Ecuador & Galapagos

Itinerary:

31.10. Quito

01.11 - 5.11. Kapawi Ecological Reserve, Kapawi (www.kapawi.com)

05.11. Quito (www.lacasasol.com)

06.11. Baños

07.11. Cuenca

08.11. Loya

09.11. Machala

10.11. Salinas

11.11. Bahia de Caracquez

12.11. Santo Domingo de los Colorados

13.11. Otavalo

14.11. Quito

15.11. - 22.11. Galapagos Adventure II, Galapagos (www.adventuregalapagos.com/english/index.html)

22.11. Quito

Unfortunately I have not written the travel story while on the way and so I just put together the highlights afterwards.

Quito - Arriving in Quito we wanted to see the center of the town and tried to get a taxi, as it was a bit far to walk. After several tries to manage one to stop for us, we found out that no taxis wouldl be driving into the center because of a demonstration. We decided to leave the visit open (for security reasons) as we would be in Quito twice more.

Rainforest (5 days) - The highlights for me were the visit of a local village, the many walk through the dense forest, the many species of wildlife (incl. monkeys), the swim and boat trips on the rivers with piranas and the relaxing in the hammocks at the lodge. As the name says, in a rainforest there is regular rain. One day it got even quite stormy and the leaf-roofs of the lodge got more and more holes. But even that seems normal and after it stopped raining the roofs were fixed professionally within a very short time. 

During our stay in the rainforest a volcano errupted and apparently put Quito in ashes. Lots of flights were cancelled or rerouted. That and the fact that we could only fly out of the rainforest if the runway (= natural ground) were not too wet, our stay at the lodge could have got extended without our influence. We (compared to others) were not too nervous about that as we had no fix plans except of the car hire for the next days. After a several hours delay because of rain, we flew out on the day planned, not to the destination planned though. But all worked out fine, we got picked up by a bus and were driven the last part to Quito, as the plane  was not able to land in Quito because of the ashes. 

It's pretty impressive if you walk around Quito, a town under ashes. We haven't seen the worst, as a lot was cleared already in the meanwhile, but nevertheless an unforgettable memory. 

Highlands (9 days)- Well, good luck with driving if you intend to do that in Ecuador!! Okay, we brought the car back after 9 days in the same condition as it was before, but the whole trip by car cost me quite some sweat (not as driver). The best moments about the driving part were these: Getting lost in the mountains with the road getting worse and worse - lost a couple of hours there. An other one was the remarkable three bridges, where on each we discussed if it was safe to pass it (others might not have taken the risk if they would have looked at the wobbly bridges closly) and after having passed them all getting to a dead-end, which meant crossing all the three bridges a second time - my heart was down at my feet ;-) !! An other impressive happening was at the west coast where one car after the other came flying past us (the opposite direction than we were driving). After a while we realized that it was a car rally on!! Things like a lorry overtaking an other lorry and a car overtaking them both at the same time is not less seen  than lorries overtaking each others in corners in the mountains!! 

In many places you got the impression that the locals are not yet much used to white people and tourists. We often were stared at, but mostly is was with a smile and in a friendly way. Only on the markets when trying to get some pictures done, the locals could get a bit nasty and some threw some vegies after us. Most impressive at the markets is the colourful clothes and the food beeing cooked on fires, like guinney-pics with head and feet still on :-( (nothing for my hunger), especially after noticing several dogs lying around dead on the streets at the market.

Back in Quito we had to pick up the tickets for the Galapagos trip. The friendly woman announced that she had bad and good news for us. She told us that the boat (Fragata) we booked ahead on the internet  just sunk a couple of days ago, as the captain fell asleep and drove ashore. At the end of our Galapagos trip we have seen by chance the leftovers from the boat and it looked like someone put it in hundreds pieces, here a piece of wood, here a matrace, there a piece of stairs.

The good news was she booked us onto an other boat (Galapagos Adventure II) and all worked out well. The crew was brilliant, with loads of good food.

Galapagos (8 days)- What a brilliant place to be. Don't leave out the opportunity to visit these islands if you are "close" by. It's worth any dollar you spend for the trip. The fauna & flora are unique, the islands having volcanic history and the variety of animals huge. You see hundreds of sealions and not with binoculars, you actually have to watch out that you don't stand on them. The same counts for the lizards and the coloured one's look like painted on. Don't miss out on some snorkelling, you have the chance to see sharks, penguines, sea turtles, sealions and big crowds of fishes. Incredibel!!! 

The life on boat is special and not all people got to love it like I do. My biggest trouble was to get used to the boat driving at night on the pretty rough sea. The first nights I hardly managed to sleep as I was always worried to fall out of the bed. But I got used to that too and I just loved the boat atmosphere!!

The last night in Quito we wanted to have a little goodbye celebration. When ordering some beers with the dinner, we had to find out though that no alcohol is served that day because of votes. So also in our "local" bar where we normally got our three happy hours drinks for one, we ended up drinking coke and playing a last game of pool.