Ecuador: Quito & Galapagos

Hello followers, here an update from your two South-American travel vloggers.

We ended our Colombian adventures in Salento - a small village in Columbia's coffee district - in the south of the country. We hiked in the Valle de Cocora - a valley with huge surrealistic wax palm trees - and we visited a mocking bird (Kolibrie) farm and a coffee plantation. It was a 5 hour hike, quite steep, so a good exercise for the upcoming Inca trail at the end of March! After a stop-over in the 5-star Intercontinental Hotel in Cali, on the border with Ecuador (sometimes you have to spoil yourself with a swimming pool and gym), we took a plane to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where the next chapter of our trip started.

Our day in Quito began with a 10k run in the 'central park' of Quito. Given that Quito is high in the Andes, we were really struggling for breath! After this early morning activity, we explored the old town during a 3.5 hours walking tour with a guide. We visited the local market, the big squares, the churches, etc., etc. and learned about the history of Quito and Ecuador. All very interesting, but the highlight of the day was actually the big Ecuadorian passion fruit cheese cake after the walking tour! However, we also had to visit the dentist again - hopefully for the last time - as I had to get my stitches removed, which I got in Cartagena 10 days before. Most important: we are now both healthy boys again and done with antibiotics. We plan to keep it that way for the remainder of our trip and will just try to stick to Pina Colada's from now! 

Finally, I also got my beard trimmed in Quito, as it's exactly 1 month old now and - of course - it needed a professional cut by a cute Ecuadorian beard-trimmer. We finished our day in Quito in a large shopping mall buying North Face hiking shoes for Frank and also some fancy new clothing for our upcoming Galapagos cruise. Did we tell you most of our white clothes turned pink, after we got it 'cleaned' in Bogota? And, moreover, it also got black spots all over, after we got it 'cleaned' again in Medellin?

Last Friday, we had to get up at 4 am to travel to Galapagos. These islands are 1000 km from mainland Ecuador (a 2.5 hour flight) and this is where Darwin developed his evolution theory in 1832. For us it felt like a 'holiday-in-a-holiday', as we spent 5 days on a small 'cruise boat': all inclusive, and believe me, it included primarily lots of food! We slept in a really nice cabin on the upper deck, with beautiful views over the ocean and islands. Really disconnected from the world, as there was no internet (that's why this update is late). There were 9 other couples on board, a very international crowd of younger and older people, all very nice and kind, and also 10 local crew members (i.e. guide, cook, captain, etc.). Temperature in Galapagos is around 30/33 Celsius all year round with a light breeze, for who wants to know, so all-in-all quite enjoyable ;-)

The nature, wildlife, marine life and beaches of Galapagos are really overwhelming: turtles, flamingo's, pinguins, sea lions, lizards, linguana's (leguanen), dolphins, etc. etc. and all kind of colorful birds flying around you all day (a.o. the iconic 'boobies' with the blue feet). We snorkeled in a volcanic crater (in the ocean) with lots of multi-coloured fishes, really amazing. This was actually before we found out there are also lots of sharks in the ocean! At night, we noticed more than 40 big sharks swimming around our boat trying to catch 'flying fishes', quite a spectacular show - but also quite cruel and somewhat scary. We refrained from snorkeling after seeing this, even though these Galapagos sharks are not supposed to attack humans, we were not so sure....

We are now ready to start with the next and final chapter of our trip: 3 weeks Peru. We will take the bus from Guayaquil in Ecuador to surfers paradise Mancora in Peru tomorrow (Wednesday) and cross the border. We will catch up with you later and hope all is well at your end. We look forward hearing from you again. We have uploaded some new video's (with better sound quality) and also some new pictures. So, check it out and leave us your comments on our travel blog website or on Facebook; it's really fun reading them while being away. We miss you all, but still not feeling homesick ;-)

Cu later & take care. 
Love Frank & Henk