Last day in Ecuador - wandering around Quito

Quito, Ecuador - Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th May 2013

Although there is a walking tour route for Quito in the Lonely Planet Guide, we spent the evening of the Wednesday night walking around the city centre in the company of our guide, Xavier, before returning to explore on our own the following day.

The picturesque city centre is dominated by Spanish colonial architecture and surrounded by hillsides where the greenery is giving way to precariously perched housing. The whole town is surmounted by a gigantic winged statue of the Virgin Mary, which disappears into the cloud cover every now and again, then suddenly looms large as the mists clear.

There are also a number of beautiful churches in the centre, including the gold-bedecked Church of the Company of Jesus, where we encountered a French orchestra practising Beethoven and a graphic painting of the torments that sinners can expect in Hell (much fire breathing on the genitals, apparently).

More down-to-earth were the many shoe-shiners doing steady business around the sides of the Grande Plaza and the irresistible sweet shops, with tinselled pinatas hanging from the ceiling and baskets of sweets and toys promising the best childrens' birthday parties ever.

All too soon it was time to leave Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands behind us. Whilst this wasn't a walking holiday in the true sense, we walked along interesting trails amongst unique wildlife and comfortable streets in a friendly and bustling capital city - a trip that got better and better as the days progressed and which will stay in the mind for years to come. 

Galapablog Day 6: Santa Cruz

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - Santa Cruz, Tuesday May 14th and morning of Wednesday May 15th

Santa Cruz is our fourth and final Galapagos Island (assuming you don't count the airport island of Baltra, which is just a short ferry ride away). This is the real heart of the Galapagos, with the largest population, the busiest harbour and a great mural depicting the history of the islands, incorporating pirates, Charles Darwin (and a Darwin finch), the Bishop of Panama (who discovered the islands) and modern-day tourists.

Whilst we have seen occasional giant tortoises by the roadside in Isabela, Santa Cruz gives us many more opportunities to see them roaming around in the wild, wandering through the woods and beside a lake bursting with pink algae.

We leave the tortoises behind for more kayakking from Garrapaterro beach, during the course of which we see turtles and their nests on the beach, a solitary marine iguana crossing another deserted beach, various turtles poking their heads above the waves and a variety of birds soaring overhead and alongside the kayak, including some very pterodactyl-esque pelicans. Our barbecue lunch at the Garrapaterro campsite also attracts a few Galapagos gulls, eager for scraps - the only grey gulls in the world.

Our final hours on Santa Cruz are spent walking around the Charles Darwin Research Centre - a sprawling research centre, which incorporates another giant tortoise breeding programme and marine iguana pens, as well as the former corral of celebrity tortoise/ conservation symbol Lonesome George, who has been usurped post-mortem by a more virile male tortoise called Diego, apparently on a one-tortoise crusade to maintain the species by energetically mating with as many females as possible. The frenzy of feeding giant tortoises clambering over each other (complete with loud clacking noises) to reach the tastiest food has to be seen and heard to be believed. 

Galapablog Day 5: Isabela

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - Isabela, Monday May 13th

The longest walk of the trip sees us walking along a pleasant grassy track in the atmospheric early morning mist on the side of the Sierra Negra volcano, passing rare vermillion fly-catchers, accompanied by the sound of chirruping insects and a local guide with a large machete. Although we're walking alongside (allegedly) the second largest volcanic crater in the world (after the Ngorongoro Crater in Africa), we don't really see it until suddenly the mist clears and we spot the other side 10km away in the distance, across a black lava-strewn floor speckled with yellow sulphur patches.

Once back down the hill, the heat builds as we spy on flamingoes in a shallow lagoon, take a wooden path through the wetlands past noisy black and white stilt birds and Galapagos ducks and head on to a Tortoise Breeding Centre, where we see giant tortoises of all ages, from very small babies to 120 year old behemoths, all of whom are protected to help re-grow the population across the islands.

As if that weren't enough for one day, two more side-trips take us to see the lava tunnels that run into the sea, a relic of a past volcanic eruption and the Wall of Tears, a back-breaking and soul-destroying monument to countless resilient Ecuadorian prisoners sentenced to hard labour in the searing heat of the islands in the 40s and 50s.

Galapablog Day 4: Isabela

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - Isabela, Sunday 12th May 2013

Another day, another speedboat - and, thanks to the miracle of motion sickness tablets, we arrive safe and sound on the third island of our Galapagos trip, Isabela (the big island that looks like a seahorse, due to its spine of five volcanoes).

The afternoon sees us back in another boat, visiting the mangrove swamps that are home to penguins, annis (big black birds), boobies and sea-lions, before landing on the Tintoreras Islands, the home of many marine iguanas, who seem to like nothing better than lolling around on the black volcanic lava and white south-facing algae, spitting salt. As well as the well-camouflaged iguanas, we pass a trench filled with white-tipped sharks, who swim to and fro (though don't make great photos), stand on a coral beach guarded by a solitary male sea-lion and I go snorkelling from the boat, seeing yet more tropical fish and an impressively large ray basking on the sea-bed before I chicken out and climb back into the boat.

Exhausting, but mind-blowing, stuff!

Galapablog Day 3: Floreana

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - Floreana, Saturday May 11th 2013

An unexpected treat - due to problems with the inter-island flight service, our itinerary changes to include a day on the less-visited island of Floreana (population: 150). Even a frankly nauseating speedboat ride doesn't diminish the appeal of this friendly island, where the Cruz family do everything to make our stay as memorable as possible, from the wooden huts on the beach to a fascinating tour of the island from Claudio (driven by his brother Walter in his wood-panelled open-sided bus) to a delicious barbecue lunch (including veggie soya kebabs!) and an evening meal in the restaurant run by Claudio's sister.

The experiences of one colonist - the formidable Marget Wittner - are detailed in the book Floreana - which is a very subjective account of how a German family settled on the largely unoccupied island in the 1930's. As well as seeing the pirate caves where the Wittmer family originally settled and the rock they carved that fooled archaeologists into thinking there might be an Easter Island era settlement on the island, Claudio told us stories about his family's experiences of growing up on the island and showed us his father's grave, complete with trees planted for each of the 12 Cruz children.

As the sun set we saw sea lions basking on the shore and a beautiful beach where we dipped our toes in the Pacific as crabs jumped over the surrounding rocks; in the morning we rose to see turtles sticking their heads above the waves. A very special place that we were privileged to see - even a sick-bag on the boat ride over could not diminish the charms of this remote and fascinating island.

Galapablog Day 2: San Cristobal

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - San Cristobal, Friday 10th May

Our first full day on the Galapagos Islands started out with an introduction to kayakking and after an initial spurt of highly unco-ordinated paddling, we found sealions diving under our kayak as we made our way around the headland, encountering pelicans, "Sally Lightfoot" crabs (which I will always associate with the Prodigy album cover), frigate birds and one of the symbols of the islands, blue-footed boobies (not just a plummetting diving bird, with very bright blue feet, but also a great opportunity to sell all manner of "I love boobies" merchandise, naturally).

Unlike many visitors to the islands, we stayed at various hotels on the islands, rather than staying on a cruise ship and visiting the islands on day trips - this had the advantage of putting money into the islands' economies although maybe meant that we saw less of the farther flung islands than the cruisers. We were constantly surprised by how unruffled the animals and birds were by human presence and how little they stirred, even when we walked right past them.

In the afternoon, we had two walks - the first to el Junco, a freshwater lagoon surrounded by plants and ferns that have adapted to San Cristobal and the second to the Opuntia (cactus) forest.

The highlights of the first walk (up a hill on a slightly decrepit wooden walkway) were the views across the island and the constant wheeling overhead of the frigate birds, who skim across the surface of the freshwater to get the salt off their wings after hanging around at the seaside to steal fishes off other fishing birds. Having grown up with a book of birds which featured a big photo of a male frigate bird with an inflated red neck pouch, it was a special moment for me to see these exotic birds swooping down into the water, dipping their wings and shaking off the water, whilst taking care to not get too wet so that they were still able to soar up into the sky again.

The second walk through the cactus forest was another bird-spotting opportunity, although the birds in question this time tended to be mockingbirds, the ubiquitous yellow warblers and various finches, flitting about on the different types of cactus and native plants, including the Galapagos cotton plants and presumably avoiding the poisonous apple trees, whose fruit is harmless to giant tortoises but deadly to everything else. Unfortunately we did not have the time to walk along the trail all the way to the beach, but still saw plenty of plants and birds and picked up lots of persistently sticky seeds en route.

  

Galapablog Day 1: San Cristobal

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - San Cristobal, Thursday May 9th 2013

Up until this point, this blog has been a place where I have reviewed and rated various walks made around the UK, however given that we have just spent a week in the Galapagos on a tour organised by a specialist walking tour company - HF Holidays - I felt I could justify stretching the boundaries of the blog a little!

Although there were some great walking components to the holiday, there was probably a little less walking - and a little more snorkelling and kayakking - than we originally expected, however this was still a very special, once-in-a-lifetime experience and the heat of the equator meant that a full-on walking experience would have been downright exhausting.

We started out by flying into the Ecuadorian capital, Quito (the highest capital city in the world), on the Tuesday night, then flying on to the closest Galapagos Island, San Cristobal, the following day.

Our first afternoon on the island was understandably relaxed, consisting of little more than a nice lunch and a walk along the beach to the Loberia (sea lion hangout and great spot for snorkelling and surfing). There were a few sea lions and a stationary turtle on the beach, plus lots of (sadly unphotographable) tropical fish in the sea and the walking component of the day was limited to a stroll back to town along the very quiet road, with a fleeting glimpse of a short-eared owl.

We were part of a sociable and predominantly female group of 14, mainly Brits, with a few Americans and Canadians, a very attentive and knowledgeable Ecuadorian guide, Xavier, and local guides on each island (today's guide: David, whose "it's gonna be super-awesome guys" patter was ever so slightly incongruous).