Reflections

Well I have now been back in Toronto for 5 days; it has been really nice to see my family, but the fucking snow and negative temperatures that have greeted me have NOT been welcome.  Everyone keeps saying spring is in the air.  They're crazy.  This place is cold and grey, the trees don't have leaves, the buildings are characterless, and the streets are not alive.  There's no spirit in Toronto...it's just a boring, dull, soulless city.  That's freezing.  I was walking yesterday in the street wearing a sweater, wool socks, boots, a winter coat, a scarf, gloves, and earmuffs, and a gust of wind came and cut through all of those layers making me feel like I was being sliced with ice.  I swear I'm going to get hypothermia here.

But enough about how shitty Toronto is...I have a job here for the summer, which should get me enough cash to escape this wretched place for another winter.  I'm already planning it; maybe teaching English in Mexico.  Anyways, with all the places I've been and all the experiences I've had, some have stood out more than others.  So here is a list of tops...cities, museums, etc. from my last 5 months in Latin America.

Top Cities Visited:
1. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2. Mexico (DF), Mexico
3. Buenos Aires, Argentina
4. Valparaiso, Chile
5. Oaxaca, Mexico

Worst Cities Visited:
1. Uyuni, Bolivia
2. Lima, Peru
3. Quito, Ecuador
4. La Serena, Chile
5. Cuzco, Peru

Top Museums Visited:
1. Museo Nacional de Antropología, DF, Mexico
2. Museo de Arte Indigena, Sucre, Bolivia
3. Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
4. Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, BA, Argentina
5. Centro Cultural Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Most Idiotic Statements from Other Travelers:
1. (in response to me saying that I'm from Canada) "Really?  You don't look Canadian!"
2. (in response to me correcting someone that I'm not American) "Whatever, it's practically the same place."
3. (in response to me telling someone I want to work with indigenous populations in Canada) "There are indigenous people in Canada?!"
4. "Chinese medicine cures everything, even caner."
5. "I think I'll just drink the tap water once, get sick and then I'll be immune to it for the rest of my travels."

Most Common Countries I Meet Other Travelers from:
1. Australia
2. Germany
3. Israel
4. Netherlands
5. Britain

Top 5 things I wish I had brought with me:
1. iPad/Tablet/other "smart" device.  So many hostel computers are shit.  I could have used so many hours on bus rides more productively...the last thing I want to do when I get to a new city is to go sit in an internet cafe for an hour.
2. Coffee, filters, drip.  For the biggest producers of coffee in the world, it's really hard to get a cup of decent coffee in the land of Nescafe.
3. Mini speakers.  The number of times I blasted my iPod, and put the headphones into tupperware to amplify them...
4. Collapsible bowl for washing clothes.  Yea, I had to borrow pots from the kitchen a number of times for this purpose.
5. Sleeping bag liner.  I had one with me, and then with a fit of "I HAVE TOO MUCH SHIT" I mailed it home.  Biggest mistake.  Perfect for cold bus rides, gross rented sleeping bags, and freezing cold hostels at high elevations.

La Ciudad Perdida y Parque Nacional Tayrona (19-26 marzo)

Ciudad Perdida was sick!  Unfortunately I left my camera in Bogotá (I have it back now), so I had to buy a shitty film camera in Santa Marta the day before I left.  Other than a few shots Fabian sent me, I have to wait for the film to get developed to see any pictures.  It was supposed to be a 5 day trek through the Colombian jungle, but according to the schedule we were supposed to be finished hiking each day by noon or 2 pm at the latest, so after the first day we convinced our guide to let us do it in 4 instead.  It's all uphill to get there which was pretty tiring, but at least there were mules carrying our food, so we didn't have to have too much gear on our backs.  There were only 4 people in our group as well which was nice--a german couple, and Fabian from Switzerland.  We saw some amazing landscapes, and passed by a few indigenous villages.  Some of the kids have to walk over an hour each day to get to school; our guide grew up in one of these communities and used to have to do this!  In the afternoon of the second day, one of our river crossings reached up past my knees--apparently during rainy season, this river crossing can be as high as people's shoulders!!  On the third day, we woke at 5:30 in the morning to climb to the lost city.  It was only about a 40 minute hike to the base, but from there we had to climb 1250 steps to get to the city.

It was amazing once we got up to the top; our group only had 4 people, and the other group that arrived the same day as us had 15, so at the entire ruin site there were only 20 people, plus the other group left before us, so we had the place to ourselves.  There was though a military base, because apparently a few years ago the FARC was targeting the ruins here (I'm unconvinced...it's pretty fucking remote).  There are a total of 40 soldiers at the base and they are stationed there for 6 months.  Don't worry though, they have satellite TV, so they don't get too bored.  The city was huge!  At it's height, it had a population of 2000 people, and we saw the base of the homes of both the wealthy and poor, as well as the cultural centre.  Each family had 2 houses: one for each of the sexes.  And on certain religious or cultural celebrations, all the men would stay up all night in a special building built solely for this purpose.  It was amazing how untouched the ruins were; you can enjoy the beauty of a place so much more knowing you've worked to see it, rather than just sitting in some transportation for a few hours.  The fact that you have to hike at least 2 days in the jungle to get there makes it that much more special once you get there.

On our hike back to Mamey, we stopped at a number of waterfalls and rivers to go swimming.  It was a lot easier on the way back, as the majority of it was downhill haha.  We were really happy we were able to save a day on the hike, as it gave us an extra day for the National Park.  We finished the hike on Friday, and Saturday morning, Fabian and I had planned on going to Tayrona.  We ended up getting a really late start though, and after doing our various chores, we didn't even get to the entrance of the park til about 4:30.  And from there, it was an hour walk to Arecifes, the finca we wanted to stay at, so we arrived just before sunset.  We were a little concerned about everything being full due to Santa Semana, but luckily the finca had space.

Once we had set up all our stuff, we went for a walk to the beach; it was so beautiful!  We just watched the waves and felt the sand between our toes for awhile before heading back to the campsite.  The following morning we decided to hike up to what we thought was a mirador.  The map they gave us was really shitty though, and everyone was giving us different time estimates on how long it took to get there.  From Arecifes, we walked to La Piscina, and then Cabo San Juan, which was about 45 minutes on the beach, and from there the hike started.  It was supposedly an hour and a half, but we did it in an hour, and were kinda disappointed when we got up there.  It was just some dinky ruins (nothing in comparison to La Ciudad Perdida), and there was no mirador!  It was still a nice little hike, but it was too bad we didn't get a nice panoramic view of the beaches and ocean.  Once we climbed back down we went to the beach at Cabo San Juan which was nice, but pretty crowded due to Santa Semana.  The beaches though are so gorgeous--Lost was filmed at the beaches in this national park.  The water was bright turquoise, and the most exquisite rock formations were everywhere!  Our final day there, we walked first to Cabo San Juan, and then about an hour past there...the further you got from the fincas, the less people there were at the beaches.  At the very end of Playa Brava, there were very few people, so it was almost like getting the beach to ourselves.  But we couldn't stay for long, as we had to catch the bus back to Santa Marta that night.

Tuesday was my final day in Colombia.  Fabian took me to the airport, and it was really sad to say goodbye.  From there I flew to Cali, took an 11 hour bus overnight to Ipiales, crossed the border, and took a bus from Tulcan back to Quito.  I had 1 day to kill in Quito, before I finally had to head out to the airport on Thursday night to fly back to Canada.  I wish I could have stayed in Colombia...

Quito, Bogota (10-17 marzo)

Another Sunday in Quito.  I was going to go straight to Colombia, but I couldn't face more bus time after the 14 hrs of travel the day before.  I went to an artisan market and got my hair wrapped...the artisan was Mapuche from the south of Chile and had been travelling and working as an artisan for 5 years.  He tried to convince me to abandon my life in Canada and become a travelling artisan like himself haha.  Not the life for me, but still a really nice guy.

I then took the Trolebus to the Centro Cultural Metropolitano, but it had closed at 1:30.  I hate Sundays.  I then went to the Basilica and climbed all the way to the top--you can go right onto the roof of it--but just as I got to the top it started to hail!  I then wanted to go to the Museo de Arte Contemporano, but the cabbies wouldn't take me because it was too close and they wanted a bigger fare.  Jerks.  So I went back to the hostel shivering and cold (and the cabbie got lost despite the fact that I gave him a map with my hostel marked on it), and of course the internet went out.  There is absolutely nothing to do on the Jesus-freaks' holiday.  So annoying.  Also, why the fuck is there more on the news about the pope than there is about Chavez or the Colombian strikes??  These people really need to sort out their priorities.

Whoever invented cobblestone streets deserves to be shot.  Monday I took a 40 min cab ride to the bus terminal and from there caught a 6 hr bus ride to Tulcan, which for some reason I had to switch half way through.  From the Tulcan bus terminal I had to cab to the park where I could get a collectivo to the border.  From there I had to walk into both immigration offices, then cab to the Ipiales bus terminal and get an 11hr bus to Cali.  From there I got another 11 hr bus ride to Bogota, and a half hour cab ride to my hostel.  And only 1 military checkpoint along the whole way.

Wednesday I went to the Donacion Botero, an art museum featuring an extensive collection of Colombia's Botero, as well as other national and international artists.  I also headed to the museo de la independencia, the Centro Cultural Gabriel García Marquez (where there was an awesome exhibit on current Cuban artists), the Museo Arqueológico, and then wandered about the neighbourhood Candelaria.  Thursday I ended up going to the Salt Cathedral outside the city.  They built a cathedral in a salt mine, and although the architecture was amazing, there were a few too many crucifixes for me.  They had such an incredible opportunity to have the best artists in the country to come and make beautiful sculptures out of salt, but instead they just made a bunch of crosses.  What a waste.  Also, afterwards there was this weird lights/music show that to me seemed to be aimed at amusing children, but somehow everyone was taken with it.

Friday was rainy.  It's too cold here.  No me gusta la altituda.  Prefiero el calor de la costa.  Andres and I went to the main square where there was this big farmers market which was cool.  We thought that it was a weekly thing, but it turns out that it only happens once a year!  It was supposed to have happened last month, but because of the coffee strikes and road blocks, it was delayed until today.  Andres and I bought a bunch of veggies and he got some lamb or something, and we went back to the hostel and cooked with this american couple.  That night a bunch of us went out to this bar called Candelario...it was alright, but the music was kind of weird.  It couldn't decide if it wanted to be pop, hiphop, or salsa...

Saturday after we all rallied, Andres, Jack, and I went to the Museum of Modern art which had some really cool exhibitions.  We then went to the Museo Nacional which was interesting, but had so much fucking religious iconography.  They're obsessed.  We then went to the Plaza del Toro where they used to have bullfights before they were outlawed in Bogota, but it was closed, so we just saw the outside.  Sunday, Andres and I headed to the airport to go to Santa Marta.  On the bus into town from the airport, I met a Toronto guy, and then at the bar at the hostel, there was a Toronto bartender!  I've barely met any Canadians my whole trip, but it seems like they're all in Colombia...Coe and Aaron in Bogota; David and Carl in Santa Marta; and then I met another guy who used to live in Montreal!  Loco.

Quito and the Amazon (2-9 marzo)

At the Equator

Saturday Marc, Carley, and I moved to a hostel in Quito and then went to Mitad del Mundo--the middle of the earth.  When people originally calculated the equator, they fucked up and built a monument for the equator 200 m south of the real thing.  At the museum, they had some hokey science experiments to prove it was the real equator, but one was cool where they had a sink full of water and when they pulled the plug, the water swirled in different directions, depending on what side of the line you were on.  That night we all went out for dinner, and then said bye to Carley and her boyfriend Johnathon as they were flying to NYC the next morning.

Sunset in the Amazon

Sundays suck because everything was closed.  Marc and I went to an artisan fair in a park, then to the artisan market, and then the Santa Clara market where we wanted to try Cuy (guinea pig), but they only eat it on special religious holidays, so there was none to be had.  We then went to the Teleferico which took us all the way up the cerro, giving us an amazing view of the city, but it was super windy and cold!  When we got back down we ended up going to this giant park with a reptile house in it and there was a show with a boa which was cool.  There were like no restaurant options though because it was Sunday, so we ended up going to this shitty BBQ like texas-style place which made me feel awful.  The nexy day I pretty much spent sleeping off the shitty food, and then hopped on an overnight bus to Lago Agrio.

Rainforest

Tuesday I arrived, and met a couple from Australia who were going to the same ecolodge as me, so we grabbed breakfast together before we got picked up.  It was a 2 hour vanride to the launch point in Reserva Cuyabeno from Lago Agrio, and then another 2 hours in a motorized canoe to our lodge.  On the way we saw snakes, butterflies, monkeys, sloths, and birds!  Once we got to the lodge we had a bit of time to chill out before hopping back in the boat to go to the lake for a sunset swim.  That night we went Caiman hunting after dark--their eyes reflect light, so they're easier to find at night with a flashlight, as they camouflage quite well in the day.  We saw a baby that was 2m, and we learned that caimans and anacondas are both really territorial and fight each other--our guide once saw a fight last for hours that the anaconda eventually won!

Pirannha teeth!

Wednesday in the morning we went for a hike in the forest and saw all these super cool species--lemon ants taste like lemons because of the citrus in the tree that they live in.  All the trees that house these ants have like a 1m clearing surrounding them due to the symbiotic relationship between the tree and ants--the ants keep other trees away, thereby giving the tree more nutrients in exchange for living there.  We also saw lianas that grow down from the top of trees from birds shitting seeds out, and the plants suck the moisture from the tree they are growing down and their roots grow around the tree eventually killing it and taking over.  We also got to swing on the lianas tarzan style!  Also, if you find a house of termites and rub them over your skin, they're a natural insect repellant, and the bark from one of the trees when boiled in water can be drunk as a tea to prevent malaria.  Our guide also caught a poisonous frog, and we saw some red ants that the indigenous people used to use as torture--their nickname translated from spanish is "take off your underpants," as the only way to get them off you is to strip down naked.  There was also this tree that could move--the roots grew above ground and would keep moving like a tripod (multipod?) until it was far enough away from other trees to get more sunlight.  Also, the leaf cutter ants we saw are the strongest animals in the world--they can carry 3-5X their weight bringing leaves to their home.  They don´t actually eat the leaves--just the fungus that grows on them; and after one year, the queen flies to a new location to lay fresh eggs and start the process all over again.  We also saw military ants; their soldier is called the surgery ant, because their pincers are so strong, you can use them to sutcher close a wound--you just get the ant to sting on either side of the wound and then you cut it's head off and the pincers stay there as a stitch.  After the walk, we paddled back to the lake, stopping for a swim along the way.  I was the only one that went in though other than the guide...I don't understand how you can go to the rainforest and NOT want to spend as much time in the water as possible!

During the nightwalk

That afternoon we went pirannha fishing which was super cool--their teeth are huge!  The fish are are quite small (max size 30 cm), and we used leftover raw meat as bait.  Luis, our skip was the only one with any luck; he caught two!  But we're not allowed to keep them to cook up unless they are at least 20cm and badly injured, so we didn't get to try pirannha for dinner that night.  We spotted another caiman on the way back to the lodge; this time it was an adult and it was huge!  It had one blind eye, and was 4.7m long.  Loco.

Me and my guide in the Simona community

Thursday we started with a visit to an indigenous community a 2 hour boat ride away, and we spotted a number of cool animals along the way, including black saky monkeys, night monkeys, and yellow-footed monkeys!  There are 3 Simona communities in the region, consisting of 6, 8, and 12 families.  We visited the medium-sized one, where we met Ester, the wife of one of our boat drivers, Pedro.  She took us into the field where I got to pull up Yuca and peel it.  We then went back to a hut where we grated the yuca; Ester then put it into a woven case and squeezed all the juices out--saving them for soup--creating a yuca flour.  Ester then sifted it a few times to make a finer before finally cooking it.  She made the first yuca bread, and I got to make one after her--you simply sprinkle the flour on the pan directly on the fire, spread it around, flatten it, and then flip it.  And it was delicious!  We ate it with tuna mixed with this black chilli paste and it was so yum.  After lunch we went down the river to visit a shaman--they used to live within the communities, but after the arrival of the spaniards and christianity, the shamans were forced out of their communities and now all live alone.  The shaman we met had studied to be a shaman from tha ge of 8 to 22 with his grandfather (a shaman), and then from 22-40 with his father (also a shaman), before he graduated.  Shamanism doesn't have to be passed down familialy though--most shamans have upto 8 pupils, but it is rare for more than one to ever graduate.  When finally ready to graduate, the ceremony involves taking Peji in the forest alone, giving him 24 hours of halluciantion and made from the white trumpet flowers.  Women can be shamans as well, and are actually considered to be more powerful than male shamans, but cannot practice as a shaman during their period each month.  After the the half bowl of peji the shaman must take to graduate, they then have to take a full bowl of Ayahuasca, which is a much less strong hallucinogenic that they use more regularly to connect to the spiritual world when looking for answers to heal the ailments of their patients.  After Tomás told us his story on how he became a shaman, he did a demonstration ritual on me to show how he would treat a patient.  He started by brushing all my bad spirits away, and then sang a chant.  He then would have drank the ayuhuasca and waited for his visions to guide him had it been a proper ceremony.  If in his vision, the shaman sees that he cannot help his patient, he will send them to a western doctor to seek a cure.  Once a shaman from the lowlands had a vision to use plants from the highlands--as place he had never been before in his life--to cure his patient (a well-known politician), which is very rare, but he was able to cure him!  Also, for quite rare cases, the shaman will consult all the other shamans in the area for guidance on as how to proceed.  Tómas currently has 6 students, including his 12 year old son, however the majority of his students will not graduate, as the training is quite rigorous, and being a shaman requires one to devote their entire lives to their studies and their community.  After the shaman visit, we went back to the lodge and after dinner we went for a night walk in the forest and saw so many cool creatures!

Making yuca bread

Friday we woke at 5:30 to go bird watching, but about 20 minutes after getting out onto the water it started to pour, so we went back.  I was displeased.  We saw a few varieties, but definitely not worth the early morning.  Our guide and most of our group left that day, but the family from Guayaquil and Daniel stayed and we got a new guide to take us on a paddle to this protected aread where motor boats can't go.  We went for another forest walk and learned about water lianas, palm trees, and many of the other species spotted on the previous walk.  And my spanish vocabulary improved immensly as the guide did not speak english, and he was talking about a lot of species I had never heard about before in spanish.  We had lunch on the lake, and our guide gave me a wheto tattoo on my face--the juice of this fruit found in the amazon turns black when dry and lasts for upto 2 weeks!  We had a long paddle back then (in the rain), and saw some woolly monkeys, whose call can bhe heard 2.5 km away!  We went caiman spotting again after dinner and this time saw a white caiman, which only grow up to 3 m long.  The caiman find abandoned termite nests to lay their eggs in and then cover them with leaves and guard their nests for 3 months.  Most of the eggs hatch, but only 60% of them survive their first year.  Like the iguanas in the galapagos, the sex of the caiman is determined by the temperature of the eggs.

Shaman brushing my bad spirits away

My last day in Cuyabeno, I decided to skip the bird-watching repeat, as it had been pretty lacklustre the day before.  After breakfast we had a 2 hour boat ride back to the start of the reserve, had lunch and then an hour and a half van back to lago agrio.  Our bus from there to Quito left at 3:30 and was supposed to be 6 hours, but we ended up arriving at 11:30 pm--we were stopped by the military, the bus broke down for a bit, and the driver kept letting people off in the middle3 of nowhere.  The entire time back the bus felt so rickety and was working so hard to keep going, I was convinced it was going to flip.  Luckily though, we made it back safe and sound, albeit quite delayed.  

Las Islas Galápagos! (23 feb - 1 marzo)

Sea Lion posing for me

The Galápagos was unreal! On the 23rd, we were supposed to get up at 5 to get to the new airport, but because they still hadn't gotten their shit together, the flight was postponed by 4 hours.  Then when we got to the airport it was delayed for another 2, but finally in lare afternoon we arrived on Isla San Cristobal.  We met our host families and went to the beach.  It was covered with Sea Lions--they even had a pier built out in the water for the sea lions to lounge on, because they used to go on fisherman's boats and overload them them til they'd capsize.  I swam out to it, and it was sick!  You can get like half a metre away from them and they remain unbothered.  After we watched the sunset on the beach, we went out for a delicious seafood dinner, and on the way back to the host family houses we saw hundreds of sea lions lounging about, sleeping, nursing, playing, and crawling on top of each other by the pier.  The state of the host family's house was disgusting--there was this gross stuff in the corner of the shower, and it didn't drain properly so after each of us showered it was getting more and more full of water.  And in the morning for breakfast, the other 3 got like half a scrambled egg each, and I got a plate with a slice of cheese on it.  And they were so unfriendly!  I tried chatting with the mother about her kids, and she would just answer the questions and not engage in any kind of conversation beyond that.  4 of us were with that family and the other 2 were with this wonderful family that gave them an amazing fruit spread in the morning and they just seemed lovely.

Snorkelling around this with sharks = sick!

Sunday we got up early and went on a boat to go snorkelling!  There were these 2 giant rock formations jutting out of the sea that were actually made from the ashes of a volcanoe errupting under the sea.  We swam with fish, iguanas, sea lions, and even SHARKS!!  It was super cool.  In the afternoon we went to the interpretation centre on the island where we learned about the formation of, and the history of the islands.  That night everything was closed as it was Sunday, and these catholic countries decide that they want to make like as inconvenient for you as possible, so we went to this overpriced gringo pizzeria.  After dinner we went to this illegal bar (alcohol can't be sold on Sundays in Ecuador), but it was closed, so we went to the corner store where they were all to happy to sell us a few beers as long as we kept them in the black bag until we were at least a block away from the shop haha.

Just your average fish market...with pelicans and sea lions

Monday we went to Isla Santa Cruz, and went to the Charles Darwin Centre were we saw lots of tortoises, and our guide told us the dramatic story of Lonesome George.  We learned that the lizards on this island can regrow their lost tails and limbs!  And that if tortoises flip over once they're adults, they will die from heat exposure, as they can't flip back over on their own.  The baby tortoises in the breeding centre though were constantly falling onto their backs, and then their oblivious buddies would accidently flip them back over.  After this, we went to Tortuga Beach which was BEAUTIFUL!  I spent the whole afternoon body-surfing, wishing I had a board.  It was like paradise.

It's mating season!

Tuesday we went to some lava tunnels inland on Santa Cruz which were really cool--as the lava flowed the parts exposed to the air would cool and harden, while the parts below sould stay liquid and keep flowing, creating these super cool tunnels.  I totally bailed though and gashed my knee open of course.  After this we went to a farm and saw some giant tortoises in the wild, and we got to try on a real tortoise shell!  After the farm we hopped on a boat to go to Isla Isabella, and then went up to this beautiful ranch were we camped the night and did star gazing.

Victoria and I at Tortuga Bay

Wednesday morning we hiked up to the crest of Volcán Sierra Negra which is still active and 7x10 km!!  We walked around the rim, and then hiked to Volcán Chico, the views were unreal!  It looked otherworldly.  We then went to a bredding centre for giant tortoises  and learned that the temperature of the eggs determines the sex--if the egg is 29C it will be a female, and if it's 28C it will be male.  The females dig a hole to lay their eggs, and the ones at the bottom end up getting less heat so turn out to be male, or die from not enough warmth, while the eggs on top hatch as females.  They have a 4:1 ratio of females to males, as the tortoises are not monogomous, and this allows the strongest survivors to fertilize as many females as possible thus strengthening the species.  Also, after the baby tortoises hatch, they hold onto their placenta and remain buried underground for a month before they emerge.  And we learned that the male lizards are bigger, but the females are more colourful, which is surprising, as usually in nature the males get the cool colours to help them out in mating season.

Lifting up a real tortoise shell--they're heavy!                                Me and some crazy German... 

           

Thursday we went on a boat to an island where all the female lizards were laying their eggs.  They spend 7-10 days laying their eggs and are extremely malnourished by the end, but they can't venture far for food, or another lizard will pull the eggs out and steal the nest.  Also, these lizards can't regenerate lost body parts, and only use their tails to swim, so if they lose their tail, they are pretty limited in hunting for food and usually die within a couple of years.  Also, crabs shed their entire shells periodically, and we found an abandoned shell on the island.  When the crabs mate, the males have to crab the female's pincers to stop her from killing him, he fertilizes her eggs, and then he throws her away to avoid her attacking him.  We went snorkelling and I went swimming with some sea turtles which was super cool, and with some rays.  The female sea turtles are much bigger than the males, as during mating season, the males will search for a female and mount her; if another male finds her, he will get  on the back of the first male forming a line...sometimes as many as 4 males will be on top of the female and once, and they will fight each other for a spot in line.  And if there are too many, sometimes the female drowns as she cannot handle the weight to come up for air.  We also saw blue-footed boobies!  Their feet turn blue from the food they eat, so the better hunter they are, the bluer their feet which signals to the females who is the strongest and best to mate with.

Crawling through the lava caverns

In the afternoon, Marc, Victoria, and I went surfing!  I had forgotten most of what I learned last time I did surf lessons like 4+ years ago, but I picked it up pretty quickly again.  It was super fun, and then for our last night we made coco locos!  You take a coconut, and chop the top off, drink a third of the juice, and then fill it up with caña, an alochol made from sugar cane.  They were delicious.  Then half of us went to this salsa bar on the pier, where we ran into our surf instructor!  He tried to teach me salsa, but he was better at teaching surfing.  Despite our early start the next morning, we decided to shut the bar down, and were pretty much hating life the next morning...

Over 100 year old tortoise!

Friday we had to wake at like 5 am, so running off of about and hour and a half of sleep we had to make the following journey back to Quito:
1. Truck to the pier
2. Water taxi to the speedboat
3. 2 hr Speedboat to Isla Santa Cruz
4. Water taxi to the pier
5. 1.5 hr van ride to the ferry
6. Ferry to the next island
7. Public bus to the airport
8. very very delayed flight.
9. Bus transfer from plane to terminal
10. Shuttle van to the hotel.  But they had switched our hotel, and we had left stuff in storage at the other one...
11. Pickup truck to other hotel to pick up our bags before returning to the new hotel.

Iguana!

It was an exhausting day of travel, But Carley, Marc, Victoria, and I went out for a lovely final dinner back in Quito.

Blue-footed Booby!