Ecuadorian Doodlings

Mid September to mid October, 2006

I flew into Quito from Miami, and made my way to Casa Helbling, the German-run guesthouse I had chosen for my stay in Ecuador's capital. I was glad of my choice the following morning when I was served a breakfast of solid, dense Deutsche brot, good Deutsche käse, fruit juice and a whole thermos pot of strong, proper coffee - nothing "instant" about it! Especially since I had been missing European cheese for pretty much the whole trip so far, this place was quite a find in South America. Yum!

I met Australian Linda over such a breakfast, and then we set out to go a few kilometres north of the city to visit the equator. There is a monument and a visitor complex there called Mitad del Mundo, and also a quirky museum complex called The Inti Nan Solar Museum. I was really interested in seeing phenomena that only occur at the equator, like water going down a plughole vertically without forming a vortex. I remember seeing that demonstrated on tv when I was a kid, and ever since I had always wanted to see it in person! Science nerd? Yep, you betchya!

So we went and saw the monuments and demonstrations. The first suspect thing about the whole place is that, as they now freely admit, Mitad del Mundo is not on the equator at all but is in fact several hundred meters away from it! When the complex was constructed in the thirties they were pretty sure that they had got it right, but in these days of GPS it is a little hard to hide the fact that they boo-booed.

The neighbouring Inti Nan Solar Museum claims to be exactly at 0 degrees latitude, and they have a red line painted on the ground where they claim the equator to be. We happened to be visiting on September 23rd, an equinox. On equinoxes the sun is in the earth's equatorial plane from sunrise to sunset, and so all shadows on the equator fall exactly along the equatorial line. This, at least, seemed to be true as far as their painted red line on the ground was concerned!

However the museum's claims concerning the Corialis Effect were somewhat more suspect. The Corialis Effect is the turning-force observed on fluids on the earth's surface due to the rotation of the planet, causing cyclones and other meteorological phenomena to spin anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern. It also supposedly does the same to water flowing down a plughole, except on the equator where the effect is cancelled.

We saw this "demonstrated" by watching leaves twist anti-clockwise in water flowing down a plughole a couple of metres north, and clockwise a couple of metres south of the equator, followed by them going straight down when the bowl was placed on the museum's purported "equatorial line". I am afraid that my excitement at finally seeing a demonstration of this topic of childhood curiosity got in the way of my inherent scientific rationale; I really didn't want to see that the effect was actually being faked by the demonstrator....

A little research afterwards has convinced me that the Coriolis Effect is too weak to be observed in this way on such a small scale, and unfortunately is easily faked for tourists by charlatan museum guides by them subtly moving the water. Follow the below link to interesting web pages from the Penn State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences on the subject if you want to know more..... or is it just me who finds this even remotely interesting?!? Very possibly....

http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html

Anyway, the museum did also have an interesting collection of live and stuffed farm animals. The reason for this is somewhat obscure, (a special equatorial goat with wooden legs?!?), but they were very much appreciated.

Soon I left Quito for the main event as far as my time in Ecuador was concerned - the Galapagos Islands. I wasn't about to let the insane price tag of this part of the trip deter me from seeing such a unique wildlife reserve, where isolation has meant that many of the animals have developed with no natural fear of humans.

It used to be distance that kept humans off the Galapagos archipelago; now the Ecuadorian government try to limit numbers of visitors by controlling the cost of a visit. The return plane fare from Quito is US$330, (much more than other comparable domestic fares in Ecuador), the cruises around the islands are usually at least US $900 and the authorities charge you US$100 just to land there, (payable in cash as you get off the plane!). As if I hadn't paid enough, the airline bus from the airstrip to the town of Puerto Ayoura took off without me, and I had to hitch a ride with a minibus full of highly amused but helpful national park employees and customs agents.

The boat, The New Flamingo, was one of the cheapest I could find and I booked an eight-day cruise to try to see as many sites on the islands as possible. But first, there was diving to be done! Diving in the coldest water I have ever encountered, having only sampled Thai, Costa Rican, Vietnamese and Mexican waters, necessitated a full-length 7mm two-piece wetsuit, hood, booties and gloves! The four dives we did over two days were good, and I didn't get cold, which for me would kill the joy in any dive.

We saw some great marine life, especially white-tipped reef sharks and some wonderfully playful sealions! The sealions are excellent when you are diving. They love the bubbles divers make, and play with you by swimming straight towards you really fast, then just when they are about to crash into you they flip over on their backs and swim away. They can really shift underwater as well, reaching up to about 30 mph when they like. Fortunately I had an underwater camera with me, so I could capture one as it charged towards me. While diving I met American Cheree who liked to drink, (see picture), so in the evenings we went and did just that.

So then it came to the Galapagos tour. My fellows on the cruise were a diverse and very pleasant bunch: American Mike, Swiss Marco, Dutchies Saskia and Hans, Italian Rene and his wife, Swedish Ida and Kristian, American Petra and our guide, Ecuadorian Alphonso. The boat was adequate, and even had hot water in the showers now and again! It was during my time on The New Flamingo that the full extent of the creeping travel fatigue that I had been feeling for a month or two began to hit home. As a result I would not, from that point onwards on my trip, accept the concept of a cold shower, and "¿por que no hay agua caliente en la ducha?" became my mantra...

The eight day trip took in a range of incredible places around the islands, including Isla Santiago, Isla Santa Cruz, Isla Rabida, Isla Baltra, Isla Santa Fe, Isla Santa Maria, Isla Seymour and Isla Espanola. What I had been told was true; so many of the animals had not been around humans for so many hundreds of generations, that they had no fear of us and we could go right up to them. There were so many iguanas underfoot that you had to be careful not to tread on them. The sealions on the beaches would just let you lie down and bask in the sun next to them, (except the macho alpha males who will bark at and chase anything that isn't one of their harem!). The blue-footed boobies did their funny lift-your-feet-in-the-air mating dance while we all stood a couple of feet away. Frigate birds nesting and puffing up their big red throat pouches were mere steps away. Even some birds that were wary of humans, like albatrosses that had previously been captured and studied, were still close enough to have a good look at. Not to mention the ancient giant tortoises, crabs, insects, fish, flamingoes, penguins.....

So my birthday was spent at Black Turtle Cove on Isla Santa Cruz, and on Isla Seymour. In the evening after dinner, the boat's cook had made a cake with my name and a candle on it, and everyone sang. How nice... I still am not sure how they knew! I had deliberately timed the cruise so that I would be in the Galapagos on my birthday to ensure that I was doing something memorable, and it was a great way to turn 39!

After the cruise was over, Mike, Ida, Kristian and I took a small boat from Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz to Isla Isabela to spend a day or two. The boat was something of a trial, being three hours in a little speed boat, constantly jumping up on the waves and then slamming down, over and over!! We got to Isabela with stomachs thoroughly shaken but contents intact, and stayed for a couple of nights. The main purpose of the visit was to climb the volcano which the others did the next day, but I felt ill and stayed in the town. Apparently I didn't miss too much and we left the next day, having been regaled over and over at dinner by the locals' amateur video footage of recent eruptions.

So then back to Quito. I was beginning to like Quito, despite the local advice that to go anywhere in Quito after 6 p.m. you should take a cab, no matter how short the distance. It was also in spite of the weird sight of black-clad, SWAT-Team type private security guards, with full body armour and pump action shotguns, employed to guard...... erm.... banks? No. Jewellers? No. Ordinary pharmacies and restaurants? Yep. Hmmmm. It certainly runs against common sense to enjoy spending your free time in such a place, but there was something about the city that I liked. Either way it is perhaps as well, as the limited transport connections in Ecuador subsequently ensured that I would return to it over and over!

The next stop after Quito was Banos to the south, in the company of American Mike. One almost-missed bus and one foiled hand-luggage snatch later, we arrived in this Ecuadorian town which lives in the shadow of a (very) active volcano. It was so active when we arrived that the locals were standing in the street, pointing and looking at the huge column of smoke and ash that it was belching out!

We hooked up with some people that Mike knew, and the next day took a downhill bike ride through some beautiful scenery and waterfalls. The following day Mike continued south by bus while I tried to get to the coast, failed, and ended up back in Quito. As I said, it was a good thing I was getting to like it there!

My next attempt to get to the Ecuadorian coast was an eight-hour bus ride to the small village of Canoa. This was one of the most uncomfortable eight hours of my life. Sitting at the front of a crappy bus with nowhere to put my long European legs except in front of me into the doorway to the cab; passengers and vendors constantly getting on and off and banging into them; insufficient stops for food and rest, and a conductor who insisted the vehicle door remain open despite deteriorating weather conditions, causing the whole bus to become freezing whilst up in the mountains.

After a short stay in unremarkable Canoa, I took a similar bus back to Quito except that you can add to the list a putrid smell throughout the bus due to the fact that a small child had fouled itself. Like I say, insufficient rest stops. The journey back to Quito had started out well enough though, with the first few miles undertaken on the roof of a classic South American chicken bus, (see the claws of the unfortunately still-alive creatures tried to the bar on the vehicle roof in the photo).

So that was Ecuador; remarkable for its incomparable Galapagos Islands, its interesting approach to in-store security and its (quite literally) shitty buses. ¡Gracias Ecuador, y hasta Peru, amigos!

Miami Twice

Late September, 2006

Miami wasn't on my itinerary, but since my American Airlines flights from Mexico to Coast Rica and then Costa Rica to Ecuador both took me through there, I thought it would only be polite to get out on the second occasion and have a look around. Also, it gave me the opportunity to do two very important things: visit the dentist after my Cuban Mint vs. Molar incident, and to pick up my new, fully-loaded ipod which had been sent from the UK.

There's not too much to say about Miami really. I stayed on Miami Beach, which was nice enough but really felt just like an American city with a touristy beach attached to its eastern side. Three exciting things happened to me while I was in Miami. Here, in the best tradition of the awards ceremony, they are in reverse order...

The third most exciting thing that happened in Miami was that the night I arrived, I used the hotel safe in my room to store my valuables only for it to refuse to open again! I suspected some sneaky extortion plot on the part of my dodgy little hotel, but no, a maintenance man got it open quickly first thing the next morning.

The second most exciting thing was that I came across the new Irvine Welsh novel, ("The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs"), in a bookstore. It was US$26 and came only as a huge, heavy hardback; not ideal for travelling, but I had to have it. And very good it was too.

But the most exciting thing to happen in Miami was that I got my hands on my new ipod! Mine had bitten the dust big-stylee in Cuba, and I'd had to endure a whole difficult month without music.

So I ordered a new one from the UK website, had it delivered to a friend in the UK who had all my itunes backed up, and he loaded it and mailed it out to the UK consulate in Miami! Bless them for taking delivery of it; I knew I paid my taxes for something. Or I used to, when I worked. And big up Simon, of course, for taking care of business in London and saving me from a musical void out here. No thanks, however, to Apple, for flogging hardware which breaks when you look at it the wrong way..... I have now had six different ipods in 18 months.

The thing I most enjoyed about being in Miami was getting up early, sitting on the beach watching the sun rise over the ocean, then going for a big American breakfast in an old-style diner. Yum yum bagels!

So then it was time for me to get on another American Airlines plane, (hand baggage completely devoid of liquids, gels and pastes of any kind after the big terrorist scare in London shortly before), and set off for Ecuador.

Costa Rica

First few weeks of September, 2006

Arriving at night in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, I made my way to the hostel that I had randomly chosen from my Lonely Planet and immediately regretted my choice. It seemed to be run by sketchy pony-tailed American men in their fifties, one of whom showed me several dank, windowless rooms and I plumped for the one that made me feel least like I was in some Central American flop-house for Vietnam vets. I then tried to sleep until it was light enough for me to find somewhere else to stay, but had to contend with the water pump in the flimsy cavity ceiling above my room which went off like a motorbike starting up about every 40 minutes, and the blaring tv from the room next door. Oh yes indeed, the joys of budget travel....

The next day my revised choice was much better, but from the outside looked like a warehouse, surrounded as it was by high walls topped with razor wire, with access through a heavy door permanently manned by an armed security guard. I actually walked past it several times, despite having the address, it looked so unlike a hostel. I was eventually helped to find it by a random American who started talking to me on the street. He proceeded to tell me that he had been in San Jose for three weeks now, had been mugged twice in the area we were in and now always carried a can of pepper spray. I decided not to ask him why on earth he had spent three weeks in San Jose in the first place, and disappeared behind the fortifications.

Having a look around San Jose confirmed it as the Razor Wire Capital of Central America, if not the world, and after a couple of nights there a bus took me east towards the Caribbean coast and the small town of Tortuguero. To get to Tortuguero you have to actually take two buses and a boat, which leaves from a dock at the Geest banana plantation. Having grown up eating bananas with little stickers on that say "Geest" but not knowing what it meant, it was interesting to accidentally find out!

On the way I met Jonathan and Laura from London. I had to look twice at Jonathan on meeting him, as he closely resembles Jamie who is currently filling my BBC shoes in London. I thought for a moment that Jamie had thrown in the live music and events towel and run to the jungle, but no...

Jonathan, Laura and I booked a boat tour with a local guide called Pablo, which started early in the morning and lasted a couple of hours. As Pablo gently paddled us around the lagoons, rivers and canals that make up the terrain to the west of Tortuguero, he pointed out the wealth of flora and fauna that brings people to the area. We saw caimans, river otters, black turtles, lizards and numerous birds amongst the huge variety of plants and trees endemic to the region.

The following night we went to check out Tortuguero's other natural claim to fame, the nocturnal nesting of turtles on the beach. With our hired guide we went to a particular area of beach at about 10 p.m. to see if our luck was in. You could not use torches nor camera flashes on the beach, as these disturb nesting turtles. However, the guide had a red torch which apparently isn't as bad, and fortunately our night was a fairly moonlit one. Our luck was in; within 40 minutes on the beach we had seen not one but four Green Turtles.

Two were in the act of laying, one was starting to excavate her nest in the sand, and the fourth was hauling her 100 kg body back into the sea as quickly as possible, having completed the laying process. We watched one of the laying turtles pop about a hundred or so soft white eggs, each about the size of a ping pong ball, into the egg chamber of her nest which she had excavated in the sand.

After Tortuguero I headed back inland towards the town of La Fortuna, where the active volcano Volcan Arenal is situated. La Fortuna really is all about the volcano, which forms an impressive sight as it looms over the town to the west, belching out smoke and pyroclastic boulders. You can't climb up it; people trying in recent years have been killed on the slopes by hot gasses which shoot out of the ground there. So I took a naturalist-led tour through the surrounding cloud forest which culminates in a visit to an observation point at dusk, at which, if there is not too much cloud, you can observe volcanic phenomena. In the forest, we saw various wildlife including some coatimundis...

After playing hide and seek in the clouds all day, Arenal rewarded us with a perfectly clear view of it ejecting semi-molten rocks, glowing red and rolling down from the summit. When you see that, it becomes perfectly obvious why you can't climb the volcano! (To see the pyroclastic boulders, you might have to click on the pic of the volcano to enlarge it). At the end of the tour we visited the local volcanic hot springs, which have been developed into a kind of resort with several pools of varying temperature and, indeed, a swim-up bar! I was expecting something a bit more muddy and natural, but I have to admit it is nice to be able to buy a beer as you soak...

So then on to Santa Elena in Monteverde, an area some 1440m above sea-level and surrounded by cloud forest. Several companies have constructed systems of zip lines and suspension bridges in the forest canopy, and most people who visit the area take a look at the forest canopy from these wonderful vantage points. Zip lining is basically whizzing down a cable suspended between two points, holding on to a pulley. This I did with Aussies Tristran and Arlene, who had been living in London before taking off traveling. The weather was fine to start with, and some of the higher zip lines disappeared into the clouds which cloak the forest canopy. Unfortunately, later in the morning higher clouds opened up and we completed the zip lining in pouring rain.

I returned early the next day to walk the canopy suspension bridges, and found myself strolling around the forest canopy, totally alone in the morning sunlight. At one point in the trail there was a humming bird feeder, with several of these amazing little birds darting around it. Another of Monteverde's attractions was the frog and toad menagerie, where there were some fine examples of the Gaudy Leaf Frog, emblematic of Costa Rica. They were a little tricky to photograph though, as they were in dark glass enclosures and you couldn't use flash....

So from the cloud forest I headed downwards and westwards to the Pacific at Playa Coco, where I had heard there was the best diving in Costa Rica. I found an outfit that were doing a three-tank dive the following morning, and joined them. On the way to the dive site we were lucky enough to encounter a couple of Green Turtles mating on the surface, so we stopped the boat, everyone grabbed masks and snorkels and we all jumped in for a closer look.

The turtles' eventual reaction to this invasion of privacy was to slowly swim away, still engaged in the act. The male had what I swear was a look of irritated resignation on his face; I couldn't really see the female's face, as she was partially submerged. I decided that I had been voyeur to enough stages of the reproductive cycle of the Green Turtle for one trip, and was first to get back in the boat while my fellow divers continued to snap away with underwater cameras...

Further south down the coast was Playa Tamarindo, a purpose-built resort town constructed just back from some very nice beaches. Entering town down the rocky road on a bone-shaker bus I noticed that the town proudly sported a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a Subway, and suddenly the town's alternative moniker of "Playa TamaGringo" made sense. Every muscle in my body ached after being shaken about by the awful state of the roads, and felt sure that I was coming down with something. So I checked into a more-comfortable-than-usual room, assuming that I would be spending some time in bed, and went in search of familiar and bland food. Suddenly the fact that there was a Subway there seemed like a very good thing, and as it turns out I ate a turkey and cheese sub there every day! I am clearly a food snob only when it suits me...

It seems I did have some sort of mild virus, but that was soon dealt with freeing me up to get on with what I had come to Playa TamaGringo to do..... learn to surf! I booked some lessons and turned up the next morning to meet my fellow pupils, Sue, a pilot from Texas, and Franziska a German student.

Surfing was excellent fun, but painful. Very soon I was standing up on my extremely long learner's board and enjoying coasting slowly into shore. However, the board caused serious rashes on my inner arms, thighs and knees, and of course the salt water in the abrasions made it even more fun. Also, constantly pushing myself up on the board hurt my ribcage like I had been repeatedly kicked there! Other injuries included lumps on my head as the result of it meeting the business end of Franziska's board a couple of times, (not as painful as it sounds; training boards are made of foam). So although I ventured out a few times after the lessons to practise, the pain-to-fun ratio was too high and the fantasy of being some bronzed, rippling surfer dude quickly faded. I don't think blond highlights would suit me anyway...

Then I took a ridiculously convoluted 12 hour journey by bus and boat to get to Montezuma. This little beach community is not much further down the Nicoya Peninsula from Playa Tamarindo, but the terrain doesn't allow a direct road so you are forced to take a long route back inland, then south, then back out to the coast. On the way I met Rhodes, Melissa and Erin from California, and we went to a little "cost-effective" hostel that Erin had stayed at before.

Despite the rain, Montezuma was a pleasant enough place to hang out for a couple of nights before I returned to Razor Wire City, (different hostel this time, but still the same kind of security measures!), and my next flight up to Miami.