Attack of the Crabs

Living next to a flamingo lagooon, in august hundred or more are there, unfortunatly at the moment there is only about 1 there at a time as its out of season, which is a bit of a disappointment!
Went to work.. found out that pinnk water exixts.. the lagoons round here are actually pink!! ..was great fun, apart from the guys i am working with will not stop coming on to me.. but this is pretty normal round here.. all the locals after a gringo!
The tortoises are amazing.. they are like from another world!... got some great pics.. they are between 3 months and 80yrs old, as most get released at 5yrs into the wild again.. its also mating season, so lots of interesting pics, and lots of noise going on.
First day after work went snorkelling for $10 which was a pretty good deal.. also a small tour of the island..saw a ray, penguins, white tipped sharks, say loads of other cool stuff snorkelling!
yesterday went to the beach for a swim...
the beach is stuning.. and there is no one anywhere else to be seen. its like a private beach!
i found a nice spot to lie on, but for some reason there were loads of holes in the ground.. and i thought to myself.. what idiot has been digging holes round here.. anyway.. finally found a beautiful space, went for a dip, then returned and lay down, closed my eyes for a few minutes and then thought i might as well read my book.
As i opened my eyes i got one hell of a shock!! I was Surrounded by Crabs.. Red sally crabs covered the whole beach. I Hate sea creatures, and i completely freaked thinking they would attack me.. but luckily they didnt run away. i got my camera out and got snapping. It was so amazing.. they are so beautiful, especially their freaky blue eyes.. they were as close as 2 meters away.. i also managed to film some footage of them digging their Burrows.. its was amazing!
All this crab watchng though left me looking like them, with burnt buttocks and back!!
Also managed to se pelicans, some kind of diving birds etc.. this place is Stunning.. i seriously recommend it!
In the evening, i have been hitting the bar.. we need bars like this in england.. it is so chilled.. there are hammocks everywhere, chilled music, and you just sit under the starts and look at the amazingly clear sky and the you can see the milky way!
Loving life out here.. bit hot (38dgrees- and its currently considered cold!) but its stunning.. hopefully going horse-riding up the volcano at the weekend and kayacking.. gonna be great!
Stay tuned for more...

Hellish journey to Paradise

Had to get p early to get my flight to the galapagos! I think for the first time yet, i wasnt seruiously overcharged by the taxi driver.
At the airport luckily was very early as had a lot of trouble actually trying to check in! Finally flew to Guyaquil and then to the galapagos.. luckily the plane was pretty empty so had a row to myself.. Had the pleasure to discover ecuadorian aeroplane food.. which is basically 2 pices of letuce and some onion, and a few hours later i landed!
I had to pay $100 to get into the National park.. which i think should have been included in what i payed real gap!
Anyway.. the island was so beautiful..(baltra) that i completely forgot about my luggage and just got on the bus to start my journey to Isabella. Luckily just as the bus was about to leave i remembered and grabbed my luggage!
After a 10 minute bus ride, got a boat over to santa cruise.. its only about 20 meters.. but still had to pay a bloody dollar. When i got there.. they hadnt actually told me which boat to take to get to the other side of the island.. they had recommded a taxi.. so i thought.. what the hell..!
So i got in the taxi with this equadorean and we started chatting.. all very innocent.. me practising my spanish, and enjoying the trip..- Bloody Mistake and a half! Firstly as we were driving out the car park all the other drivers were giving him the thumbs up and winking... i thought this was probably because i was enough of a mug to take a taxi instead of a bus..
We started our drive along the one and only road across the island with no marked lanes.. and i realsed we were being over takedn by about 5 taxis is what i counted, and 3 buses! Then i started getting the questions.. so, in your country... at what age to girls get married.. in your country are you allowed different boyfriends, in your country.. do you have a boyfriend, do you prefer dark or light skinned men.... ETC! Very annoying.. and all this questioning lead to him managing to drive off the road slightly 3 times coz he couldnt keep his eyes on the road, and the journey took double the time it should have, and at the end he asked me out for an ice-cream!! Fantastic- i´d have preferred a discount!!! MEN!
Then the next adventure started.. the boat ride over... I first had a perv empty my bag looking for fresh fruit in my luggage.. and of course i had packed my underwear last, so that was an embarassment! then another guy just took my bag and legged it.. jusmped on a boat, and ponted at some woman and told me to pay to get to isabella.. another unexpected $30 each way!
I got my ticket and went for a walk.. unfortunatly no beach on santa cruz, so instead i looked arund the shops and stuff as i had an hour to kill. Saw some beautiful birds and crabs, but my bloody camera batttery was flat! TYPICAL!
Got a bit bored so headed back to the port... and departing with my luggage was the boat for isabella! Despite me being 15 minutes early! I almost had a heart attack! Luckily i then found out they were just parking the boat somewhere else.. away from shore till we were leaving. This is what annoyed me more than anything.. because i then had to PAY to get a taxi 5 meters across the water to get on the boat! I was absolutly FUMING!!
I finally got on the boat... and as its Latin America.. we ended up waiting for 40 minutes past departure time to leave.. we were waiting on some guys to come!
When they came.. i wanted to jump straight off the boat! 2 fat geezers got on.. one stood on the front and the drtiver was trying to get him off coz we couldnt leave till he got inside the boat!
Finally we set off out the harbour and the 400horse power engines kicked in and it was awesome.. over the waves.. defintly not a journey to be made by the faint of heart! BUT then.. one of the fat blokes just took the wheel, turned up the rap music so loud i coudnt hear myself think, and the other guy started reading porn! they were prancing around like they owned the boat, and must have been drunk coz they were swinging it side to side and acting like complete ARSES!.. what a journey.
After an hour and a half of hell... we arrived.
WOW.... isabela must mean paradise... there are perfect golden beaches which run for miles, coconut trees everywhere and crystal waters. Driving through the dirt tracks into the town which only as 1500 people was amazing.. people just lying in hammocks outside their houses.. relaxing.. its a fantastic place.. the next 4 weeks are going to be amazing!!!

The almightly Pichincha!

After spending a great night slasa-ring with the locals in a salsotecka.. one in particular.. (raymond-short)..
Made my first summit yesterday! was fantastic, but bloody hard work!
We took the teleferiqo up to 4200m and started our slog up... we were only going up another 500m to reach the summit.. so of course i thought... piece of cake... unfortunatly, wasnt so!
It was about 4 hours to go up.. and it was bloody hard work! Me and Viv just kept asking.. how much further!!!
Unfortunatly we couldn´t just go directly up the mountain, we had to go all the roud to reach the side where it was climbable/hikeable.. because the quickest route was to rock climb.. which wasnt the best idea for me and viv.. (rookies).
I was quite worried about how the weather would be as the past 2 days we had had pretty much non-stop rain... so we were hoping that saturday would be ok.
As we set off there was sun, but the clouds were near.. but we still decided to go for it, as we had our trusty guide with us.
Eran set us quite a pace and for him of course it was all a piece of cake...
After walking for about an hour, the clouds started to come in.. all aroud us was white.. you could see some rocks.. which was the width of the path, and then just a drop and white!
The climb was feeling not too bad till we reached about 3/4 of the way, and we had to clib up a 45degree slope which was basically ash/dirt.. who knows what, but every step up we took, we slid back down.. this part probably took as about an hour even though it was probably only a couple of hundred metres. then we found out that eran was taking us the hard route.. as opposed to the already nicely beaten track by the side! After finally clawing our way up(literally) we got to the best part of the climb. The final scramble to the top. Wasnt anywhere near as tiering as the rest of the journey! Finally after 4 hours we made the summit! Fantastic feeling.. and had a bit to munch thanks to Erans intelligent forward planning. However by this time it was bloody freezing.. it was snowing and we were in a cloud..
As we started our decent, as a result of the snow/hail, the rocks were wet and slippery, and the then we heard thunder.. at this point got a bit worried..but it stopped and it was fine.
Only took about 2 hours to get back to the teleferiqo, and much easier than the climb up.. had great fun jumping throught the dirt we had walked through earlier.. and sliding down.. like being on the moon!
Overall.. bloody Fantastic day! came home completely battered and in pain.. but we all survived to climb another day! bring on the next mountain!!!

thats the summit of pinchicha.. up in the clouds!

Me and Viv! stuggling up! Supporting eachother all the way!

The Summit! In a cloud, and with snow falling!

On the way down, we are just above the clouds and you can see the evil rain clouds, just hangin over stunning Quito!

Greatest appologies

Hey.. this week has been fairly quiet, nothing has been going on because all the students hve left.. so i have been visiting museums, sunbathing.. and didnt think you would really want to be hearing about that!
Also met up with a friend of sonyas and went to a english pub quiz.. was a good laugh!
TOmorrow i am climbing pichincha.,. which is fairly small.. about 47xxm so should be a nice bit of excercise..
Other than that, quito is the same wierd seft.. with wolf whistling buses, palm trees at 3000m, rain everyday at 3pm.
But looking forward to the galapagos on mondaY!! Whoo Hoo!!

El Fin de semaña-Otavalo/Cotopaxi

Sat morning took a 2 hour bus for only $2 to Otavalo.. famous for having a huge market on saturdays!

As you can see in the pic.. its the entrance to the town! Natialie is left, linda in the middle and me on the right!

I aquired all my traveling jewelry, but not much else, as i really have no space to carry anything..

the girls splashed out and got loads of handicraft stuff.. it was a wicked day out, and the last with natalie.. before she set off for the Jungle!

SUnday... finally after much debate on what i am going to get upto this weekend.. i had the options of climb Illineza, or cotopaxi, go mountain biking on cotopaxi, or a day of horse riding..

I collected the itinararies for all the trips, and straight away had to discard the climb up cotopaxi, as i didnt have one of the items on the "necessary equipment" list... take a look and quess what it is. (hint: no;4)

I finally decided on the cotopaxi bikes..

Started in the early morning, we were driven in a landrover for about 2 hours to the national park.. we stopped in a small village on the way to pic up some supplies for the journey... and then at "the farm" to pick up bikes!

Lots of beautiful views of course driving through the national park..but considering its a huge tourst attraction like the mital del mund.. there were no signs. just a dodgy dirt traack.. which lead to a very bumpy ride, so much so, that i managed to break the crocodile clip in my hair when my head hit the roof on a bump!

We drove about half way up, and parked the car.. about 4500m, and walked up to the refuge from there. It is at 4800m. We left one of the 2 tour guides with us, to cook lunch for our return.

We then carried on walking up another 200m... will we fianlly reached the glacier!!!! at 5000m!

(me and the guide Eran)

below.. the group...

Unfortunatly it was very cloudy when we got there... but luckily

when we got to the car again.. we finally saw the summit.

Once at the bottom the adventure continued and we got on the mountain bikes and cycled down.. it was crazy fast and the road was ultra bumpy!

I am ashamed to say i managed to fall off twice!

but it was great!

When i finally reached the bottom.. there was a laguna, and we saw wild horses,lamas, and bulls.

and finally.... the journey home was an adventure in itself! The motorway was packed with traffic.. and ppl round here.. instead of staying on the correct side of the road, use all the lanes bar 1 on the opposite side.. but we still werent moving.. so we took the country road route.. let down the tyres a bit,, and off we went!! the car on a 30 degree angle sideways!! CRAZY but AMAZING WEEKEND!!!

Robbed! And all bars shut this weekend!

Well, visited el Panecellio and guess what.. got robbed by the most unlikely person...
Unfortunatly the heavens opened when we got to the statue of the Virgin.. apparently the only virgin in Quito... ha ha.. [they all seem to be at it and with kids by age 12.. saw a 12 yr old breast feedin in the town centre.. not nice] and anyway... so it was raining so hard took a bad photo and legged it back into the cab.. when we got to our destination it came to payment. We gave the guy a $20 and were expecting change.. but the W***ker switched the not for a $1 and then started shouting at us for not paying enough.. all we then had left was 8 dollars in hand.. and he then took, and threw us out the cab! ARGH!!!! ASSHOLE!
Anyway.. to cher ourselves up we had a cheap but very good Pizza, and headed to the Cuban bar! WOW.. it was crazy! absolutly loved it! there was a nutty barazilian there who must have been on speed, coz he didn;t sit down or stop jumping around all night! but they were very impressed with my samba dancing! LOL!
Most people wer dancing salsa most of the night which was amazing to watch.. also danced salsa with some of the locals.. great fun! Just being careful not to star to dance to ratoa.. leads to dangerous games! ha ha ha! Tonight being a bit boring, just going to the cinema, and thats it.. because sat off too Otavala.. biggest market around (2hour bus ride) and sunday mountain biking on cotopaxi.
You wouldn't believe, but all bars are shut tonight and the whole weekend, just because there are elections!! Proposterous! I will let you know how my weekend goes, and hopefully have some pictures!

With sun, comes sunburn!

At last, a beautiful day! So sunny, but after spending only an hour slasa dancing outside i am already burnt! Grreat! (NOT) being so high, i suppose you dont notice.. o well...
Tonight going to El Panecellio which is a small mountain which you can walk up (though not recommended as it is well known for muggers, and justa few weeks agoa group of 10 walked up, all got mugged and 2 got raped..) so, we are taking a cab, and we will get views of the entire valley and the city! So, it should be good!
Also, going to se the basicllica in the old town.. hopefuly some great photos!
Anyway.. heading off now
Chao!

Mita Del Mundo

yess!! I visited the equator... i didn't think it would be anything special, so at first wasnt so ken to go, but I have some great photos. In the museum.. which is in the middle of nowhere.. there are tests to prove that you are standing on the equator! I balanced an egg on the head of a nail, and also watched water go own a sink drain... on the equator the water goes straight down, but just 1 meter either side of the equator, the water forms a vortex in different diretions on either side of the equator! THis is due to centrifugal forces cancelling eachother out!
Also you weigh less on the equator, and yor body has less resistance, so if you make a ring with your fingers, it can be broken by someone more easily on the equator, than off...
We also saw the official monument which was made hundreds of years ago where it was belived the equator was, but they were 250m off... but it was a pretty good guess...
Also learn some stuff about the native americans and saw 'the shrunken head'.. many amusing photos.. which i will try an d upload soon.. (at the mo difficult..)
On the way home we took the bus.. which we found out never'stops' buses in quito just carry on doing a big circle... so we went into town, and we were waiting for the bus to get to the main road, but suddenly we realised we were going back out of the valley!!! Close call, otherwise we would have ended up back in Mita del mundo. Another thing about equadorian buses, they dont even stop to let people on, the door is always open, and the bus boy hangs out and shouts the destination, and people run and jump on! Bizzare...

churches and gold and churches

Today went with all the students into the old town of Quito.. the colonial part. We visited the square of independence, where there were huge protests going on outside the presidents house.. about who knows what.. and we visited some churches. Iglesa de San Francisco, a cathedral, and another church which is made of purely gold inside! We had a walk arund but headed back into town as it got dark.. we have been warned quito is very dangerous by night, but I think its all ok till about 8, because there are police and security guards on every street corner and everywhere.. bit scary..

No Need for Straightners!

Yep... they would be completely pointless! As winter is coming to an end the clouds come and heavens open at about 3pm and thats it till the morning! Heavy rain...
Schools been good so far, sonly 3 other students, a swedish girl, an english girl and a swiss guy. they are all really nice! Unfortunatly they all leave on friday.. which leaves me alone.. or hopefully with new students next week... so lets hope this week brings much fun and games!

QUITO!

At last have arrived!
It was raining which is a bit depressing, not the weather i was expecting at all...
Have settled into the house with my host Dora, and been shown where my school is etc, and tomorrow will be meeting the other students! That should be pretty good, i will then have the freeedom to do a lot more once in a group and it will be more fun in general.
Today am just chilling, walking around and getting to know the city!
Will update you soon on goings on in Quito.. so far, not been mugged! YAY!

Chicago and San Fran Trauma!!

I am sat the in the bloody airport aiting for next flight to Miami which leaves in about.... 7 hours.. whoo hoo what fun!
Flight to chicago was Very long, but sat next to a very nice guy, opera singer.. but developed a migraine and general sickness! Then went to baggage reclaim and guess what luggage will arrive in 4 houras.. so i sit around thinking i am going to die! (also was unpreppared for the sub-zero weather in Chicago)
Anyway.. finally checked in, but the found the flight was delayed so had about 3 hours to kill. As i had a first class ticket went to the eec lounge.. and was told couldn't use it because i hadn't lown first over the altlantic.... what a load of crap.. rob just didn't want me there because i looked like a tramp... ha ha ha!!
But i was happy.. because i gotto see a 'Dunkin' Donuts' which i didn't think really existed, and 2 chicago police officers standing in the Queue :D
The San Fran flight.. 5 hours.. food, no in-flight entertainment.. what kind of FIRST CLASS was this!!!
Now I have to wait sooooo long, i even sleep because in a couple hours have to leave the gate and 'check in' my flight at 4;30am... then come back in.
Anyway.. this is costing a bomb....

Departure

O My God... its happening....
Feels so wierd.. I am so close i feel a bit numb... not scared, not excited, just a sense of calm has come over me and i am going to finish my packing and then head to the airport.. but have just had a shower and thought "how am i going to cope without my straigteners for the next... god knows how many weeks" - I am going to look like a cave woman! Ha ha ha ha!
Anyway.. flight to chicago leaves at 12 ish, so need to head off.. but from there am going 1st and business class to Quito (via san fran and Miami) so if there is internet in the business lounge.. i will update with the quality of service provided.... ha ha.. i had better enjoy it, as its probably the first and last time I travel first class!
Bye Bye Brittania! :D

The Plan...

I start my perilous Journey on Friday 6th April with a 39 hour 'flight time' to Quito. With my dads fabulous money saving skills, I fly to Chicago, then to San Francisco, to Miami and finally reach Quito in the evening of the 7th April! I am going to be staying in Quito for 2 weeks learning spanish, then I am off to the Galapagos for 4 weeks to do a tortoise project. From there I begin to make my way across south America till the end of July, Climbing Mountains, mountain biking, white-water rafting etc... This is when I hit the east coast of Canada... where I will be in a bit of touble as I don't speak a word of French... (why didn't i do a bit more research before booking flights!!!)
After this, I am heading to San Francisco!! Buying a car... and roadtripping it till I pick up Ness and we go to the Burning Man Festival (28Aug - 3rd Sept) Whoo Hooo!!! Then carrying on roadtripping, and finally retuning on 17th September. Wish me Luck!

The Final Countdown

Ahh!! Scared Shitless right now... just a few days left, and I am still not able to speak spanish, haven't got any equadorian dollars yet, no sleeping bag, no maleria tablets and no real plan... hence the slight feeling of fear! Gonna miss everyone soo much.. how on earth will I cope...