A few weeks ago my mom, Susan, brother Alex, future
sister-in-law Ria, and nephew Matthew embarked on an amazing adventure to the
Galapagos Islands. My dad, Oscar, travelled with them to Ecaudor but skipped
the Galapagos portion of the trip as he’s not so keen on hiking and swimming. After the Galapagos
adventure, my mom and Matthew took a trip into the Amazon jungle. The holiday
sounds like it was beyond incredible. Below is my mom’s narrative on the trip,
along with some photos from Matthew. Enjoy!
***
Well, I hate to impose a “my trip” story on anyone, but this
really was very special and people keep asking, so here goes.
The take-off point for the Galapagos Islands is Quito,
Ecuador, and Matthew and I, Alex and Ria, arrived there on April 30 in the
early evening and were whisked away to the Sheraton Hotel. (We had really good travel people, which we
appreciated in many different ways.)
Quito, and Ecuador for that matter, turn out to be very
interesting places – our intro to South America. Sister in law Juanita has done much more in
this continent and our appetite has definitely been whetted.
May 1 we were taken on a tour of the country side,
travelling up to Otavalo, the native Indian market, far up in the Andes, and a
lovely resort full of Ecuadorian families enjoying their holiday. Quito too is up in the mountains, so the
weather was cool to cold (well, for Filipinos) and very pleasant. Ecuador is quite an interesting country,
perched on the equator – able to grow anything
(all kinds of fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat, even a burgeoning wine
industry) – the world capital for roses, especially for long stem roses, which
grow straight up towards the sun on the equator. We sampled a few native favorite foods – the delicious
biscocho, loaded with butter, ceviche which is a cold sea food fruit juice
based soup (sounds weird but is good) and many kinds of corn cakes. We decided to forego the ‘delicacy ‘ of
roasted guinea pig, partly out of deference to Matthew’s brother five year old
Josh who has a pet guinea pig.
The next day we did the city tour, and saw all the colonial
houses and churches and public squares.
The Jesuits’ place is all covered in gold leaf – really
magnificent. There are a few boutique
hotels that used to be colonial houses – later I met some people on our boat
who had stayed in one. The government
seems to be at least somewhat socialist, is prioritizing health and education,
and has a lot of oil money to back that up.
(But still, said our guide, no matter what kinds of repro health
services the government offers, they are undermined every Sunday by the priests
in the church.) But the atmosphere
around the squares is very congenial and low key – people just walk and sit
around – security around government buildings is minimal and the whole place
seems very democratic.
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One of the old churches in Quito
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Detail on one of the Jesuit churches
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The next day we took off for the Galapagos, flying to San Cristobal
and being ferried to our boat in little rubber dinghies that became our daily
transportation from boat to islands. We
were on the Legend, a rather big boat for the area (about 70 passengers), but a
good choice I think as there was a great mixture of young and old and a lot of
life on board. Comfortable rooms, very
good food, and even free laundry service.
And lovely snacks waiting for us after each excursion – think
strawberries dipped in chocolate. The
first afternoon we spent a couple of hours in the town, visiting the visitors
center and walking around the shore along the board walk that had nice little
structures with benches and such – and lots of sea lions which pretty much
monopolized the benches! Really funny to
see them lumber up the stairs and fling themselves onto seats, then act
exhausted – and in sharp contrast to how they looked when we watched them later
in the evening from the deck of the boat as they darted around in the water at
the speed of light, fishing. (Evenings
on deck on the boat were always great – we’d watch the sea lions and sharks and
occasional turtles, and frigates plummeting out of the sky to fish – and one
crazy pelican who came several times and sat on the railing of the boat for perhaps
an hour just observing. )
There were swimming days, amidst turtles, sharks, and sting
rays, but visibility wasn’t usually very good and we thought snorkeling in
Palawan much better. I was always trying
to make sure Matthew was safe and felt rather panicky at one point way out in
the water, to find a giant ray swimming around between myself and Mats. Matthew, however, was delighted to see that
critter!
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Relaxing on the boat after a busy day
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| Sea lions! |
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The Galapagos group: Susan, Ria, Matthew and Alex
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There were usually sea lions all over the shore, and our
guide made it clear that male sea lions were definitely to be avoided,
especially if they were trumpeting and charging! One beach where we weren’t allowed to swim
had crystal clear water loaded with rays!
But for me the ultimate wild life experience was provided by
the birds on Punta Suarez – great big fellows who hardly fly and don’t make any
attempt to get out of your sight. Blue
footed boobies (the name comes from ‘bobo’
which the Spaniards called them because they seemed so stupid just fearlessly following
men around.) Their feet are really big
and bright blue, as if they are wearing swim fins. Albatrosses, Cormorants, etc. We watched mating dances up close. And there are just so many of them! The birds share the island with hundreds of
iguanas , Christmas iguanas who are red
and green (really!) and beaded
lizards. These guys just lie
around in the sun – they don’t move for people either!
And then of course we had to see Lonesome George, the last
of his species of giant tortoises, at the Charles Darwin Reseach Center. He is indeed a fine fellow. Someone asked whether he couldn’t be cloned,
and the guide said there was some reason why he could not, but they were saving
‘samples’ so that when the technology was ready, it could be done.
On May 7 we went back to Quito where we met up with Oscar,
who had gotten interested in seeing something of the country even though he
didn’t want to do either the Galapagos or the jungle. So we were five for dinner that night and the
next day Alex and Ria flew to California, and Matthew and I flew to the little
oil town of Coca, from which we took a two hour boat ride down the Napo River,
then walked for about 30 minutes into the forest, then took a final canoe ride
across the lagoon to Sacha Lodge, deep in the Amazon Rain Forest.
The Amazon was ever so much a quieter experience. For the first day we were there, Matthew and
I had our own private guide and naturalist, and as soon as it got dark, we got
back in a canoe and paddled very very quietly around the lagoon and the creeks
and branches of it which surrounded the lodge.
Deep quiet. Fireflies. Then the glowing red eyes of a cayman – which
was apparently huge and to which we got a bit too close, but nothing happened.
(A cayman is a type of crocodile) We
could see fishing bats plunging into the water for their dinner and a few other
pairs of bright eyes darting around in the bushes on shore. The piranha we were told are actually
vegetarians. (Ha! When we went fishing for them, we were given
raw beef to use as bait!)
The lodge was very pleasant with nice well screened rooms,
so we were bug free inside. Food was
good. But socializing was minimal as
people came and went at different times, and we of course were only a group of
two. But the next day we were joined by
two British couples, and when they found out we were from the Philippines, they
said “Oh, we were on a city tour with a Filipino chap just the other day – umm,
Oscar someone . . . “. Of course. They assured me he was doing well and the
guide was impressed with how much history he knew.
So in the jungle you walk around wearing high rubber boots
and watch for birds and red howler monkeys and learn things about the trees –
for instance the Strangler, which starts sort of vining itself around a tree
and grows heavier and taller and eventually kills the tree. And of course medicinal cures. I had something of a cold and wasn’t feeling
so great and had mentioned this to the guide, so when the naturalist explained
that the roots of this one bush were used to cure colds, the guide asked if I
wanted to try, and of course, I rather recklessly agreed. The naturalist took part of the root and
chopped it up – very strong smell of garlic – then wrapped it in a leaf, added
a little water and smushed it around, and then put it directly into each
nostril. This was totally shocking – it
hurt like mad, made my eyes water and my throat constrict, left me thinking I could
not stand up. But the cold was gone!!
There are two places in the Sacha reserve where you can
climb up above the canopy of the forest and see all the birds and monkeys in
the tree tops. The guide sets up a pair
of binoculars on a tripod and is incredible at finding things -- parrots, toucans, all kinds of beautiful
things, bright yellow and red and green.
But they are all far away and not really too big either – makes bird
watching much harder than when these great big boobies and albatrosses are
right in your face! After an hour or so
in the kapok tree, which was one of the look-outs, we took a trail that has a
zip line on it – really more like a
swing to get across a creek.
We took one night walk in the jungle to look at tarantulas,
snakes, scorpions, and other such lovelies.
Oddly, many of these really were beautiful, in glowing colors. Many beetles looked like crystal jewelry and
we found some truly astonishing spider webs.
On our last night in the lodge we asked for another canoe trip and were
again out in the lagoon. At one point
the guide spotted a snake in the trees above our heads, and backed up the canoe
until Matthew and I were directly under the snake and then shined a light on it
for all to see. Before that ride ended,
the sky cleared magnificently and we could see all the stars in the world – the
Big Dipper, the North Star, and the Southern Cross. Incredible!
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| On the boat in the Amazon rain forest |
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| Beautiful lake |
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| Rain forest canopy |
The next day we took a canoe across the lagoon once more,
hiked for thirty minutes through the forest, and took the two hour boat trip up
the Napo River. An hour later we flew
back to Quito, met up with Oscar, who had been enjoying the city, went souvenir
shopping (Matthew is an inspired
shopper!), had an early dinner and slept til 3 a.m. to be ready for a 4 a.m.
pick up to catch our flight to Miami and on to Los Angeles. Uncommon adventure over, but we still had
many more pleasant times before our flight back to Manila. :)
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