Monday, March 14, 2011

Las Islas de Galápagos y Reserva Ecológica de Cuyabeno


I’ve been SUPER busy the last two weeks which is why I haven’t written anything in a while. I had paper to write and was only in Quito for 2 days during the last week. We’ll start with the Galápagos trip.

Two Fridays ago, I got up at 5 am to go to the Quito airport. I met up with six amigos and we embarked on a weekend filled with animals, beautiful scenery, and hot weather. My friends from school, Meghan, Kelsey, Lauren, Caitie, Danny, and his 10 year-old son, Sule who was visiting, were the only ones out of 32 in our program that decided to go to Galápagos. I know a lot of others really wanted to go but a trip to the Galápagos is VERY expensive so that turned a lot of people off from it. We went during the weekend of Carnaval which is pretty much the Latin American equivalent of Mardi Gras but is treated like a spring break vacation by a lot of the people in Ecuador. Usually during Carnaval, the beach and places like Ambato and Baños near the jungle are EXTREMELY busy and people need to make reservations in hotels and hostals before they get there so that’s what the other students did all weekend.

Our group on the other hand, took a 35 minute flight from Quito to Guayaquil then an hour-ish flight from there to the island of Baltra in the Galápagos. Pretty much the only thing that Baltra is known for is that it has the main airport in the islands. We got off the plane and immediately found ourselves in some pretty hot weather. We took a 10-minute bus ride to the canal where we got on a little ferryboat that took us across the canal to the main island, Santa Cruz, which took about 10 minutes and cost 80 cents. Then we shared a taxi with some other people and ended up paying $2 for a 40-minute ride to the main town, Puerto Ayora, on the other side of the island. During this ride we gained just a little bit of elevation (probably no more than 200 feet) in the middle of the journey. At this part, the climate changed really quickly and it started to rain pretty hard. Once we got to the other coast though it went away and once again, we found ourselves in some pretty good heat.
The canal and ferryboat
It got rainy

We got to Puerto Ayora and went to the place we would be staying. My friend Kelsey has a local friend that knew someone that rented out his condo in the Galápagos so we took advantage of that and ended up renting this condo for 4 nights. It was actually pretty nice with a kitchen and showers and stuff but was probably 10 degrees hotter than it was outside at all times which was rather uncomfortable to sleep in because it got in the 90s (possibly 100s) during the day and was about 80 at night I believe. The guy (Carlos) was super nice though and helped us find a tour agency where we could organize our day trips to other islands. We were trying to get a tour to a nearby island called Isabela (the largest of the islands) but the price was a little higher than we wanted it to be. As we were trying to negotiate the price, one of the agents there pulled me aside and said that if we came back without Carlos, she would lower the price $15 dollars for each person because he was looking to get a commission for bringing us to the tour agency. We didn’t really think he deserved the commission because Danny and Sule had already gone to that same agency to book a 4 day cruise by themselves and we were planning on going there anyway. (This left me with four girls for 4 days in the Galápagos Islands. Whoohoo!) We left so we could eat lunch and talk amongst ourselves and decide what we wanted to do. Carlos decided to follow us too which kind of annoyed us so we said to him as politely as possible that we just wanted to eat with each other and that we would meet him at the condo when we were done with our business. He wasn’t offended at all and left us to decide what we wanted to do. We ate then went back to the tour agency and got a lower price.

After that we took a short walk to the Charles Darwin Research Center which is primarily a tortoise-rearing center. We saw a bunch of baby and full-grown tortoises as well as a few iguanas. It was cool because we got to see all the different sizes that the tortoises can be depending on age and specie. The most unique one we saw was called Lonesome George. This guy is pretty big and has a shell that goes really high in the front. He was found in the 1970s and it was established that he is the last remaining tortoise of his specie in the world. They have been trying to get him to mate with some similar tortoises and actually got a bunch of eggs a couple years ago. Unfortunately, none of them hatched successfullyL. After that we were pretty toasty from walking around so we went to a small nearby beach that had a bunch of marine iguanas and crabs all over the rocks. Mind you, these crabs and iguanas are ALL over the island so this beach didn’t turn out to be all that special. We dipped in the water to cool off real quick then went back to our place to make dinner. Everything is SUPER expensive in the Galápagos so we tried to cook as much as possible to save money. That is, super expensive in relation to the rest of Ecuador. The prices of food and stuff were actually pretty similar to those in the US but since we’re so used to buying meals like lunch for two dollars, we really didn’t like having to pay 5-7 dollars instead.
Baby tortugas!
Lonesome George being lonesome
Tortoise on the left decided to smile too :)
Really hope that guy was alive

The next day we got up at 6ish, ate some granola and yogurt, and then met up with the tour agency at 7. Apparently, Carlos called them and wanted a commission so they told us to meet them at the dock instead of the office. We got there on time and of course everybody else was on Ecuadorian time so we took off from the dock at around 8:30. Our group had 18 people and it took us about 2 hours to get to Isabela and unfortunately I had a headache for most of the ride there for some reason so that was pretty fun. We finally got there and immediately got on a chiva (open air bus) that would take us around to all the spots included in our tour. We started by taking a half hour ride to a place called el muro de lágrimas (wall of tears) which is this huge manmade wall of large stones. The tour guide only spoke in Spanish and I believe he said that it was used in the World War II era by the US as a prison and the prisoners would have to build this wall as a castigo (punishment). There was a quote that said, “Los valientes lloran, y los débiles se mueren” (the strong/brave cry and the weak die).
Setting off from Puerto Ayora to Isabela
Puerto Ayora
Tortoise on side of the rode

*so my blog has just told me that I've been using up too much space and can't upload any more photos. Not happy about this. When I get the chance, I will upload more to a photobucket site and put the link on here. Until then we´ll have to live with just words :(

Galápagos Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069924&id=1577310066&saved
Cuyabeno Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069931&id=1577310066&saved
I hope those links work...
After that, we went to another tortoise rearing center. This place had a ton more tortoises than La Estación de Charles Darwin but we weren’t allowed to get close to them. It also had an indoor museum (with air conditioning!) that gave some quick facts and info about tortoises (including how long they live and what their biggest threats are).

Then we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was rather mediocre but the fresh cold fruit juice was fantastic in the hot weather. We had an hour to rest or go in the water until our next activity so we walked to one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen before. The sand was super white and the water was the bluest I’ve ever seen. We got in the water for a bit which was incredibly warm (probably 85ish degrees). We then walked over to a strange dock-like thing and found that it and the rocks surrounding it were completely covered in black marine iguanas. There were probably between 75 and 100 in the area at least. We were told we couldn’t enter their area because it was mating season and it was prohibited.

After that, we took a short chiva ride to our next stop which would be snorkeling. I don’t mean to sound stuck up or anything but my previous snorkeling experience was in Hanauma Bay in Hawaii which has a TON of cool looking fish so this experience turned out to be a little bit of a letdown. I’d read in my guide book that the Galápagos had some really really good snorkeling so went we got there I was a little surprised to find just a couple not so visually impressive species of fish. They probably just didn’t take us to the best spots because this one was close and would probably satisfy the majority of snorkelers. However I DID see some cool things there at the end including a Galápagos penguin for a moment before it zoomed off, a huge sea turtle, and a couple manta rays along the bottom. We got a little less than an hour to snorkel then we had to head back to the boat to return to Puerto Ayora.

The next day we decided to stay on Santa Cruz to see what it had to offer. We got up and went out to breakfast then took about an hour-long walk from our condo to Tortuga Bay. Once we got there, we were again amazed at how white the sand was and how blue the water was. It was equally as gorgeous as the beach from the day before if not more so. We first went to the nearby mangrove lagoon which had really green, still water but was still pretty anyway. We didn’t spend much time there before we decided we wanted to go back to the blue water where there were some waves as well as a small spot to snorkel. The snorkeling here was fairly decent because we saw some HUGE schools of medium sized (8 inches) silver fish. There were a couple times were I got startled while I was in the water. One time I looked up in my snorkel mask and saw a bit black thing swimming by which turned out to be a 3 foot long marine iguana. Then a little bit later I was looking down and saw a huge brown thing beneath me which turn out to be a sea lion.

After a couple hours at Tortuga Bay we returned to Puerto Ayora and went to the dock so we could take a quick, 60 cent water taxi to the trailhead of Las Grietas (the crevices). These crevices are filled with brackish water and get really deep in places. The snorkeling was not too good here. We saw a couple fish and that was it. The weird thing was that when we dived down about 5 feet, the water temperature suddenly got really warm. Usually it’s the opposite I think. We did a little snorkeling then joined some of the locals in some jumping from the ledges in the deep areas. You could either jump from the very top which was about 30 feet or a spot a little lower which was about 20-25. I chose the 20-25 because I was too lazy to go all the way around to the top instead of just climbing up the side of the grieta. By this time it was beginning to get dark so we headed back home before the mosquitoes came out.

The next day we took a tour to an island called North Seymour which was actually just on the other side of Baltra. We bussed back to the canal and took a 40 minute boat ride to North Seymour. Here we found a TON of frigate birds. We took a couple hours to walk around the island and saw frigates, land iguanas, a few sea lions, some lizards, and one blue-footed booby at the end. The frigates and land iguanas were pretty cool but we were a little upset that we hadn’t seen any blue-footed boobies or large families of sea lions like our tour agent had promised. I finally spotted a booby once we were about to leave but it was not being very cooperative because it was sitting down all the way and we could barely see its feet. We then went back to the boat and had lunch for about an hour or so. Right when we got back, someone noticed that we had a couple 2-3 meter sharks swimming around our boat. Our guide told us they were Galápagos sharks and weren’t dangerous. They stuck around the whole time until we left. We then headed over to a beach on the northwest side of Santa Cruz called Las Bachas where the remains of some old war ships can be seen. We got an hour to do some swimming and snorkeling here. The snorkeling was decent again because we saw some bigger more colorful fish we hadn’t seen before. I swam over to a rocky section and saw a couple more blue-footed boobies. I got out of the water and got pretty close to them but wasn’t able to take any pictures because I’d swum there without my camera. After that we went back to Puerto Ayora for our last night in the Galápagos.

The next morning (Tuesday) we got up early and went out for breakfast before we had to take a taxi back to the canal. By the end of the weekend we’d all gotten fairly burnt and were pretty worn out. All in all todo definativamente vale la pena (it was all definitely worth it) even though we’d missed all of the Carnaval celebration while we were there.

We got back to Quito, went to school on Wednesday and Thursday then found ourselves at another weekend. I knew I wanted to go to the jungle again because it’s only so often you get the opportunity to go to the Amazon. I asked mi madre where she thought I should go on my last weekend in Ecuador and she suggested La Reserva Ecológica de Cuyabeno (Cuyabeno Ecological Reserve) because all of the people she had talked to had said that was the prettiest part of the Ecuadorian Amazon. She had a contact who worked with tours in that region so she set me up with a guide and I took an 8 hour bus overnight to Lago Agrio, an ugly oil worker town which is basically a jump off point near Cuyabeno. The trip would have been shorter but on the way there a semi-truck that had flipped its trailer in the middle of the road delayed us for an hour or so. Thankfully I got a couple of my friends, Giang, Danny, and his son Sule, to go with me so I didn’t have to go alone. We got there at about 7:30am and were told to meet our contact at a hotel at 8. Our contact didn’t show up with the guide, Luis, until 8:30 then said they needed to leave really quickly to buy food and supplies. They first said they’d be back at 9 then changed it to 9:30. There was some sort of women’s rights rally in the streets and this may or may not have had something to do with the fact that our guide didn’t return until 10:15. We left with Luis on a two hour taxi truck ride to the Cuyabeno River where we put all of our stuff in a motorized canoe and took a two and a half hour ride down the river to the laguna grande (big lagoon). Luis told us that there was a huge group that was actually occupying all of the rooms in the Amanu Lodge where we had planned to stay. Because of this, we had to go to a different cabaña (cabin) on the other side of the lagoon. I actually preferred this because it was really secluded from the big group and all of their noise. We got there and it didn’t look like it’d been used in a while because it was pretty dirty. Luis cleaned it out and set up our beds and mosquito nets for us. Then we went out in a paddle canoe to take a quick dip and watch the beautiful sunset. Luis asked if we wanted to bring our cameras but we all said no for some reason and definitely regretted it once we saw how pretty the sunset was. We got back to the cabaña and Luis cooked a super tasty meal of soup, chicken, rice and salad for us. Sule was really tired and ended up passing out before dinner at about 7:30 because he hadn’t gotten much sleep on the bus ride overnight. We had planned to go out and see some insects but the rest of us were pretty tired too and ended up going to bed by 9:30.

We had plans to get up at quarter ‘til six to watch the sunrise but that night it rained really hard and was cloudy in the morning so we didn’t go out. Apparently there was a huge thunderstorm as well that I had slept through. We got over 10 hours of sleep and didn’t get up until 8:15. After breakfast we went out on a hike through the forest and saw several different types of trees and plants including a tree that was called leche de * (milk of something I can’t remember). When you have a stomach ache or intestinal issues, apparently you can cut a small hole in this tree and it will bleed out a white milky substance. You’re supposed to take 2 spoonfuls of it and within 20 minutes you’ll be feeling fine again. There was also another tree that you can use to make a cure for malaria. You take the shavings of wood from the tree and boil them in 8 liters of water until there is only one liter left so it is really concentrated. Then you have to take 2 spoonfuls at every meal for 4 days and afterwards you will be cured. Luis told us that when he was 12, he got malaria, used this remedy and it worked perfectly.

We also heard some cool birds, saw many insects, a few frogs, and false coral snake for a moment. One bird we heard can hear us from 100 meters away and starts doing a strange squawk telling us to keep out. One of the trees we saw was called a telephone tree because in the past when people got lost, they would hit the tree stump with a stick and it could be heard for 600 meters. Another party would then hit a telephone tree too and the lost people would try to find that other party. It was incredibly how much knowledge Luis had about all the plants and animals in the jungle. He told us he had taken a course about it before becoming a guide.

The hike took about 3 hours and then we returned for lunch. After lunch, we went down to the water to do some canoeing. We noticed when we got to the canoe that the water level had risen at least a couple inches, if not a half foot overnight. Luis said this was normal because we were just entering the rainy season and that by the end, the water will have risen from 1.5 meters in the middle of the lake to 6 meters (over 12 feet!). We canoed around the edge of the lagoon and saw a bunch of cool birds in the trees including some white egrets, greater anis, herons, parrots, macaws (flying off in the distance), and stinky turkeys (hoatzin in Spanish). We got back to the Amanu Lodge and just hung out while we had a nice cold Pilsener (national beer of Ecuador). After that, we grabbed some fishing poles and went out to do some piranha fishing near the entrance of the river in the lagoon. The fishing poles were just long sticks with some fishing wire and a hook. Really high tech stuff. We put some little pieces of beef on the hook and sat in the boat and waited for nibbles. We got a TON of nibbles. We probably had over 25 pieces of bait and only caught three piranhas in about an hour. They were really good at chomping on the meat without getting caught. Luis told us that there were three types of piraña in the lake: white, black, and red ones. Giang caught the first one after about 10 minutes and it was a white one. Then about 15 minutes later I caught a red one which I was told by the non-colorblind people was more of a purplish color. Then right at the end I caught a black one as well. They were all pretty much the same size. I’ve never really enjoyed fishing in the past because I never catch anything and it takes so long but I really enjoyed it this time because I caught TWO in less than an hour and they were piranhas which made the experience extra cool.

By this time, the sun was setting and thankfully the clouds and disappeared a little bit and I was able to get some good pictures of it. We ran out of bate so we canoed to the other side hoping that we’d be able to see some pink river dolphins. Luis told us “podemos verlos si tenemos suerte” (we can see them if we’re lucky). We ended up getting lucky and seeing two river dolphins swimming around. They come up for water every 20 seconds or so, so we’d see them stick their heads out for air for a second. They don’t look at all like normal dolphins and are actually sort of ugly. They’ve got a strange, ridged hump-type thing on their back and their heads aren’t that great looking either. They were still definitely cool to see though. On our way back, we could hear a bunch of howler monkeys making a ton of noise in the trees nearby. They aren’t very big but can make a really deep loud moan. If Luis hadn’t told us they were howler monkeys, I would have probably thought there were huge scary monsters around the outside of the lagoon. We paddled back and by the time we got to the middle of the lake the sun was completely down. There was still a little bit of light so we hopped in the water, shampooed our hair, and played around for a little bit. I can now say I’ve bathed in a lagoon J. By the time we were done with that and paddled back it was dark and we only had moonlight to show us the way. Luis has been a guide in Cuyabeno for 22 years so even if the moon wasn’t out I’m sure he could have led us back with his eyes closed.

Luis made us another fantastic dinner and we chatted with him a little. I asked him if he liked his job and he said that he loved the jungle and that he really enjoyed the work that he does as a guide. This is definitely a good thing because he then told us that he works almost nonstop and only gets a couple days of vacation per year. No weekends!? Madness. He also told us that he has seven children as well. After dinner we put on our rubber boots and went out fishing again. This time however, we only took our flashlights and a machete with us. There are some fish that come up to the surface late at night and when you shine a light on them they don’t move. Luis was really good at finding this fish. He’d shine the light and then chop them with the machete in the head. He ended up getting 4 in about a half an hour. I was holding on to a branch trying to look for fish and it broke so I partially fell in the water getting my shirt and pants wet. Thankfully not too wet though. After that, we went back to the cabin and went to bed.

The next morning, Luis and I got up for a 6am canoe ride to watch the sunrise and look at some birds on an island in the middle of the lagoon. They were pretty much the same birds we saw from the day before but just in greater numbers. There were some clouds in the sky but the sunrise was still quite pretty. We had planned on leaving at 9:30 that morning but the guy with the motorized canoe came by and said we needed to leave with him at 7:30 instead with the other group because they were the last canoe leaving the laguna. The whole trip, Luis had been telling us how he’d been planning to make us a plato fuerte (big meal) that morning for breakfast. He was going to make meat, rice, eggs, fruit, and cook the fish he caught the night before wrapped up in a leaf. Unfortunately, we didn’t have  time and had to have a hurried breakfast of eggs, bread, and pineapple instead. We ate and picked up the cabin really fast and were on our way.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience. I definitely would have liked to stay a little longer so we could do some deeper excursions into the jungle and see some of the indigenous tribes that still live there. I was also hoping to see some caimans and anacondas because I’d read that they could be seen in that region. Luis said that anacondas aren’t usually seen every time and that the caimans hide in the bushes over the water during the day so you can only see them at night. We tried looking for them with our flashlights but never found any. On the boat ride back to the road, I was almost positive I saw one but it possibly could have just been a caiman-like log floating in the water because we’d seen many of those. I was pretty sure I saw an eye on this floating log/caiman though.

We got back to Lago Agrio just before one and bought a bus ticket for 2:30 back to Quito. On the way back, we got stopped at 3 different checkpoints by the Ecuadorian military. Everybody had to get out of the bus and have their identification and bags checked. Mi madre said this is normal because the part of the country we were in was in the northeast corner of the country which is really close to the Colombian border where there is a lot of drug trafficking, guerrillas, and theft. While the stops were kind of annoying, it was comforting to know they were a least trying to keep us safe.

I think that’s about it for this blog entry. I’ve got less than a week left in Ecuador and I’m definitely feeling at least a little sad about leaving. I knew my time here would go faster than I wanted it to and it definitely did. I may write another blog on my flight home or after I return with some closing thoughts but we’ll see. Hasta ese tiempo, ¡espero que vayan bien!

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