birds,bugs and more!

1. from the city to the jungle I've noticed it takes a half an hour plane ride, 2 hours in a hot and mugy truck and a 4 hour motorized canoe ride to get COMPLETELY out in wildlife. So 6 & a half hours to get out out in the amazon wildlife, pretty far!

2. I hate bugs I really do hate creepy crawlies, insects...I realized that once I saw the big huge bees & wasps especially when I walked in our room and found a cockroach approaching my dads toiletry bag.

3. Aw! One of the insects I really do love... Butterflies! They are so cool & colorful and they eat other bugs!

4. Our guide fernando cool dude is very passionate about what he does. We were basicaly the only people there the other person there Mike. He went there 15 times already so he pretty much did his own thing. One day we were just at a viewpoint when Fernando just goes dashing off with his camera...He had just saw a bird that he hadn't even seen before.

5. We acually went perawna fishing and I thought perawnas were pur carnavors. It turns out they aren't they acually can turn into vegatarians and I didn't notice their teeth first I noticed their red eyes. Me and my mom cought perawnas and my dad... He cought a sardeen fish it was a big fish but still not a perawna.

What The Island Taught Me...

Things I learned from our voyage thru the Galapagos Islands:

1) It is really hard to look cool while wearing a lifejacket

2) When the driver of the boat says duck you should do as he requests




3) The word "booby" has a whole different meaning than what I am used to



4) Pay attention to what is happening on deck



5) Try to ignore fear and just say yes to stuff (except if the stuff involves skydiving or bungy-jumping. Then embrace the fear)





6) I could totally be a sea lion if there is a next life



7) And this is a big one....always check the inside of your bathing suit if you left it on deck to dry before putting it on. That way areas of your body can be spared a painful encounter with what was the Galapagos version of a wasp

8) Enjoy the sunsets

The Amazing Galapagos Islands

Cruising through the Galapagos Islands, . . .
Antoine, our wonderful host at the Colonial House Hostel in Quito worked really hard to organize a tour with Gap Adventures on the Queen Beatrice catamaran.  We sailed for 3 nights and toured for 4 days throughout some of the south islands of the Galapagos.  It was wonderful!!

 Day 1 riding on a dingy through the mangrove trees into a lagoon to see white tipped reef sharks, green sea turtles, eagle rays, blue herons and brown pelicans.   And that was just from the surface!

white tipped reef sharks

brown pelican

We snorkeled every day, got to swim with green sea turtles, sea lions and see a trillion fish and 1 diamond head ray.

Our time on land was just as wonderful!  We saw blue footed boobies, Nazca boobies, albatross, sea lions (all with their babies), marine iguanas, lizards, saddle back and dome back giant tortoises, Galapagos doves, magpies and all sorts of finches.

albatross with chick in foreground & blue footed boobie with chick in background

a curious baby sea lion approaches a red marine iguana

Another favourite activity on the trip was swimming in a lava tunnel!  

we made it right to the end of the tunnel!

The Middle of the World

As all of us know, Quito is at 0 degrees latitude, right on the equator.

What I did not realize is that, due to GPS technology the location of the line was changed about 12 years ago!  The revised equatorial line is about 240 metres away from the original.  Considering that the first location was originally figured out in 1735, verified in 1936 and then moved slightly in 1979, 240 metres is pretty darn close!!  They have created a great little museum at the actual equator (inti-nan solar museum) that gives information about some traditions of the Andean people who lived in the area, information about people who lived in the jungle areas as well as cool hands-on activities and information about being on the equator.

We saw the "true" line first and were fascinated by the information.  Standing on the equator impressed me more than I thought it would!

Chloe and Paul doing an experiment on the equator.

Later that afternoon we went to the original line.  We pondered how the organization (I am assuming the government) felt about the discovery and subsequent change in the location of the equator.  About 25 years ago they had built a HUGE monument (30 metres tall stone monument with a 5 ton, 4.5 metre globe) and accompanying buildings containing restaurants, souvenir shops, a planetarium and bug museum.

Chloe holding up the world at Mitad del Mundo.