Zoos and the animals that are too lazy to escape

We walked a short way out of town to check out the zoo as it was recommended in the guide books, as a very pleasant surprise it’s conditions were better than many first world zoos that we have seen,  most of the enclosures were ample in size.  It was definitely worth a trip as we now know what animals we won’t be seeing when we visit the Amazon.  The enclosures were however, not particularly well sealed. However the animals seemed to be able to escape the enclosures as we saw spider monkeys playing in the trees by the path, a Condor was perched on top of the enclosure whether attracted by the calls of those in the cage or an actual escapee was open to interpretation.  Finally the most obvious was the capybara wandering along the walk way that scampered away when it spotted us.  

Standing on an erupting volcano

Our journey brought us to Banos – literally meaning baths in Spanish due to the large number of thermal springs in the area.  A beautiful area which is dominated by a volcano that has been continually erupting since 1999.  So we decided to take a horse ride up to the volcano.  Not right up to the rim – that’s considered suicidal since the last major eruption in July 2006 – just through some of the villages which were destroyed by said eruption.  It was unfortunately a very cloudy rainy day, so we were only granted occasional glimpses of the spectacular view down the valley and were completely unable to see the volcano above us (although we could hear and feel the eruptions).  Our guide was unworried by these though, telling us “solo pocino”.  The actual horse riding was lots of fun, with the best horses either of us have ever had for a day trip before.  Normally you seem to get old nags that are reluctant to go above a walk and the guides aren’t that keen for you to go fast either.  Not on this trip.  Within 30 seconds of being on the horses we were encouraged to speed up to a canter and throughout the morning we repeatedly galloped along roads and across lava fields.  The horses also actually responded when you used the reins and only a slight squeeze of the legs was needed to get them to go faster. 

The following day from our ride all we could feel where aching bones and bruised backsides so we headed to the thermal baths for the always recommended soothing waters. The water however does not do much for horse riding inflicted aches and pains and so we remained sore.  The baths were nice despite waters so murky that you couldn’t see a hand span deep.  One of the pools was a warm bath while the other hot bath felt like it was suitable for cooking dinner.  Then if you were feeling truly masochistic you could jump under the icy waterfall – we refrained.

Playing with sea lions

Now, we could probably write about 10 posts about the past week that we spent at the Galapagos, but we will try to refrain and stick to the highlights.  It was one of the most amazing experiences ever.  

We had obviously heard a lot about the Galapagos and were looking forward to being so close to wild animals, but we had not heard about the snorkeling.  We swam with penguins, sharks, turtles (both green sea turtles and a hawksbill turtle), but the highlight was the sea lions.  We got to swim with them and play with them and be tickled by their whiskers.  The first time they appeared in the water I got such a fright as they are so fast and come so close to check you out - they appear out of nowhere half the time.  At one point I had four sea lions surrounding me and playing with me, whilst Jason had another one chasing the bubbles of his snorkel and mouthing the end of it.    We would try and show off our underwater acrobatic skills whilst they watched and they would respond with a dazzling display and then stop and look at us as if to say 'well, beat that then'.

On land we saw magnificent frigate birds with their red balloons all puffed up, marine iguanas in all sorts of different sizes and colours, bright yellow land iguanas, blue footed boobies dancing as they courted each other, nazca boobies, beautiful waved albatrosses nursing their eggs and landing with difficulty,  penguins sheltering under cactus trees on the equator and lots more.  Then there was the scenery - volcanoes everywhere you looked.  The galapagos was formed by a hot spot and as the nazca plate that it sits on moves towards the mainland the islands shift over and get lower and newer islands are created.  Shortly before we arrived Fernandina which is directly over the hotspot had erupted (unfortunately we were not able to get over there to see it).   The land is almost all hard lava which plants have managed to find a foothold on.  There are the 'aa' lava flows and the other smooth lava flows with craters in every direction.   

There was the giant tortoise breeding centre with 'lonesome George' who is the last of his species in the world, but does have two girlfriends of a similar species so he's not so lonesome anymore.  The post barrel that was started a couple of hundred years ago where sailors used to leave post and take that labeled wherever they were heading.  Tourists now leave postcards and take others with the idea being that you should hand deliver them.  We have one for someone in Croydon so it will be a very slow postal service that they receive.  

We had decided to splurge on one of the nicer boats as it was having an excellent deal so we spent a week on the very comfortable Nemo II.  On arrival we were greeted with banana milkshakes and garlic bread whilst we got to know the other passengers.  This was to set the tone for the entire week.  Food, food and more food.  Three buffet meals a day with snacks for morning and afternoon tea.   So we had an amazing experience in unparalleled luxury and now have to return to being backpackers worrying about bedbugs and whether this cheap dodgy meal with give us a bout of food poisoning or not.   

I should also quickly mention the people that we shared the trip with.  They were all wonderful (and yes, I gave out the address for the blog)... but really, wonderful people.   They ranged from other backpackers to a couple in their 70s (he had his 79th birthday on the trip) who ran marathons and competed in triathlons.  The crew were also marvellous and made the trip memorable.  Joining in as we followed huge pods of melon-headed whales, pilot whales and dolphins.  

Architecture and the middle of the world

Having made our way to Quito Ecuador we found ourselves with 3 days to amuse ourselves before the Galapagos.  Given our impatience to be on the islands we carefully ensured that we had activities for each day, the first of them being the old town center. 

Quito unlike most of the cities we have traveled has the tourist district in the New town, so we traveled on one of the better public transport systems to the old town and spend the day wandering around the various churches and monasteries of Quito, with a trip to the top of the nearby hill for panoramic views of the city.  For us the highlight was “La Basillica” a beautiful gothic church complete with gargoyles, delicate arches and enormous stained glass windows. We also visited the san Franciscan monastery which was still in use and was more evidence that the San Franciscans endeavored to use more gold and glitz than any other order.

The following day we traveled a longer distance to the “Mitad del Mundo” or the middle of the world, while no Jules Verne trip was to be seen, there was a large monument indicating where the French had calculated the equator to be over two hundred years ago.  At the site we found a number of buildings split between the northern and southern hemispheres, the south consisted of buildings with educational displays of insects, how the equator and the diameter of the earth was calculated and scale models of a number of cities both in Ecuador and the rest of the world. The northern buildings were all tourist shops, with souvenirs, touts, and food.  So naturally once we explored the south we moved on!  Just next door was the Inti nan museum which is located on the true (according to US military GPS) equator and they had more interesting exhibits on the cultures of the tribes of Ecuador.  Exhibits included a shrunken head, various snakes and animals, and traditional buildings.  In addition they demonstrated the properties of the equator – such as water swirling in opposite directions 3m apart and the inability to hold muscles strong standing on the equator - with just a little trickery.

 

Lima

By far and away the most interesting site we saw in Lima was the monastery.  I never knew that they could be so interesting!  Much to our dismay no photos were allowed anywhere within the monastery... this physically hurt when we were in the library.  But let me start at the beginning.  You are given a 'free' tour of the monastery (probably to make sure you stay where you are supposed to and don't take any photos), on our tour were us and a New Zealand guy who had been travelling around South America for 7 months.   The library houses around 24000 books, dating back to the 1100s and it is like every ancient library you have imagined.  In fact we suspect it has been used in a few movies.  The ancient texts, the spiral staircases leading up to the higher shelves, shafts of light coming in through the skylights with dust spiralling and the whole library built out of carved cedar polished till it shone. Ah.... beautiful.  From there we headed through the  elaborately carved chorister section, past paintings, through courtyards until eventually we reached the catacombs, where bones are piled in 4 meter deep pits.  What seemed very odd to us was that the bones were in coffins until the 1950s when they were taken out, according to our guide, to make it into a tourist attraction.  Weird.