have been giving the impression I don't like Ecuador because of the toilets and lack of railings and stray dogs, that isn't really true. Ecuador has pretty much everything: beaches, the Galapagos, the Andes (including eleven volcanos) and the Amazon rain forest. And it's all packed into a tiny area so that you can see everything South America has to offer in basically one spot. No matter where you are, you're within a day's travel of everything else.

http://www.galasam.com/index.html

Also, they have customer service nailed. They are multi-lingual, polite, prompt, neat, hard-working and just as good-natured as anyone could want. Nothing is too much trouble, except, maybe, that dratted toilet paper. For example, in some banos, there is community toilet paper on a roll. You take some before you go into a stall. And then you know what happens next.

They also have community sinks, like in Mexico. All the sinks are outside the stall and urinal areas, so men and women use them together. I do like that idea. This way the men are changing diapers, too. Nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, if you love geography, geology, indigenous peoples, antiquities, adventure, wonderful scenery and lots of animals, seriously consider Ecuador. It's not that far away.

So, on to the Mindo Cloud Forest, our last day trip before flying to the Galapagos. This was more of a day about what we were supposed to see, not what we actually saw, but the drive alone was worth the trip. A "cloud forest," by the way, is basically a high-altitude jungle, that's all. But it sounds prettier.

We had a new guide today, David, pronounced as in the name of the French painter. Very cute! He had an agency car which was the best yet, an updated Chevy SUV. The Ecuadorans are just crazy about Chevys. I have no idea why. So he gave us a very detailed geological description of all the areas we drove through. Here is a geological picture.




Look! Sedimentary layers lifted up into a syncline! Taken while standing on an anticline! But I already knew that before he told us, because I love geology. In fact, when we were up Cotopaxi, I found both ash and pumice for my collection. It's had to find volcanic/igneous rocks except on volcanos. I hid them in a pill bottle. Ha ha.

Joyce likes plants and she took a particular interest in how the vegetation changed from one area to the next. Here's a shrimp plant from the jungle. And some red bananas. Don't forget to click to see close up.

We were supposed to see a hummingbird sanctuary, but they had migrated for the season. No one told us about the tubing, so we didn't have bathing suits with us. When we went to the cable car platform, we learned it was shut down because just the previous day, the engine had quit, suspending people over the chasm for two hours. Gee, sorry we missed that!

So we went to see the butterflies instead. I know this will seem like too many pictures, but honestly, they are so adorable. And especially check out the shot where the chrysallises are hanging and hatching. You don't get to see that very often.

Then we had the great trout lunch in the town of Mindo, which is vanishingly small. The trout are caught right there, and even though I don't usually like fish, I know when to eat it. a. It's filleted and b. It's fresh.

Then we drove back and we stopped in this one place where you can see two completely different eco-systems just by turning around.

Dry

Wet

"Wet," by the way, is the crater of yet another volcano, Pululahua, which has been under cultivation by the indigenous people for centuries. They now have it lined with sensors and can evacuate them just in case.

Here are two postcards we bought there, so you can see the exact same place in the two different seasons:

So that was our last excursion on mainland Ecuador, and believe me, you don't want to miss it. We would have missed it had Joyce not seen the article in the AAA rag about market towns. We only saw a couple of those but the rest of the stuff was pretty fantastic. We learned so much more about Ecuador than we would have if we'd only gone to the Galapagos.

If any Ecuadoran travel agents are reading this, you need to increase your advertising in the USA. And you also need to do something about public toilets where you can expect a lot of visitors, likewise the safety aspects. And fix those stray dogs, please. You have a lovely country that, with just a few tweaks, could become an absolute tourist gold mine for you. There would be no more "competition" with Costa Rica. You would win.

http://www.galasam.com/index.html

Tree tomato pie

You know, I never go anywhere without doing serious research first. So I discovered Ecuador has lots of exotic fruits we don't get in the US, and was eager to try them all. High on the list was the tree tomato, a traditional favorite.

Tree Tomato

I had tree tomato juice my first morning in Ecuador, because the hotel puts out a huge breakfast buffet including an egg and pancake station which will make anything to order. And they always have eight different juices. Orange and pineapple are always availble, and six more on top of those.

So, it was okay, but nothing special. Next day, I had the tree tomato compote. Same story. At the same time, we discovered the wonderful babaco, which apparently never leaves the continent. I would pay well if someone would import it. Seriously. Here is the babaco.

Babaco or champagne fruit - Carica pentagona

At the Rondo I had tree tomato pie. As far as I was concerned, that was it for me and the tree tomato. It tasted basically like nothing. Hoever, the next morning, I tried something by accident, having mistaken it for canteloupe. Tree tomato. I almost lost it. Horrible. Well, so I thought I had given it a fair test, and saw no need to try it again in any format.

Anyway, I was having a lot of trouble eating breakfast. I don't know if it was the altitude, or what, but basicallly all I was eating was fruit. I cleverly intuited I couldn't keep anything else down, so I didn't even try. Every morning it was orange (or blackberry or watermelon or pineapple, etc) juice, canteloupe and babaco. For that and other reasons, I actually lost four pounds on this trip. One reason had to do with haring all over creation from 8 AM until 6 PM at high altitude. And, as I said, still other reasons. You'll see.

So this was our day to go to Otavalo, a famous market town, and other sites along the way. We had an extra guide that day, Luisa, who was apparently the shopping expert. Poor thing. I hate to shop, and Joyce is frugal in the extreme. Believe me, this is good or we couldn't afford to go on trips like this at all. But it also means most of our souvenirs are the pictures we take.

Our first stop was a farmacia because we needed some stuff it was good to have a woman along for. There's a farmacia in every block, and an alimentaria (grocery store) or two as well. They have no stores of the size we find "normal" in the US. Every shop is a tiny hole in the wall. Each block has a whole string of tiny little stores because few people have cars and they must carry everything they buy on buses or on foot, so they want to shop as close to home as possible.

Then it was off to the dough ornament store. Seriously. Everything in the store is made out of dough, baked and painted. Here are the kids with a small "Equator Monument" because we forgot to take them out for pictures at the real Mitad del Mundo.


Everything on that shelf is made out of dough. Really. Luckily, they had baskets full of Christmas ornaments, which Joyce is always looking for. She sends them to her family for St. Nicholas Day. I can't tell you exactly how many we came away with but maybe 32, and only a handful are staying with us. And they all made it back unbroken, thanks to yards and yards of toilet paper. See, I knew they had it someplace. Turns out it was all in that shop for wrapping breakables.

Although we weren't supposed to stop there, we spotted another real equator monument (every town has one) and stopped to take pictures with the kids. So now we have both dough and the real deal.

Then we went to a bakery where they make a local delicacy that looks like absolutely nothing. There are only a few places that make this nothing.


So we decided to try the nothing but they had no nothing for sale at that moment. Luisa promised we would find places selling nothing on the way to the next volcano, so we started off again.

Soon we were at a famous overlook to see the Imbabura volcano at Lago Mira. The souvenir shop there sold the baked nothing, so we bought a bag. Criminy! It was delicious! It's amazing how a little stick of nothing actually tasted like something. Joyce found it dull and dry but the guides and I ate the whole bag. Too bad it's not something that travels well. In this picture I have a secure grip on my nothing, to keep it away from Joyce. That's Lago Mira and Imbabura.

At long last we arrived in Otavalo, which in Quechua means "ponchos for everybody" and may I be stuck down if they didn't honestly say this, and anyway, I found it on line.

We didn't need or buy any ponchos (but we got those scarves again!) and we took pictures of their ponchos. It was very colorful, as you can see. Also, the indigenous people are very lovely, and quite small.

Then we went to a hacienda for lunch. We were there four days and hit three different haciendas plus this excellent local restaurant only a guide would know. But that's the next day.

Anyway, haciendas are always lovely and always a good deal. Here's a link to Ecuadoran haciendas. Some of them include a hotel, but all are restaurants. They are just all over the place, and have beautiful gardens. There is NO excuse for eating KFC or McDonald's in Ecuador. We apologized to many Ecuadorans for having exported this mess.

Ecuador Hosterias and Haciendas in Ecuador

Our last stop was the leather-selling town where Joyce got a wallet. Luisa wanted to take us to some other shopping places but we are just not big shoppers so we went back for a swim instead.

Mitad del Mundo via GPS

Another early start, this time to tour the Old Town, Panecillo, the tram and Mitad del Mundo. Jose-Luis picked us up and said he'd be taking us to the Rondo restaurant for the "Welcome" dinner that evening as well.

First stop was Old Town, and guess what! It was a major national holiday and all decorated and full of people. Lookit!

And this is a detail of the National Cathedral. Yes, those are tortoises as gargoyles. All of the gargoyles on the cathedral are animals endemic to the Galapagos. Click on the photo to see the details.

May 24 is the observation of the Battle of Pichincha, which was where the last Ecuadoran soldiers fell in the last battle for independence from the Spanish in 1822.

In this photo taken from El Panecillo, the hill in the middle of town, you can actually see the site, where the flag is, which has become their equivalent of Arlington.

They hold ceremonies out there in the morning and have parades in town later on. Here's a link to last years' activities:

YouTube - Chávez y Morales acompañan a Correa en la conmemoración de la Batalla de Pichincha

As you can see, El Presidente Correa of Ecuador is buddies with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Interesting.

And Joyce said no more than one church visit, and we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I bought these postcards. This is the Iglesia de la Compania. They have cleverly placed a cheval glass in the transept so you can see the dome (the top picture) without having to lie on your back on the floor with binoculars.

And this is the magnificent San Francisco, but we didn't go inside. Too many steps!

Our next stop after downtown was El Panecillo, or Little Bread, the hill in the center of town, where they have the Flying Mary. The statue is fairly new and incorporates a whole lot of symbolism. So they say.



Then we went to see the Mitad del Mundo. This is what they call the equator in Ecuador because "Ecuador" means "equator" and it would be confusing. There are several "Mitad del Mundo" sites all along the actual line of the equator.

Now, take a look at this. Those silly French! They even created a monument (the mounted ball in the background) to their own inaccuracy. But we all make mistakes and this one isn't that bad, just 200 yards. Even though the indigenous Quito people knew all along where the equator was, and they told anyone who cared to learn, they weren't always taken as seriously as they should have been. And that's how you get pictures like this: the French "equator" marker taken from the REAL one, right where they always said it was.

They have a variety of tests and demonstrations they do right on the line, and then off to the side of it, so you can feel the difference between standing on the equator or not. Here is Joyce on the toilet at the center of the earth.



She didn't realize what it was when she sat on it. Cute, isn't she?

We also put our phony wedding rings right on the equator and took this picture. We left all our good jewelry at home in response to various things we read on the internet about robberies and muggings and that sort of thing. But honestly, we never saw even the least sign, or heard any story of it actually happening. However, it made an excellent excuse for buying a silver and malachite cross that day in the market downtown.




After Mitad del Mundo, we were supposed to take a tram or cable-car up another local mountain, but the fog never burned off, so we asked Jose-Luis to take us to a market instead, to make up for the one we didn't get to the first day. There were tons of stuff there: jewelery, leather, wools from alpacas and vicunas and linens and hats, wood carvings, stone carvings, you name it. Lots of native crafts, all very colorful. The problem is, they won't let you LOOK at it.

The minute you get out of the car, all the vendors are on you like flies on shit. There's no such thing as browsing. It's all "Senora! Senorita! Missus! Madam! You come here, you see, you buy. You number one GI! Hey, Meester! You wanna do my seester?" and so on. There are a gazillion stalls all jammed together with barely an aisle between so you can't exactly get a up a good head of steam and run away. Besides, you're there because you want something, so you stay at least a little.

The previous day we bought a whole bunch of their beautiful scarves (light, cheap, easy to carry) near the cathedral. So we bought another pile of those, plus the aforementioned cross and some other small goodies. Joyce is very good at haggling. I just say, "Get me that," and slither away. Since we live in Florida, there's not a lot of need for woolens and leather. Eventually we extricated ourselves and went back to the hotel to rest before dinner.

The Rondo restaurant is some sort of strange institution in Quito. It's apparently a place to which American tourists are taken or sent and no Ecuadoran ever eats there. And they claim to speak no English, and the menu is in Spanish, so if you really have no concept of any Romance language, good luck with that. Between Joyce's French and my Italian, we made it out, and we both had some delicious pork. The food is half-Spanish, half-indigenous and while we were eating it, a tiny mariachi band (four guys) came in and serenaded us. I wish I knew the etiquette for that! We were so relieved when they went away.

Then there was the great "How the hell do we get out of here?" caper. The meal was on the travel agency, but we ordered wine, and Joyce figured they were embarassed to tell us we had to pay for that. So we all just stared at each other until I worked out, "May I have the wine bill?" in my fractured Spanish, and everyone was all smiles as we packed up the remains of the bottle, tipped everyone, and left.

Tomorrow: Tree tomato pie and other delicacies.

Cotopaxi means "Neck of the Moon"

Oy. Having completed this entire trip, I think we can also safely call it the "Toilet Paper Caper." Although we didn't know that when we started out.

As I mentioned, I didn't have any internet-enabled devices with me, so I just took notes by hand in an old steno pad. This means that sometimes my scribbles are somewhat cryptic, so I was having trouble translating this bit of wisdom: "Toilet paper - one swatch. Laughed a lot."

I had to ask Joyce, and we began to re-visit our vari0us encounters with the sanitary facilities, but this one didn't click right away. Then it struck me. It happened on either the first or second day in Quito, before we went to the bathroom anywhere else in Ecuador. It was probably after dinner in the Japanese restaurant, and Joyce said, "Go to the desk and ask for more TP," or words to that effect.

My Spanish sucks, which is to say, were it not for my knowledge of Italian, I wouldn't have any clue at all. So I worked out a sentence that seemed to me like, "May I have some bathroom paper?" But for some reason, this elicited an offer of a tissue. I mean A tissue, not even a box. So I attempted, "The OTHER kind of bathroom paper," which elicited a wad torn off a roll they had behind the desk. At this, I gave up, because if she understood what kind of paper I needed and wouldn't give me any more than that, I didn't know how else to get it. But she had given me another idea: the box of tissues in the bathroom was a suitable substitute, so we let it go for the night. So I thanked her for the wad and went upstairs to show Joyce what I had accomplished.

That was just a little sample of the tissue issue in Ecuador. We learned a great deal about the servicios hygenicos on our little trip, and the very next day, when we went to visit Cotopaxi, we had several more lessons.

Of course we have traveled in enough places NEVER to go anywhere without tissues. We have used the most primitive facilities in places like Kenya and the San Blas Islands, and have gone tactical many times. But, silly us, we still prefer a good, old-fashioned ceramic pot with a seat you can sit on, a door that closes, a functional flushing device, and gratis papel del bano. Oh, yes, I learned it pretty darned quick.

So it was off to Cotopaxi National Park (or whatever the official name of it is) with our new private guide, Jose-Luis, a long-suffering young man with excellent English. He picked us up in a 4-wheel-drive Chevy which had air conditioning, but not a lot else, especially, not enough room for five people. Luckily we got in first and I grabbed the front seat, and the couple we collected after were skinny. They were, in fact, military skinny. Army skinny. Triathlon skinny. And there still wasn't really enough room for them in the back seat with Joyce. They were just lucky my fat ass wasn't back there, too.

We drove out of Quito on the Avenue of the Volcanos, because you can see seven of them as you drive along it, including the only one in the world directly on the Equator. It was foggy so we didn't see any of them at first. Jose-Luis said there was no point going up Cotopaxi until after noon when the fog would likely burn off, so we went for a hike around a lake instead. Honestly, it wasn't much of a lake, but that's not Ecuador's fault. It has shrunken drastically in recent years due to global warming, which is also why a snow-capped volcano is more rare than it once was.

Now, when I say "hike," I mean a brief walk accompanied by a lot of gasping. There's not a lot to see, except some neat flowers. Here are some.

Also, this lake is at the same altitude as Quito, roughly 10,000 feet, almost twice as high as Denver. So given there wasn't much to see, and the triathletes wanted to save time and energy for their little stroll up the volcano, we didn't go very far around. Instead, we went to a hut, generously termed a "museum," where we saw some of the seismic and gelogocal history of the park. Here we also drank coco mate tea and visited el bano.

And so we discovered many things:

1. Coco mate tastes like piss, and is served in terra cotta cups of hot water.
2. After you drink the piss-flavored tea, you go to el bano where you can rent some papel del bano. Actually, you buy it, or you buy the privilege of using the toilet.
3. You may not put the paper INTO the toilet, Instead, there is a lovely basket of used toilet paper that would gag a maggot. I confess, sometimes I was a good citizen of the world, and sometimes, not so much.

4. When you come out to wash your hands you may find:

a. No soap
b. Liquid soap
c. Community soap on a stick.

Of course we were carrying some sort of germophobe gel so that got a lot of use.

In addition to these ways that an Ecuadoran National Park is unlike a Canadian or USAian park, there are other differences. One is the attack of the vendors, which everyone has experienced even if they've been no further than the Bahamas or Mexico. Then there are the vendors of charity, which means beggars, and honestly, I don't always resist those. Another is the peculiar lack of safety features. In some places, the floors inside the official buildings were so uneven you had to straddle the various irregularities, made somewhat more challenging by lack of lighting. Steps indoors and out are often in pieces and can be anything from a little lip to a grand jete. As far as safety railings or anything else to haul yourself up, or along, or to keep you from falling into an unexpected chasm, forget it. Luckily we had walking sticks but these tend to get stuck in crevices and can cause parts to whack you in the jaw when you wrest them loose.

At any rate, we completed our tour and proceeded up the side of the volcano on a dirt road. "Up" in this case meant adding on 9,000 feet in about 45 minutes. We arrived in the parking lot below the Refugio. There are no banos in the parking lot, only in the Refugio, which is a good 600 feet straight up. So we were treated to the sight of many people relieving themselves in the gravel. This ought to give the government of Ecuador a hint, but it probably doesn't.

The primary reason for the park, other than to set aside land, is to provide a place for climbers to acclimatize themselves before attempting Cotopaxi. The lake is one place to do this, and then after that, the Refugio, after which one makes a last push. Apparently many more people attempt to climb Cotopaxi than just visit or look at it, because there were no facilities of any kind for the people who didn't go as far as the Refugio (or the glaciers 20-30 minutes past it). If you can climb up there you can get some more coco mate. Well, wouldn't it make more sense to provide the tea at lower altitudes, rather than the last place the casual visitor is likely to go?

Here is one of a zillion shots we took up there, but it nicely demonstrates what was going on.

In the first picture, you can't see the Refugio because it's hidden in the fog. Instead, you can see the parking lot below and the crater above.

In the next one, you can see an orange box, which is the Refugio, taken from the parking lot when the fog parted. Don't forget to click the pictures to make them large enough to see the details.

The crater is the dark spot, and the reason it's dark is, it's too steep for the snow to adhere to it. Keep in mind we are right on the equator here, and it's late May.

Moving right along, and in order to satisfy my detractors, I'll explain WHY Cotopaxi means "neck of the moon" in Quechua. It's because from a certain angle, way down the mountain somewhere, sometimes, when the moon is full, it looks like it's sitting right in the crater. Of course I hunted for a postcard demonstrating this but the only image I could find while there was a photo of it in the hut where there was no lighting. And a search of the internet has failed as well. You'd think someone would try to cash in on this image but apparently not. If anyone's got a picture of this phenomenon, I'll gladly post it here for you.

In the meantime, I scanned this image into my computer. Put a blob of shaving cream on there and you'll probably get the general idea.

So Jose-Luis and the Army triathletes set off up the volcano, Joyce lay in the car gasping, and I ran around and took pictures. I'm not saying it was easy; just barely possible. And even Joyce roused herself when a family from New Jersey pulled up next to us and offered to take our picture. See how happy she is!

If you've read previous blogs, you will recognize Lucky, Plucky and Trip. They kind of stand in for our dogs when we have to travel without them.

And this next one is just the clearest of all my shots.

About 45 minutes after the triathletes left, they returned, and we drove down to the banos and then out of the park to a hacienda, which in Ecuadoran Spanish means "lunch." No, just kidding. Haciendas come in three varieties: working ranches, ranches with gardens and restaurants in the original buildings, and just the buildings functioning as restaurants and hotels. You get excellent food in a very nice setting. They tell us Ecuador has fast food, but we never saw any, just the ads.

The village we were supposed to go to next to see a market was closed. But we'd had enough, so we bid a fond farewell to the Army triathletes, who were kind enough to update us on the status of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Hold Your Breath." On the way to the hotel, we asked Jose-Luis who was coming to get us for our "Welcome Dinner" and he said "Wha'?" so he called the agency and left a message about it.

With no prospects of dinner out, we went swimming and then to the Swiss restaurant, and when we got back to our room, we had a message that they had messed up, and the dinner would be the next night.

It may sound as though the travel agency was a complete screw-up, but withhold judgement for now. As it turns out, they were real heroes, and all that will play out in subsequent postings.

One last bit of trivia. Jose-Luis told us why the hotel lobby was filled with enormous bouquets of fresh roses every day. They grow roses there, for world-wide export, and the local price is a dollar a dozen. They are called "the cheapest gift," and a sure-fire way to make your date mad is to show up with a dozen long-stemmed roses.

By the way, I'm putting this link to Galasam, our travel company, throughout the blog. If you want to go to South America, these people are the best. They really can make lemonade out of lemons. If I were going down there, again, I wouldn't use anyone else, seriously.

http://www.galasam.com/index.html

Finally, off to South America!

As you can see from the previous blog entry, I did get all my pictures back safe and sound. Many thanks to the terrific people at Brandon Business Machines for doing this. If you live in this area, skip Geeks on Call and others of that nature. This is an excellent establishment that's been here longer than we have. They know how to do everything, and they are prompt and reasonable and every other professional attribute I can think of. Give them a try if you need help or equipment.

So, onward! The Miami Airport Hilton had a great room, great pool, great beds and a great restaurant. Too bad we didn't sleep a wink; we were just too excited. Also we knew we had to get up at 5:15 AM and that always interferes with my ability to get a decent night's sleep, if any.

We took the shuttle to the airport, and to TACA (Quit calling it TACO; you know that's not nice!) where we got in a humongous line. Well, thank goodness we don't look very Cuban, because some nice customer service agent spotted us and took us out of the line for the flight to Havana, and we checked in almost instantly.

We putzed around the airport, by which I mean we stood in a bunch of long lines for security and immigration. They looked at our passports six times before we got to the gate, and then again at the gate. See, this is why we hate to fly; it's just too hard. But we boarded on time and this enabled us to experience a miracle:

We took off early.

Yes, thank God we were sitting down. And several minor miracles ocurred in conjunction with the major one: the flight wasn't full, it had huge leather-like seats with leg room sculpted out of the backs of the seats, and they fed us breakfast. It looked and felt just like first class on a US domestic airline. A mere 2 1/2 hours later, we were in San Jose where we walked, like, three feet and got on our next plane. Two more hours later and we were in Quito. The same miracles applied to this flight, except we got lunch instead of breakfast.

We knew well in advance that we would probably suffer from altitude sickness in the Andes, so we looked everywhere for the coco mate tea we were supposed to drink, and couldn't find any. We had no alcohol and were drinking bottled water even before we landed. Dragged ourselves slowly to the luggage area where all of our bags appeared instantly despite the less-than-60-minute stopover in San Jose. No need to change money; Ecuador uses the US dollar since 2000.

Through the gauntlet of customs and immigration and porters and baggage checks and went outside where we found a person waiting with a misspelled sign. We tipped the porters, tipped the sign-holder, tipped the escort and tipped the driver. It reminded us of our trip to Jamaica where each porter carries your bags 100 feet and hands you off to another one.

The Quito airport is very small which is a good thing because our car was parked OUTSIDE of it. We actually had to hike to our car in that thin air and in the hot sun because for whatever reason they couldn't get in the gate. What? I know. We never got a satisfactory explanation for that. So we get in this little Toyota and Joyce gasps, "Put the air on." And the driver says, "I sorry, is no working."

So I'm making mental notes because we were supposed to be collected by someone else and in an air conditioned VAN. And, I had assumed, they would be able to get inside the freakin' airport.

Luckily the ride to the Swissotel was mercifully short, although I was very glad I hadn't taken off my motion-sickness wristbands which I put on when the second plane hit turbulence over the mountains. And the driver promised we would be called by the original supposed-to-be driver that night, and we would be picked up in an air-conditioned van the next day.

We knew better than to believe anything he told us at that point, and wondered what the hell would really happen next. I mean, we went to Buenos Aires a couple years ago. And look how well THAT worked out.

The hotel reassued us somewhat. It had a lobby full of functionaries in fantastic uniforms that made me think we must be on the set of Moon Over Parador.




Here's Joyce with one of them. And it's also full of roses. Here are some. Stay tuned. There's a great story that goes with this, which we learned later.






They had an envelope for us, as well as a reservation, so we went on up and were presented with a gorgeous room with a king bed.

Well, anyone who knows us realizes we have stayed married for almost 23 years by not sleeping in the same bed, and Joyce immediately asked for a different room. We went down three floors and across the hall to a room with two queen beds. Much better! And here is the view out our window.



You have to click on the photo so you can see the volcano Cotopaxi, the white cone in the center. It's not always visible, especially with snow on top, so this is considered good luck. In fact, you can click on all the pictures in this blog to see them in greater detail.

We later learned our original room was next to the nightly free booze party facility on the executive floor. That would not have beeen a good thing, because we were so exhausted from the altitude most of the time, that if we weren't eating or touring, we were in bed. So it was a nice, quiet floor, and when we looked straight down, we could see if the pool was occupied or not. At that moment, it wasn't so we changed and went downstairs in the external, all-glass elevators that thrilled Joyce to no end.

We got lost trying to find the piscina, and by the time we arrived, children were in it. But we had been looking forward to it so we went in anyway. At first we stayed in the outside part, but the kids came out, so we went to the inside part, and pretty soon more kids came in. Their shrieking is more than we can tolerate. so we had to leave. It's a very nice facility with a swim-through and a little waterfall, and we just hoped we could get to it again when it was quieter.

I found this link to the Swissotel Quito video so you can see the pool.

http://swissotel.clipps.tv/quito.html

You have to cut and paste it to see. I can't get it to appear AS a link even though I followed the directions. We did NOT have any of those fancy luxury suites, honest. Just a nice room with a very pretty view.

So we chose the Japanese restaurant because it opened earliest, and went there. The hotel has seven and we ate in four, plus room service, over the next five days. And the sports bar does the room service, so we really only missed two. As usual, there was way too much good food but we ate quite a lot and went to bed. This time we slept just fine!

Tampa to Miami

Yeah, not much of a leg, but we designed it that way on purpose. Our flight the next day was 8-something AM. No way would we get up and drive that in the dark. I mean, we can't; we don't see all that well to drive in the dark. So Hertz picked us up. Did you know that's not limited to Enterprise? Yeah, and they have a satellite office near our house with much better prices than at the airport, so we picked up our cherry red Chevy Aveo hatchback, a car we'd never buy in ten million years, and drove straight to McDonald's for breakfast. I need incentives like that to get up at 6:30 AM.

Then off down I-75 and through Alligator Alley to Miami International Airport, to which I had terrible directions from Google Maps. Took us through some of the worst traffic and slums of Miami. Thanks a lot for the tour!

Even so, we were way early arriving, dropping off the car, and grabbing the shuttle to the Miami Airport Hilton. Again, I had a plan. I knew we'd be early enough for a nice swim, and wanted to be outdoors since we'd be cooped up all the next day. We had a great view from our room, too.




Overpriced but tasty meal and off to bed.

Now, about those pictures. We had been using our Kodak digital whatever when it got slightly moist in the Galapagos. Kinda ruined the viewer but it was still taking pictures so we limped along. Even successfully downloaded a batch to a flash-drive via our guide's laptop on the boat. But, by the time we got home, it refused to transfer data via the cable to the computer. So the memory card is at our local computer shop, where they'll transfer the whole thing for us onto a flash-drive, and we'll be back in business next week sometime. And now I have an excuse for buying an underwater camera.

There's No Place Like Home

We made it back, and, as I told a friend, it was a lot more adventurous than I had anticipated. You can never really know all the questions you should have asked until it's too late.

I expect to replace this entry with others in some sort of logical order, but at the moment I'm feeling challenged and may not get to it as quickly as I'd really like to. But I took copious notes and eventually I'll air all the details here, maybe with a few name changes to keep from getting sued.

As many of you know, we avoid children assiduously. We can't imagine why anyone would drag an 18-month old baby to Peru, for example, if you are not FROM Peru. And for the most part, our trip (again, NOT a vacation) was mostly child-free. But we DID finally get to experience Euro-trash up way too close, and it was almost as disturbing as the (very) few badly-behaved children and their far-more-culpable parents we ran across. Nothing like last year's trek to Mount Rushmore. However, Euro-trash are technically adults, and you can tell them to piss off if you have no other recourse. It was just a little strange to discover that other continents and countries also have hordes of rude people cluttering up the planet. I think they ship them away on purpose to get a break.

So we were gone approximately 20 days and it honestly feels more like we were gone for three months. It was a very other-worldly experience that took us way out of our comfort zone on occasion. On the other hand, South America is also a pleasant combination of Europe and North America and we both learned a great deal, most of it in Spanish. Anyway, we're glad to be home, safe and sound with Nick, Stella and Ollie. Many thanks to Dora and Laura for looking after them and making our trip stress-free. We knew they'd be fine, and they were.

I'll try to post a blog a day after this, but don't be surprised if it takes a little longer, especially putting up pictures.

Hasta luego!

What not to wear

Oh, yeah, we're big fashion mavens. Joyce calls me a clothes-pig and I worry that horizontally striped underwear will make me look fat. If you haven't seen my bathing-beauty photo, go look in the Great (Plains) Escape and you'll see why this is funny. Or frightening. Whichever.

But we definitely don't want to look like dumb American tourists with stuff worth stealing, so we're making a couple of changes. No belly-bags (fanny-packs) this time. We're both using underarm bags. No wild tee-shirts, either; at least on land, we'll wear collared sports shirts. And if need be we won't wear shorts, certainly not downtown or at night. Don't expect dresses or stupid shoes, though. We're not going to endanger ourselves or be uncomfortable or inconvenienced.

Everything has to fit in two bags each. For three weeks in different climates, we just can't do it in one bag. So as usual, everything urgent goes in the carry-on, and stuff we can replace if we must will be checked. Luckily we will stop in Quito several days before moving on, so our bags can catch up if we're separated, God forbid.

We're just about ready to go, and we're pretty excited. See you when we get back!

Not flying domestic

That's how we'll be getting to Miami when the time comes, and that's how we're getting from Miami back here. We couldn't actually fly a foreign carrier to Miami, I tried to find one, so we chose to fly Hertz. That's right; we're driving.

Why in the world? you may wonder. A variety of reasons:

1. Cost. It simply costs more to fly to Miami than to drive there. That may sound impossible, but it's true. If you add airfare to all the extra fees domestic carriers pile on (especially luggage), it is MORE expensive than driving down in a rented sub-compact and staying a night near the airport. Using our own car and long-term parking at MIA would also be more expensive. It does take extra time, but that's one of the blessings of one of us being retired and the other having the summer off. We also make use of all the discounts we get from being geezers. I think it costs less than $40 for us to drive to Miami, and $75 or so to drive back. Compare to the two flights we won't be taking. Maybe if you had frequent flyer points it would be cheaper, but we don't. We fly as little as we can get away with.

2. The experience. The TSA and the airlines together treat people like crap. This is two times fewer that we'll have to deal with either.

3. The schedule. Even if we fly, we'd have to factor in a day to let our luggage catch up. While not as strenuous as Antarctica, it's still not a trip you want to take without all your supplies, and we simply can't carry everything aboard in the cabin. This way, it stays safe with us.

Here are a couple of other wrinkles about flying to Quito (and back fom Lima): you can't get there from here. By this I mean, if you ask to fly from and to Tampa, they route you through Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans and so on. You have to book each stage separately to get the route you want, which is exactly what we did for Antarctica, and that was also when we decided never to make a domestic flight again. I swear, if I were going to Seattle or Edmonton or Mexico City, I'd drive there. Another thing: the only non-stop from Miami to Quito is via a US domestic airline, and it's more expensive than our itinerary via San Jose, Costa Rica, both ways.

So I encourage you: if you want to send US domestic airlines a message, stay off them and tell everyone why. I've been doing it since we made our reservations.

I'll write another entry before we go, mostly about planning and packing.