Ecuador

After Galapagos Islands we went traveled around Ecuador. Galapagos Islands for all its downfalls, was still amazing. It's completely unique to the rest of the world, and you are consitantly amazed by your surroundings. Getting into Ecuador it felt a lot like South America; suprise, suprise. I think the three of us were exausted and broke from Galapagos, so everything in Ecuador had lost its luster. It felt like every other South American country that we've been to. We started in Guayaquil, and traveled rather soon to Cuenca. Doing so our bus broke down, which didn't help. We spent around 2 hours on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. 

Cuenca was actually a beautiful city that had a lot of hidden gems. Unfortunately we weren't loving being in a city, but if you are in the mood. It's worth the stop. My favorite part about Cuenca was all of the markets, and the beautiful displays of food.

 

Our next stop was Banos. This was finally the place for us. It was beautiful, cuaint, and had a lot for us to do. There were hot springs, markets, and a hole range of outdoor activities.

We started our Banos adventure off by bungy jumping off the local bridge. I got to hook the harness on backwords and jump backwards to do a backflip. I have bungy jumped a few times before so it was really fun to try it a different way.

 

We took a bike ride along a beautiful, and kind of trafficy canyon. It had lots of waterfalls and pretty stops along the way.

We tried a local steam bath, which was more like ancient form of torcher. They would sit you in the bath and you would get so hot you would almost pass out, and then they would let you out and you would poor freezing cold water all over you, or sit in an icecold bath. Then repeat it. We did all feel great after, but pretty much hated it the rest of the time. You finish off the bath with being sprayed with a cold hose.



Traci and I tried two different days to go paragliding. We signed up, drove out to the spot, and then waited. The first day was too windy and the second day wasn't windy enough. We were super dissappointed, and as you can see it would have been the most beautiful place ever to paraglide, and at the best price!

We loved banos, and could have spent a little longer exploring the outdoors, local resteraunts, and local markets. 

Traci and I ended our trip to Ecuador in Quito. One of the more exciting things we did in Quito was go the Equator (which is apparently a little off from the actual equator). The monument and tourist area that they have for the Equator was completely deserted other than us a few tourists and all the shop owners. After being in the bustling city of Banos over a local holiday it seemed weird having a place so empty. Most of our time in Quito was spent indoors because of the intense rainstorms goin on outside.

 

Even though we all had a blast in Ecuador, I think we were excited to get back home.

Galapagos Diving

If you go to the Galapagos Islands you have to scuba dive. Well, you at least have to snorkel, but dive if you can.

We were able to dive with hammerhead sharks while in the Galapagos. It was so much fun. Even though I'm thrilled about seeing hammerheads, even better was swimming with the sea lions. On shore or in the shallow waters they are very fiesty, but underwater they are playful and elegant. You can play with them like you would a puppy. One sea lion kept following us around and would mimic us doing flips underwater. 

 Unfortunately our underwater cameras were acting up a few of the days and we couldn't capture some of the amazing things we saw underwater. We did however take some of these photos with a disposable underwater camera.

  

One of the days we swam up and around the little penguins. 

I am usually not a big fan of snorkling, but I had two of the best and most fun snorkels of my life in the Galapagos. The first we were able to snorkle above a huge pack of rays swimming in circles underneath us forever. Some of the rays were huge and were atleast five feet wide. If you were decent at freediving you could dive down and swim through and underneath them. At one point I was able to dive underneath about 15 of them and look up to them slowly floating along. Even deeper beneath the ray's you could see about fifty  2-4 foot sharks.

The other amazing snorkel I experienced was following my boat captain as he took me through tunnels and caves full of sharks. He didn't speak english, but he would wave me over and mimic to hold my breath. We would swim through tunnels to a handful of sharks waiting on the other side. They were usually about four feet long. The tunnels were fun enough to just swim through, and then to have little sharks waiting for me was absolutely amazing. A few of the times he swam into a cave where the only way out for the sharks was to swim back towards us skimming me on their way out. Luckily my captain was 100% confident in what he was doing otherwise I would have never gone into the caves on my own. 

Galapagos Islands definitly win for the best diving I have ever had. The only downfall is the water is extremely cold.

Galapagos Islands

Galapagos Islands are a once in a life time destination. I am so glad that I went and saw them, and I have no desire to go back anytime soon. If you are close and you have the chance to go. Definitely take it, but know that it isn't going to be your most enjoyable or relaxing trip you've ever taken.

Here are a few reasons that it is a once in a life time destination:

1. It's far away from anything

2. It's pretty expensive to get too

3. It's still expensive once you get there

4. There are very few nice or decent places to stay

5. There are very few nice beaches and towns

6. Each island is a few hours away from each other

7. They don't have nice ferry's; you go from island to island by bumpy speed boats

8. Some islands look similar to what I expect Mars to look like

9. They are not very flexible and struggle customizing tours

10. Due to a current coming all the way from the Antarctic, the water is actually fairly cold

Here is why it is still a must see destination:

1. You can and will see more unique species and wildlife than you will anywhere else in the world!

That really is the only reason to go to the Galapagos Islands. It is definitely worth it, but everything else leaves a lot to be desired. You wake up early. Take a bad boat ride, and then get to see more amazing wildlife. Then you take another bad boat ride back. It is a trip that left a lot of mixed feelings.

There is always the option to see the islands by cruise. I believe this would be the slightly more enjoyable way to do it, but you also won't have the flexibility to see as much in a short period of time. A lot of the people that we talked to that went the cruise route, didn't see near as much wild life as we did. 

Here are some of the highlights and amazing wild life we were able to see.

You'll see so many sea lions. They are like dogs. They are everywhere; on the park benches, streets, boats. They are sloths above water always sleeping and lounging about, and then under water they are playful and energetic. Scuba diving was the best with them, they would follow along side you and swim in circles around you.

There are the pretties, biggest turtles everywhere you go! Both above and below the water.

There are also pelicans all over. If you are there long enough you will see the graceful birds making steep dives down into the water to catch fish. The bird then fills its pouch with gallons of water and you can watch it slowly drain through its bill.

 One of the obvious must sees, are the penguins. You can't pass on seeing the tiny little things in such an unusual atmosphere.

One of my favorites was the Blue Footed Boobies. We got to get up close to them and watch them do their mating dance.

There are wild flamingo's!

My favorite island that we went to was Isabela. It's atmosphere was the most like what you would expect on an island, with little shops and restaurants all along the beach.

It also is where to see the lava tunnels. We loved the lava tunnels, they had one of the most unique landscapes I've seen. It had cactus and landscape you'd expect to see in Arizona above the water, mixed in with penguins and blue footed boobies. Then below the water their were sharks, turtles, and fish.

A few of the islands have hundreds and hundreds of these guys. There are tiny ones, as well as ones that are a few feet long!

One of the islands even has tons of sharks you can see at certain times of the day without even being in the water!

As you can see by the photo's, Galapagos Islands is still a must see destination despite some of its flaws.