Heaphy South American Trip 2013

Back again!

Quito lies between two mountain ranges and its altitude is 2,800 metres. It is the capital of Ecuador. It was founded in 1534 on the ruins of an ancient Inca city. Today, two million people live here. It was the first city to be named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978 (along with Krakow in Poland!) Now that's the history lesson over!

We are now back in Quito for the third and final time, the first being when we flew in from Cusco and then when we got back from the Galapagos, after that we headed to Mindo for a couple of days to get out of the big smoke. None of us particularly like big cities, you have to constantly watch your back. Saying that, we did try to explore the old city, when we first arrived, but having being ruined out from the Sacred Valley we didn't really do it credit and Andrew was sick at the time as well. However we did find time to walk around and soak up the old Spanish buildings, the neat cobbled streets, the many churches, and the general chaos of a Capital City.

Quito now has a new airport, (with the longest runway in South America), which was quite reassuring as our first descent into Quito was pretty hairy! It is well out of town and takes about 1.5 hours to get to the City, mainly due to the excessive traffic jams everywhere, this traffic doesn't get any better in town and to go anywhere it seems to take all day! The local trolleys and buses are constantly packed and have a bad reputation for pick pockets. Below are some photos of the historic centre.

Main church on Plaza de Aramas - Quito

Palace in historic quarter

Selling shoelaces on the street!

Typical Spanish architecture of historic centre

We did manage to visit the centre of the world! - Mitad del Mundo. This complex, built to commemorate the site where a French explorer calculated the world’s equatorial line, may be a shameless tourist mecca, but it made for a fun day trip. There was also a museum close by which had the real equator line, the French guy got it wrong by 240m!!!

The real equator line!

The not so real equator!! Good fun though.

Holding the Ecuadorian flag

There is a museum on the now apparently real equator, which was quite interesting, they did the water down the sink test on the northern, southern hemisphere and right on the equator line. I have done it before and told Andrew about it who wouldn't believe me until that day! The guide could have been a good magician of course - Dynamo eat your heart out! He also gave us all the "egg challenge" right on the Equator line, the idea was to try and balance an egg on its end on a nail. Apparently it is impossible to do it anywhere else other than the Equator - give it a go at home!!! Curtis managed to get the "egg head award".

Egg head!!

Doing the drunk test on the equator!

The most uncomfortable hat in the world!

Volcan Pinchincha

When we returned from the Galapagos we spent a night in Quito and headed straight out to tranquil Mindo - in the Ecuadorian rainforest for a couple of days R and R!!! The bus ride was in true south american style, the driver was a maniac and drove at top speed on the straight and bends with no regard to the fact there was a centre line or another vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Beautiful scenery passed us by in a blur whilst we clung on to the sides of our seats and bags for dear life! Curtis slept through it all! It was a 2 hour trip we did in 1.5 hours! Relieved to be off the bus, we found our lodge which was 4km out of town set right next to a river and in the middle of rainforest. It was a wonderful setting, great for bird watching especially hummingbirds, parrots and toucans.

Our digs in Mindo

Green- crowned briliant Hummingbird

In the afternoon we went for a walk through the rainforest to a cable car which we took across a gaping canyon to see some waterfalls. You might now be picturing a cable car you might see at a European ski resort - now try the one below!!

Cable car - Yeah right!

View from cable car to river 200 m below!

The next day we had more adventure by booking in for a zip line experience, 10 zip lines above the rainforest canopy. We thought we might see some wildlife, but we were whizzing far too fast for that and were around 200m + up in the air!

All kitted out

Andy

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Returned to Quito on an early bus, had a very different experience than two days before, although we still had a couple of hairy moments when the driver was intent on getting in front of every bus that we saw so he could pick up the people waiting on the side of the road. We were on the early bus from Mindo, so when we reached the outskirts of Quito we started to pick up commuters every 100m it seemed. One woman got on and sat just in front of us and proceeded to do her makeup and put her hair in curlers! How she didn't poke her eye out with the driver constantly breaking and swerving in and out of traffic i don't know. I would have ended up wearing it on the rest of my face, however she looked just the ticket, even though when she left the bus she was wearing a huge pair of shades - what a waste! We are now heading down through the middle of Ecuador on our way south towards Guayaquil where we catch a flight a week today to Santiago.

Here are some more photos;

The best hot chocolate place in the world - Quito

The best bananas in the world! A Bonita in Ecuador

Self propelled cable car across a river!

Mindo butterfly farm

Butterfly farm resident!

Will be back with more from our trip down south to Banos and Alausi (Devils Nose train)

Andy, Karen and Curtis

Xxxxx

Buenos Dias Chico's

The Galápagos Islands, official name: Archipiélago de Colón are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed on either side of the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, 926 km (575 mi) west of Ecuador of which they are part of. The Galápagos Islands and their surrounding waters form an Ecuadorain province, a national park and a biological marine reserve. The islands have a population of slightly over 25,000. The islands are famed for their vast number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Now you've had the history i'll get in to our experiences of this magical place. I am sitting in the sun of the top deck of La Pinta - our floating hotel for a week, looking out onto Bartholome Island, one of the many islands that make up the Galápagos Archipelago. It is one of the youngest islands of the Galapagos and probably the world - 800 years old. Very young in geological terms, which is why there is virtually no wildlife on it, but the volcanic formations are amazing. Sun is out, water is sparkling and the beaches are white to golden.

Most famous view in the Galapogas

We were lucky enough to pick up a last minute deal from Quito, so had 3 days to organise ourselves and get to Quito airport. Just as well really as Andy had managed to get a chest infection when we left Cusco, so was on antibiotics. He was feeling better until we boarded La Pinta. It was moored off San Cristobal Island and despite its size was bobbing around like a cork in some fairly large waves. Neither of us are the best sailors, but for some reason the ginger tablets did it for me, Andy was put on the stronger stuff! The first night wasn't good for him, but within 12 - 14 hours he came right and has been able to enjoy everything. Needless to say Curtis is born to sail and couldn't understand what the problem was! He is the only kid on board and the guides love him, they are great with him and take time to explain all the information about the animals and islands to him in a really interesting way.

Arrival innthe Galapagos at San Cristobal airport

The locals!! San Cristobal

The first few days the weather was extremely changeable, with wind, spitting rain, large waves, which made getting on and off the boat a challenge, misty one nimute and sunny the next but the temperatures were warm. The first snorkel was windy with big waves, not to mention the seas temperature only being around 20 C, the visibility wasn't great as the sea was churned up, but it was exciting! We have still managed to see a huge amount of marine life, fishes of all different shapes and sizes, turtles, sea lions always keen for a play, sting rays, starfish, reef sharks, sea urchins, marine iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs and penguins.

Resting on Mum!

Male Marine Iguana

Sea lion colony- Gardener Bay, Espanola Island

Espanola blowhole

Basking marine iguana

Stingray

Green Pacific Turtle

Sea lion playing with us!

On land has been just as successful, we have visited quite a few islands, San Cristobal, Espanola, Santa Cruz, Isla Bartholome, Eden and Sombrero Chino (Chinaman's hat) and Santiago Island. Each island has slightly different wildlife as they have adapted to the islands age and therefore environment of flora and marine life that is around. Espanola was definitely the highlight so far with animals and birds everywhere, we had to watch where we walked - crazy, but they have absolutely no fear of man. There were albatross's and boobies all just nesting in the areas where we walked? I have never experienced this anywhere else in the world. Probably the highlight for us all was the red footed boobies, Galapagos hawk, short eared owl and the waved albatross. The albatross is not there all year around, in fact they spend the majority of their life at sea. The albatross were also courting and doing their courting dance which was neat to watch. This island also had an enormous population of marine iguanas, and sea lions, most of these sea lions were there to give birth and a few had done so within hours of our arriving. It was a magical morning and one we'll remember for sometime.

Galapagos Hawk

Galapagos sea monkey!

Proud Mum to be!!

Large male sea lion guarding his territory

Pelican

Lava lizard enjoying lunch

Courting albatross's

Red footed booby

Giant tortoise

Rare lava gull!

Male frigate bird - Genovesa Island

The boat we are on turned out to be a good choice for us, even though we were a bit dubious about there being up to 48 passengers! We could all be in a triple room together, not many offered that, the trip was 8 days and visited some good islands for viewing wildlife. The boat had 4 English speaking guides who are all very experienced and knowledgeable. The food is outstanding, with a large selection of just about everything, I have seen Curtis eat before, but he's eating like a horse here and we think you'll notice how he has grown- probably outwards as well as up! Alot of the food is Ecuadorian and that is great to try, luckily I don't like any of the deserts!!

La Pinta- the floating hotel!

Our very spacious cabin

The second mate!

We were lucky enough to meet some lovely people, for the first few days we got to know a really nice young girl from Canada and a young lad (17!!) from Holland, both were good fun to be with and great with Curtis, he missed them heaps when they left half way through the week. There were heaps of others from all over the world, we particularly enjoyed the company of a British and American couple. The boat itself was flash, with huge cabins, large enough for Curtis to do handstands and other gymnastic moves! It had a jacuzzi that we all dived straight into after our snorkeling trips to warm up! We had a large window in our cabin looking straight out to sea and even saw lots of wildlife through it, the most amazing being stingrays jumping out of the water.

Kariana and Eddie

The guides made this trip for us, they were incredibly knowledgeable and had a great way of imparting the facts that made it both interesting and real, especially for Curtis. There were four of them so we just changed around during the day, we usually had two nature type trips a day and 2 snorkel sessions, we made the most of it and went on every trip on offer, including a kayak along the shores of Genovesa - one of the northernmost islands of the Galapagos.

John one of the guides

Carlos and Curtis on Bartolome

We had a ball and it was well worth the time and effort to get here. We have had a couple of days in Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz just winding down. We head to Quito tomorrow and early the next day head up to Mindo into the cloud forests of Ecuador. We are getting towards the end of our trip now, can't believe it has gone so quickly. We are already planning the next one!

We'll leave you with a few more photos.