Day 9: June 28, 2007 Puerto Ayora to El Reventado

  El Reventador, Ecuador
Thursday, June 28, 2007

Day 9: June 28, 2007 Puerto Ayora to El Reventador

I awoke at 6:30 but by the time I got down to breakfast, we were about to disembark.

Charles Darwin Research Station

The pangas took us to the dock as we waved good-bye to our friends in the crew. After they returned to the boat to prepare for the new group arriving later in the day, we took cabs over to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The highlight, and biggest tortoise is Lonesome George, the last of the Isla Pinta subspecies. I bought a nice field shirt at the station store. Then, we boarded a bus to take us to the north side of Santa Cruz en route to the airport. We took the ferry across the channel to Baltra but not all of us could get on the bus to the airport so we had to wait. When the next bus came we got on. I chatted with Linela, our guide for this brief segment.

Gal'apagos Tortoises

Lonesome George

Land Iguana

Nobody was really sure what happened or why but our entire group was bumped from our flight to Quito via Guayaquil. We waited an hour and Aerogal provided us, and a few others, with a special direct flight to Quito. We arrived a little before our original flight would have gotten in.

After picking up our bags we were met by our guide Ivan Biscayeno and our bus driver Humberto and started off on a 4 ½ hour bus ride to El Reventador volcano, leaving at about 4:30.

Pumice Cliffs Near Quito

The drive through Quito exhibited beautiful pumice roadcuts that are very reminiscent of Guatemala city. We slowly climbed to the high point at ~ 13, 600′ before starting the long descent into the Amazon Basin. Except for a couple of short stretches the road is in good shape although quite winding. We followed and crossed many steep, deep quebradas as darkness fell. I slept for the latter part of the trip, awakening when we arrived at the Hostería El Reventador. The hostería was a bit more rustic than some would have liked but still better than I expected it to be. I shared a room with

Dinner at El Reventador

Todd, Robert, and Ron. A traditional local meal was served promptly. It was fine but nothing extraordinary. After dinner everyone went to bed. Todd and I stayed up with Ivan and Victor Cansino, our waiter/guide, to review the options for tomorrow. They were under the impression that we were all geologists and wanted to climb into the caldera of Reventador. Since it last erupted just three weeks ago and it is an arduous hike I was not interested in that. We decided on a morning hike to San Rafael waterfall and an afternoon hike to see the cock-of-the-rock in the rain forest on the lower slopes of the volcano.

Once that was decided, Todd and I had a beer and went to bed. There was a moderate drizzle as we walked back to our bungalow.