Its almost overwhelming to the senses to think back on all we saw, did and learned on our 8 day Galapagos Cruise on the luxury yacht, Natural Paradise.  Each day involved at least three expeditions (snorkelling, hiking, panga/zodiac trips) with not much rest in between, and lots of socializing with our 14 other passengers (8 American women celebrating a 60th birthday, a young American couple and 4 other Aussies).  We had a nice cabin on the boat, the food was excellant and catered for our gluten free diet, our tour guide was exceptional and the whole crew were very accommodating.

 

 

 

Each day we visited different islands and generally saw different birds, animals and landforms on each.  There were so many highlights that we’re just including some of the favorite photos to tell the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned a lot about the early Europen settlement on Floreanna Island – lots of sex, murder and intrigue involved.  Our education included a video made about those early characters, mostly dissatisfied Europeans looking for a new paradise in the 1930’s.

 

 

 

 

 

Quito was an unexpected pleasant surprise, as initially we wondered how we would fill the time there before our next adventure. As it turned out, we needed a rest and a chance to catch up on sleep, as well as to adjust to the altitude change. Quito is at an altitude of 2,850 m (9,350 feet) and as soon as we got to our hotel room I crashed. Skipped lunch, got up for dinner and then more sleep. Our hotel was in the old city, on an interesting street. We had a 3 hour walking tour organized for our second day there so had to get going by 9am. Warned our guide we would be slow but managed to get a good orientation and learn about the city as we walked through famous squares and visited significant churches. Fortunately we drove up to Panecillo Mirador, the largest aluminum monument in the world, which sits atop of a famous hill and has great views of Quito. We were too tired to go in but enjoyed the view. We had the same guide who collected us from the airport, did the walking tour, took us to Cotopaxi and then back to the airport; so he was our ontap source for all questions. This included my toilet question – do we put the loo paper in the bin for all toilets in Ecuador? The answer was a very definite “yes” as the sewer systems are not built to take toilet paper. In many toilets you also have to get the paper from a central dispenser before you go into the cubicle – worth catching on to that one early. Doing lots of observing to learn the local customs.

After a rest and lunch we ventured out on our own to do more exploring, buy snacks (incl artisan chocolate) and get ice cream at a place that had been recommended.  After tasting many flavors and having the whole shop help in translating for us, I got blackberry and Dick got ‘dog poop’ ice cream.  Helen was worried that we were taken advantage of but our guide confirmed it was a popular flavor (and I don’t mean the blackberry!).  Probably walked about 5 k’s that day so needed another rest til 9pm before a quick dinner in the hotel.  Being gluten free is not easy but the staff at our hotel were so nice and made us special pan de yuca (small bread rolls made from cassava and cheese and served hot – delicious).

As normally happens on holiday, Dick’s glasses broke again (the first time was on the canoe on the Napo River and we found the screw and the engineer fixed them; but maybe not so well), so we had a reason to find an optician.  Went to a modern mall and we could have been anywhere in the world.  The food court was full of American chains and there were lots of US clothing retailers there. The shop looked like OPSM in Sydney and they fixed his glasses.  Our taxi driver very effectively used Google Translate to converse with us. The other purpose of this outing was to go up the cable car – Telefetico, to see the views and to gauge how we coped with an altitude of 4050 m (13,300 feet) above sea level.  We even managd to walk around a bit at the top and enjoy great views of Quito and the Andes mountains surrounding the city. On the way down in the cable car we met a local family who drove us back to our hotel.  That was so nice of them and it gave us a chance to talk to locals.

Our next jaunt was to Cotopaxi National Park(NP), the second most visited NP in Ecuador after Galapagos, and home to the Cotopaxi Volcano (5897m/19,350 feet high), about 2 hours drive from Quito.  In spite of some trepidation about the altitude, we opted to try the hike up Cotopaxi.  The road up the mountain was rough, narrow and zigzagged all the way to the carpark at 4600 m altitude (15,100 feet).  By this time we were chewing our coca leaves furiously, a local cure for altitude sickness. We rugged up and started the climb to the Refuge (4800 m, 15,750 feet).  It was supposed to take an hour but we were slow and needed to stop lots so after half an hour we turned back. Both of us felt good that we got that far, and happy to turn back especially as we both had very tingly fingers on the drive down the mountain.  We also visited a lagoon in the NP that is disappearing due to climate change and we met our Swiss friends from the Amazon cruise in the NP.

Our time in Quito finished with a 4:15am pickup for our flight to Galapagos.  We quite enjoyed the city and our hotel who sent us off with a breakfast box which included hot pan de yuca.