Galapagos!!!!

Hey everybody!

I am back in Quito after 5 days in the galapagos. Pretty amazing! I went on a boat tour for 5 days and four nights, onboard the Yate Rumba. There were 10 others along, plus five crew members. The landscapes are amazing, as are all the animals, most especially the birds and iguanas. There are about a bajillion sea lions that provide hours of entertainment if you watch them while sitting on a beach. I will try to post some pictures soon, i need to find a place with a card reader or something. my camera is currently having it´s battery charged....

Some highlights of the trip: my favourite were the giant land tortoises, they are so amazing looking! And I snorkeled with a sea turtle, also very big! One of the people I was traveling with, a crazy Austrian guy who builds and restors organs (pipe organs, not livers and hearts) grabbed onto the shell of a sea turtle and tried to get it to swim with him! Needless to say the turtle was none to pleased. The people on the boat were a great mix, very interesting and kind.

Lowlights include incredibly rough seas (well, rough for this landlubber anyways!), as at one point I was lying in my bunk , gripping the edges so as not to fly out of it, and opening my eyes to see that the boat was sooo horizontal that the curtains on the window were hanging directly towards my face!! The guide and crew seemed to think it necessary to adhere to such a rigid schedule that we always traveled at night, making it difficult to stay in our bunks let alone get any sleep!! Needless to say I am quite happy to be sleeping on land in a normal-sized (well, for ecuador anyway) bed tonight!

THe other unbelievable thing that happened was that one of the other tourist boats sank on our third night out -- we were in the port at the island Santa Cruz, the town is called Porto Ayora, and I guess this boat, called the Darwin Explorer, was quite an old boat so that a big wave came and the boat landed really hard on top of another wave, tearing off the back landing deck of the boat. It had sunk within one minute (so fast!), luckily all the passengers and crew got off safely. I think everyone in the port was feeling glad to be safe that night!

That´s all for now, I will head down to Banos tomorrow to meet Andrea, Phil, Jon, and Ave. I am sure I will describe more about the galapagos when I post pictures!

hasta luego