• Category Archives Uncategorized
  • Diving in Puerto Ayora

    Because we hadn’t been diving in a while, we started with 2 easy beginner dives in Punta Estrada and Loberia before attempting the stronger currents in the rest of the Galapagos. We saw a number of different fish. Some of the small ones were hanging out in the rocks.

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    The bigger ones were more out in the open. image

    There were many pencil urchins at these sites and something was growing on all the spines. image

    We saw pencil urchins growing inside a clam shell. We saw a number of clam shells but never any live clams.

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    There were several types of starfish. These ones had stubby arms and were a strong yellow with spikes. image

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    Occasionally there were outgrowths on the rocks, some very delicate and white, others grew as these small fans. image

    We saw our very first white tipped reef shark.

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  • Voyage to the Mysterious Islands of the Galapagos

    We have internet for a couple more days after all!

    Today we finished off all of our food products from home. (Thanks again Casey for the candies. I couldn’t finish them all so some were left as gifts to the owners of the hostels).

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    So that we could fly to the Galapagos islands.

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    We landed on Baltra and crossed the canal on the ferry.

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    And arrived at our hostel.

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    Puerto Ayora is a nice town, but very touristy. All of the signs are in English, with very little Spanish. Which is weird, because no one seems to speak English. Including the people that wrote the signs.

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    We walked down to the port.

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    We saw lots of big cactuses.

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    Many of them were flowering.

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    Then we watched a baby sea lion have his dinner.

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    And watched some pelicans wait for their dinner at the fisherman’s pier.

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    Then we had our dinner (also at the fisherman’s pier).

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    The birds wanted our dinner.

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    Can’t wait for SCUBA tomorrow, hopefully we can get some sleep.


  • A Walk in Guayaquil

    Today is likely our last day with internet access for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow we fly on to the Galapagos.

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    But we will post tons of pictures when we get back to civilization.

    Today we wandered through Guayaquil some more. We weren’t having much more luck understanding the art.

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    (Maybe he’s sad because he has bird poop in his eye?)

    The iguanas in the iguana park were numerous as before but a little more active today. 

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    Based on the suggestion from the hostel staff we headed to the other river park.

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    It was very pretty.

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    Kerri chased iguanas and birds and flowers while Matt read.

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    There were several odd flowers which we had not come across before.

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    After stopping at a bridge we noticed a large number of small fish swimming our way. The seemed to be begging for food as they were opening their mouths at the surface despite the lack of anything actually there for them to eat.

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    More iguanas were spotted and needed pictures taken.

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    Some even in the trees. “Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

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    Where’s Waldo?

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    You can’t see me!

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    This tropical kingbird was diving around all over the place.

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    This black bird was just sitting there watching him.

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    Hey, what are you guys up to?

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    Just eating.

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    Actually they were squawking and carrying on so much up there with white fluff scattering in all directions that I thought there was a fight and someone was losing feathers. But it was actually the seeds out of those pods, which were fluttering down.

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    Then this guy took a dive at them, and a huge flock of about 20 of them started flying around squawking.

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    After hanging out in the park for an hour or so we headed back to the hostel for our gourmet meal of kidney bean spaghetti. It was pretty good and we followed it up with a can of pineapple for dessert. Tomorrow is a travel day so we’ll be up early making sure everything is packed for the flight to the Galapagos. As previously mentioned we likely won’t post anything for a week or so but there should be a big dump of posts once we return. Sorry in advance for all the spam to all those that subscribe by email.


  • Adios Montanita!

    Today was a travel day back to Guayaquil on the bus from Montanita. We are back in the locust-plagued hotel. We made it back in time to buy some ingredients for dinner (kidney beans with spaghetti sauce followed by canned pineapple for dessert) and giant carrots.

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  • Lunes en Montanita

    Hoy es el ultimo clase de espanol. Nosotros no podiamos hablar en el tenso pasado. Necesitamos hacer cosas todo el tiempo o no podiamos hablar.

    (Today is the last Spanish class . We we could not speak in the past tense. We need to do things all the time or we could not talk.)

    Nosotros no hacemos mucho este dia porque el tiempo es malo.

    (We do not do much this day because the weather is bad.)

    Estos son cangrejos.

    (These are crabs.)

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    Estas son las casas de Nemo.

    (These are the houses of Nemo.)

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