Our time in paradise is almost over...
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2008
1
6
21
Trip End
Sep 20, 2008
Puerto Baquerizo Moreno,
Ecuador
Friday, August 15, 2008
Yesterday we took a boat ride out to Punta Pitt. That ride was in a speed boat (previously we were in a catamaran which was roomier, but slower). There were 2 spanish-speaking couples, 5 people from a cruise doing a day trip, the crew, and a Canadian woman who is volunteering at the hospital here. She has been here 2 months already, plus a month of spanish lessons in Quito and is trying to extend her visa for another 3 months. Her field is sports medicine, but she said she´d seen a little bit of everything-including helping to deliver a baby. One of the women from thr cruise was Dutch and on month 5 of a 9 month trip around the world. Makes our 6 week trip look like small potatoes.
Punta Pitt is one of 2 places in the world where you can see red-foot, blue-foot, and nazca boobies. We saw quite a lot of them, and lots of other birds as well. We snorkeled around the rock, but the water was very rough and my mask was leaking, so I headed back to the boat a bit before some of the others. There wasn´t as much variety of wildlife in the water at Punta Pitt,
but there was a lot more fish, and the fish were more brightly colored. This crew didn´t seem quite as safety conscious as our first day´s crew--there were no equipment checks, no guide with a life preserver accompanying us, etc. Our first crew was a diving crew, and it shows in the way they do safety checks, etc. They let people jump in the ocean when we saw dolphins, and then the boat just kept going to keep up with the dolphins. We obviously circled back to get them, but I was glad I wasn´t in the water watching the boat cruise away!
After Punta Pitt, we went back to Kicker Rock for more snorkeling. The water was cold, and we didn´t have wet suits, so I opted to stay on the boat. I´m glad I did as after they went through the channel, the guide took them into very rough water. One of the people was not a good swimmer, he had been wearing a life vest the entire time, but for some reason decided he wanted to go in the rougher water. Once in, he started panicking and climbed up onto a rock, scratching up his knee in the process. He had to be helped back to the boat.
After Kicker Rock, we had lunch (rice with octopus-I´ve had octopus at 3 meals in the past 4 days) and then chilled on the beach for a while. On the way there, we saw 2 humpback whales. After lunch, back to Isla Lobos for more snorkeling, and we saw marine iguanas swimming.
Today we booked a highlands tour. It was just the two of us with our guide Carlos. Unfortunately, it was raining and very cloudy today, so we weren´t able to go view the volcanic crater (scenic outlooks aren´t much good when there´s no visibility). But we went to the galapaguera which is a site where they´ve relocated tortoises for breeding. They just started the program in 2005, and in the first year had 1 successful hatchling. Last year they had 13. The location used to be part of the area where the tortoises lived, but they had died out there. The species of tortoise we saw lives to be 180, but the oldest one we saw was 100. They label the shells with their ages. Afterwards, we went down to a beautiful beach where we were able to get really close to a few blue-foots for photos. We also drove through 2 villages where they are trying to develop local food production. One has 200 inhabitants and the other 100. We bought bananas, and became a de facto taxi for a school kid and (we think) the teacher. It was really interesting to get to see a different part of the island, and one not so tourist oriented.
We were back around lunch-time, so we found a local cafe offering "almuerzas" and had our $2.50 lunch. Afterwards we took a siesta and then dropped off some laundry. They charge $1 per kg to wash, dry, and fold your laundry. We took a walk around the island, and since we still had some time to kill before the laundry was done, decided to pop into the internet cafe.
Tomorrow we should have time for a morning hike before we check out and head back to Quito. Then after one night, we head into the Cloud Forest.
