I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, whether you celebrated with turkey and carols, fondue and games, or chifa and a movie. We found ourselves amidst fruit cake and merengue music...
On Christmas Eve, Mike and I checked into a mid-range hotel as a special treat for ourselves. After a week in the friendly but bare-bones accomodations offerred by Lucho at the Casa de Ciclistas, we were excited to have a cushy bed, hot water, and a TV. Mike was also a little too thrilled by the fact that our room was carpeted (carpeting isn't very common anywhere in Latin America).
Despite the fact that we were staying in the hotel for the night, we joined Lucho, his family, and 5 other cyclists for Christmas Eve dinner. Following is our menu:
Appetizer: Toast with a spread containing onions, peppers, etc.
Main corse: Turkey, turkey gravy, and a potato salad of sorts
Desserts: Fruitcake*, chocolate chip and mandarin orange cake, pineapple cake, some other cake, apple cobbler, and truffles.
Seem a little unbalanced to anyone else? Not that it wasn't good...I just could have used a bit more substance.
*Side note: The Peruvians are out of control when it comes to fruitcake. It's not the joke it is in the United States -- here, fruitcake is serious business. The top shelf of every single aisle in the downtown Trujillo grocery store was stuffed with fruitcake. There were also giant pyramid displays of stacked fruitcakes and fruitcakes piled up next to the cashiers in case you decided last minute to buy just one more. Every third person on the street in the week leading up to Christms had at least one fruitcake in hand. The obsession with fruitcake is truly frightening, and now that I've tried it I can confirm that the stuff is nasty. I'm glad the fruitcake is out of vogue in the States.
Anyway...on Christmas day we left the Casa de Ciclistas and Trujillo and biked to Huanchaco. Huanchaco is only about a 15 minute bus ride from Trujillo and is situated right on the Pacific. It's a lovely little beach town popular with tourists and surfers. As such, it's filled with cute cafes and nice restaurants. We are going to be here at least until the end of February.
After a couple of days of staying in a hotel we found a place to live for the next 2 months. Well, 2 places, really. We're staying in a one-room apartment until January 15th, then we're moving upstairs to an apartment with a kitchen because that's when it frees up. We have loads of storage space, our own bathroom with a tub (almost as rare as carpeting), hot water, carpeting (!), Internet access (for when we get the computer working again), and a shared weight room. The best grocery store in town is literally next door, and the beach is 2 blocks away. We have an ocean view from our apartment. Perhaps you are wondering how much our dream palace costs? Well, with Internet, water, and electricity included we're shelling out about $217 a month. Kinda makes you want to pack up and move to Peru, doesn't it?
We should be pretty busy during the first few months of 2008, even though we won't be biking as much. With the ocean so close, Mike and I are planning to learn to surf. I start teaching English classes locally on Wednesday and online ASU classes again on the 14th. Now that we're settled, Mike looks forward to getting the computer working again. Once that's done, he'll be back to working on his photos (which we'll hopefully start posting again soon) and selling body jewelry. We'll also both be busy soaking up the sun and some awesome experiences. I hope your New Year is looking bright as well! Keep in touch!
Also, don't forget to take a stab at the latest trivia question. Only 3 people guessed last time around. By the way, the answer was "Kids like pretty white girl doll most best." We saw all of the other ridiculous slogans.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tra la la la la Trujillo
Sorry I've been such a bum about posting lately; I just don't really have much for news (or pictures). Plus, I figured everyone would be busy with holiday happenings. Anywho, let me give you a run-down of our recent activities.
You wouldn't think that biking along the coast in Peru would be brutal, but it was. The wind was strong and in our faces day after day. Our bikes aren't the most aerodynamic vehicles when they're fully loaded, so we ended up going awfully slow for some stretches. Also the desert is pretty desolate. Every now and then there was an irrigated patch of green that signaled we were nearing a town, but for the most part we were surrounded by mountains, scrub brush, and sand dunes. Sand dunes coupled with strong wind do not make for a fun ride, by the way. We cheated a bit and took a bus for the most barren stretch (210 kilometers without any towns), but even without that chunk we had plenty of barren kilometers.
So, I was super happy when we finally arrived in Trujillo. For some time we've been planning to stop somewhere for a while to give ourselves a break from biking and to get to know a community a bit better. A while back I had picked out Trujillo as a strong stopping point candidate. It's a big city (750,000) with modern appeals such as a movie theatre, grocery stores, a shopping center, etc.; it is the cultural center of the north with many museums, nearby ruins, and colonial history; it is a warm city near the ocean and surrounded by desert (which reminds me of Phoenix); and it has an abundance of English schools. You see, I've been planning on getting a bit of English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching experience on this trip because I've been toying with the idea of switching the focus of my studies. All of these things made Trujillo our most likely stopping point, even before we arrived.
Luckily, we liked it once we got here.
We arrived on Monday, December 17th, and we've been staying in La Casa de Ciclistas for the last several days. This house is the stopping point for anyone biking in South America. Mike and I are bikers #905 and 906 to have signed the guest book. Lucho and his family have long been letting bikers crash at their place in exchange for only a small donation. I'll let you check out the web site linked above if you want more info. It's a pretty sweet deal, and we're grateful for their hospitality.
While we've been camped out there, we've been busy seeking more permanent quarters in the area. (By permanent, I mean that we would like to stay in an apartment or casa for 1-3 months.) We still don't have a place, but we do have a few possibilities lined up now.
I have also found an organization where I plan to volunteer teaching ESL. The school is called Espaanglisch and offers very cheap classes ($6-12 a month) to poor students in the area. Most of the students want to learn English so that they can get jobs in the local tourist industry or on cruise ships. I will be teaching two 90-minute classes 4 days a week in the evenings. Each class lasts one month, and if all goes well the first month, I may stick around for another. Teaching 4 days a week in the evenings will leave plenty of time for sightseeing in the area, too. I'm excited about volunteering; it should be very interesting to get to know the community and to get some practice in a real ESL environment. In exchange for volunteering, David, the founder of Espaanglisch, will give us some Spanish lessons. He's also helping us find an affordable place to stay in the area. Now we just have to get Mike back on track with the computer situation.
Well, that's really all the news I have for now, but I may soon be able to share a temporary address and other fun info with you. Hopefully we'll get some pictures of Trujillo up as well; the Christmas decorations around the main Plaza de Armas are really nice and the city is beautiful.
We have invites to spend Christmas with Lucho and his family or David and his, but we're thinking about maybe just staying at a nice hotel for the evening to celebrate with just the two of us. We'll see.
At any rate, we'll be missing everyone back home! I hope you all have a great Christmas! We love you!
You wouldn't think that biking along the coast in Peru would be brutal, but it was. The wind was strong and in our faces day after day. Our bikes aren't the most aerodynamic vehicles when they're fully loaded, so we ended up going awfully slow for some stretches. Also the desert is pretty desolate. Every now and then there was an irrigated patch of green that signaled we were nearing a town, but for the most part we were surrounded by mountains, scrub brush, and sand dunes. Sand dunes coupled with strong wind do not make for a fun ride, by the way. We cheated a bit and took a bus for the most barren stretch (210 kilometers without any towns), but even without that chunk we had plenty of barren kilometers.
So, I was super happy when we finally arrived in Trujillo. For some time we've been planning to stop somewhere for a while to give ourselves a break from biking and to get to know a community a bit better. A while back I had picked out Trujillo as a strong stopping point candidate. It's a big city (750,000) with modern appeals such as a movie theatre, grocery stores, a shopping center, etc.; it is the cultural center of the north with many museums, nearby ruins, and colonial history; it is a warm city near the ocean and surrounded by desert (which reminds me of Phoenix); and it has an abundance of English schools. You see, I've been planning on getting a bit of English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching experience on this trip because I've been toying with the idea of switching the focus of my studies. All of these things made Trujillo our most likely stopping point, even before we arrived.
Luckily, we liked it once we got here.
We arrived on Monday, December 17th, and we've been staying in La Casa de Ciclistas for the last several days. This house is the stopping point for anyone biking in South America. Mike and I are bikers #905 and 906 to have signed the guest book. Lucho and his family have long been letting bikers crash at their place in exchange for only a small donation. I'll let you check out the web site linked above if you want more info. It's a pretty sweet deal, and we're grateful for their hospitality.
While we've been camped out there, we've been busy seeking more permanent quarters in the area. (By permanent, I mean that we would like to stay in an apartment or casa for 1-3 months.) We still don't have a place, but we do have a few possibilities lined up now.
I have also found an organization where I plan to volunteer teaching ESL. The school is called Espaanglisch and offers very cheap classes ($6-12 a month) to poor students in the area. Most of the students want to learn English so that they can get jobs in the local tourist industry or on cruise ships. I will be teaching two 90-minute classes 4 days a week in the evenings. Each class lasts one month, and if all goes well the first month, I may stick around for another. Teaching 4 days a week in the evenings will leave plenty of time for sightseeing in the area, too. I'm excited about volunteering; it should be very interesting to get to know the community and to get some practice in a real ESL environment. In exchange for volunteering, David, the founder of Espaanglisch, will give us some Spanish lessons. He's also helping us find an affordable place to stay in the area. Now we just have to get Mike back on track with the computer situation.
Well, that's really all the news I have for now, but I may soon be able to share a temporary address and other fun info with you. Hopefully we'll get some pictures of Trujillo up as well; the Christmas decorations around the main Plaza de Armas are really nice and the city is beautiful.
We have invites to spend Christmas with Lucho and his family or David and his, but we're thinking about maybe just staying at a nice hotel for the evening to celebrate with just the two of us. We'll see.
At any rate, we'll be missing everyone back home! I hope you all have a great Christmas! We love you!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Forgotten Details
Mike was disappointed that I had forgotten some crucial details in my last post, so I am going to rectify those omissions now.
First of all, he wanted to be sure that I tell you how he successfully bribed the Peruvian border authorities. You see, the border between Ecuador and Peru is a little screwy. We had to get our exit stamps 3 kilometers before we crossed into Peru. Since it was late in the afternoon when we did so, we found a hotel in Huaquillas, which is a town in "No Man's Land" on the Ecuadorian side of the border. The next day we crossed into Peru and had to bike another 4 kilometers before reaching the entry station. When we got there, the authorities were paying enough attention that they caught the date on our exit stamps. Obviously, it was for the previous day. Now clearly we weren't keen on biking an extra 14 kilometers back and forth to rectify the situation, so Mike convinced the border officials that "$10 says we have the correct stamps." A small price to pay to avoid some serious hassle.
I forgot to mention our disgusting lunch that we had one day, also. Since we're so close to the ocean, seafood is big here. I'd been having good luck with trying new seafood dishes that I liked, so it's not too strange that I agreed to share a dish with Mike, despite the fact that we didn't know what we were ordering. Big mistake. The calamari was almost tolerable (even though it was really rubbery), but the small octopi were just more than I could handle. Our rice-based dish was covered with at least 20 small purple octopi, completely intact with mini suction cups and everything. I ate a couple of legs (mixed in with some onions and a lot of rice), but I couldn't bring myself to skewer an entire octopus and shove it down my gullet. Nasty. Mike bravely cleared the plate with little help from me.
Anyways... after staying in Mancora (surfer's paradise, remember?) one more day so that we could chill on the beach and read our books, we set off on our bikes again. Shockingly our map turned out to be inaccurate and we fell short of our goal town for the day. It later turned out to be about 20 kilometers farther than we thought. We camped out for the night in a nice sandy spot off the road, but neither of us slept well. This may have been due to a continuation of the strong winds that had plagued us during our day of biking (head on, of course). When we woke up (well, got up...I never really slept) to that same wind, we slowly pedaled our way to Talara, the town we had intended to reach the previous night. I was completely drained when we got there, and I managed to convince Mike that we should just take a bus to Piura. I'm glad we did. If we hadn't we would have been biking that entire day in headwinds and heat. I'm tired of biking so much.
So, now we're in Piura, which is a pretty nice town. We caught up on sleep, I worked on some end-of-semester grading, and we went to the movies. (We saw Knocked Up, which cost us $4 total. Earlier I had gone to purchase a Time magazine only to find that it cost $8.30. Like Hell I'm gonna pay that!) Tomorrow we move on, ever closer to Trujillo, where we plan to stop for a while.
Mike has finally managed to upload a few pictures so that I can post them. He wants you to know that he has been unable to edit them whatsoever and that you should not judge these as representative of his photography skills.
This is a picture of those cuties we stayed with in El Cambio. the picture was taken during our outing to Machala. Angie (6) is on the left and Samantha (12) is on the right.
Angie drew this wonderful picture of us with our bikes on a napkin. I still have it and use it as a bookmark.
I didn't really know what to make of this disturbing mural near the Ecuadorian border, especially since it was across the road from a bunch of uniform huts...
My sand-writing has carried over into a new country...
This is a lovely statue that was situated near our hotel in Tumbes.
This church is also in Tumbes. During our television interview, I listed it as one of the things I liked about the town. It's very happy-looking, but it kind of smells like pee. In fact, we've noticed that everything smells like pee lately. Gross.
We passed several neat boat building projects along the coast of Peru.
The beach in Mancora had more than just surfers and tourists -- there were horses, too!
Here's one of those surfers, though.
And here's one in action...sort of. There were a couple of people with skills, but most of the surfers were beginners geting lessons. No, Mike and I didn't participate. We have yet to acquire surfing skills. Maybe someday.
Okay, that's all I got for now. Carry on.
First of all, he wanted to be sure that I tell you how he successfully bribed the Peruvian border authorities. You see, the border between Ecuador and Peru is a little screwy. We had to get our exit stamps 3 kilometers before we crossed into Peru. Since it was late in the afternoon when we did so, we found a hotel in Huaquillas, which is a town in "No Man's Land" on the Ecuadorian side of the border. The next day we crossed into Peru and had to bike another 4 kilometers before reaching the entry station. When we got there, the authorities were paying enough attention that they caught the date on our exit stamps. Obviously, it was for the previous day. Now clearly we weren't keen on biking an extra 14 kilometers back and forth to rectify the situation, so Mike convinced the border officials that "$10 says we have the correct stamps." A small price to pay to avoid some serious hassle.
I forgot to mention our disgusting lunch that we had one day, also. Since we're so close to the ocean, seafood is big here. I'd been having good luck with trying new seafood dishes that I liked, so it's not too strange that I agreed to share a dish with Mike, despite the fact that we didn't know what we were ordering. Big mistake. The calamari was almost tolerable (even though it was really rubbery), but the small octopi were just more than I could handle. Our rice-based dish was covered with at least 20 small purple octopi, completely intact with mini suction cups and everything. I ate a couple of legs (mixed in with some onions and a lot of rice), but I couldn't bring myself to skewer an entire octopus and shove it down my gullet. Nasty. Mike bravely cleared the plate with little help from me.
Anyways... after staying in Mancora (surfer's paradise, remember?) one more day so that we could chill on the beach and read our books, we set off on our bikes again. Shockingly our map turned out to be inaccurate and we fell short of our goal town for the day. It later turned out to be about 20 kilometers farther than we thought. We camped out for the night in a nice sandy spot off the road, but neither of us slept well. This may have been due to a continuation of the strong winds that had plagued us during our day of biking (head on, of course). When we woke up (well, got up...I never really slept) to that same wind, we slowly pedaled our way to Talara, the town we had intended to reach the previous night. I was completely drained when we got there, and I managed to convince Mike that we should just take a bus to Piura. I'm glad we did. If we hadn't we would have been biking that entire day in headwinds and heat. I'm tired of biking so much.
So, now we're in Piura, which is a pretty nice town. We caught up on sleep, I worked on some end-of-semester grading, and we went to the movies. (We saw Knocked Up, which cost us $4 total. Earlier I had gone to purchase a Time magazine only to find that it cost $8.30. Like Hell I'm gonna pay that!) Tomorrow we move on, ever closer to Trujillo, where we plan to stop for a while.
Mike has finally managed to upload a few pictures so that I can post them. He wants you to know that he has been unable to edit them whatsoever and that you should not judge these as representative of his photography skills.
This is a picture of those cuties we stayed with in El Cambio. the picture was taken during our outing to Machala. Angie (6) is on the left and Samantha (12) is on the right.
Angie drew this wonderful picture of us with our bikes on a napkin. I still have it and use it as a bookmark.
I didn't really know what to make of this disturbing mural near the Ecuadorian border, especially since it was across the road from a bunch of uniform huts...
My sand-writing has carried over into a new country...
This is a lovely statue that was situated near our hotel in Tumbes.
This church is also in Tumbes. During our television interview, I listed it as one of the things I liked about the town. It's very happy-looking, but it kind of smells like pee. In fact, we've noticed that everything smells like pee lately. Gross.
We passed several neat boat building projects along the coast of Peru.
The beach in Mancora had more than just surfers and tourists -- there were horses, too!
Here's one of those surfers, though.
And here's one in action...sort of. There were a couple of people with skills, but most of the surfers were beginners geting lessons. No, Mike and I didn't participate. We have yet to acquire surfing skills. Maybe someday.
Okay, that's all I got for now. Carry on.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Famous!
The other day Mike and I were interviewed in Tumbes, Peru. Being the gringos that we are, the local newsreporter had no trouble picking us out of a crowd in the town square of Tumbes. Since we had our bikes all packed up and ready to go for the day we were even more conspicuous. Obviously, if you encounter a couple of gringos on bikes it's newsworthy. So what if they can't speak Spanish worth a damn? Mind you this was a television reporter, not a newspaper journalist. Before we knew it, we had a camera and a microphone in our faces. Luckily, someone volunteered to translate so that we wouldn't look like complete jackasses butchering the Spanish language on TV. We offered up our Spanglish interview about where we'd been and where we were going as a crowd gathered around us. All in all, it was an amusing experience. As thanks, the reporter told us the name of a hotel on our way and said that we could stay there for free that night. Unfortunately, the hotel appeared well before our destination town and we just weren't ready to stop. Can you believe we passed up such an offer?
We ended up camping at this pretty cool eco-hostal a little farther down the road instead. The whole place is decorated with driftwood, seashells, rocks, and bamboo. It looks very natural and artsy, though the owner is obviously still working on the place. Another plus is that it is situated directly on a lovely beach on the Pacific. To top things off, it reminded me of my Aunt Kitty's ranch in California because a) there were dogs everywhere (peruvian hairless dogs), and b) all the shower and sink water is recycled to support the plant life on the property. It would be great to own such a beauiful chunk of land right on the ocean!
Tonight we are hanging out in Mancora, the most touristy place we've been since the Galapagos. This is the spot for surfers in Peru, so we've seen a lot of gringos with dreadlocks or bleach-blonde hair. On our way here we thought we had hit a time/space warp because the landscape looks so much like the Arizona desert. Of course, this was only during the middle part of the day. On both ends we were traveling on flat pavement along the winding coast with views of the ocean and the beaches on our right and of the mountains on our left.
And so, we continue south for now. Sadly, we will be without pictures for a while (unless I find some past pictures that I never posted to include), but you can still check back for fun updates and polls. I'll try to think of a new trivia qustion for next time...
Here's a very basic map of Peru. We're in the northwest corner right now. As you can tell by the labeled cities on the map, most tourists come to Peru to witness the Inca glory of Machu Picchu, experience the Sacred Valley of Cuzco, and/or visit the fantastically named Lake Titicaca (which are all things that we plan to do as well). Even the travelers who move through South America often take a bus or a plane from Lima to Guayaquil or Quito. For a better idea of where we are, you can check the "Travel Map" link to the left.
Okay, that's all I have for now...
We ended up camping at this pretty cool eco-hostal a little farther down the road instead. The whole place is decorated with driftwood, seashells, rocks, and bamboo. It looks very natural and artsy, though the owner is obviously still working on the place. Another plus is that it is situated directly on a lovely beach on the Pacific. To top things off, it reminded me of my Aunt Kitty's ranch in California because a) there were dogs everywhere (peruvian hairless dogs), and b) all the shower and sink water is recycled to support the plant life on the property. It would be great to own such a beauiful chunk of land right on the ocean!
Tonight we are hanging out in Mancora, the most touristy place we've been since the Galapagos. This is the spot for surfers in Peru, so we've seen a lot of gringos with dreadlocks or bleach-blonde hair. On our way here we thought we had hit a time/space warp because the landscape looks so much like the Arizona desert. Of course, this was only during the middle part of the day. On both ends we were traveling on flat pavement along the winding coast with views of the ocean and the beaches on our right and of the mountains on our left.
And so, we continue south for now. Sadly, we will be without pictures for a while (unless I find some past pictures that I never posted to include), but you can still check back for fun updates and polls. I'll try to think of a new trivia qustion for next time...
Here's a very basic map of Peru. We're in the northwest corner right now. As you can tell by the labeled cities on the map, most tourists come to Peru to witness the Inca glory of Machu Picchu, experience the Sacred Valley of Cuzco, and/or visit the fantastically named Lake Titicaca (which are all things that we plan to do as well). Even the travelers who move through South America often take a bus or a plane from Lima to Guayaquil or Quito. For a better idea of where we are, you can check the "Travel Map" link to the left.
Okay, that's all I have for now...
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Marine Iguanas
So, the latest with the computer is that it is still seriously screwed up. This is especially sad for Mike. We did loose some Galapagos pictures (about 1000, in fact), but the pics of the boobies (from our last day) were still on the camera. You'll get to see them eventually, but the files are too big to transfer directly from the camera to the blog; therefore, you'll have to wait until we get a decent photo editing program running again. It could be a while.
In the meantime, we've crossed yet another border and are finally in Peru! Today is our first day here, and as Mike says, "some things are the same and some things are different." I'm sure we have yet to discover the extent of the truth behind that statement.
We had some good fortune on our way to Peru, as we were taken in by a wonderful family for a comfortable night's stay in El Cambio. We had biked a longish day into the town of El Guabo where we were going to spend the night. As I went to ask someone where the nearest hotel was, Dario found Mike and struck up a conversation. He and his family had recently (within the year) returned to Ecuador after living in Harrison, New Jersey for 9 years. Before I knew what was happening, we were being invited back to his house for the evening. We met his wife, Perla, then got directions to their town, El Cambio, 10 kilometers away.
Dario and Perla have a very nice home and three wonderful children. The whole family speaks excellent English (not surprisingly, since they lived in the States so long. Daniel is the oldest at 15, and he graciously sacrificed his bed so that Mike and I would have a place to sleep for the night. Samantha is 12; she introduced me to a delicious candy called a "Bon o Bon." She seems to miss the States a bit, so it was very interesting talking to her about cultural differences. The youngest child, Angie, was born in the States since she is only 6 years old. She took an instant liking to me, and we became "best friends" almost immediately. She drew a picture of Mike and me along with our bikes, which I may try to post a photo of later.
We ate a delicious dinner with the family, then headed to the nearby city of Machala for a bit of quick sight-seeing. It was very nice. Dario and Perla were so hospitable. They told us that we were welcome to stay for a few more days, but we were anxious to get to Peru.
So here we are. We spent a month and a half in Ecuador, but according to Mike's notes we only biked 18 of those days. That amounts to a lot of lounging around and only a few hundred miles. Everything was wonderful and exciting and interesting. If you ever get the chance to visit Ecuador, or even just the Galapagos in particular, I hope you take it. Amazing.
Now, here are some of those marine iguanas I promised you ages ago:
Marine iguanas are ugly beasts, but they were a huge highlight for me. Most of them are about 3 feet long, with their tails comprising half that length. I never thought I would see a 3 foot iguana swimming underwater, but that's what they do in the Galapagos. They will dive right in while you are snorkeling near the coast. They eat the algae off the rocks, and sometimes the best stuff is below the tide. As a result, you can see them gripping the rocks under the water and gnawing away like there's no tomorrow. It's so funny to watch!
Most of the marine iguanas are black so that they blend in with the lava rocks they live on (and they sure do blend! If you're not paying attention and they're not moving, it would be easy to step on one). This big guy is kind of colorful though.
Here's a better example of how they blend into the scenery. They also tend to pile on top of each other. The one of the left is maybe getting a little too friendly with that butt-pat.
Here's a close-up of one iguana's hand. They have very strong claws so that they can grip those slippery rocks under the water even when the waves are crashing right overhead.
He looks so ancient! Like a grumpy old dinosaur.
This bugger just looks pooped!
Don't these two look adorable? They're just hugging and looking out over the ocean. Awww...
I like the perspective in this photo.
Mike is submitting this as his "Loch Ness Monster" photo.
"Mmmm! Algae!"
"Outta my way!"
The Mt. Rushmore of marine iguanas!
Marine iguanas are really easy to follow because they leave very distinctive tracks. Their tails drag heavily across the sand and their claws leave little prints alongside.
Here are a few oddball lizards to finish off the post:
This is a lava lizard. They are much smaller than marine iguanas, as most are only about 4-6 inches long. They have nicely colored under-bellies though.
This is the land iguana, a close relative of the marine iguana. We only saw a few, and they're not as funny or exciting (since they don't go diving), but they're constantly grinning.
Okay, this might be it for animals for a while. I'll eventually show you some boobies and what-not, but I don't know when that will be. I'll be posting about our Peru adventures though.
Oh! I almost forgot about the poll. Mike took 1966 pictures during our 4-day Galapagos cruise. We ended up with far more pictures than that though since we stayed on the islands for a week and a half. Even after we lost 1000 pictures we still made out pretty well, I think.
In the meantime, we've crossed yet another border and are finally in Peru! Today is our first day here, and as Mike says, "some things are the same and some things are different." I'm sure we have yet to discover the extent of the truth behind that statement.
We had some good fortune on our way to Peru, as we were taken in by a wonderful family for a comfortable night's stay in El Cambio. We had biked a longish day into the town of El Guabo where we were going to spend the night. As I went to ask someone where the nearest hotel was, Dario found Mike and struck up a conversation. He and his family had recently (within the year) returned to Ecuador after living in Harrison, New Jersey for 9 years. Before I knew what was happening, we were being invited back to his house for the evening. We met his wife, Perla, then got directions to their town, El Cambio, 10 kilometers away.
Dario and Perla have a very nice home and three wonderful children. The whole family speaks excellent English (not surprisingly, since they lived in the States so long. Daniel is the oldest at 15, and he graciously sacrificed his bed so that Mike and I would have a place to sleep for the night. Samantha is 12; she introduced me to a delicious candy called a "Bon o Bon." She seems to miss the States a bit, so it was very interesting talking to her about cultural differences. The youngest child, Angie, was born in the States since she is only 6 years old. She took an instant liking to me, and we became "best friends" almost immediately. She drew a picture of Mike and me along with our bikes, which I may try to post a photo of later.
We ate a delicious dinner with the family, then headed to the nearby city of Machala for a bit of quick sight-seeing. It was very nice. Dario and Perla were so hospitable. They told us that we were welcome to stay for a few more days, but we were anxious to get to Peru.
So here we are. We spent a month and a half in Ecuador, but according to Mike's notes we only biked 18 of those days. That amounts to a lot of lounging around and only a few hundred miles. Everything was wonderful and exciting and interesting. If you ever get the chance to visit Ecuador, or even just the Galapagos in particular, I hope you take it. Amazing.
Now, here are some of those marine iguanas I promised you ages ago:
Marine iguanas are ugly beasts, but they were a huge highlight for me. Most of them are about 3 feet long, with their tails comprising half that length. I never thought I would see a 3 foot iguana swimming underwater, but that's what they do in the Galapagos. They will dive right in while you are snorkeling near the coast. They eat the algae off the rocks, and sometimes the best stuff is below the tide. As a result, you can see them gripping the rocks under the water and gnawing away like there's no tomorrow. It's so funny to watch!
Most of the marine iguanas are black so that they blend in with the lava rocks they live on (and they sure do blend! If you're not paying attention and they're not moving, it would be easy to step on one). This big guy is kind of colorful though.
Here's a better example of how they blend into the scenery. They also tend to pile on top of each other. The one of the left is maybe getting a little too friendly with that butt-pat.
Here's a close-up of one iguana's hand. They have very strong claws so that they can grip those slippery rocks under the water even when the waves are crashing right overhead.
He looks so ancient! Like a grumpy old dinosaur.
This bugger just looks pooped!
Don't these two look adorable? They're just hugging and looking out over the ocean. Awww...
I like the perspective in this photo.
Mike is submitting this as his "Loch Ness Monster" photo.
"Mmmm! Algae!"
"Outta my way!"
The Mt. Rushmore of marine iguanas!
Marine iguanas are really easy to follow because they leave very distinctive tracks. Their tails drag heavily across the sand and their claws leave little prints alongside.
Here are a few oddball lizards to finish off the post:
This is a lava lizard. They are much smaller than marine iguanas, as most are only about 4-6 inches long. They have nicely colored under-bellies though.
This is the land iguana, a close relative of the marine iguana. We only saw a few, and they're not as funny or exciting (since they don't go diving), but they're constantly grinning.
Okay, this might be it for animals for a while. I'll eventually show you some boobies and what-not, but I don't know when that will be. I'll be posting about our Peru adventures though.
Oh! I almost forgot about the poll. Mike took 1966 pictures during our 4-day Galapagos cruise. We ended up with far more pictures than that though since we stayed on the islands for a week and a half. Even after we lost 1000 pictures we still made out pretty well, I think.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Sally Lightfoot Crabs
Well, tragedy struck yesterday: our computer crashed. Big time. Something about our hard-drive is seriously screwed up. Mike is in the process of trying to recover lost data, but we're not sure how much of it he'll be able to restore. Luckily, he's been backing up his photos on his iPod pretty regularly. We may have lost a few, but I guess that gives us an excuse to go back to the Galapagos... I save all of my work on my jump drive, so no problems there, except that Word is kind of defunct now. I just have to come up with a less-flashy way of commenting on my students' papers for the last assignment of the semester. I also saved most of the pictures I intended to put on the blog, so I'll continue posting animal pictures. We might be short a few boobies, though, unless Mike still has them on his camera. Most of our programs are gone, which will make life kind of difficult for Mike in the next couple of weeks. He won't be able to work on editing and uploading pictures much. We may still be able to fix things, but if not we'll be settling in Trujillo for a while in a couple of weeks and we can get things sorted then. *Sigh*
On the upside, we're on the road (and our bikes) again. We flew back to Guayaquil from the Galapagos on Thursday and stayed with Denis and his Aunt and Uncle for two more nights. They were so good to us! Tonight we're in a town called Virgen de Fatima, and it should only be about 3 more days until we cross the border into Peru.
Just in case he can recover his marine iguana and booby pics in the next day or so, Mike asked me to showcase crabs in the meantime. Now, I know crabs don't sound exciting, but the Sally Lightfoot Crab is a gorgeous creature. Take a look:
These crabs are so brightly colored with reds, oranges, and yellows. And to top things off (or bottom them out), their underbellies are often a brilliant greenish blue or turquoise.
These two Sallies are hanging out in a shallow tide pool.
I just love how the crabs look against the background of black rocks and bright green algae.
To be honest, we're not really sure what's going on here. Are they getting it on? I don't think so, because I'm pretty sure the bottom one is dead. Is the one on top eating the one on bottom? Or is the bottom maybe his previous shell?
The crabs were very obvious when they covered the black rocks on the beaches, but they also found their way onto docks and boats and ropes.
Since this is a short post, I flesh it out a bit more with a few random pics that don't fit in with the animals...
You probably can't read this man's nametag unless you click on the picture to enlarge it. It reads "Tripod Sherpa." That's right, this man came with one of the big expensive boats, and his job was to carry tripods for the zealous snap-happy tourists. I think I should get a nametag since I'm always carrying the backpack with all of Mike's lenses in it.
This is a panoramic photo of the view from Bartolome island. I tried to upload it earlier, but the connection was too slow. You'll be able to see it better if you click on it. Mike used a program that puts panoramas together for you, automatically. It's not as perfect as it would have been had he done it himself, but it took about a sixteenth of the time.
...just in case you forgot where all of these pictures were taken. :) I did a lot of sand writing so that Mike would have some good photos to sell online. Words like Relax, S.O.S., and Sand were featured. Hopefully he'll be able to sell some of them if they survived the computer crash.
The end...for now. Happy December!
P.S. I'm convinced that this entire country is nearly deaf. Soon I will be too. They crank the volume on their TVs and radios so that you can hear every word 6 blocks away. The people outside of our hotel rooms shout back and forth at each other at 6:30 in the morning. I wear my earplugs to sleep more often than not anymore. Right now I am sitting in an Internet cafe next to someone who is playing his music so loud that I am getting a headache. And to top it off he's singing too. What ever happened to using headphones in public places? Asshole.
On the upside, we're on the road (and our bikes) again. We flew back to Guayaquil from the Galapagos on Thursday and stayed with Denis and his Aunt and Uncle for two more nights. They were so good to us! Tonight we're in a town called Virgen de Fatima, and it should only be about 3 more days until we cross the border into Peru.
Just in case he can recover his marine iguana and booby pics in the next day or so, Mike asked me to showcase crabs in the meantime. Now, I know crabs don't sound exciting, but the Sally Lightfoot Crab is a gorgeous creature. Take a look:
These crabs are so brightly colored with reds, oranges, and yellows. And to top things off (or bottom them out), their underbellies are often a brilliant greenish blue or turquoise.
These two Sallies are hanging out in a shallow tide pool.
I just love how the crabs look against the background of black rocks and bright green algae.
To be honest, we're not really sure what's going on here. Are they getting it on? I don't think so, because I'm pretty sure the bottom one is dead. Is the one on top eating the one on bottom? Or is the bottom maybe his previous shell?
The crabs were very obvious when they covered the black rocks on the beaches, but they also found their way onto docks and boats and ropes.
Since this is a short post, I flesh it out a bit more with a few random pics that don't fit in with the animals...
You probably can't read this man's nametag unless you click on the picture to enlarge it. It reads "Tripod Sherpa." That's right, this man came with one of the big expensive boats, and his job was to carry tripods for the zealous snap-happy tourists. I think I should get a nametag since I'm always carrying the backpack with all of Mike's lenses in it.
This is a panoramic photo of the view from Bartolome island. I tried to upload it earlier, but the connection was too slow. You'll be able to see it better if you click on it. Mike used a program that puts panoramas together for you, automatically. It's not as perfect as it would have been had he done it himself, but it took about a sixteenth of the time.
...just in case you forgot where all of these pictures were taken. :) I did a lot of sand writing so that Mike would have some good photos to sell online. Words like Relax, S.O.S., and Sand were featured. Hopefully he'll be able to sell some of them if they survived the computer crash.
The end...for now. Happy December!
P.S. I'm convinced that this entire country is nearly deaf. Soon I will be too. They crank the volume on their TVs and radios so that you can hear every word 6 blocks away. The people outside of our hotel rooms shout back and forth at each other at 6:30 in the morning. I wear my earplugs to sleep more often than not anymore. Right now I am sitting in an Internet cafe next to someone who is playing his music so loud that I am getting a headache. And to top it off he's singing too. What ever happened to using headphones in public places? Asshole.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
