after 10 exciting days we arrived in quito on monday and, thanks to chinese food for dinner and italian for breakfast (we slept in...), we just escaped a rice poisoning :-) unfortunately it didn't last for long - spent yesterday in bed after a busy night in the bathroom... but let me start in cuenca where I left off:
entertaining last night in cuenca
isn't it funny how people of the same kind automatically gather, no matter where it is? such happened in cuenca in a bar named "zoociedad". even though I like word plays I should have noticed that this would be a place where "social" people meet. (you could actually smell it aleady a few meters away from the entrance.) people wanting to make the world a better place like this one austrian guy, probably 18 years old. (jenny, a german girl in our group, persistently refused to accept his potential german origin.) he and his girlfriend (or maybe bff) surely had decided to travel and change the world at best with the help of a guitar and extraordinarily subtle song texts... it was good entertainment though. have you also ever wondered what it smells like when a guy with a huge rasta mane takes off his turban?
facing death on the way to guayaquil (not too exagerated in fact)
the next day andrea and I took a minibus to guayaquil, the largest city in ecuador (2.3 mio people), right at the waterfront in the southwest. the first part of the drive was ok, up the mountains to an altitude of about 4'200 m. the descent however was probably the most horrible I've been through. it's quite obvious how hundreds of people die annually on ecuador's streets. this guy had his brains up his ass for sure, driving through fog and around curves at high speed, passing other cars and lorries right before and in curves. but getting off the bus would not have been a solution either since you would have been run down anyway by the next car. I wonder why cars here even have indicators? anyway, I'll be trying to avoid similar experiences in the future (fan of domestic flights!) and we were really glad when we arrived in guayaquil alive. a taxi took us to our accomodation right in the city centre, where an elder lady in a super fancy appartment hosted us. together we paid our tribute to michael jackson (he is alive!) and went for a stroll along the malecon afterwards - probably the saftest place in guayaquil as there are like a hundred or so guards watching it...
galapagos - mea culpa
our flight to galapagos was saturday around noon, and two hours later we arrived in san cristobal, one of several islands building the galapagos archipel. this is where we saw and smelled our first sea lions (no-one ever mentions that they pee and poop on the beach :-)). on sunday we went snorkelling/diving with victor, the owner of a local dive shop and school, his dog chachi and a few other guys. we met up with them again at night for food, drinks and pool.
on monday we embarked on our 8-day journey with the "princessa de galapagos", a yacht with space for 16 passengers. the crew was very likeable as was the group of passengers from spain, italy, germany and israel. the food on board was very good, and I contribute it mainly to stugeron (medication against sea sickness) that I could keep it all :-)
the trip was a dream - it's really like they show in advertising: you see tons of colorful fish while snorkelling, you can swim with sea lions, bizarre landscapes, all kinds of birds, penguins, giant turtles, ... we usually got up at 6:30 am, had breakfast and a dry or wet landing, followed by either snorkelling or a walk on the island, marvelling at fauna and flora. the rest of the day was spent with more snorkelling, navigations and more walks. but see the pictures
.
entertaining last night in cuenca
isn't it funny how people of the same kind automatically gather, no matter where it is? such happened in cuenca in a bar named "zoociedad". even though I like word plays I should have noticed that this would be a place where "social" people meet. (you could actually smell it aleady a few meters away from the entrance.) people wanting to make the world a better place like this one austrian guy, probably 18 years old. (jenny, a german girl in our group, persistently refused to accept his potential german origin.) he and his girlfriend (or maybe bff) surely had decided to travel and change the world at best with the help of a guitar and extraordinarily subtle song texts... it was good entertainment though. have you also ever wondered what it smells like when a guy with a huge rasta mane takes off his turban?
facing death on the way to guayaquil (not too exagerated in fact)
the next day andrea and I took a minibus to guayaquil, the largest city in ecuador (2.3 mio people), right at the waterfront in the southwest. the first part of the drive was ok, up the mountains to an altitude of about 4'200 m. the descent however was probably the most horrible I've been through. it's quite obvious how hundreds of people die annually on ecuador's streets. this guy had his brains up his ass for sure, driving through fog and around curves at high speed, passing other cars and lorries right before and in curves. but getting off the bus would not have been a solution either since you would have been run down anyway by the next car. I wonder why cars here even have indicators? anyway, I'll be trying to avoid similar experiences in the future (fan of domestic flights!) and we were really glad when we arrived in guayaquil alive. a taxi took us to our accomodation right in the city centre, where an elder lady in a super fancy appartment hosted us. together we paid our tribute to michael jackson (he is alive!) and went for a stroll along the malecon afterwards - probably the saftest place in guayaquil as there are like a hundred or so guards watching it...
galapagos - mea culpa
our flight to galapagos was saturday around noon, and two hours later we arrived in san cristobal, one of several islands building the galapagos archipel. this is where we saw and smelled our first sea lions (no-one ever mentions that they pee and poop on the beach :-)). on sunday we went snorkelling/diving with victor, the owner of a local dive shop and school, his dog chachi and a few other guys. we met up with them again at night for food, drinks and pool.
on monday we embarked on our 8-day journey with the "princessa de galapagos", a yacht with space for 16 passengers. the crew was very likeable as was the group of passengers from spain, italy, germany and israel. the food on board was very good, and I contribute it mainly to stugeron (medication against sea sickness) that I could keep it all :-)
the trip was a dream - it's really like they show in advertising: you see tons of colorful fish while snorkelling, you can swim with sea lions, bizarre landscapes, all kinds of birds, penguins, giant turtles, ... we usually got up at 6:30 am, had breakfast and a dry or wet landing, followed by either snorkelling or a walk on the island, marvelling at fauna and flora. the rest of the day was spent with more snorkelling, navigations and more walks. but see the pictures
.
the only downside of the trip was that we had to change boats on our fourth night unexpectedly, which isn't necessarily a hassle if the according arrangements are made/ taken care of by the operating company. that however was not the case. the announcement was made in the late afternoon, and by midnight we had left our old boat and nice passengers in exchange for a lower standard boat run by a horny crew. there were two other girls (thereof one married, the other one in a relationship) and a danish couple on board. the girls where very glad we joined the group as obviously the crew had been heavily hitting on them the whole week. the new itinerary did not really fit into the former one, resulting in the fact that we did not get back to san cristobal for our flight back to quito. but it did not seem to bother anybody. (therefore our new favourite slogan: "No es mi culpa.") we eventually learned monday morning (!) if, how and when we would make it to quito the same day as planned. anyway - galapagos is a must and a once in a lifetime experience. just don't book a tour with galasan (we have met quite a few other people that had similar issues).
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