Ay Caramba!  Just call me the Rain Maker ... I have traveled across the continental US and then flew directly South to the middle of the world  — and at each stop, shortly after I arrived … it began to pour rain.  The California weather has followed me it would seem.  Aside from that – we are having a stellar time …

We had about a day in Quito at a quaint hotel where the we had the best service (one of the hotel employees walked us over to a nearby restaurant…).  Yes, the altitude is noticeable – I thought we might lose Dad walking up the flights of stairs to our hotel room.  Pounding heart and wooziness —  and this continued the next day as we walked what could have been every inch of ´Old Town´.

We had our own private tour with Enrique – who was well-informed about Quito´s history and was kind enough to avoid the very steep hills.  Quito is inbetween two mountain ranges and everywhere you look are these stunning vistas up to the very tops of the mountains.  We lucked out (for a little while) and had a beautiful sunny day to explore the Old Town with Enrique.  Lunch was goat stew (really) strangely quite tasty, and then the rain began.

There are many many many churches in Quito – my favorite was La Compania which has a dazzling display of artwork and sculptures covered in gold leaf – and I mean covered, with approximately 110 pounds of gold leaf.

We reconsidered our religious beliefs as we admired the handiwork – and that is because it was still pouring rain outside and we were not prepared…  $7 later we had umbrellas and moved on to another indoor attraction a museum – really the house of a very wealthy lady.  I won´t go into that – mostly it´s me explaining what the guide is saying to Dad … (we´re going to take up a collection to buy him new hearing aids).

We had a small altercation in Quito involving a toothless local who accosted me (always the toothless men… ) and was blocking my path and kind of leering.  My Father, using the umbrella tried to shoe the guy away — and I had visions of an international incident breaking out, when a policeman stepped in and kind of escorted this gentleman away and with a mighty thump on the back sent him packing…

Anyhoo, our Quito stay was just about over and the next thing you know we are on the next leg of the journey headed to the Galapagos!  Today we arrived at Baltra Island, where it promptly started pouring rain (what did I tell you… me and the rain….).  Buses took us over to the coast and we boarded a panga (kind of a zodiac boat) after almost losing a tourist to a sealion… The sea lions had taken over the enclosure by the dock and after the guide tod us not to get near the sea lion´s, one of the exceedling bright members in this group did just that and nearly lost a hand…  yowzah.

Yes, we are on a boat with about 80 other folks who are generally participating in alumnae tours … I´d say the average age is 55 … some of these folks don´t look like they´ve had too many adventurous trips and I wondered if our guides knew CPR or had some electric paddles handy.  We had our first tour on the island of Santa Cruz —  which has a landscape that looks like another planet… not so much greenery as the rains have not really kicked in (they will now because I´m here).  Absolutely the most amazing hike I´ve ever been on…  marine iguanas, land iguanas, blue footed boobies … you name it.  The land iguanas are huge, they are orange and yellow and while we stood there, one of them walked right up to us – right by our toes and sniffed at us … then went on his merry way.  Whoa.  These animals have no fear of humans whatsoever.

The flora and fauna is mostly cactus and some bushes that operate like sunflowers with leaves that follow the sun.  It is mating season for the iguanas and we saw some action with the marine iguanas —  the male moves his head up and down and approaches the female sideways (that means he´s not being aggressive) —  the males have a harem of females (who knew?) …

We also saw one of the marine iguanas swimming in and then getting out and wandering about the beach.  This was a rough trek today over volcanic rock and a teensy bit of climbing.  It is very hot and humid and we lost three people on our walk who turned around and went back to the pangas…  like I said earlier these folks are not so athletic…

Our little ship cabin is great we are above the water (which I like) and have a minute bathroom with a folding shower – reminds me of the parents RV shower…  So far the food is quite tasty and representative of Ecuador´s cuisine.  You can barely tell that we are on a ship – so I don´t think that we are going to have any seasickness.

Tomorrow we snorkel with penguins (maybe – you never know what will show up)…  I wish that I could send pictures of my new iguana friends, (I told the males they had very impressive crests and looked quite handsome) — but alas I did not bring my computer …    <I must sign-off — very tired and hard to type on this Spanish keyboard … feel free to forward to anybody that I may have missed

ttfn

M.