#1: Mexico: Eat Tacos, Drink Tequila and Speak Spanish!
Oslo- MEXICO: Mexico City- Oaxaca- Puerto Escondido- San Cristobal- Palenque- Playa del Carmen- Cozumel- Playa del Carmen- Chetumal- BELIZE: Caye Caulker- GUATEMALA: Flores.
GUATEMALA: Livingstone- HONDURAS: La Ceiba- Utila- La Entrada- Copan- GUATEMALA: Lanquin- Antigua- San Pedro la Laguna /Lake Atitlan- Quetzaltenango- Todos Santos- San Pedro la Laguna- Antigua - MEXICO: Mexico City- Manzanillo.
#3: Manzanillo: The Pufferfish Capital of the World!
MEXICO: Manzanillo.
#4: Brazil: Samba, Beaches and National Parks.
MEXICO: Manzanillo- Mexico City- BRAZIL: Rio de Janerio- Foz do Iguacu- ARGENTINA: Puerto Iguazu- BRAZIL: Florianopolis- Sao Paulo- Ilha Bela- Ilha Grande- Rio de Janeiro- Arraial do Cabo- Campo Grande- Pantanal- Bonito- BOLIVIA: Sucre.
#5: Bolivia/Peru: Cold Beauty.
BOLIVIA: Sucre- Potosi- Uyuni- La Paz- Copacabana- PERU: Puno- Tacna- Arequipa- Cusco- Aguas Caliente/Machu Picchu- Cusco- Nasca- Pisco/Reserva Nacional de Parcas - Lima- Trujillo- ECUADOR: Guayaquil.
#6: Galapagos Rules!
ECUADOR: Guayaquil- Galapagos Islands- Guayaquil- Baños- Tena- Quito- Otavalo- Quito- NORWAY: Oslo.
Mexico: Eat Tacos, Drink Tequila and Speak Spanish! - Travel mail #1
01/09-10/10 2003
Oslo-
MEXICO: Mexico City- Oaxaca- Puerto Escondido- San Cristobal- Palenque-
Playa del Carmen- Cozumel- Playa del Carmen- Chetumal-
BELIZE: Caye Caulker-
GUATEMALA: Flores.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
When I came to Mexico I was told to
do three things: Eat Tacos, Drink Tequila and Speak Spanish. Well, two out of
three are not that bad. Mi español es todavia muy malo.
Right now I have just arrived in Guatemala, but let's start where it all started; Mexico City. In the beginning I was a little bit skeptical about Mexico City. It is the city in the world with the largest population (approx 20million). It’s supposed to be the most polluted city in the world. And then it also ranks high as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. But thanks to a small rain shower every day I didn’t notice the pollution and the police with Kevlar protection and machine guns were everywhere (even some riding around on horses with sombrero), so I did not have the chance to feel insecure. The city has plenty of nice buildings, interesting sites/museums and markets to keep you occupied for some time.
I arrived quite late (and even later by Norwegian time) and just checked out the light decorations on the Zocalo (main square) before I went to sleep of the jet lag. The next two days I wandered around in the city all day and visited more museums than I did in my whole year in Asia/Australia. Palacio Nacionale; the walls are decorated by large frescos by Diego Rivera. The frescos are said to be painted as an alternative to paying taxes and portraits various indigenous cultures, the arrival of Hernan Cortes, the history of Mexico and a satirical view of the Mexican society. I also visited Museo Mural Diego Rivera, to see another large work by Rivera. Museo de la Caricatura collected Mexican caricature drawings, but I did not get much out of it due to the lack of English text and my lacking Spanish knowledge. Instrumentos de Tortura y Pena Capital was a museum about torture and capital punishment. Scary stuff! And the scariest thing was that many of the instruments of torture are still in use today. The most impressive feature of the Aztec ruins Templo Mayor is that they are in the centre of the city! The site was discovered in 1978 when public works were being carried out. The Templo Mayor museum was also quite interesting. On my walks around in the city I also saw many grand buildings/monuments, lots of cool markets and a couple of parks. In the evening it was nice to relax in the cinema where I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and Tomb Raider 2.
The last day in Mexico City I hired a driver together with two Norwegian girls, Vilde and Ingebjoerg, mainly to see the Aztec site of Teotihuacan - "Place of the Gods". The highlight of the site is the impressive 64m high Temple of the Sun with an excellent view of the whole site. We also went to see Plaza de las Tres Culturas (buildings from three cultures in one square: Aztec, 17th century Hispanic and modern) and Basilica de Guadalupe (two nice churches housing a cloak with the imprint of an Indian Virgin Mary, supposedly a self portrait).
The next day I headed to Oaxaca together with Vilde and Ingebjoerg. Oaxaca is a really nice, laid-back city with narrow streets and stone buildings painted in bright colors. We had a guided tour in Jardin Ethno-botanical Garden, where we got a good insight into the varied biodiversity of Oaxaca. Palacio de Gobierno had a large mural with the Oaxacan history. The Zapotec site Monte Alban is situated on a hilltop outside the city and has some nice ruins and a spectacular panorama view of Oaxaca and the valley below. East of the city was the mighty El Tule, the largest tree in the world. The tree is estimated to be 2000 years old and is 40m high and 42m wide. Other sights were the Santo Domingo church and plenty of other churches, the view point, markets, the Zocalo and a myriad of small streets.
Arriving in Puerto Escondido, a surfing Mecca on the Pacific coast, I expected to stay a couple of days, but ended up staying for 9 days. So what did I do these 9 days? No much really. Take pool and party and a combination of both and mix it with a lot of cool people and you have Puerto Escondido. The hotel had a beautiful pool and the pool was also a great place to meet people. I had one day of sightseeing when we went on a boat trip in Lagunas de Manialtepec, a lagoon with mangroves, iguanas, lots of birds and a nice beach were we were swimming and drinking coco milk from coco nuts right of the palm trees. Another special day was the Mexican Independence Day (15/09), but we ended up missing the highlight, when all the Mexicans shout “Viva Mexico!!”. Great party night though…
On the bus to San Cristobal de las Casas I met Lydia from Germany. We ended up sharing a room and has traveled together ever since. San Cristobal is a very nice city, but the weather was pretty miserable. It was cold (elevation: 2100m) and it rained a lot every day. The first day we went on horseback trip to San Juan Chamula, an indigenous village 10km northwest of San Cristobal, but the rain started as soon as we were on the horses and we ended up going back half way to the village. The next day we made another attempt to reach the San Juan Chamula, this time by taxi. I’m usually not too excited about churches, but Templo de San Juan is the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen. On the hay covered floor the worshipers kneel, chanting their prayer in Mayan languages while many hundred small candles light up and heat the incense filled hall. The next stop was a guided tour in Na Bolom, the former home of Swiss anthropologist and photographer Trudy Duby-Blom. In the evening we met up with some friends from Puerto Escondido; Clemens (Holland) and Susan (USA). We decided to stay another day to take a boat trip in Canon del Sumidero. Wise choice, because the valley was really beautiful! The weather was nice and during the almost 3hrs boat ride we saw towering valley walls (up to 1000m high), a wide variety of bird life, monkeys, a crocodile, a sea of garbage (!) and a couple of waterfalls (the most beautiful was covered in thick moss resembling a Christmas tree). In the evening we went to the local "cinema" to see a Mexican movie; Assesino en Serio. The movie was a strange comedy about a cop that chased a murderer that killed girls by giving them a mega orgasm. The mega orgasm originates from a Mayan sex chamber accidentally discovered by an archeologist while taking a crap.
In Palenque we found some nice cabanas in the forest outside the city. The next day was going to be washing day and a trip to the waterfall Misol-Ha, but all the laundries was closed (Sunday), so we ended up hiding our dirty clothes in the jungle on the way to the waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful! We went swimming in pond below, climbing to the top of the waterfall, walked the path behind it and explored the caves (had a small waterfall and bats inside). On the way back we found our clothes and managed to arrange washing the next day, while we went sightseeing. First stop was Palenque Ruins (AD 400-800). We hired a guide that told us interesting stories from the ancient Mayan empire while walking around in the ruins that are beautifully set within the jungle. Next stop was the waterfalls of Misol-Ha (again), but this time only for 30 minutes. The last stop was Agua Azul, a series of waterfalls. The waterfalls were bigger, but not as high as Misol-Ha and the due to bad weather the falls did not have its usual blue color. We had a nice swim, but concluded that Misol-Ha was nicer.
The next stop was Yucatan, more precisely Cancun, but when we arrived in Playa del Carmen we decided that we did not really need to go to the American version of Mallorca (been there before anyway….both Cancun and Mallorca) and got of the bus. Even though Playa del Carmen had developed a lot since I was there in 1997, it was still a nice place to stay for some lazy days on the beach. One day we decided to go snorkeling along the coast, but that proved to be more difficult than we expected. The beaches in Mexico are open for anyone, but the large hotels in front of the beach will not let you pass their property to get to the beach. We found a way around, through a private property and a small swamp and after walking on the sharp volcanic rock along the coast we finally got to the Xpu-Ha snorkeling lagoon. The hotel life guard demanded that we needed a floating west to snorkel, something that of course was out of the question. In a 2.5m deep lagoon! Give me a break! After harassing us for a while we decided to leave, the snorkeling was pretty crap anyway. Next we went to snorkel in one of the many cenotes; Cenote Azul. Cenotes are limestone sinkholes and caves filled with pure fresh water. Great fun to snorkel in the caverns! At the end of the day we headed to Tulum to check out the 12th century Maya ruins on the beach. Nice ruins, nice beach, nice swim and some nice iguanas. The next day I went to another cenote, Dos Ojos, this time to go cavern diving with Dive Mike. The diving was amazing; crystal clear water, stalactites, stalagmites, cool cavern formation impressive light play. At one time we came up in another air filled cave with light shining in through a small hole in the roof; Hidden World.
Time to do some more diving! This time on the island Cozumel, 45 minutes with boat from Playa del Carmen. Lydia wanted to do the Open Water course, so we found a great dive shop where we could use books/videos and rented us the diving gear we needed; Deep Blue. While she was reading the book and watching video I went on a dive trip. The weather was bad, but the diving was nice. Good visibility, corals and marine life. Moray eels, stingrays, eel and a flounder were some of the highlights. For Lydia’s course we had two ok shore dives and two really good boat dives. The first boat dive was a drift dive and both dives had some nice swim troughs. We saw plenty of marine life; two turtles, great barracudas, juvenile flounder, moray eels, a huge crab, lobster and a huge parrotfish. Susan was going back to the US, so Clemens and Susan left one day earlier from Cozumel. The next we heard from Clemens was that he was in the hospital sick with typhoid! (Good to hear that you are ok now!) :)
We had one more night in Playa del Carmen before we headed down to Chetumal. Nothing much happened there, but we had a nice walk around in the city in the evening. The next morning we headed for Belize. Belize City was not as intimidating as the last time I was there, but never-the-less we headed straight to the ferry terminal to get a boat to the island. Caye Caulker is a place where you can dive, snorkel and do nothing. And that is exactly what we did. After two days of doing nothing we realized that we actually had to turn our clock back one hour. But we did do something also, the Manatee Tour, a full day manatee (sea cow) watching / snorkeling trip. In Swallow Caye we saw two manatees; one 3-4m adult and one 1-2m juvenile. It was cool, even if we mostly saw the shadow gliding around and head when they went up for air. The second stop was for snorkeling outside a tiny island, Goff’s Caye, where we also had our lunch. The snorkeling was ok. The last place we went to was the highlight of the trip; Shark and Ray Alley. Due to fishermen cleaning fish and tour operators giving away freebies, the water thickens with rays and nurse sharks once a boat arrives. It was great to swim around surrounded by sharks and large rays. The National Monument and the most famous sight in Belize is a diving site; Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a 165m deep circular sinkhole, 300m across, surrounded by sand and shallow coral reefs. At 30-40 meters you can see caverns with huge stalactites and stalagmites. Large sharks and groupers swim around the vertical wall. The diving trip lasted for almost 12 hrs and also included two other dive sites in the Lighthouse Reef Atoll; Half Moon Wall and Silver Cave. The sites have some great swim troughs and probably the best coral formations I have ever seen. The marine life was not as abundant as I had expected, but we still saw lots of cool stuff, like an eagle ray, other large rays, barracudas, frogfish and moray eel. The trip also included lunch at Half Moon Caye. This beautiful island is the site of the Red-Footed Booby Sanctuary (only lives here). We also saw iguanas and other cool birds.
We headed to Guatemala the next morning. Our first destination was Flores, a small village on an island and the gateway to the spectacular Tikal - "City of Voices" Maya ruins (300 BC - AD 900). At its height the total "urban" area of Tikal was over 100sq km and we walked almost 9km just to see the main structures. Now most of the area is covered by thick tropical forest and only 15% of the structures have been excavated. From the largest structure (70m), Temple IV, you could see other structures sticking out of the jungle. Another highlight was The Main Plaza with two amazing temples facing each other. Other than the ruins we also saw some cool animals; Coatimundi, Howler monkeys, Spider monkeys, Toucans, Ocellated turkeys, Lizards, squirrel and a large rabbit like rodent that I can't remember the name of.
I will probably travel around in Guatemala for about three more weeks and then try to get a diving job somewhere until February.
I have posted 6 new picture albums from Central America:
#2: Mexico: Oaxaca: Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido
#3: Mexico: Chiapas: San Cristobal, Palenque
#4: Mexico: Yucatan: Playa del Carmen, Cozumel
#5: Belize: Caye Caulker
#6: Guatemala: Tikal
As well as 4 videos: Mexico City / Cenote Diving / Diving Cozumel / Manatee Tour - Belize. Some more videos that will be edited soon are: Palenque, Diving Blue Hole and Tikal.
Other new features on the webpage is the Daily Diary, the Hostel Guide and a scroll on the homepage with the latest updates on my travel route.
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
Back in Business! - Travel mail #2
11/10-28/11-2003
GUATEMALA: Livingstone- HONDURAS: La Ceiba- Utila- La Entrada- Copan- GUATEMALA: Lanquin- Antigua- San Pedro la Laguna /Lake Atitlan- Quetzaltenango- Todos Santos- San Pedro la Laguna- Antigua- MEXICO: Mexico City- Manzanillo.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
I'm now back in business..... and
back in Mexico. Just started working for
Neptune's Diving in Manzanillo on the Pacific coast in Mexico.
We have a small bodega by the beach in a very fancy
hotel where we do diving,
snorkeling, jetskis and other water sports. When
I don't dive or have diving courses I hang around in the bodega, play beach
volleyball, relax by the pool/beach etc. The diving here is nice; sting rays, flounder,
scorpionfish, large triggerfish, angelfish, lots of moray eels / other eels, many different types of pufferfish / boxfish and a nice 100m
cargo steamship wreck from 1959 which is the home of (at least) 3 seahorses. The people I work with are cool and I
got my own 3 room apartment, so life is good.
But I've been lots of other places and done lots of other stuff since the last e-mail, so let's go back in time to where I left you in the last mail; Flores in Guatemala.
After some chaos (low on time, we forgot our valuables in the hotel safe) we got on the bus towards the Caribbean coast and Livingstone. The Rio Dulce boat trip to Livingstone was just as much sightseeing trip as a transport route and we had short stops at Castillo de San Felipe (old Spanish fort), the hot springs and for bird watching. Livingstone is a nice and laid back little town populated mostly by Garifuna blacks, even though the beaches are rather nasty. Due to time limitations, we decided to move on after one day to have time to do some diving on the Bay Islands in Honduras.
On my last trip to Central America (summer 1997) we also went from Livingstone to the Bay Island. The problem that time was that there was no road crossing the border in the north, but we decided to try and ended up with one of my most memorable travel adventures (both for good and bad) that included driving through endless banana plantations, a cheating taxi driver that threatened us with his machete (we paid him extra to take us all the way to Honduras, but he did not), an amazing river trip through dense jungle and a really cool ride through the countryside in the back of a pick-up truck.
There was now a road crossing the border, but it took us 11 hours and we changed transportation 7 times! ....and still we were only in La Ceiba. Nothing special happened in La Ceiba, but we had cable television in our room, so we watched a couple of movies.
When we arrived in Utila, we went around looking for a dive shop where Lydia could do her Advance course and I could do some fun dives. We ended up with the cheapest alternative; Paradise Divers. It was really cheap (100 USD for Advance+2 fun dives and 10 USD per fun dive) and the people there were cool, but it was pretty chaotic with a lot of waiting around. I did 8 nice dives in 3 days, with the highlights being Rock Harbour (nice wall dive with really good visibility), Halliburton Wreck and Airport Caves. Marine animals included great barracudas, moray eels, pipefish, crabs and lobsters. Whale sharks had been spotted some days before, but we did not see any. :(
Our next stop was supposed to be Copan, but due to the slow transport in Honduras (...and a misunderstanding about the ferry schedule) we had a night in La Entrada. Nothing really happens in La Entrada, but we had a nice meal in a street food stall and really nice hotel, with cable television and a pool, so we were happy. Finally in Copan Ruinas, we joined some Americans on their guided tour at the Maya ruins. Copan is not as large as some of the other Maya sites, but it has the most amazing carvings and statues. I have seen the ruins before, but I really enjoyed the visit this time also. Other than the ruins, Copan Ruinas is a beautiful little colonial town.
We had some problems (read: they wanted us to pay them) on the border crossing to Guatemala, because we never got a stamp in our passports when we entered Honduras, but they did not stop us when we just mumbled "gracias, senor" and crossed the border without any stamps. After 10 hours on 5 different chicken busses we arrived in Lanquin. Lanquin is a tiny, high altitude town surrounded by mountainous scenery. We stayed in El Retiro, a very nice place in beautiful surroundings by the river. The next morning we went to Semuc Champey, a beautiful place with small waterfalls and clear blue and green pools. The unique thing about this place that the river goes underneath the pools and seeing the water thundering into the natural limestone tunnel and out on the other end is a spectacular sight. Swimming in the pools was refreshing. Back in the hotel we headed for the caves; Grutas de Lanquin. We went on a path about 200m into the cave and signs in Spanish was naming the various stalactite shapes after what they resembled. On the way to the cave we carried big inner tubes, so the way back we were tubing down the river. The river was pretty strong in areas, but we survived. It would be nice to stay longer in Lanquin, but it was quite cold and rainy, so we decided to leave early the next morning.
After another day of traveling we arrived in Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful colonial city surrounded by three volcanoes. The three days we were there was spent walking around in the city, the market, Casa Santo Domingo (an old Dominican church with crypts and museums) and climbing Volcan Pacaya. Pacaya is a 2,552m high active volcano that has erupted 20 times since 1565, the last in 1998. The weather was quite ok on the way up and we could see the whole volcano when we were standing by the foot of it, but by the time we arrived to the top the clouds had gathered and the great view could only be seen in small glimpses when the fog lifted slightly. Due to the tick clouds we could only see small parts of the green crater, but the smell of the strong sulphurous gases assured that the volcano was still active. I can confirm that climbing boots are recommended and that climbing and descending the volcano with sandals could be described as rather difficult, due to the cinder.....
The famous writer Aldous Huxley called Lake Atitlan "the most beautiful lake in the world". I have not seen enough lakes to confirm this, but he is certainly on to something. The most beautiful town by the shores of this beautiful lake is San Pedro la Laguna, our home for the next couple of days. Most of the time was spent relaxing by the lake, but we also rented a kayak for 5 hrs and paddled to the village Santiago and back. Santiago was further away and the currents were stronger than expected, but we made it and had a really nice trip.
Next stop was Quetzaltenango or Xela as it is also called. A lot of the time in Xela was spent in the room watching movies on cable television as we both got sick. But we also did some morbid sightseeing; Museo de Historia Natural and the cemetery. Museo de Historia Natural was hilarious! They have a room with deformed stuffed animals including a two-headed calf, Siamese twin pigs, an eight-legged goat, a four-legged chicken and a sea creature called "Diabillo del Mar" that look like an alien, but really is a molested sting ray. Most of the animals that was not deformed by nature was deformed by bad stuffing and/or weird settings. The cemetery was very different from the graveyards we are used to in Europe with tombs in all sizes and shapes.
We were still sick, but decided to go to the legendary Todos Santos festival. Todos Santos is a cozy, high attitude (2.470m) village were all the people still wear their colorful traditional Mayan clothes (we have seen a lot of places in the western highlands where people are wearing traditional clothes, but not to the same degree as in Todos Santos). November 1st is the main day in the festival; the horse race day! The aim of the horserace is to get as drunk as possible and ride back and forth between two points with colorful scarfs, clothes and hats. The riders scream, drink, ride with hands outstretched, drink, fall off the horses, drink, whip the horses with (for a short while) live chickens and drink some more. Dead drunk locals are scattered around unconscious in the mud. At night we rocked the local disco. The next day was Dias de los Muertes (Day of the Dead). More drinking, fireworks, dancing and xylophone music, but this time on the cemetery. A very cool and memorable weekend!
The English speaking skills here in Latin America are almost non-existing, pretty much like my Spanish, so I needed some Spanish lessons. The first plan was to do a course in Antigua, but it was both cheaper (USD54 for 20hrs) and more cozy in San Pedro la Lagua. I had a course in San Pedro Language School for two weeks. My Spanish is still pretty limited, but with some self study it will improve over time. Other than the Spanish course we also went to the market in Santiago and the famous Sunday marked in Chichicastenango.
While we were in San Pedro, Guatemala had their president election (9/11). One of the candidates was the former dictator Ríos "El General" Montt, a man that is responsible for one of the worst genocides of newer time. It is estimated that about 70,000 civilians have been killed or "disappeared" during the 14 months Ríos Montt ruled (1982-83). More than 400 Mayan villages were razed and many massacres of whole villages took place. He did not make it to the second round in the election, but still managed to get as much as 17% of the votes!
Enough politics for now! Lydia went back to Germany and I went to Antigua to get the diving gear I had left in storage there. Sad and strange to be traveling alone again after spending 2 moths together, but that's life on the road. :( Did some more sightseeing the days I was in Antigua; Cerro de la Cruz (nice view point over the city with a large cross), Inglesia la Merced (the old monastery had a really beautiful old fountain) and the cemetery (nice, but the Xela cemetery was better). Watched the Norway-Spain European Cup qualifying match on a big screen in a bar, but everybody that have seen the match know that this was a complete waste of time.
After Antigua I spent 2 days on several busses; Antigua- Guatemala City- Talisman- border- Tapachula- Mexico City- Manzanillo. Spent some hours in Mexico City doing a little shopping and watching Matrix Revolution in the cinema.
This brings us back to present time in Manzanillo and the end of this e-mail...
I have posted, or added to, 5 picture albums since the last e-mail:
#06: Guatemala: Tikal, Livingstone, Lanquin.
#07: Honduras: Utila, Copan.
#08: Guatemala: Antigua, San Pedro la Lagua / Lake Atitlan.
#09: Guatemala: Quetzaltenango, Todos Santos.
#10: Mexico: Manzanillo.
As well as 6 videos: Palenque, Diving Blue Hole, Tikal, Diving Utila, Semuc Champey and Todos Santos Festival.
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
Manzanillo: The Pufferfish Capital of the World! - Travel mail #3
29/11-11/02-2004
MEXICO: Manzanillo.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Long time since the last travel
e-mail now; 2,5 months! This is because I screwed my laptop (literally, I
screwed a screw into the motherboard!) and I have been lazy, but also because
less happen when I work (Neptune’s Diving) instead of travel. The only
times I’ve been outside Manzanillo lately are the occasional trips to Colima,
the closest large city (1,5hrs) to go watch a movie and/or go bowling.
So what has happened? Lots of diving! The diving is pretty good here in Manzanillo, but the visibility varies a lot. We see lots of puffers (the Pufferfish Capital of the World....... or was it Sailfish?), morayeels, stingrays and at some sites we could almost guarantee seahorses (Wreck), octopus (Elephant/Wreck) and eaglerays (Horses). The dive sites visited most frequently are:
Elephant Rock: Site with valleys, arches, swimthroughs and lots of morayeels, stingrays and scorpionfish. An octopus has its permanent residence in a crack on the pinnacle.
San Luciano Wreck: Cargo steamer that sank in 1959. The wreck lays shallow at only 7m (making it also a nice snorkeling site) and some parts of the ship break the surface. The wreck is easily penetrated and among its residents are various seahorses, octopus, moray eels, stingrays, flounders as well as large schools of reef fish.
Horses Ear: Deep site with great swimthroughs, large rock formations and schools of trevally, eaglerays, large parrotfish, as well as large morayeels.
Carrasalis: A large bay with various dive sites. Some are shallow with lots of corals, but I prefer the outer wall (Carrasalis Deep) where I have seen turtles and eaglerays quite regularly.
The diving shop is based at the Watersports palapa at Karmina Palace, a fancy all-inclusive hotel, so when I’m not diving, doing snorkeling trips or DSD classes in the pool we help out with snorkeling equipment, boogie boards, jet skis etc.
Now it is kind of quiet, the busy season was around Christmas and New Year. As I mentioned Christmas, I will take the opportunity to thank the Grinches in DHL and the Mexican customs for keeping my Christmas present and candy for 1,5 months before sending it back to Norway. NOT!!!
Most of the time I have been living by my self in a small house in Valle 5, but just recently I moved to a larger house in Las Brisas with 4 colleagues. The new house is really nice with two floors, a swimming pool and satellite television.
Well, I realize that this has not been my most exciting travel mail. Will come stronger back (…and sooner!) in the next travel mail from Brazil.
Tomorrow I’m taking the night bus to Mexico City. Will spend some days there before I fly to Rio for the carnival 16/2. Fiesta time!!
I have posted, or added to, 2 picture albums since the last e-mail:
#10: Mexico: Manzanillo - 2003
#11: Mexico: Manzanillo - 2004
...and the Offshore Watersports pamplet: Front/Back & Inside (most pictures taken by me).
(More pictures will come, but things go a little bit slower without my computer…).
Have edited together a 3,5 minutes video from the Diving in Manzanillo, that has been updated various times.
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
Brazil: Samba, Beaches and National Parks - Travel mail #4
12/02-16/04-2004
MEXICO: Manzanillo- Mexico City- BRAZIL: Rio de Janerio- Foz do Iguacu- ARGENTINA: Puerto Iguazu- BRAZIL: Florianopolis- Sao Paulo- Ilha Bela- Ilha Grande- Rio de Janeiro- Arraial do Cabo- Pantanal- Bonito- BOLIVIA: Sucre.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
This travel mail
will cover my two months in Brazil, as well as my last days in Mexico, a couple
of days in Argentina and my entry into Bolivia. The title pretty much sums it
up; Samba (Carnival in Rio), Beaches (almost everywhere) and National Parks (Foz
Iguaçu, Pantanal and Bonito).
Before flying to Brazil, I spent four days in Mexico City. I bought a new laptop (screwed the old in Manzanillo); DELL Inspiron 5100, caught up on some of the things I missed last time and did even more walking around in this large, but beautiful city. The Anthropology museum is one of the better museums I have been to; lots of cool artifacts and interesting information about the ancient civilizations of Mexico. I also had time to check out the Red Flag Mexico, a large amusement park with some cool rides and shows. It was now time to leave Central America....
I arrived in Rio de Janeiro a couple of days before the carnival started. My friends had already arrived and for the next two weeks we were living in a large apartment, only 50m from Copacabana beach. Rio+Carnival=Party, but we also managed to do some sightseeing and activities. The Estadio Maracana is one of the largest football stadiums in the world and on Saturday we went to see the derby match between Fluminense and Flamengo. The Christo Redentor is a absolute "must see" in Rio. The 30m high statue of Jesus is placed beautifully up in the mountains (710m) and you can see Rio in all its beauty; the long stretches of beaches, coves, a lake, high hills, all surrounded by high peaks. On our second day of sightseeing we went to Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf), another of Rio's famous landmarks. The Sugar Loaf is a 395m high hill with a cable car and more great views of the city. Well, it should have been a great view of the city, we saw mostly just thick fog and rain. Anyway, the beer on the top was good...
We had more good beer during the stay in Rio, in the apartment, in the street, in bars, out clubbing and at the carnival parades. Some of the parades were just a car with music and people dancing after it, but they also had street parades every night of the carnival with big floats and costumes. All kind of people are dancing around in the parades; old and young, really good dancers and the rather bad ones. You can also join in at the back of the parade if you want. But to see the really extravagant floats you need to go to the Sambadrome. The Sambadrome is a large street with spectator stands around. Here all the best samba schools compete in hope of being the best school this year. We went to the Sambadrome on the Saturday after the carnival; the Champions Parade, where the five best schools parade. Each of the more than one hour long parades is an amazing spectacle of fireworks, music, large floats and of course thousands of dancing people in various costumes. The floats were large and sophisticated; some of my favorites were the space station, the about 10m high knight on horse and the float with four go-carts driving around on two small racing tracks!
After two weeks of part in Rio, my friends went back to Norway and I headed for Foz do Iguaçu, where the Rio Iguaçu plunges and crashes 80m in 275 different falls. The falls are amazing! From collections of small falls to the sheer power of Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). A nice day of plunging water, rainbows and coatis (a tropical carnivore related to the raccoon). Next I crossed the border into Argentina and Puerto Iguazu to get a closer look at the falls. On the Argentinean side the trails were longer and the views were even more spectacular. No coatis this time, but lots of butterflies and lizards. Some highlights of the day were San Martin Island and the amazing view looking down into the oozing semicircular Garganta del Diablo and the valley below. In the evening I came back to the Devil's Throat for the Full Moon Walk. Seeing the waterfall again in the moonlight was cool, but after two days of seeing the falls from both sides I've had my share of waterfalls for a while. But not of water, so time to hit the beach again! So back again to Brazil and this time Florianopolis. I found a nice apartment 50m from the Praia Grande and relaxed there for 5 days.
I arrived in Sao Paulo one day before Lydia and went to a nice snake farm (Instituto Butanta). Close to my hotel I found the most amazing shopping mall ever; Galeria do Rock (Av. Sao Joao 439); three floors of stores mostly dedicated to metal music; vinyls, cds, dvds, videos, t-shirts and of course the Brazilian Sepultura Fan Club. It was really cool to see Lydia again. We had a really good time traveling through Central America and now she was coming down for a month. Sao Paulo is not the most amazing sightseeing city ever, but we did a walking tour around in the city, visited Cemiterio da Consolacao, did some more walking around and watched some movies.
Next it was time to get to a beach. We wanted to go to Ilha Grande, but decided to shorten the trip (or so we thought) by going to Ilha Bela, halfway between Sao Paulo and Ilha Grande. It turned out to be not such a great idea; Ilha Bela had some decent beaches, but was nothing special and we ended up sitting 10 hours in the bus instead of 6.
Finally we made it to Ilha Grande, an island consisting mostly of tropical rainforest and nice beaches. Other than just relaxing on the beach, we hiked through the jungle to Praia Mendes Lopes (a long surf beach with white powder sand), had a nice boat trip with snorkeling and several beaches and did a dive trip. On the dive trip we did the 60m long Pinguino Cargo Wreck and a small island called Ilha Itacoatiba. The visibility ranged from pretty good (on the top of the wreck) to bad (inside the wreck and Ilha Itacoatiba), but a wreck is always cool to dive and we saw some cool creatures like seahorses, Spanish dancers, flyingfish and an octopus).
After 9 days of island life we went back to Rio de Janeiro. Christo Redentor is Rio's main landmark and it would be a shame for Lydia not to see the amazing view, so we headed for the hill with the famous statue again. This time we also went to the helipad for a more distant view of the Christ statue and saw some monkeys on the way, so I there was something new for me also. There was also some time for walking around in the city and chill on Ipanema beach.
Arraial do Cabo claims to be the diving capital of Brazil and could therefore not be missed. The little city 3 hrs north of Rio also has some very nice beaches. During the six days we stayed there we went to four different beaches, Praia Grande was the favorite with its turquoise water, endless stretches of white, squeaky sand, decent waves and some small sand dunes. So what about the diving in this "diving capital"? The diving was good, a little bit better than Ilha Grande, but nothing amazing. During two shallow dives we saw two turtles, lots of flyingfish, seahorses, some eels and lots of other fish.
The two bus rides to Campo Grande lasted for 24hrs, not including some hours waiting in Rio. Campo Grande is the gateway to Pantanal, a large wetland wildlife sanctuary that supports 650 bird species, 80 mammal species, as well as in between 10 and 35 million alligators. After some shopping around we decided to go for Pantanal Discovery for several reasons, one being that they left for Pantanal the same day. The first day was spent fishing for piranhas and tubing down the river. It was a special experience tubing down the river that were full of piranhas and alligators (we saw a large one by the river bed). In the evening we went to see the sunset and watched thousands of bats fly out from the bridge for the night. The second day we went up Rio Miranda by boat for an hike up a hill where we got the overview of Pantanal. In the evening we did a night walk, where the highlights was an alligator mother with lots of small alligator babies and when our guide, Marcelo, catched a small alligator. The next day we went up the river again, this time to a farm where we did horseback riding. I have only been riding a horse once before (Guatemala) and then it sucked, but this time it was great. We did not really see much animals, but galloping across the fields was such fun that it did not really matter. The fourth and final day started with a walk at 5:30 to see the sunrise. After breakfast we went on a car safari. Marcelo caught another alligator, this time the caiman was about 2,5m long. Back at the pousada we had time for lunch and another tubing down the river before we headed for Bonito. All in all it had been a nice trip and we had seen lots of animals; capivaras (the worlds largest rodent), monkeys, a deer, alligators (we were promised to see at least 300, but I think it was more like 200), a frogmouth snake (very poisonous), lizards in various sizes, toucans, various aras/small parrots, hawks, vultures, jaburu stork (the bird with the 3rd largest wingspan at 2m), woodpeckers, frogs and of course more mosquitoes than there are people in China.
Bonito (pretty in Portuguese) is a small tourist town with plenty of opportunities for ecotourism. We went for the biggest attraction, where you snorkel downstream the jungle lined, crystal clear waters of Rio da Prata while seeing loads of fish like catfish, dourados, pintados, piraputangas, pacus etc. In addition to the fish we saw another frogmouth snake on the jungle path to the river and some emus by the farm we had lunch. We also went two times to Balneario Muncipal, a public park for sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling and fish feeding. The river was not as clear as Rio da Prata, but it was also cool to snorkel here, as it was deeper, you could use fins and it also had plenty of fish (only less variety). A month had now gone since Lydia came to Brazil and it was time for her to go back to Germany for school and work. Sad, but true.
On my first morning alone in a month I overslept and had to run like crazy to get to the bus that was leaving at 6:00 (only one bus per day). This was a nice start of the autobus hell (ok, I'm exaggerating slightly) that was in front of me. The bus trip to the border went pretty smooth; nice bus/road and it took the six hours it was supposed to take. Enter Bolivia. The train was full when I arrived, so I decided to take a bus from the small border town of Quijarro. The trip was supposed to take 17 hrs, but after a long stop where heavy armed (and coca chewing!) drug police confiscated many bags of merchandise (not drugs), several stops with kids selling food by the road and a flat tire, the bumpy and uncomfortable ride was over after 20hrs. I waited for four hours in Santa Cruz before I entered the next bus to Sucre. The 17hrs bus trip on bad mountain roads was only one hour late due to another two flat tires. I can't remember having any flat tires on my travels so far and now I have three on two bus rides in Bolivia! After more than 50 hrs on the (bumpy) road it was nice to check into a hotel again. Sucre is a small convivial city and is actually the judiciary capital of Bolivia. The first day I went with the Dino-Truck to see the largest dinosaur track site in the world. The site is in a limestone quarry just outside the city and is a basically a prehistoric lake side turned vertical (~100m high) with around 5000 impressions from 320 different dinosaurs. I also checked out the Museo de Arte Indigena, a museum about indigenous art like weaving and music.
The plan now is to travel some more in Bolivia, before going to Peru and finally Ecuador/Galapagos. I will be back in Norway in mid June.
I have posted, or added to, 5 picture albums since the last e-mail:
#11: Mexico: Manzanillo, Mexico City.
#12: Brazil: Rio de Janeiro.
#13: Brazil/Argentina: Foz Iguaçu, Puerto Iguazu (AR), Ilha de Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo, Ilha Grande.
#14: Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, Arraial do Cabo, Bonito.
#15: Brazil: Pantanal.
As well as one video: Iguaçu National Park. Some more videos that will be edited soon are: Rio de Janeiro, Diving Brazil, Pantanal and Bonito.
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
Bolivia/Peru: Cold Beauty - Travel Mail #5
17/04-17/05-2004
BOLIVIA: Sucre- Potosi- Uyuni- La Paz- Copacabana- PERU: Puno- Tacna- Arequipa- Cusco- Aguas Caliente/Machu Picchu- Cusco- Nasca- Pisco/Reserva Nacional de Parcas - Lima- Trujillo- ECUADOR: Guayaquil.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
It's the 17th of May, Norway's
National day, and I have just arrived in Guayaquil,
Ecuador. I have bought two flights today; one to the
Galapagos Islands (18/5, open return) and one back to Oslo (15/6). But enough about Ecuador, this travel mail will be about Bolivia and
Peru, home of the magnificent Inca empire and the high peaks of the
Andes. Most of the places I have been have been at altitude, so it's
cold (well, my definition of cold is now that I can't
wear shorts all day), but seeing the extravagant nature, the impressive
archeological site and meeting the colorful people makes it worth freezing a bit
for this Cold Beauty.....
This mail starts where I finished my last; in Sucre, BOLIVIA. The second day in Sucre was spent recovering from the night before, as well as a trip to the cemetery and a view point of the city before I left with the last bus to Potosi. Potosi was once the largest and wealthiest city in Latin America after the discovery of silver in the hill overlooking town in 1545. With an altitude of 4070m, Potosi is the world's highest city. When I arrived I wanted to go for a walk to check out the city, but after walking two blocks I decided that it was too cold and rushed back to my bed and blankets. The highlight of this cold city is a visit to the Cooperative Mines. Moving around in the 4 (out of 5) levels of the mine is a combination of walking, crawling, sliding through the tunnels and climbing rickety ladders. Safety provisions are almost nonexistent and the mines are full of asbestos and other noxious chemicals, so the miners have a life expectancy of about 45 years (most die from silicosis pneumonia). Earnings are unstable, as workers get paid from selling the minerals they dig out, but on average they make about 600 Bolivianos (~USD75) per month. Out in the daylight we get an demonstration blast of dynamite. The fuse is lit and THEN the dynamite is prepared. As with everything in the mines; perfectly safe!
The trip into Salar de Uyuni was one of the highlights my travels in Latin America and an absolute "must see" if you are visiting Bolivia. The tour is actually much more than just a trip to the salt desert; in four days we went from Uyuni to the Chile border and back. Salar de Uyuni is located at 3653m over sea level and originates from a dried up prehistoric salt lake. It is the world's largest salt flat covering an area of about 12.000m2. Before we entered the desert we had a stop at the Train Cemetery; a weird place with a bunch of stranded steam locomotives. The salt desert is a beautiful sight with "endless" plains of white salt with octagon patterns. We visited a place where salt was extracted into small pyramids, had lunch by a hotel made of salt and walked around on the amazing Isla Pescadores, a coral island dotted with large cactuses (the largest was 12m high and 1200 years old!). The second day we stopped at a nice view point by Volcan Ollague, saw the "5 lakes" with lots of flamingoes and by some strange green rocks we saw a colony of Vizcachas (a long-tailed rodent related to the chinchillas). The desert landscape changed all the time and by the road we could see herds of vicuñas (wild llama relative), spectacular mountains and strange geological shapes, including a large "stone tree". The night by Lake Colorado was freezing cold with sub zero temperatures. It was still dark when we got up and went to Sol de Mañana, a geyser at staggering 4870m. It was amazing, but extremely cold. Had breakfast with the sunrise reflecting in a lake steaming from hot springs as backdrop and was visited by a curios and hungry fox. Passed by a field with strange rock named Desierto de Salvador Dali, before I got to warm up my frozen body in Termas de Polques (hot springs). Laguna Verde was another beautiful lake with the 5930m Volcan Licancabur rising majestic in the background. Went to the Chile border to drop of most of the group (3 day trip) and changed the car. When we came back to Laguna Verde it had changed color to a lighter blue. Laguna Colorado had also changed color to red and we saw lots of flamingos. The rest of the trip was mostly a transport route back to Uyuni, but we stopped in several nice little villages and at another amazing collection of strange rock formations at Valle de Rocas.
La Paz is Bolivia's biggest city (population: 1,5mil) and the world's highest capital at 3.632m. A large part of the almost three days in La Paz was spent walking around in the streets and markets, but I also had time for the Coca Museum, Valley of the Moon (a pretty cool eroded maze of canyons and pinnacles), the Zoo, Archaeological Museum and a rave party.
At 3820m, Lake Titicaca is one of the world's highest navigable lakes. Copacabana is a nice little town at the southern shore of the lake and the access point to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), the birthplace of the sun according to the Inca mythology. Went out to the island for a day. It has some ruins that is interesting with a guide, but I would probably have walked past them mumbling "more rocks" without a guide. The trek back to the village in the south offers some nice views.
Puno in PERU is another nice town situated by the shores of Lake Titicaca. I did not stay the night, but I went to see the funeral towers at Sillustani. The towers are made for Colla (pre-Inca civilization) nobles and are up to 12m high. Placed up on hills with lakes around they are an impressive sight.
Had a quick stopover in Tacna, the Peru-Chile border town, to buy a new camera before I headed to Arequipa. Arequipa is Peru's second largest city. It is beautifully located among high peaks and offers plenty of things to do. An interesting museum is Museo Santuarios, a museum about the discovery of the mummy of "Juanita", an Inca maiden that was sacrificed over 500 years ago. Did a good white-water rafting trip where we went down the Colca River in rapids up to grade 4. Cañon del Colca is the second deepest canyon in the world and was my home for 3 days and 2 nights. After a 6 hours bus trip we arrived in Cabanaconde (3200m) and trekked for 3 hours (down to 2100m). The second day we walked for about 6 hours. We first went up to some Inca ruins (2900m). It was interesting walking the barely visible path around the ruins, enjoy the amazing view and visit a burial cave filled with skulls and bones. We passed some villages and saw more amazing views of the valley as we walked down to the Oasis (1800m). In the Oasis we relaxed in a pool. The next morning we got up at 3:00 to do the 1400m climb back to Cabanaconde (2 hours). After a short bus ride we arrived at Cruz de Condor, a beautiful view point where we saw a lot of condors. On the way back to Arequipa, we stopped to soak in the hot springs in Chivay.
I stayed for one week in Cusco and the nearby Aguas Calientes, the small village close to the most famous Inca town; Machu Picchu. The only way to get to Aguas Calientes is by walking the Inca Trail or taking the train. I have never been a great fan of walking in the mountains for days, so I took the easy (and cheapest) way out. I stayed one night in Aguas Calientes and went to the ruins with the first bus in the morning. When I arrived at Manchu Picchu I could not see anything due to the thick fog. But eventually the fog lifted and Machu Picchu showed itself in all it's glory. Spent most of the day walking around in the ruins and climbed the Huayana Picchu peak for a great bird's eye view of the site. But the Cusco area has many other nice ruins to visit. Some are close to the city; the most interesting, Sacsayhuaman, are only about 15 minutes from the main square. Sacsayhuaman has impressive zigzag walls with large rocks, a natural rock slide, a large circular Inca calendar, tunnels and many other interesting features, as well as an amazing view of Cusco. I also did an organized trip into the Sacred Valley where we visited several markets and more temple ruins; Pisaq and Ollantaytambo. After a long day of sightseeing the many bars invite you in to watch a movie or two, and to drink a Pisco Sour or two or three or....
On the morning of my birthday (11/5) I arrived in Nasca, home of the mysterious Nasca Lines. The lines are large lines and figures drawn in the desert sand by the ancient Nasca people between 900BC and AD600 and can only be seen from the air. Figures include a 55m long monkey, a Condor with 130m wingspan, a hummingbird (50m), an alcatraz, a human figure on a hill called the astronaut (32m) and many others. There are various theories on the origin of the lines; tribute to the gods, procession lines, signs for shamans flying high on hallucinogenic and some people even believe that it is a runway for aliens. The 30 minutes flight over the lines was really amazing. After the flight I went to see the Cemeteria de Chanchilla, an old Nasca cemetery with 12 graves (there was many more, but most of them have been raided by grave robbers) containing skeletons with long hair (the longest was 3m!) in fetal position, wrapped in blankets. The tour also included a stop to see pottery making and gold processing.
The stay in Nasca was sweet, but short; I left the same evening for Pisco. The highlight of Pisco is the nearby Reserva Nacional de Parcas. We went by boat out to Islas Ballestas, where various spices of seabirds can be seen as well as sea lions and penguins. It was cool to see the sky darken from all the birds. The islands are protected, but guano (read bird droppings) is harvested for fertilizer. On the way out we could see the Candelabra, a giant ancient figure etched into the costal hill. The second leg of the tour we went to see some beaches and a large rock called the Cathedral.
I had not heard anything nice about Lima, so I was considering getting out of there as fast as possible, but ended up staying one night. Good decision. Lima had some interesting places to visit; Museo del Tribunal de la Santa Inquision (museum in the old Inquisition building), Monasterio de San Francisco (a nice monastery with catacombs containing the neatly arranged remains of 70,000 people) and Museo de la Nacion (a great museum covering most of Peru's ancient civilizations). Still, I have to say that the cultural highlight was seeing "Kill Bill 2" at the cinema. ....and the culinary highlight was the dumplings in Chinatown.
To make the long trip to Ecuador easier, I decided to stay one day in Trujillo. The main attraction in Trujillo is Chan Chan, the Chimu capital built around AD1300. The mud walls of the city have various designs molded into them. Also went to see La Huaca Esmeralda and Huaca Arco Iris, but only the latter was really worthwhile with it's nice mud wall designs of mythical creatures.
The next night and day was spent traveling into Ecuador...
I have posted, or added to, 4 picture albums since the last e-mail:
#16: Bolivia: Sucre, Potosi, La Paz.
#17: Bolivia: Uyuni - Far Southwest.
#18: Peru: Arequipa, Machu Picchu.
#19: Peru: Cusco, Nasca, Reserva Nacional de Parcas, Lima, Trujillo.
Pictures from Copacabana and Puno will be scanned in and posted later...
Three videos have been edited: Uyuni Salt Desert, Bonito and Nasca. Videos that will be edited soon are: Rio de Janeiro, Diving Brazil and Pantanal.
That's it for now! Keep in touch! CU soon!
:)
Helge
Galapagos Rules! - Travel Mail #6
18/05-16/06-2004
ECUADOR: Guayaquil- Galapagos Islands- Guayaquil- Baños- Tena- Quito- Otavalo- Quito- NORWAY: Oslo.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
People always ask
me "what is the best place you been to?" and "where is
the best place you have been scuba diving?".
These are difficult
questions to answer because I have experienced so many great places while
traveling. Some of the highlights of this
trip to Latin America has been diving the reefs of the Caribbean
(Mexico/Belize), the jungle covered Maya ruins of Tikal (Guatemala),
carnival in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Uyuni Salt desert and
surrounding area (Bolivia), the lost Inca city of
Machu Picchu (Peru) and flying over the mystic
Nasca Lines (Peru). But still I think I will
try to answer the questions this time. If I have to pick ONE place that is the
highlight of my travels in Latin America and the best place I have ever dived,
my answer would be Galapagos Islands. If you expect to dive in warm
water, see beautiful corals and your favorite fish is "that little blue one"
diving in the Galapagos might not be your cup of tea.
The
amazing thing about the diving here is the abundance of
large sea creatures; on average we saw about three turtles per dive, had plenty
of sea lions dancing around us, experienced large schools of big rays and sharks
(including the amazing Hammerhead) and
have seen the sun being shadowed by
a huge
cloud of barracudas. Snorkeling we saw lots as well;
plenty of sea lions and turtles, some eagle rays, white-tip sharks, penguins and
marine iguanas. Getting out of the water the first thing that strike you about
the animals is their lack of fear; most of them let you walk around and take
pictures unnoticed and the
sea lions pups even come at you to sniff your feet.
Galapagos rules!
The downside of Galapagos is that it is expensive. More precisely; the flight (300USD), national park entrance (100USD), cruises (75-100USD per day) and diving (50-60 per dive) is expensive, just staying in Puerto Ayora enjoying the beautiful white-sand beach in Turtle Bay is relatively affordable. Still the beach is not the main attraction here, so you got to go on a cruise. I decided to go on a week long cruise with the boat Gaby:
Cruise day 1: Isla Santa Cruz
- Las Bachas beach: Marine iguanas, Flamingos.
The first day was probably the least exciting. The highlights were a couple of flamingos and meeting the people on the boat.
Cruise day 2: Isla Plaza Sur / Isla Santa Fe
- Diving Gordon Rocks: Sea lions, ~10 Turtles, School of Eagle rays, Galapagos shark, School of Barracudas.
- Isla Plaza Sur: Sea lions, Land iguanas, Swallow-tailed gulls with chicks.
- Snorkeling Isla Santa Fe: Sea lions, Turtles.
- Isla Santa Fe: Sea lions, Land iguanas.
No problem to get up at 6am when you start the day with such an amazing dive at Gordon Rocks. Today was my first close encounter with sea lions, both on land, snorkeling and diving. The sea lions are like big playful dogs; dancing around you in the water and biting my fins. After one hour snorkeling with the sea lions (they were all around us, all the time) I was shivering, but I can't stay in the dingy when four turtles are in the water below it...
Cruise day 3: Isla Española
- Diving Gardner Reef: School of Barracudas.
- Snorkeling Turtle Rock: Eagle ray, White-tip shark.
- Suarez Point: Sea lions, Marine iguanas, Blue-footed boobies, Nasca boobies, Albatrosses mating, Blowhole.
The dive at Gardner Reef was the only dive that was not excellent. The boobies are really funny when they walk around and do their noisy mating dance. The albatross is the worlds largest sea bird and we saw the whole mating ritual of one couple; the beak fencing voerplay, the actual mating and the cuddling afterwards.
Cruise day 4: Isla Floreana
- Diving Isla Enderby: Octopus, Turtles, Schools of Galapagos sharks, Sea lions, Eagle ray.
- Cormorant Point: Flamingos, Sea lions.
- Snorkeling Devil's Crown: White-tip sharks, Sea lion.
- Post Office Bay: Barrel of postcards, Lava tunnel, Penguin, playing beach football.
One of my best dives ever; the highlight was seeing around 40 Galapagos sharks.
Cruise day 5: Isla Santa Cruz
- Charles Darwin Research Station: Giant land tortoises.
- Highlands: Los Gemelos sinkholes, Lava tunnels, Giant land tortoises.
My recommendation is to skip this day when doing a cruise. You can do the same things cheaper arranging it by yourself. Never the less; the trip to the highlands was nice; the craters were enormous, the lava created tunnels was large as a train tunnel and the 200kg land tortoises are amazing.
Cruise day 6: Isla Rabida / Isla San Salvador
- Isla Rabida: Sea lions.
- Snorkeling Isla Rabida: Sea lions, Octopus.
- Snorkeling Sombrero Chino: Turtle, Marine iguanas.
- Sombrero Chino: Sea lions.
Lots more sea lions, still the highlight was seeing two marine iguanas swimming and eating algae from the rocks on the bottom while snorkeling.
Cruise day 7: Isla Bartolome / Isla San Salvador
- Diving Cousin: Sea lions, Turtles, School of Eagle/Golden rays, School of Barracudas.
- Isla Bartolome: Views, Pelican with chicks, White-tip sharks.
- Snorkeling Isla Bartolome: Penguins, Turtles, Sea lion, Eagle ray.
- Sullivan Bay: Lava field, Marine iguanas.
- Snorkeling Sullivan Bay: Penguin.
Another great early morning dive; the highlight was a school of about 40 eagle / golden rays. The snorkeling on Isla Bartolome was probably the best I have done, but the coolest thing I have seen here snorkeling was at Sullivan Bay; a penguin hunting in a school of small fish, flapping its small wings to gain amazing speed through the water.
Cruise day 8: Isla Seymour
- Isla Seymour: Blue-footed boobies with chicks, Frigate birds, Sea lions.
- Diving North Seymour: Hammerhead shark, Sea lion, White-tip sharks.
Finally I saw my first Hammerhead shark!! The walk on Isla Seymour was also great with several nests with Blue-footed booby chicks and seeing the inflated red "blow bag" of the male Frigate birds. The morning was kind of rushed though, as some people had to get to the airport for the first flight.
Back in Puerto Ayora I decided to do a dive trip going back to some of the places I had been during the cruise;
- Gordon Rocks: 5 Hammerhead sharks, Marbled rays, School of Golden rays, Eagle ray, Turtles, School of Barracudas.
- North Seymour: Sea lion, White-tip shark, Turtle.
Had another day of relaxing on Turtle Bay beach before flying back to Guayaquil, where nothing much happened.
The next morning I arrived in Baños, which is a nice little town, the problem was only that it was cold and raining constantly. The afternoon, the second day there was a break in the rain and I rented a bike set out on the road towards Puyo. It was a nice ride with some cool waterfalls. At San Pedro Falls I did a condole ride over the waterfall, but the most impressive sight was El Pailon del Diablo Falls, with water splashing like bursts of fire.
When I went to Tena the plan was to take a trip into the jungle, but the weather was still bad, warmer than Baños, but just as wet. I have been in jungles before, the trips were relatively expensive and the short trips did not look that impressive, so I decided to skip experiencing the true meaning of RAIN forest. Went to a small park on an island in the city, where I saw various flora and fauna (including some monkeys and a very friendly coati).
Quito is the capital of Ecuador and a cool place to hang for a while. The nightlife in Quito is great, so I went out quite a few times. For sightseeing I walked around in the city, went to the Vivarium (a nice little snake farm), took the obligatory pictures on the equator line, checked out Pucara de Rumicucho (some ok Inka ruins) and climbed the stairs up in the towers in Basilica del Voto Nacional where you have an amazing view of the city from the +70m high towers (another interesting detail about the church is that the usual gargoyles was replaced by Ecuadorian / Galapagos animals like boobies, frigate birds, pelicans, armadillos etc). On the last Saturday I went to a concert with lots of local bands; Ritual Concert III. Great to go to a consert again and I met a lot of very cool and friendly people that I partied with all night.
Otavalo is famous for its Saturday markets, but due to the concert on Saturday I went for the mid week market on Wednesday instead. Stayed for one night and did a lot of shopping, as well as a short trip to the Laguna Cuicocha, a beautiful lake inside an extinct volcano.
That is about it for now. It will be nice to stay a while in Norway now, seeing family and friends and not living out of the backpack for some time. I will miss Latin America, maybe except for the long buss rides with the infernal Latino music cranked up to the max and the sad fact that my Español is really bad and the English skills of the locals are even worse.
Hope to see many of you while I'm in Norway. So send me an e-mail, SMS or give me a call.
I will stay a couple of weeks in my brothers apartment on Manglerud (22/6-11/7), while he is on vacation.
I have posted, or added to, the following picture albums since the last e-mail:
#16: Bolivia: Copacabana (scanned pictures). Soon!
#18: Peru: Puno (scanned pictures). Soon!
#20: Ecuador: Galapagos Islands.
#21: Ecuador: Diving / Snorkeling Galapagos Islands.
#22: Ecuador: Galapagos Islands, Baños, Tena, Quito, Otavalo.
These videos have been edited: Diving Brazil, Pantanal, Galapagos and Diving Galapagos. Video from Rio de Janeiro will be edited soon.
CU!
:)
Helge
