Welcome to Quito

Galapagos

A tale of two bakers…

Well where do i begin? I guess the most obvious place is by wishing all of you who i didn't get too before a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I trust there will be some fun stories of debacle headed my way in the coming weeks. I am back at work now from an incredible holiday experience that was one of the craziest roller coaster trips i have taken in awhile.

We need to start this in October actually when Gilles (aka Adam) and i decided to venture to the Galapagos while he was here visiting for my Christmas vacation - yup, i have great friends. An agency was found and a trip was booked, and paid for. From here we can fast forward a little...Adam arrived on the fourteenth to have a week in Quito before i finished work. Unfortunately his week was filled with the flu, followed by eating some bad shrimp in Old Quito and then well we don't really need to go there i guess. It was in that final week that we first heard a rumour that George Proaño (the guy we booked with) had left Quito. The rumour turned out to be true but no one seemed to want to tell us anything concrete, it was extremely frustrating. That week was hell with lawyers from the school, on the phone (in Spanish), just trying to figure out what to do. We didn't want a refund; we wanted our trip to the Galapagos. As it turned out the agent had left town with the money for 37 Galapagos trips without booking anything or paying for anything anywhere - all in all he made off with about thirty grand. Our voucher however was with the company and not the individual, so we worked with the agency trying to figure it out. These guys were sketchy dot com! What could we do though, it was work with them or pay for another trip...pay alot. Eventually there was space on a plane and on another boat but the agent did need a loan from both of us to cover it, the loan is repayable in three months. I had the school lawyers get involved and draw up some legal documents. "Is everything set now?" ask the foolish travelers. "No problems" say the deceitful bastard travel agents. "Do you need us to do anything else?" "No problems".

Giles and mark leave town relieved that they were able to save their dream vacation.

We caught Deportivo Quito the world's greatest futball team; dominate Nacional despite having nothing to play for and Nacional gunning for the championship. Then headed to Baños, where we had time a short time to relax in the thermal pools. There is however no rest for the wicked, so we rented bikes early and headed east towards Puyo, a 65+ kilometres trip. I had done the first have of this ride before and assured Giles that it was nuts, rough roads and insane downhills; he was not disappointed. The second half....well lets just say what goes down must also come up. It was insane and we were exhausted beyond comprehension, it got to the point that whenever there was an upward grade of .000001% we were off the bikes walking. We persevered however and arriving in Puyo felt like we had beaten a giant. We didn't have time to breathe in our glory and quickly put or bikes on a bus back to Baños and then put ourselves on a bus to Tena, a city bordering Ecuador's eastern jungles. We were excited to have seats 31 and 32) for the bus ride after a long day. Well that would be the case if the company actually stopped selling tickets or paid any attention to the numbers on them. The bus ride is three hours, our bodies ache and we are standing. The highlight was a miraculous incognito bathroom break for Mister Gilles without letting anyone, including me, know. Brilliant really.

By the time we arrived in Tena we were both about to pass out, we walked into the first hotel which was clean, cheap and spacious, we crash...hard. This hotel was fine but the idea of being in an empty hotel for Christmas was really not too appealing. So on the morning of the twenty-fourth we set out to find a hostal with a little more life to it, we found it. The Welcome Break which is also known as Veronica's Place had a great feeling to it the moment we walked in. We took another guests word and signed up for a room before we even saw it. What a lucky move. On Christmas Eve we feasted with 30+ brand new friends including the hostal owner and her entire family, some paddlers from the states, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, and more. We collected all of the receipts and split the bill it was incredible, 25 lb. turkey, pork, fish, salads, salads, salads, potatoes, and on and on and on. It was a great time kicked off by a series of toasts in different languages around the table and a great party followed the feast. We spent Christmas Day wandering the primary growth forest in jantun sachay reserve. Seeing huge trees, vines, flowers but the day was topped by a swim in the Napo River which caused us to miss the bus we were planning on taking but was well worth the time.

On the twenty-sixth we jumped on a bus and headed to Quito where we would have a few hours to unpack, repack, pick-up tickets and do anything we needed to do before heading for the Galapagos. Our first stop was for tickets, by this point it shouldn't have surprised us, but they weren't ready and the guy wanted us to come get them at five o'clock the next morning. He could bring them and take us to the airport at that time. Was this just another thing "done differently down here" or were we headed for more peril. When the guy showed up at 5:30 the next morning we were stoked, "must just be the way things are done here, i guess." Our attitudes did a one eighty when we realized the date on my ticket hadn't been changed from the twenty-fourth. When we got to the check in counter they didn't have a reservation for us on the first flight, nor on the second. We got in the standby line and tried to come up with reasons why we shouldn't kill this agent with us. The first flight prepared to leave adding exactly zero standby passengers to it. We were sixth and seventh in line. The second flight took eight standby passengers.

Phew, we made it. We reminded the agent to call the boat and tell them we were now on the second flight instead of the first. He responded with, "no problem." We immediately tensed up and were discussing what we would do when we were there on the island without a boat. Sure enough when we got off the plane and paid the park admission fee there was no one looking for us. We tracked down someone and then someone else all of whom had seen the guide not too long ago then we found Franklin who knew the boat. We were understandably beyond panic mode and poor Franklin almost sealed his own fate when he told us there was "no problem" the boat was in port. Unbelievably we actually found our guide eating lunch with another person (who turned out to be another George Proaño victim); the guide had been at the airport looking for us on the first flight.

This guy had our names, he knew us! We were saved, the boat was expecting us. We ate lunch and then wandered the streets of Puerto Ayoro before heading to the highlands on our first tour of the "trip of a lifetime."

While waiting to catch the bus to the highlands for the tour a guy pulled up on a bike and asked if we were Adam and Mark. Why yes we are, feeling that we had overcome impossible odds to sit where we now were. He then informs us that although he has are name he hasn't received any cash for us. "WHAT!!!" We have now paid one and a half times for this boat and are livid. Viko (boat owner) sends us to the highlands and says he will call Quito and work it out. We want to stay and call Quito ourselves, but he insists that isn't necessary. We show him our receipts and explain that the extra money (paid less than a week ago) was to go to him for the boat. We head out for the afternoon excursions laughing that this is the most expensive day hike in history, but it wasn't funny. When we returned to the boat he had received money for one of us and had decided to take both of us worrying about getting the money in the coming days.

This was the TSN turning point, for sure. From this point the trip was absolutely mind blowing with sea lions, turtles, fur seals, dolphins, blue footed boobies, masked boobies, albatross, hammer head, white tip, black tip and Galapagos sharks, hawks, rays huge and small, marine iguana, land iguana, octopi, and so much more. Giles and I spent hours on New Years Eve swimming with the sea lions, not just with them but WITH them. They copy you, and play with you and at one point one even kissed my nose, it was unbelievable. The food was incredible and it was relaxing, fascinating, mind blowing and chilled all at the same time. We saw the beauty and cuteness of nature and then were reminded of the real deal when we saw a young sea lion climbing up the beach minus a section the shark had taken. NYE was spent sailing south from Santa Cruz to Espinola the stars were amazing, we played cards with the crew but didn't make midnight, which isn't as pathetic as it sounds because our days were long and started early, my first act of 2003 was a backflip of the roof, and i am anxious to see what the year of the backflip has in store. This trip is definitely suggested to all. It really is unfortunate that the hell of getting to the Galapagos has taken me pages while the experience there seems so short. You have to understand that this place is truly magical that words simply cannot justify. You should plan to go, and why not in the next two years while you have a place to stay in Quito!

If you do go stay away from George Proaño, Amazon Rainforest Tours, Tortuga Verde, and Robin Torres it is just not worth it. Mabel is a great small boat with incredible guides and food. It can be booked safely and cheaply in Quito through New Life Travel Agency on Juan Leon Mera one street past Calma. Well i am doing this should you find yourself in Tena, the Welcome Break or Veronica's Place is cheap with hot water and incredible people. I think i will start a list for visitiors....coming soon.

Well if you made it this far congratulations! I hope that you have all had a safe and wonderful holiday session and wish you and yours the best in the year of the backflip.

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