Ecuador!

(This blog is mostly brought to you by AJ and Hannah who had such a great time visiting the Galapagos Islands they wanted to tell you all about it!)

First of all, a feast for the eyes, some photos of the Galapagos Islands!

Sunrise over the ocean

Giant tortoise

Marine iguana

Land Iguana

Lava lizard

Sally Lightfoot crab

Baby sealion's dinner time

Sea lions

Sea turtle

Land iguana

Eagle ray

Galapagos penguin

Brown pelican

Blue footed boobies

Nazca boobies

Swallow tailed gull

Gull in flight

Galapagos gulls

Male frigate bird

Frigate bird

Flamingo

Fly-catcher

Galapagos mockingbird

Bottle-nosed dolphin

After 135 days on the roads of South America, it was about time for a vacation. And so the majority of the group headed off for a break from life on the road. This mini holiday within a holiday was spent in the beautiful Galapagos Islands, where the yacht’s ‘Darwin’ and ‘Fragata’ became our home for four unforgettable nights of amazing wildlife, beautiful scenery and fantastic food.

The Galapagos are an archipelago formed from volcanic activity and the movement of tectonic plates. Situated on the equator, there are about 20 islands in the archipelago, five of which are inhabited, and many more small islets. The Galapagos became a national park in the 1950’s and as of 1978 the islands were named a UNESCO World Heritage site and to explore all of them would take months. Since we only had a few days, our naturalist guide took us around just a few of the islands. Traffic here is strictly regulated – just a limited number of boats permitted in a strictly controlled number of areas/islands.

So we spent our four nights and five days seeing all manner of wildlife from the giant tortoises these islands are famous for, to the bright red sally lightfoot crabs, black marine iguanas, yellow and orange land iguanas, sea turtles, sea lions, penguins, eagle rays, golden rays, manta rays, bottle-nosed dolphins, reef sharks, tropical fish, pelicans, flamingos, swallow-tailed gulls, frigate birds, and a good showing of boobies – blue footed boobies that is.

The animals of the islands have few natural predators and are completely unfazed by humans and it is therefore easy to get close without scaring them. Our guide’s two simple rules for the trip were to stay on the path, and to remain 2m from the animals. This is much easier said than done when the iguanas sit in the middle of the path and the baby seals follow along behind us…

We saw the food chain in action one evening as the swarming schools of tiny fish were eaten by slightly larger fish, which in turn were being eaten by larger fish again. Two pelican and two sea lion were having a feast eating a mixture of these fish and the group stood at the back of the yacht to cheer them on. That is, until a baby turtle likely only a few days old appeared and allegiances changed as those who had been cheering on the pelican when eating the fish, suddenly decided it was the enemy when it got too close to the baby turtle. Fortunately for everyone’s peace of mind and tender hearts, the little turtle was ignored by the bigger predators and we all like to optimistically (naively) think that he will manage to survive for many years to come.

From walking the island trails, setting out on dinghy safaris, snorkelling with sharks in the island shallows, swimming the clear deep water, and admiring the red sunsets over the islands from the decks of the yacht, we were mesmerised by the unbridled beauty of these lonely islands.

After checking to make sure neither Hannah nor Ellie had managed to slip a baby sea lion into their hand luggage, it was time to head back to the real world. Well sort of, as close to the real world as any of us want to be just yet. With everyone relaxed, tanned and happy, this has been a highlight of the trip.

Early morning flight

Johnny catches up on sleep in the taxi

Ferry ride

Yacht "Darwin"

Darwin crew and guide

Mike relaxing on deck

Johnny, Mike, Hannah and Ellie relaxing on deck

Sunset

Mike, just being Mike

Bartley and frigate bird

Ellie and frigate bird

Dinghy shuttle

Bartley forgets his hat

Hannah and Ellie won't let go when swimming

AJ, swimming in very deep water

Seal seating

AJ as a giant tortoise

Iguana paparazzi

AJ with marine iguana...  who is giving whom directions?

Mike being Mike again

Mike, Hannah, Johnny - "is that a proper ship"

Hannah in the lava tunnels

Is it worth a picture?

Ellie and some sea lions

Sombrero Chino Island - Hannah & AJ

Le and Ellie, baby sea lion photoshoot

Hannah with a baby sea lion

Into a lava tunnel

Cactus

Mike

AJ looking for sharks

Mike finding a shark

Hannah

Hannah with a shoal of little fish

Sea lion

White tipped reef shark

Star fish

Star fish

Lots of fish - wrasse and surgeon fish

Sunset over the port

Plus of course the group returning to Quito had to be celebrated.

Perfect timing!

We set off from Quito heading South. The Galapagos Islands were going to be a tough act to follow but Ecuador has a lot more to offer than Blue Footed Boobies. Our destination was Baños, yes it's also Spanish for toilets, but don't let that put you off! It's a little town nestled beneath a near perfect-shaped volcano, Tungurahua.

Tungurahua

Ithaca vs the volcano

We headed straight through town to somewhere even more beautiful, Rio Verde and to Pequeño Paraiso, our beautiful camp set on the steep hills surrounded by hummingbirds, baby woodpeckers and cloud forest, it's no wonder its name translates to Little Paradise! Run by Sue and Marc, 2 overland crew who had enough of life on the road and settled in this beautiful spot. It was the perfect place to celebrate a rather significant birthday for Mike, whose friends had sent him an inflatable zimmer-frame as a present which gave us all a good laugh!

Luckily his new found years didn't stop Mike and some of the rest of the group from heading off canyoning in the Rio Verde valley, which basically involved jumping, abseiling and sliding their way down, always accompanied by the trusty zimmer should Mike get in to any trouble.

Banos canyoning group (with zimmerframe)

There were also lots of beautiful walks around the area to visit stunning waterfalls and catch sight of the volcano.

Stunning Banos waterfalls

It was a very sad goodbye to our little paradise in Baños but our last stop in Ecuador beckoned, Cuenca, most famous for, strangely enough, the Panama Hat, only don't call it that in Cuenca, to them it's the Montecristo, the name Panama Hat came from a European lack of geographical knowledge – the hats were shipped out of Panama and everyone assumed they came from there! Many of the group treated themselves to a new hat which were added to Ithaca's terrifyingly large collection of headpieces from all over South America! If you are planning to join the trip in future years you may get to adopt one if this year's group sees fit to leave the less precious ones behind!

Cuenca new cathedral

Cuenca main square

Cuenca court of justice

Cuenca cityscape

Cuenca bridges

Cuenca is a very pretty place, full of churches and plazas and courtyards, the group thoroughly enjoyed their time visiting the museums and hiking in nearby national parks. It's a good thing too as we got a bonus extra day there! The night before we were due to leave a huge Earthquake hit the coast of Chile which meant a tsunami warning for the whole Peruvian coast, our plan had been to head down to the surf town of Punta Sal in Northern Peru, and whilst the surf may have been good, it didn't seem like the wisest idea. So we stayed in Cuenca, which no one was too sad about, while Emma and Simon ran around sorting out a plan B. Ahh the joy of overlanding, the nice thing about extended expeditions like this is it allows you to move around the itinerary when things like this happen and we found an inland border that no overland group we could find had ever crossed!

We set off from Cuenca down to the coast and around about 30km from the coastal border we turned off back in to the Andes, with Emma biting her tongue about how close we were to Peru and how straight and fast the coast road was compared to the winding chaos she could see on the map ahead. But winding chaos usually means beautiful views and it didn't disappoint, plus a brand new concrete road made it less painful than expected. The whole of Ecuador is going through a process of regeneration called 'The Citizen's Revolution' it's a joy to travel around.

We stopped briefly for lunch in a valley by a petrified forest where the local mayor turned up and tried to convince us to stay longer, Emma explained to the Mayor, and many of the group, that staying there would mean getting to Peru at a very silly time in the middle of the night so we looked longingly at the beautiful walks and hills and left again getting to the border in the daylight.

Lunch stop

It was all going so smoothly, a sure sign that things are about to start unravelling. We got everyone stamped in and then attempted to get Ithaca in to Peru where we were met with a very solid 'no,' as far as they were concerned we didn't have the right documents and no amount of telling them we had actually already taken Ithaca in to Peru seemed to make any difference. After about an hour and a half of bureaucratic wrangling and pleading and ego-brandishing on the part of the customs officials they finally started to cave and Emma and Simon managed a very un-genuine 'gracias' through gritted teeth as they exited the office as quickly as possible.

On the plus side we were now in Peru, bushcamp heaven, and we trucked down the road a few kilometres through the darkness before stopping down a dirt track in a lovely little spot surrounded by cows, cooked up some wonderful Ecuadorian pork sausages on a fire, grabbed a celebratory beer and all was right with the world again!

Johnny packs light for a bush camp 

Bushcamp breakfast

(Oh also, in keeping with the natural disasters theme, Tungurahua errupted around about the time that we were arriving in Peru, 3 days after we were happily camped up under it, we are starting to think that Pachamama (the Andean 'Mother Earth' God) has it in for us!)