Location: Quito, Ecuador
In which I go back into the classroom for the first time in a few years, a few further thoughts on Galápagos, the current Ecuadorian obsession and a big disappointment. And, of course, being British, a comment on the weather.
It´s now been just over 1 week into the Spanish lessons, at La Lengua, which we would recommend as a place to learn. The few tapes that I listened to before leaving London have helped ease the transition slightly but clearly the learning curve is quite steep. It is, however, fun to be learning something again. The last vestiges of French are being rinsed from the memory. Though the odd word keeps appearing at inopportune moments, when the brain at least recognises that an English word just won´t do.
The teachers have been good, and in the afternoon (we're doing 6 hrs per day, 4 + 2) we've been on some trips, with the teachers, around Quito.
We´re both staying with families, though separately to encourage a bit more Spanish speaking in the evenings. There are, I think a few Americans with Phillippa´s family, and two young Danish girls with me, which is perhaps a better result!
The current obsession here is Miss Universe, hosted here in Ecuador, ending on Tues 1 June. This is not an Arnie-type body-building competition for women. Nor should it be confused with the misogynistic and rather tacky affair that is Miss World. No, this is altogether more wholesome entertainment. Where the contestants not only have lofty ambitions to work with deprived children and create a better world, but also wish to have jobs in the media and television. Ahh, so 21st century, out of the kitchen and into marketing & publicity.
The media is neglecting any existing governmental crisis, and even football is taking a back seat. People are taking it very seriously as an opportunity to showcase what Ecuador has to offer. Miss Ecuador also has a reasonable chance of winning too. Presumably the fact the Miss World is owned and controlled by a Brit is the reason why there is no home nation representative.
Galapagos...
On the last full day on Santa Cruz we walked from Puerto Ayora up to the highest point on the island, but unfortunately clouds obscured the view above about 600m. A huge proportion of the fauna on the island is endemic, though some of the ferns looked a bit like bracken and we could have easily been in Knole Park.
One other thing to mention from the Galápagos is the wonderful seafood we had: cerviches. Squid, prawns, lobster and fish marinaded in lime with onions and herbs. very similar to the "kinilau" [or something similar]I remember having with the Garrods in the Philippines many years ago. It's not recommended to have too much seafood here in Quito, but in Galapagos it was very good.
The food has been generally OK, aside from their love of deep fat frying. One speciality is pork deep fried in lard! We´ve also has cow leg soup, which is really cow hoof soup. Not much meat on that! They have a love affair with rice that is only surpassed by that of SE Asia. So far no rice for breakfast, but pretty much every other meal is rice based. Which is fine by me.
We seem to have brought some unseasonally cold weather with us. Last week here in Quito was cold (c. 10-12 C). And, as my ex-colleagues at SG know very well, such terribly nippy conditions can only mean scarves, big jumpers, hats, winter coats etc... Though people aren't so keen on wearing scarves indoors, however I have spotted some fake Burberry, so it's almost like being in SG's offices!
The big disappointment alluded to above is that the Hammers haven't managed to reclaim their rightful place in the Premiership. On the plus side, at least I only miss a season of Div. 1, it would have been gutting to miss a whole season if we were challenging for the title.
On the subject of football, we've got tickets to see both the imminent World Cup Qualifiers: Ecuador v Colombia on Wed 2 June, and v Bolivia on Sat 5 June. Both big games for Ecuador. At USD 10 per game, each, it's not bad value. And at least they have a stadium unlike England at present. And on Wednesday evening, after the Colombia game is the big one: Argentina v Brasil. That match is attracting almost as much attention, as the major clash in South America. So straight to a bar afterwards for that then. I may try to get a chant of "It's just like watching West Ham" going. Japan Korea 2002 was the first time that they qualified, and the Colombian manager is a hero here since. But this time their chances look slimmer. Match report to follow in future reports.
You should also now be able to see a few photos from Galápagos that I´ve uploaded. Hopefully the links in the post below also work. They are all low resolution since uploading takes ages. The general address is
http://photos.yahoo.com/andell_n
In May 2004 Phillippa and I resigned from our jobs to set off on a year long grand tour. This will be updated sporadically and will serve as a permanent record of what should be an extremely memorable year. Of course, it also keeps us in touch with those of you back in the UK, and enables you to follow our progress.
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Monday, May 31, 2004
Saturday, May 22, 2004
The Magic of Galapagos
Location: Puerto Ayora, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador
The first couple of weeks. Just over a week in Quito and about 12 days in the Galapagos Islands.
After an interesting non-smoking flight from Madrid, where the crew regularly sneaked down to the galley at the back for a cheeky fag, we landed in Quito on May 6. It was the rush hour and so, like anywhere, took a fair while to get across the city to the hotel.
Quito is more developed than perhaps I´d expected. Lots of quite expensive cars, no real problems with the infrastructure, i.e. roads are well maintained etc. The city sits in a valley, but is itself still at 2,800m. This means that bounding up stairs is harder than it should be (even allowing for the fact that the days of marathon-level fitness are well behind me now).
Quito is home to some of the oldest churches in South America, many of which are built on pre-Inca (and pre-Colombian) sites. When the Spanish came the local labourers managed to insert some traditional touches into the Catholic churches, unseen by the conquerors at the time. So you can see images of the sun in some doorways and the statue overlooking Quito, of Mary, is a more energetic pose than you would normally expect, because it is based on a traditional indian dance movement.
We´ve also been ot the Mitad del Mundo, the equator. It is the only place on the globe where the equator is in a mountainous region, leading to early the indians´ solar astronomy. The monument where everyone has their photo taken, astride the hemispheres, is actually in the wrong place. It´s about 200m out. The monument replaced an original one htat was built in 1936 to commemerate the 1736 French expedition that concluded that this was where the equator was. Not a bad effort for the early eighteenth century. (Some charming yanks whooped and hollered when they were told that the Frogs had got it wrong, so I suppose that French fries are still Freedom fries. Still Paris can do without hundreds of such visitors this summer.)
After a weekend when very little could be achieved, we finally booked our Galapagos trip, and arrived in the islands on Wed 12 May.
The flight down from Quito to Guyaquil (all Galapagos flights from Quito are via here) gave us some great views of Cotopaxi. It is an almost perfectly symmetrical volcanic cone, just under 6,000m high. We may go walking there during the journey south from Quito to Peru.
It´s not cheap, but is well worth every penny. Booking from Quito enabled us to get on a much better class of boat on a last minute deal, but even so it´s a lot of cash to hand over to a company whose reputation is unsure, (though of course we had recommendations). We booked with Safari and ended up on a boat called Coral II.
It really is as stunning as you would imagine it to be. At times it is quite surreal, as you try to avoid tripping over blue-footed boobies that have nested on the path, or marine iguanas sunning themselves, to get warm enough to go fishing. It is like being in your own David Attenborough documentary. All the clichés are true, and all the superlatives that spring to mind still cannot do it justice.
The 7-day itinerary took us to a number of islands, each of which is quite distinct. There are many species that are endemic to just one island, and the evolutionary processes can be quite clearly seen. The cactus has many spines on the trunk: land iguanas are present. Another island nearby has no land iguanas and the cactus has very soft, hair-like spines. The creationists should come and spend some time here, it may illuminate their minds a little.
It would take far too long to detail all the wonders that we have seen but below is a summary.
- Swimming with sea lions, where they come right up to you and look you in the eye
- Sea lions suckling young on a blood red, ferrous volcanic beach
- Many sea turtles, some quite large (1.5m)
- Thousands of bright orange crabs
- Flightless cormorants nesting (only about 400 pairs in the world, all on one island here)
- White tip sharks
- Blue footed boobies with eggs or very recently hatched chicks
- Frigate birds, with splendid inflated red neck pouches
- Pelicans nesting, and diving for fish
- Albatross pairs courting, and other females on eggs
- Watching penguins "fly" underwater, fishing by swimming around using their wings (and not their feet as most birds do), again about 400 pairs here.
- Giant tortoises in the wild, with some males up to about 1.6m (5´)
- Huge schools of golden rays
- Flamingos
- Land iguanas and marine iguanas, which are endemic
...the list goes on.
The guidebooks say be prepared to take a lot of photos, and the beauty of digital is that you can. So every evening editing was required to delete those that didn´t quite make the grade. However I´ve still managed to take a couple of hundred in the last week. So you can all look forward to sitting through all of them once we get back home! I may try to put some of them up on a website somewhere, maybe even with links to this blog.
All the animals are phenomenally "tame", although tame is the wrong word since fear is a behavioural response and not a genetically determined characteristic, and suggests a degree of domestication. Many seem almost curious, but it´s important not to attribute human characteristics to the wildlife, although it is difficult not to do so.
After getting off the boat we´ve had a few days in Puerto Ayora, on the south side of Santa Cruz. On Fri 21 May we went diving at Gordon Rocks and then North Seymour. We didn´t see any more than we had previoulsy done whilst snorkelling (which we did most days on the boat). The divemaster saw a hammerhead on the first dive but I missed it. So it was a bit of an anti-climax, and we got out of the water feeling a bit disappointed. But 5 mins after getting out we spotted 4 killer whales, just off the boat. At one point a large one (about 4-5m) was only about 6-7m from the boat. Truely amazing and it more than made up for the lack of hammerheads. Orca are quite rare near the coast here, so we were very lucky and very priviledged. A special moment, to add to all the others listed above.
Back to Quito on Mon 24.
The first couple of weeks. Just over a week in Quito and about 12 days in the Galapagos Islands.
After an interesting non-smoking flight from Madrid, where the crew regularly sneaked down to the galley at the back for a cheeky fag, we landed in Quito on May 6. It was the rush hour and so, like anywhere, took a fair while to get across the city to the hotel.
Quito is more developed than perhaps I´d expected. Lots of quite expensive cars, no real problems with the infrastructure, i.e. roads are well maintained etc. The city sits in a valley, but is itself still at 2,800m. This means that bounding up stairs is harder than it should be (even allowing for the fact that the days of marathon-level fitness are well behind me now).
Quito is home to some of the oldest churches in South America, many of which are built on pre-Inca (and pre-Colombian) sites. When the Spanish came the local labourers managed to insert some traditional touches into the Catholic churches, unseen by the conquerors at the time. So you can see images of the sun in some doorways and the statue overlooking Quito, of Mary, is a more energetic pose than you would normally expect, because it is based on a traditional indian dance movement.
We´ve also been ot the Mitad del Mundo, the equator. It is the only place on the globe where the equator is in a mountainous region, leading to early the indians´ solar astronomy. The monument where everyone has their photo taken, astride the hemispheres, is actually in the wrong place. It´s about 200m out. The monument replaced an original one htat was built in 1936 to commemerate the 1736 French expedition that concluded that this was where the equator was. Not a bad effort for the early eighteenth century. (Some charming yanks whooped and hollered when they were told that the Frogs had got it wrong, so I suppose that French fries are still Freedom fries. Still Paris can do without hundreds of such visitors this summer.)
After a weekend when very little could be achieved, we finally booked our Galapagos trip, and arrived in the islands on Wed 12 May.
The flight down from Quito to Guyaquil (all Galapagos flights from Quito are via here) gave us some great views of Cotopaxi. It is an almost perfectly symmetrical volcanic cone, just under 6,000m high. We may go walking there during the journey south from Quito to Peru.
It´s not cheap, but is well worth every penny. Booking from Quito enabled us to get on a much better class of boat on a last minute deal, but even so it´s a lot of cash to hand over to a company whose reputation is unsure, (though of course we had recommendations). We booked with Safari and ended up on a boat called Coral II.
It really is as stunning as you would imagine it to be. At times it is quite surreal, as you try to avoid tripping over blue-footed boobies that have nested on the path, or marine iguanas sunning themselves, to get warm enough to go fishing. It is like being in your own David Attenborough documentary. All the clichés are true, and all the superlatives that spring to mind still cannot do it justice.
The 7-day itinerary took us to a number of islands, each of which is quite distinct. There are many species that are endemic to just one island, and the evolutionary processes can be quite clearly seen. The cactus has many spines on the trunk: land iguanas are present. Another island nearby has no land iguanas and the cactus has very soft, hair-like spines. The creationists should come and spend some time here, it may illuminate their minds a little.
It would take far too long to detail all the wonders that we have seen but below is a summary.
- Swimming with sea lions, where they come right up to you and look you in the eye
- Sea lions suckling young on a blood red, ferrous volcanic beach
- Many sea turtles, some quite large (1.5m)
- Thousands of bright orange crabs
- Flightless cormorants nesting (only about 400 pairs in the world, all on one island here)
- White tip sharks
- Blue footed boobies with eggs or very recently hatched chicks
- Frigate birds, with splendid inflated red neck pouches
- Pelicans nesting, and diving for fish
- Albatross pairs courting, and other females on eggs
- Watching penguins "fly" underwater, fishing by swimming around using their wings (and not their feet as most birds do), again about 400 pairs here.
- Giant tortoises in the wild, with some males up to about 1.6m (5´)
- Huge schools of golden rays
- Flamingos
- Land iguanas and marine iguanas, which are endemic
...the list goes on.
The guidebooks say be prepared to take a lot of photos, and the beauty of digital is that you can. So every evening editing was required to delete those that didn´t quite make the grade. However I´ve still managed to take a couple of hundred in the last week. So you can all look forward to sitting through all of them once we get back home! I may try to put some of them up on a website somewhere, maybe even with links to this blog.
All the animals are phenomenally "tame", although tame is the wrong word since fear is a behavioural response and not a genetically determined characteristic, and suggests a degree of domestication. Many seem almost curious, but it´s important not to attribute human characteristics to the wildlife, although it is difficult not to do so.
After getting off the boat we´ve had a few days in Puerto Ayora, on the south side of Santa Cruz. On Fri 21 May we went diving at Gordon Rocks and then North Seymour. We didn´t see any more than we had previoulsy done whilst snorkelling (which we did most days on the boat). The divemaster saw a hammerhead on the first dive but I missed it. So it was a bit of an anti-climax, and we got out of the water feeling a bit disappointed. But 5 mins after getting out we spotted 4 killer whales, just off the boat. At one point a large one (about 4-5m) was only about 6-7m from the boat. Truely amazing and it more than made up for the lack of hammerheads. Orca are quite rare near the coast here, so we were very lucky and very priviledged. A special moment, to add to all the others listed above.
Back to Quito on Mon 24.
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