After a nasty shock with the departure tax at Quito airport (US$40 each!) We made it to Lima. We’ve been here in Peru before and had an amazing time on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and then the Amazon Jungle at the Manu national park. This time it’s quite different and we’re rushing through, bussing right down from Lima to Arequipa in one big bus ride.
We’re actually staying in Lima, something we shyed away from last time. A quick search of hostelworld.com back home turned up a place called Backpackers Family House in the Miraflores area of Lima. A great place and the Miraflores area is brilliant. And Lima has a beach and pier! I never knew that! It shows how little attention we paid to it last time.
This hostel deserves a mention for sure. These guys literally went out of their way to make us feel at home, show us around, give us info and call us cabs. It’s small, so not a place to remain anonymous by any means. Although you could certainly be left alone if you wanted we were welcomed into the place with introductions and beer and info/maps galore. We missed the Pisco Sours unfortunately but the next day everyone was invited out to a local restaurant by the hostel owner for Cervicha (Raw fish marinaded in lime juice which has the effect of cooking it – see Hugh Farnley Whittingstall for more!). I think it said a lot that almost everyone staying there went out to this. Of course we had to pay our bill but apparently this was a common thing about once a week.
I guess Miraflores is the posh residential area of Lima. It’s got loads of good restaurants and an amazing supermarket. It seems completely save and I think that’s for a good reason, there are police and security guards everywhere for the wealthy residents as much as for tourists I’d say.
Miraflores is a great base to use in Lima and a good place to relax and get supplies from food to electronics and outdoor gear.
There are even some ruins, right in the middle of the city but I can’t the pics right now!
Back to Ecuador and back to Quito after our Jungle experience. We tried to get a room in the Secret Garden but it was fully booked so went for another high ranking hostelworld.com place. El Centro Mundo. Cheep and cheerful and maybe a little tatty around the edges but a huge array of breakfasts (have to pay for them though). Right in the middle of the area affectionately called “Gringoland”. Jam packed with fancy bars, clubs and restaurants and all the things a tourist might be missing. Again, Ecuador and the people of Ecuador really left a smile on my face, people just seem more natural and honest than some of the places we have been to so far. No one hastling you at the airport, taxis fair and cheap and everyone’s happy!
I finally ditched my old stinky walking shoes and sandals and we stocked up on outdoor gear in one of the many outdoor shops (and weren’t fleesed at all!) And at last we found the holy grail… a second hand English language bookshop! One thing you do need on a trip like this is lots of books! We checked out Renegade Books which kept us busy for over an hour probably! The center of Gringoland reminded us of Brighton as we sipped coffee, which is no bad thing.
Tomorrow we’re off to Peru, flying Quito to Lima and actually staying there for once!
Fresh back from the Cuyabeno National Park in Ecuador’s part of the Amazon Jungle. We’re Pretty darn stinky all ’round. The first casualties of the trip have been notched up and now (as anyone who comes within a few meters will tell you) my walking boots are beyond salvage. I think I well and truely stinked out the various transports we used to get the 13 hours back from the jungle to Quito yesterday. The first big expensive fataility too. While trying to take a picture of a catapilar that looked exactly like Dougal the dog from The Magic Roundabout (although I have to say it looks nothing like him now!) I dropped my brilliant little LX3 camera. Now it’s busted and the only thing I can do is buy a new one.
This was a brilliant trip though. We went for the 5 day trip rather than the normal 4 days it seems that people do. Four days would be enough but the extra day we had just added to the relaxation. It was just the two of us and the guide on the last day so we got a really personal experience on the last treck. We could go slow and stop and look at everything. Not so much ran away either with only two pairs of clod hopping feet to scare them!
We’ve been to the Amazon jungle before, in Peru last year but this was different, this time it was to an area that is almost permantently flooded and using one lodge as a base rather than moving from between lodges. Most of the trips out from the lodge were in motor canoe. Sometimes we had to paddle ourselves though which was great. Every day ended in a canoe to the middle of the lake to swim (in the pirahna and caymen infested waters I might add!) and watch the sunset in the lake that surrounds the island the lodge is on.
Like Galapapos I’ll let the pictures do the talking on this one now!
These little fellows hung out by the lodge everyday
another cheeky monkey. This one makes a horrible noise in the middle of the night (not quite like the howler monkeys we saw last year though that just sound like 14ft monsters!)
Very rare to see this Pocket Monkey so we were pretty lucky. 11cm long, how the guide spotted this I have no idea!
Now my favourite bit, we went on a hike through the jugle at night with only torches for company, so many creatures to see…
The animals are all there waiting for you on their islands and you can’t help but bump into them. Literally sometimes. Some you need luck for, and we certainly seemed to have that! Sighting Hammer Head sharks is rare and we came across six of them while snorkelling. I only saw two. Whales and Dolphins seemed to love our boat too and we had three encounters.. more of that later.
OK for Sophie and Emily… here are some of the animals we saw!
A few thousand miles and one of the most unique places on earth and who should we find but our friend from good old Brighton, Tam! We knew she would be here and she’d found out when our boat would be docking but as the day went on we realised the time was wrong. Tam was leaving Galapagos the next day and we were in danger of missing her. We really really wanted to meet up and bounded off up the town with the sketchiest of directions to find her hostel. She wasn’t in! Probably out to dinner we thought and spent the next 30 mins before we had to get back on our boat searching the bars and restaurants of Puerto Ayora trying to think where a Tam would be. No luck! We scribbled a message and stuffed it in her door. We made our way back to the dock and with literally 2 seconds to go before getting the dingy back to our boat, The Angelique, Tam came bounding down the quay! A few tears and hugs later and our guide had arranged to pick us up in the dungy at midnight giving us a good few hours out on the town. Yay!
Here we are in the Rock Bar in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz
If I’ve ever felt spoilt on this trip it’s go to have been here. So hard to describe this amazing place so some pictures may be better…
That’s a Dolphin under the rigging!
It’s quite strange at first because you quickly find out that people do live on these islands, at least 4 of them have human populations albeit very small and contained outside of Santa Cruz. There are two ways you can see the Islands, by staying in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz and getting day trips out to various islands or by taking a boat trip which I think can be 4,5 or 8 days usually. We went for the 8 day trip which is pretty much the longest you can do and I’m so glad we did. Every day, just as you thought you couldn’t see anything better or stranger or more bizarre, there it was!
Luck is needed to see some of these amazing animals but mostly they are all just there waiting on their islands for you to stroll up to. Three unique things about this place I think, one is that fact that none of the animals, birds or fish have a fear of humans, each island (there are over 20) has different things on it, most unique to each island and lastly that there is such a difference in the landscapes of each island, you can go from tropical jungle to rocky outcrop to the most (and I really do mean most) idyllic white sand beach to 100 year old desolate lava flow\moonscape in the space of a days sailing.
We chose the Angelique (below) as our boat and I’d definitely recommend it even though it was noisy, smelt of diesel and the water pump failed! It had such character, the crew and cook were brilliant and it really looked the part.
Loved Ecuador the moment I got out of the airport in Quito and vowed we should come back ASAP. We’re only here to go to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon Jungle and it seems like such a shame. So much more to see and do.
We’d booked a night in the Secret Garden hostel in Quito for a quick nights sleep before going straight back and getting a plane to Galapagos. Best hostel so far! Lovely rooms and wifi! Roof terrace\bar with a brilliant view of Quito. I only got to see it at stupid o’clock just after dawn though.
Apparently EVERYONE stays there and I can see why. They do recommend you get a pickup from the airport direct to Secret Garden (there’s a little booth with a Secret Garden sign or someone waiting there) for US$10. But it’s really not necessary. We did get it, and the only difference we could find was that someone showed us to the taxi we would have got anyway. There’s no huge babble of people trying to con you onto overpriced taxis right outside the airport and it looks like only official taxis can stop outside the airport. You can do the same trip in the same taxi for half price on your own.
After living on a boat in the Galapagos for 8 days and having no contact wih anyone “ouside” I´m in the funny position of not knowing! What else is going on out there?
