Raphael Kessler

After just a couple of days in the capital Quito, I headed out to the Galapagos Islands, most famous for aiding Darwin in his formulation of his evolutionary theories. It is also a fantastic location for wildlife viewing and diving.

Any kind of naturalist can have a good time in the Galapagos, where the wildlife is generally not even slightly bothered by people walking right up to it. That can be a problem as they don't move out the way, so there were several times I almost trod on an iguana or similar.

There are all sorts of boobies hanging out on the islands, unfortunately I am not talking about nubile nymphets prancing naked, but blue-footed (photos 1 & 2), red-footed (photo 3 & 4) and masked boobies (photo 5-7), some with chicks. There were lots of masked booby young, some just trying their wings out (photo 6 & 7). Boobies were actually called such because they were such easy targets for hunters due to their inquisitiveness. I don't know why tits are called tits though. A bit of trivia, the term booby-trap was coined after the technique of these birds hunting fish, perched on the prow of a boat and diving in as the fish are caught up in the boat's draft. 

There were several other types of birds, frigate birds, albatrosses, finches, gulls and others. I am not good at remembering the names of all of them.

There are two main types of iguanas in the Galapagos, land and marine. They are all quite funky looking. Seeing one of the marine iguanas diving though is really odd, firstly because they are the only diving lizards (I was informed) and because they look like Godzilla or something similar, surreal.

The islands are actually named after the giant tortoises that can be found there. Nobody actually knows how long they live, but in excess of one hundred years is certain and possibly twice that.

Some of the littler things are very cool too. There are nice looking colourful insects, including some funky grasshoppers (photo 1),  lizards (photo 2), and the Sally light-foot crabs (photo 3).

The sealions on the islands are all over the place, they are on the boats, beaches and in the water, playfully swimming and diving with people. It is great fun diving with sealions, although quite exhausting after a little while. It is really nice to see them swimming though, when they appear very graceful, as opposed to the waddling they do on land. The pups are cute regardless, whether on land or in the sea. The other wildlife seem to be unfazed by the sealions, the largest endemic inhabitants of the islands.

The views around the islands are sometimes as spectacular as the wildlife.

The flight back to Quito meant some lovely views of the mountain scenery.

Quito was a nice place to get  good curry and has some nice places, the most interesting looking thing I saw there though was this odd bloke on the steps of the cathedral who seemed to be writing something and from time to time would look around as though he was making notes about something going on. Who knows what he was actually up to though.

Just a couple of hours north of Quito is Otavalo, famous for its market. It is also a good place for seeing the locals doing there thing, whether that be playing cards, just having fun or whatever. Then you can have my dad fly in to demonstrate the pictures to the folk photographed.

From Quito I went to the town of Baños which is set at the foot of an active volcano, not necessarily the sort of place that insurance companies would recommend for a location, it does mean that just a short way off though one can see Tungurahua (if you do decide to live in the fallout zone of a volcano, I recommend doing so near one where you can at least pronounce the name, makes it easier when screaming "run Etna is exploding" for example.) clearly as it regularly has eruptions belching smoke and ash. Also visible is Chimborazo another big volcano. 

Baños is famous for two culinary delights, its hand-made toffee, made by wrapping the stuff around a spike pulled and twisted, then repeated almost indefinitely until it is then twisted into sticks. I tried it, it is sickly sweet (photos 1 & 2). The other thing is cuy (pronounced coo-ee), a wild guinea pig. They look like they were scared to death before roasting, judging by their expressions. I didn't get a chance to try it because nobody was willing to split one with me and I wasn't very motivated to try  hard to find someone who wanted to (photos 3 & 4).

Near Baños is the Pailon del Diablo, where there is some nice waterfalls (photo 1) and nature, I even spotted a glass-wing butterfly (photo 2) which was nice. Hitched a ride back on the Tarambito, a home made cable car (photo 3). The view down the valley was nice (photo 4), although if I had seen the complex machinery that drove the thing, I may have decided to walk back (photo 5). Driven as it was by an old Volvo truck engine.

The train ride from Riobamba is a bit of an odd one, the reason for taking it is to see the views, that means sitting on top of the train, on corrugated iron sheets, only the most ardent masochist would recommend that. There are some nice views (photos 1-3). The worrying bit is, the irresponsible people riding the train constantly throwing the children along the lines sweets, thereby turning them into beggars in no time. In some places the people would throw sweets at completely bemused children. At other areas along the line, they are obviously expecting it and run alongside the train begging (photo 4). It was also bloody cold to start with, after a while everyone was bored and trying to get some sleep (photos 5 & 6).

The pre-Colombian ruins at Ingapirca (photo 1) are not the most impressive in the region, but are probably the best in Ecuador. There are some really pretty flowers there (photo 2).