5-6 to 5-15 Ecuador and Galapagos

We only spent one night in Quito and only had an afternoon to poke around. But it certainly struck us as a more interesting and maintained place than Lima. We both thought that we would like to come back some day, see the sights. Maybe I could get Sue to go on an Amazon tour by boat.

The pictures are all below my description. They are a few of the wildlife we saw. While my description of the trip may make it sound like we were uncomfortable, we actually had a wonderful time. Its all about the wildlife and the geology.

We flew to Baltra,Galapagos and went by ferry and bus to our boat, a Catamaran for 16 passengers. The boat was in the main harbor on Santa Cruz island. The tour group was roughly split between Europeans and US folk: Swiss, Germans, Australians, 2 Brit couples (one consisting of two ladies), some folks from Boston, the W's and us. The method of seeing the Galapagos is for the boat to move between ports, sometimes during the night, often during the day when the ports are close, take a walk after a wet or dry landing (i.e. feet wet or dry after a landing on a beach or a landbar) from the Zodiac boats, then go snorkeling. A return to the boat between the walk and snorkeling might be in the plan. We ate all our meals on the boat - lots of food but nothing extravagant, just good wholesome food. Lots of vegetables, almost no fish, surprisingly. Breakfasts were my favorite. I never found myself looking forward to the meals but, as I say, it was good food.

These boat tours are typically two weeks in length. They visit the Eastern islands and then the Western. Our week took place during the Western island portion. These are the younger islands, more volcanic. It was a good choice. We first visited three ports on our way around Isabela, the largest island. Sue and I did go snorkeling, though we were not very comfortable doing it. There is a lot of wave action and the snorkeling is along cliff faces in most cases. Sometimes we skipped the sessions or got out early. Sue was bothered by the motion and also the lack of boundaries - it was often open water. But we both had bright yellow inflatable vests so no fear of drowning.

Sue's seasickness was with her with a vengeance - the Sea Bands around the wrists that worked OK in Alaska didn't even touch the sensation here. When the boat was in the bays, the waves made it wallow a lot. On some portions of the trip, the seas were very rough. And the small boat just bounced around a lot - the shallow draft allowed them to get closer to shore than larger boats but it also meant the boat really moved around in the water. So Sue spent a lot of time uncomfortable and taking Dramamine. I took it during one or two rough night passages.

From Isabela's west side we toured Fernandina just across the small channel between the two - then up to Santiago (crossing the equator on the way - we actually crossed three times, with the second pair being photo ops and for toasts), to Rapida north of Isabela, and to Sombrero Chino. Next, we went to Bartolome island where there are some classic views typical of Galapagos. Our last morning we went to the N. Seymour island bird areas and got our closest and best views of the roosting Blue-footed Boobies and Frigate Birds. And then it was back to Baltra and the flight home, via stops in Panama and Houston. We missed our connection to DC in Houston (predictable beforehand but not actionable until it happened) and spent the night in a Houston hotel. Made it home mid afternoon on Sunday.

4-28 to 5-5 Peru, Machu Pichu

Our trip to South America started with a flight to Lima, Peru. We stayed two nights in the Marriott in Miraflores before the Adventure Life tour started. We paid for this stay with Marriott points and we also used them for the flight down on Continental. The Wolkerstorfers arrived in the afternoon of the second day. During our stay in Lima, we walked a lot, took a tour of a very old ceremonial site, Huaca Pucllana, took a bus tour out to Pacha Camac, the site of the Oracle, and took a bus tour of the old downtown. Two days was just fine. The society in Lima supports lots of manual laborers working on the streets to keep them clean, lots of security people (and they make a big deal of it), money changers, .... and everyone has a distinctive uniform or colored vest to wear. While the downtown has some really old Spanish buildings, it is all sort of rundown. To make up for that, we were introduced to Pisco Sours, the Peruvian specialty. They were so good and so sneaky! Great fun.

The journey to Machu Pichu started with a flight from Lima to Cusco. Cusco is the central large town in the Inca Highlands where one leaves from to see the sites around it, including Machu Pichu. It is high, at 11,600 ft and both Sue and I felt that altitude. I had a headache, which coca leaves and tea didn't seem to help, and Sue got sick, to the point of nausea.

The theme in the Inca lands is that the Incas were a great engineering society, that conquered neighboring peoples in the 1400-1700 period, and conscripted them (temporary service, not slavery apparently) to build the massive compounds, terraces, buildings, temples and such, for which the Inca are known. The key feature of the construction is the smoothness of the walls and the close fit of the huge blocks of stone - all done with crude hand tools. Below is a picture of the "12-angle" stone, a sort of archetype of the craft. Also below are corner stones smoothed to round the corner.

The Spanish came in and took all that apart, disassembling anything Inca and using the materials to build cathedrals and towns. In many places, all that remains of the Inca influence is the foundations. (See the Spanish balconies on the houses built on Incan foundations.) That is why Machu Pichu is so special - the Spanish didn't get there. In fact the Incas seemed to abandon it while it was still in construction - perhaps to not draw attention to it.

So we toured Cusco - it really is a tourist trap. Good things to see but one is almost always falling over someone selling some trashy tourist goo-gah. Most of the vendors are not obnoxious, just ubiquitous.

On the way to the train terminal, Ollaytatamba, we went through Chinchero, a village full of weaving tourist traps and vendors. A picture of a person costs 1 Sole (.30). This was where Sue got ill again. She had been sick back in Cusco that morning and Chinchero was at 12,500 feet. She looked pretty weak and I thought her lips were turning blue. But after getting sick she seemed to perk up and we went down in altitude after that by 3000 feet, so she was much better.

I wished we had more time at Ollaytatamba, an Incan fortification built on a mountainside at the head of the Sacred Valley. It was our first opportunity to see the massive Incan structures with the amazingly smooth and precise stonework (I hope you can see the extremely fine and sharp edges in the bathing fountain photo - with stone tools!), as well as their well developed construction skills and organization. Also here, we visited a very, very rustic house - dirt floors, stone walls, original Incan construction - but still a residence, with a gaggle of Guinea Pigs running around loose inside. GP is a delicacy in Peru - the restaurants charge $60 and up for a meal - and the reviews say it is an "acquired taste", to put it mildly. We didn't have any.

From there, we left the next day to the Machu Pichu pueblo at the foot of the mountain the site is on. These mountains are just straight up, towering thousands of feet over the valleys. And there are terraces everywhere on the sides of these mountains, used for agriculture. People would go up in Spring, plant and then return to harvest. It was a huge hike to get to some of them - our guide Alex said that with a mouthful of coca leaf the natives could climb straight up for day without food and water - maybe a bit of exaggeration - but folks here put great store in the coca leaf. (Wikipedia: "When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue.")

Our group of 8 fissioned with half getting off the train to hike to the top and the W's and us riding to the pueblo. So we and the W's got the MP tour in the morning. Alex walked us around the site (MUST be accompanied at all times by a guide). Took bazillion pictures. A really good day to do it - not too sunny but not cloudy, not hot either. Lots of llamas and even chinchillas. We were left to our devices in the PM so Sue, I and Don walked up to the SunGate on the ridge overlooking MP - a good walk, not too hard. We saw the other 4 folks coming down after their hike - as one guy said, "It was sporty." A very steep long climb I take it.

We poked around MP pueblo the next morning - saw the street parades for the various Church groups celebrating the Feast of Three Crosses - this feast goes on all week and we had been hearing fireworks at night ever since we got to Cusco. Costumed dancers and bands processed to the town church and had a ceremony - great photo Op and not touristy.

We returned to Cusco and visited the massive ruin outside of town, Saqsayhuaman. Huge stones in this fort where the final battles with the Spanish took place. That night we went for desert to a fancy restaurant that was deserted but for us. There was a group of four young people doing native dances and for the last one, we got "convinced" to dance with them. Great fun. Next day we headed to Ecuador and the next part of our journey - Galapagos.

4-27-2011 Off we go

We off on our Bucket List trip - Machu Pichu and Galapagos, before we are to old to do them. Flying to Lima, Peru and staying two nights in a Marriott - using points for the air fare and the hotel. Two nights becasue that got us the flights we wanted. We will meet the Wolkerstorfers in Lima the day before our Adventure Life tour begins. We have been planning this trip for over a year!

4-24-2011 Easter

If we were staying back here, we might have a tradition of having the Sharkeys over for Easter Brunch - or maybe an alternating plan. It is great fun to have them visit and Matt McElwee came along, just like last time. Matt brought the Mimosa fixings - and they were very good. Deb brought goodies, Sue cooked great food - it was a real fun time.

We went for a walk after stuffing ourselves. The weather is warm, if not "hot". And the humidity is back. Yesterday started out grey and cold, but humid. Sun came out and one could feel the water in the air. Here we go.....

4-16-2011 What we don't like about DC

It's a rainy weekend - doesn't seem like a good time for a trip or an outing. And we just don't feel like traveling much. So, we think, why don't we just hop on down to Potomac Mills to do some shopping and malling and so on. On the way we can drop off some old clothes at the St. Vincent de Paul store. And of course we are going to go down the Old Jefferson Highway, not I-95, which is always a mess and crowded and horrible. So off we went - Ohhhhh, the traffic! Even on Hwgy 1. Arggggg. Bumper to bumper. It took us 3 1/2 hours to go maybe 30 miles. THAT's what we DO NOT LIKE about DC. Well, it turns out that this weekend was the start of Spring Break for all the schools, so everybody was headed out of town. When we went back home, it took us like 20 minutes and all the Southbound roads were still cloged.

We went to the NSO Pops tonight, part of the series of tickets I had bought. We saw Pink Martini, a Portland band with a very "world music" sound. Very good show, we really enjoyed it.

4-9-2011 Cherry Blossom Parade, Renwick

We skipped the Cherry Blossom parade last year. Our experience with parades in DC has been dismal but we thought let's do one last try. So we took the Metro downtown on a grey morning, not too cold, actually comfortable, just not sunny. The parade was really pretty good - lots of marching bands. And it was the first parade we had seen where there were military marching units from all the services - that was unique. The Marine Band was just awesome in the marching precision with which they trooped down the street. Some excitement during the parade - a little truck pulling one float caught fire and the parade stopped as the emergency vehicles drove down the street to get to the fire. Towards the end we walked along with some bands to hear them more.

Afterwards we went to the Renwick to see a new exhibit there on wooden furniture.