Day 13: The Galapaguero and we hit the town (updated)

After so much debate yesterday about today´s hike you would have thought everything would have gone smoothly. But whenever Jesse´s involved, something is bound to happen.

Don´t ask me how but he gets left behind and should have gone into town to the Interpretation Centre. Instead, he has to come with the main group to the Galapaguera de Cerro, the tortoise sanctuary that he visited last week.

Those doing the 4 hour hike have to be packed and ready to go at 8 am and those going by taxi can just chill out for the next 3 hours.

It´s bliss. The camp is so empty so I take the chance to take some photos of the place...

We leave camp at 11:45 and meet up with the rest of the group who are very muddy, hot and tired. So glad I didn´t do the hike though I would have learned a lot from Cesare who was leading it with the National Park guide.

We are taken into the Tortoise sanctuary where we are shown the baby tortoises right up to old tortoises. They look a bit pissed off with us all crowding round taking photos (no flash photography is allowed). Poor Jesse is bored and reads his book on Chinese history while the guide talks.

After that we walk down a very gravelly path to the ocean beach where we can swim for an hour. I decide to go in after all and it´s so exhilarating swimming in the surf with the blue footed boobies diving all around us.

All too soon we have to leave though I´m not dry. I have to dress as I am and when we get to the taxis we´re not allowed inside because we´re so wet. This is the first time I´ve travelled in the back and it´s quite good fun, though not so much when it starts to rain as we head up into the clouds of the highlands.

Arriving in Port (town), I am too late to get a cheap room again in the Hostel San Francisco so end up where I stayed last weekend paying $3 a night more at $13 a night (still pretty good if the room was better, which it isn´t!) The bathroom is in a bad way: the toilet doesn´t flush too well and the mirror and shelf unit are hanging on by one screw.

After organising my day boat-trip to Kicker Rock and Punta Pitt tomorrow, I do some shopping for souvenirs and something to wear this weekend as all my clothes are wet from the beach. It is a struggle to find something suitable but I end up buying a dress!!

By the time I´ve finished shopping, it´s dark and time to quickly shower then meet the other newbies (except we´re not newbies any more) as we´re saying farewell to three of our original group with a celebratory meal. But first we have to walk the gauntlet of the sealions, some of which are bulls and are quite intimidatory especially in the dark.

We arrive safely at the restaurant and I treat myself to Langustino which I assume to be langoustines or Dublin Bay prawns for $12 but when they arrive they look more like lobster (which are not allowed to be on sale this month) but they taste alright...

...and then two hours later I regret having spent $12!! Nuff said??!!

How on earth will I cope tomorrow being on a small boat with 10 other people on a long day trip??

I have to leave you again, dear readers - I´m currently on Isabela Island on day 5 of my cruise and this is the first time we´ve reached some kind of civilisation where the internet cafe computers don´t have USBs so no photos this time.

The tour company changed the itinerary and I wasn´t expecting to be here - a 6 hour sail overnight over very rough seas and I´m not a good sailor - I was very seasick yesterday too and have had to buy more seasick pills here to get me through the next leg tonight, going round the west side of Isabela to Fernandina, the island where there was a volcanic eruption in April!! Should be interesting!

Oh, and my camera´s broken - more of that another time but I fell on it and broke the lense. I am obviously heartbroken and only have batteries for my compact camera to last a short while (didn´t think I´d need the charger as it was only the backup camera). Luckily, I have made friends with an Australian lady who has kindly agreed to let me have copies of her photos from this trip else I´d have virtually nothing to remember it by.

Day 12: Coffee berries and pole dancing

After breakfast at the meeting there is a big debate about tomorrow´s hike. Which of us want to hike for 4 hours in the rain or mud or both to the Galapaguera de Cerro - the tortoise sanctuary, which of us want to go by taxi (yes, I do) and which of us want to go into town to spend the morning at the Interpretaçion Center?

I am on coffee picking duty which I am very pleased about. Now I will have done the whole process. We go out with Miguel, who is very laid back as usual about us working. We have buckets to fill but it is obvious that this isn´t going to happen as the coffee beans are up very high and are very difficult to get down.

The trail is very muddy and I am amazed to discover that the coffee trees are the very same trees we have been cutting down in the reforestation project. The ones we had to cut down had been untended and left to grow too tall and are no longer viable for picking coffee (unless you happen to over 20 feet tall)! If I had known, I would have picked all those berries from the trees I had kept cutting and bringing down to earth!

Just because we're not chopping down these trees and are pulling the branches to head height with a very long, forked stick to bring the berries into picking range doesn't mean we escape the nasties in the canopy. Some of the group still haven't learned not to look up and therfore experience fire/lion ants going up the nose or into their eyes.

Picking berries also brings out the native in us and when Miguel shows us how to paint our faces with the juices of another red berry, we all have a go. I just hope the dye isn't too permanent!

After about an hour we realise there are not too many ripe berries to pick and head back to the station. It starts to rain and it is a long trudge uphill in the heat of the day. But I'm so used to it now I don´t care about getting wet. I´m feeling so damp these days I´m sure I´m going to start growing mould.

I´m really grateful I had the foresight to bring my stay-dri bags, though I left one at home thinking I´d done overkill. I wish I´d brought that too. They keep my clothes dry because if left out overnight they are very damp in the morning - not nice to get dressed in them.

I am also glad I packed my books in proper zip lock bags. Paper, including money, feels horrible when damp and books lose their shape and go curly.

Marten has his eye on my hooked zip lock bags which originally contained my Paramo underwear. He´s hoping I may leave him a couple when I leave. He describes them as "gold dust"! Okaaaay! Though sadly I know what he means!

Being here means the things we take for granted back home like an electric light in your room, dry matches, candles, a mirror, dry bedclothes, a plug in a sink, hot showers, drinking water from a tap, not having to wear insect repellant 24/7, internet access, mobile phone signal are mod cons we can only dream of. Amazingly, the only thing I´m missing the most is dry bedclothes although I´ll be really glad when insects don´t want to bleed me dry.

Apart from these two things I´m doing just fine. The above list may sound like a giant whinge and don´t get me wrong I´ll be happy when I´m not permanently hot and sweaty but I could definately survive a bit longer under these conditions.

But back to today...

When we get back to the station , Irina and I ask for more work as we still have an hour before lunch. We are each given a broom and a jug of water and have to sweep out the "classroom" in the Casa Neuva or the "empty room", empty because nobody ever goes in there. In case you are wondering the water is to sprinkle on the concrete floor to damp down the dust so it doesn´t choke us as we sweep.

We have to do this because all the Herberts (the teachers) have been traipsing in there in their muddy boots - because of the conditions i.e. so much rain, the mud is a problem so we are supposed to remove our boots before going inside. I can't believe how much mud we clean out!

After lunch, we have an emergency job to do if we want. The Canadians are up for it as they like a bit of manual labour. In the end we all volunteer...a truck load of rock has been dumped in the road just after where the bar is to help with drainage on the road, but the workers have knocked off the day and now no taxis can get through to the station. Our job, should we choose to undertake it, is to remove the big rocks and rake the small ones into a more or less flat surface.

It´s absolutely tipping it down so we get very wet and muddy and armed with only a few shovels and bare hands it feels like we´re working on the chain gang. Nevertheless, great fun. We take an hour from start to finish to complete the task then we get the rest of the day off. Now that's what I call teamwork!

Supper is chicken, veg and coriander soup. I still can´t get used to coriander so go more or less hungry.

As tomorrow is the last day for two of the English girls, we go to the bar for farewell drinks and I teach Cesare and Belinda how to play Chinese snap. There is a forfeit for the loser - to do a pole dance...you were wondering about when that came in weren´t you? And yes, you guessed it, I lose and have to do the dance. The barman puts the lights down and shines a red one directly on me while I dance. The young Americans and Canadians are embarrassed. THEY are embarrassed?! But it seems like as a result of this, I gain the respect of at least one of the Canadians. Cesare loses the second game and I think he´s done a pole dance before!

pic: My "pole" at the farm bar - looks so harmless in daylight!