Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu

My last post ended with us leaving the Galapagos Islands for Lima on Monday, October 15. We had a layover in Guayaquil where my dad and I got lunch at some little restaurant. The cool thing about this place was that they had buzzers on the table that you could push to receive service. It was awesome! The waiters didn't come by three times to ask if we were finally ready, and we got the check exactly when we wanted it. Nifty.

Our hotel in Lima was nice, but strange in some ways. There were two beds, just as we asked for, but there was about an inch between them. And in order for my dad to get out of bed, he basically had to step into the bathroom. It wasn't even a tiny room, it was just strangely organized.

Lovers Park

Tuesday we started with brunch at the hotel (a buffet with lots to choose from), and then we went on a 3-hour tour of the city. This was pretty much one of my favorite tours (besides the Galapagos). Our tour guide, Sheila, had the perfect balance of providing information without overwhelming us for 3 solid hours. Our tour covered the Plaza de Armas, City Hall, and the Cathedral, where we were able to go down into the catacombs and see where 25-30,000 people were buried. SO many bones. Some of these buildings did not allow pictures, so it's harder to remember what we saw in each place. After the tour we just wanted to relax, so we sat in our hotel room watching movies all afternoon/evening. It was so nice. We went downstairs for dinner at the hotel, and then packed our things (while watching more movies).

I think this is where Francisco Pizarro is buried.

Catacombs under the Cathedral! We couldn´t take pictures down there, but we could take them through the grates in the floor of the Cathedral.

Wednesday we had another buffet breakfast, and then we were taken to the airport for our flight to Cusco! It was a relatively quick flight, but we had to circle the Cusco airport once because the tailwind was too strong. This was also when I realized that I'm just more prone to altitude sickness than other people - we had been taking pills to help with the altitude for a couple days (and I spent 5 weeks in Ecuador for crying out loud), but after landing it felt like I was hyperventilating in my seat, and I was sweating like crazy because they turned off the air in the plane for the descent. That combination kind of makes you think you're dying. After getting our bags, we met up with our driver and guide who took us to our hotel. At this point I was having difficulty comprehending the things around me and I was incredibly tired, but at the hotel the guide wanted to go over our next 4 days in detail. FORTUNATELY she wrote everything down, either on a map or on our printed itinerary. I really appreciated that considering I had no idea what was going on at the time, haha.

So many sides, and the rocks all fit together so well!

After that we had a couple hours to rest before our 3-hour city tour. Here's a tip: DO NOT plan any kind of tour your first day in a high-altitude city (particularly over 10,000ft). The good thing was that our guide, Celio, was completely understanding that we were still adjusting to the altitude, so he took baby steps the whole time and didn't make us climb crazy hills or ruins. [As many of you know, I walk incredibly fast. Next time you want me to slow down, just take away half of my oxygen... that should do the trick.] I was also in full zombie mode by this point. Several times I realized that I was just standing there, staring at Celio or the scenery with my mouth hanging wide open. The really unfortunate bit is that Celio taught us SO MUCH about the Incas, Cusco, and other things, but I remember almost none of it. Darn. After seeing several sites of Incan ruins, he took us to the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. My one complaint about this tour was that we spent an hour in the Cathedral. My dad and I were used to popping into cathedrals, taking some pictures, wandering briefly, and leaving within 20 minutes, but Celio wanted to explain every aspect of the Cathedral to us. Given that I hadn't been absorbing any other information that afternoon, I could've gotten away with 10 minutes in there. After the tour we walked less than a block to a restaurant called Incanto and had quinoa soup (not as good as the one Daniel makes in Zuleta!) and some kind of quinoa main dish. Then we went another block or two to our hotel and crashed.

This is where the Incas would perform sacrifices.

The Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas.

Thursday we had an all-day tour of the Sacred Valley. First we ate breakfast at the hotel and heard the firecrackers that call people to church, and then we were picked up and put on a bus of Spanish-speaking people. We ended up switching buses at a little bus "terminal" to an English-speaking bus with Alfredo, quite possibly the worst guide I've ever had in my life (which should become evident a bit later). Before I get into the tour, here are a couple notes about the driving: double yellow lines (indicating that you can't pass) mean absolutely nothing, it's completely normal to shoot to the center lane in a roundabout and then swerve across the outer lanes when you want to exit, if there are two lanes of traffic moving in the same direction, apparently it's okay to cut inbetween them going the opposite direction, and if you're not constantly laying on the horn, you must not be from around here.

Back to the tour - we started by making a quick stop at a vista point overlooking the valley, and then a few minutes later we stopped again at a market. We paid to explore the Sacred Valley, and our second stop was to a market which had the same souvineers that every other market in South America seems to have. Good use of time. After that we drove up a very large hill to get to a big Incan terrace site. There were something like 11 of us tourists - some had gotten used to the altitude, but an older couple, a couple that had just flown in from Miami, and my dad and I were still trying to adjust. When we started the climb to the top, I asked Alfredo twice in less than 5 minutes if he could slow the pace. His response was to just keep climbing and leave the slow-pokes behind. When I FINALLY got to the little house at the top (where the others had been for 5-10 minutes already), Alfredo came over and said "you take your picture and then we go back down, okay?", to which I replied "no, I want to take LOTS of pictures, and I just got here so I'm not about to climb back down". Once again he left half of us behind while leading the other half down. With the pace he was keeping I was sure we had a lot of things to squeeze into one day. Unfortunately, half the places we went were markets where he likely earned some commission off of our purchases for bringing us to them. I wanted to punch Alfredo in the face when I realized he rushed me up and down a mountain at something like 12,000 ft of elevation so that we could get to his precious market that much faster. Jerk.

The little bump in the top center of the picture is the house we hiked to.

Pisac market! Very colorful (and cheap).

Where we ate lunch!

After the Pisac souvineer crafts market we headed off to eat lunch at a really nice hotel in the valley. It was a HUGE buffet lunch with a variety of meats, sauces, salad things, sushi, grains, and desserts. Our table was looking out on the nearby river and was right by some guys who were playing music on traditional instruments. It was such a nice and relaxing change from the rest of the morning. Despite all the wonderful food, none of us wanted to stuff ourselves because we knew we had to endure another long drive in our van. Fortunately the driver went a bit easier on us after lunch (as in making sure the front AND back sets of tires cleared a speed bump before accelerating again). Our next stop was the Ollantaytambo fortress which was huge and looked magnificent, especially at that time of day. Alfredo must have turned over a new leaf, because he kept the pace slow while we were climbing, and when we got to the bottom again, we were only missing one person! After the fortress we had one more stop at Chinchero, where we saw a demonstration of washing and dying wool. This was actually really cool because they use a plant called the "shampoo plant" to clean the wool - when you grind the leaves and mix with water, it makes soap! They also use anything from dirt to bugs to get the basic colors, and then mix with other types of powders or rock crystals to change the shade. I bought a shoulder bag here, and probably paid more for it than at another place, but the demonstration and explanations were really awesome. We finally made it back to Cusco around 7pm, and my dad and I grabbed a quick dinner before heading home. It was a LONG day.

Me with an alpaca in the morning...

... and again in the afternoon! (check the fork)

Ollantaytambo Fortress

Look at that fit! The knobs helped with transport.

Floating stairs

Note the perfect Incan parts and the not-so-perfect restored parts.

Wool-dying demonstration - you can even kind of see a stripe in the middle wool indicating where she added powder to change the shade.

Lunch on the train!

Friday we took the Vistadome Train to Machu Picchu! It was a 3-hour ride that got us into Aguas Calientes (the town below Machu Picchu) around noon. [[Side note: the planes and trains here have MUCH better food than in the US - on this train we got roasted potatoes and cheese cubes in yummy seasoning, a quinoa dish, cookies, and a drink. Our plane rides have included things like scrambled eggs and ham, bread rolls that are relatively fresh, fruit, and other edible things that I've actually consumed and enjoyed.]] Anyways, a guy from our hotel was at the train station and took our bags ahead. Another guy was supposed to take us to Machu Picchu, but he told us we could stop by our hotel first to check-in and see the room. That sounded fine to us, so we wandered down to the hotel (the last one on the block before the road to the ruins) and took our time. Then he finally stuck us on a bus to go up to Machu Picchu. That drive was incredible! Okay, it was also switchbacks the entire way in a bus, so it was a little terrifying, but there were mountains completely surrounding us and it was just an incredible sight.

View from the train. Notice how brown everything is.

View from our hotel balcony. Notice how green everything is!

When we got up there, our guide surprised us by saying we were over an hour late... WHAT? Apparently the guy who picked us up at the station was supposed to send us DIRECTLY to Machu Picchu so we could get to our tour on time. He must not have been aware of that. (I definitely thought it was strange that a porter was taking our bags down the road when we were walking there ourselves.) So our guide said that we could either start our private tour with him right then and only get the abridged version (something like 1.5 hours), or we could wait that 1.5 hours and go on the 3pm tour he was leading for a larger group of people. We opted for the shorter tour, and honestly it was still fantastic. I would have been pissed if he had said things like "over there is this really cool thing, but we don't have time for it". He still covered a ton of information and we walked around a lot of the ruins. It was amazing!! The sun was shining right on the ruins when we caught our first glimpse, and it just made everything seem alive. Turns out the Incas were pretty smart in the way they built their city - the perfect fit of the stones, the location of doors and windows, the way they tapped into natural water sources... everything was so thoroughly planned. When the guide had to go meet his other group, he pointed out two locations that we should definitely check out on our own - I'm so glad we did, because one of them (up near the top by the guard house) is where my dad and I got some great pictures of the entire site. Seriously, I don't know how else to describe Machu Picchu other than amazing and breathtaking (literally and figuratively). You should probably go and see it for yourself...

This room is nifty because there are two main windows that let in direct sunlight at each solstice.

Three windows, one for each element (they only believed that fire, water, and earth were the basic elements).

I wish those Incas had thought of hand rails...

Toward the end of our visit it started sprinkling, so we figured it was best if we headed back to the hotel. (My dad booked this 2-week trip though a travel agent, and she had a free night at this 5-star hotel, which she threw in for free as a thank you for booking with her.) This hotel (SUMAQ) was basically the Ritz Carlton of Aguas Calientes. It was so nice I wanted to cry. We each got queen beds (as opposed to fulls at some of the other hotels) with about a dozen pillows each, the room was spacioius, the bathroom was HUGE, the tub had jets in it, and we had a balcony overlooking the river. The one problem was that there are not screens in the windows, and the bugs go crazy at night, so it got quite warm with the windows shut. Other than our room there was a bar on our floor where we got free pisco sours (Peru's national drink), there were guest computers as well as wifi, the floor below was where meals were served, there was always tea in the lobby and freshly baked things during tea time every afternoon... it was so nice. The meals... absolutely fantastic. At dinner there were waiters standing around the perimeter of the room ready to get you anything. For dinner I had a Sumaq salad (cannot remember what was on it, but my dad has a picture of it), spaghetti with yummy sauce, a variety of ice creams, and lemonade... and this was all included in that free night! No wonder the Incas settled here... it's right by the SUMAQ Hotel!!

Saturday morning we had the largest breakfast buffet I've seen in a long time - there were cereals, chestnuts, about 8 types of bread, a variety of fruit (I tried Opuntia cactus), yogurts, juices, bacon, sausage, pancakes, crepes, eggs, rice, turkey, cheeses, etc. That day we had early morning tickets to Machu Picchu so we could see the sunrise if we wanted (we opted to sleep instead). Honestly, we had seen just about all of it the previous afternoon, and we were exhausted from all the travel in the last two weeks, so we just wanted to relax. It was also good that we slept in because it was overcast for most of the morning, and it rained periodically throughout the day. The "unfortunate" part was that our train ticket had been modified (for unforseen reasons, and at no cost to us), so instead of taking the Andean Explorer (one step above the Vistadome and second nicest on the route) at 4:30ish, we were scheduled to take the Hiram Bingham (the classiest and most expensive train, named after the American explorer who discovered Machu Picchu) at close to 6ish. So we had a lot of time to kill. My dad and I wandered around the crafts market right by the train station for an hour or so (and ran into a couple from our Sacred Valley tour), and then we returned to the hotel to get massages! This was pretty much the nicest massage I've ever gotten. It was 90 minutes of pure relaxation. My dad got a hot rock massage which I found hilarious, because just earlier we were talking about how we hate being too warm and stuffy (like in the hotel room with the window closed), and when he walked into his massage room he said it was something like 150 degrees in there, haha! Overall, the massages were fantastic and a great use of our time.

After that we sat in the lobby for a bit longer since we still had a while until our train left. We were even around until tea time, during which we ate quite a bit of banana bread and drank a bunch of tea. At this point I was considering what I could take to decorate my South American shrine room in my house (you know, the one I don't have). I had already contemplated sitting in our jacuzzi bathtub with my comforter wrapped around me, holding onto the little clay Inca people that decorated our walls, and screaming that they could never make me leave... but I figured being kicked out by security wouldn't be the most gracious way to end our free stay. Anyways, the most that I took were the extra shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and soap bottles in our room (so at least my shrine will smell the same), and like 20 coca tea packets from the lobby. By that point we realized we wouldn't be getting into Cusco until 9pm, and we hadn't actually eaten lunch, so we walked up the road to grab a quick bite before the train. We both got an order of fried cheese sticks with guacamole. They were delicious... and possibly our worst decision of the trip. We knew that we would get food on the train, but we figured it would be just a little snack basket like on the way down... we forgot that we were taking the Hiram Bingham back.

When we got to the station, there was a separate entrance for Hiram Bingham passengers to go to the luxury lounge. They didn't check our passports (rich people never lie...), they gave us cold towels to wipe our faces with, and there were musicians inside serenading people as they sat on comfy couches. As soon as we sat down, a guy walked over to take our tickets, and he worked some magic to get us better seats than we originally had. If we had sat there much longer, I'm convinced we would've gotten free champagne and appetizers (there were half-filled glasses around the room), but we were escorted to our seats on the train. We ended up at a table for four, but the other side was empty, so we put our bags there (and had so much leg room!). There were fresh roses on every tableclothed-table, wine glasses, window curtains... it was amazing (and should have cost over $300). We had so much wonderful food on that ride - it started with some kind of squash appetizer thing, then soup, a basket of different breads, a duck appetizer (first time eating duck), tenderloin beef, some kind of dessert, a second dessert of little bite-sized fancy cookie things on a silver platter, and unlimited wine. For free. I am horrified to say that I literally could not finish my tenderloin beef because I had filled up on fried cheese sticks. :-| It was a fantastic ride though. The bathroom was even amazing - there was a wooden toilet seat, a fresh rose next to the paper towels, and the window was frosted so people couldn't see in (unlike another train we passed). Before getting to the station, two guys even came into our car to play traditional music and welcome us to Cusco. By that time I was threatening to sit in one of the bag racks and hold onto the coat hangers for the rest of my life, forever riding from Cusco to Machu Picchu and back. I also wanted to take the curtains for my South American shrine. This was after my fourth glass of wine, but I don't think that had anything to do with it...

When we finally got to the train station in Cusco, our driver took us back to our hotel (and tried teaching me Quechua along the way). We spent the rest of the evening repacking everything since my dad was flying home the next day, and I had to switch hotels (to something more along the lines of MY budget). This was seriously a first-class day for us.

I think I'll stop here, as the next part of my adventure covers Lake Titicaca!

Quito and the Galapagos Islands!

I am currently typing this on the Vistadome Train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. What a beautiful ride (and my dad is asleep in the seat next to me)!! A LOT has been going on, so I haven't had time to update my blog, but that means I'm also WAY behind. Gahh!

So, Sunday (10/7) I went back to Quito. I made it to my hostel pretty easily. I was on the 3rd floor, and I had a fantastic view of the virgin on El Panecillo, and a view of The Basilica out the kitchen and lounge windows. Amazing! I unpacked everything onto my bed in the hopes of repacking and getting more organized, but instead I got tired and pushed everything onto my floor. Oh well.

Monday I woke up pretty early (8ish?) but kept napping and sitting in bed, unable to convince myself to get up. I finally rolled out around noon expecting to just walk over to The Basilica, but I ended up going to a lot of Old Town. First of all, The Basilica is huge, it has a ton of stained glass art, and there is so much detail in just about every aspect of it. I paid a couple dollars to climb to the top of the north tower, and I think I came very close to dying on the stairs. Sure, I had been hiking 1.5 hours at altitude about 4 days a week for 5 weeks, but stairs are a completely different thing. After a few flights I stripped off my jacket and was just standing in the stairwell trying to catch my breath and hoping my heart didn't jump out of my chest. Crazy. After that I wandered into Old Town and grabbed lunch at some little restaurant. The only table that was free up front had seats for 5, and a few minutes after sitting down, a middle-aged man and his father-in-law came in, and the father-in-law insisted on sitting with me because I looked like I needed company. Turns out they have family living in California, but they didn't speak English. It was a lovely lunch, and I got to practice my Spanish. They also told me how to be safe in Old Town. The rest of the afternoon I wandered around Old Town, and then I headed back to my hostel just as it started sprinkling.

Tuesday was an extremely lazy day for me -- I packed up my things, walked a block and a half to get to my next hostel, then sat there the whole rest of the day reading and checking email. I did go out to meet Sarah, the condor project coordinator, for dinner in New Town. That was the scariest taxi ride ever - the driver got a call involving his grandmother and money, and he spent the rest of the ride holding the phone in one hand, gesturing with the other, and yelling. And most taxis don't have seatbelts. Also, my dad was flying in from the US that day, and he got to the hostel just after midnight.

My illegal picture of La Compania.

Wednesday we wanted to take it easy (to help my dad adjust to the altitude), so I kind of had a repeat of my day in Old Town. We started at The Basilica and climbed to the top of the north tower, and while we were there we noticed some people in one of the clock towers! We wandered around trying to find how they got up there and discovered a little cafe on the floor just above the gift shop (where they sold hand-embroidered clothing from Zuleta!!). We got tamales and juice (while looking across Quito to the virgin on the hill), and then climbed the clock tower. After that we went to La Compania, which is a church made with something like 7 tons of gold. Apparently you're not supposed to take pictures in there, because after taking one a woman ran over and told me no pictures. Well, let me just say there was a LOT of gold in there! It was really incredible to see in person. After that we crossed the street to Museo del Banco Central, where they trace the changes in Ecuadorian currency from before European contact. After that we grabbed an early dinner which was super delicious. While we were there it started pouring, and it was funny to see how quickly the street vendors covered their stands and hit the streets selling umbrellas. After that we waded home.

Thursday we had planned to go to Quito Zoo (their condor egg hatched earlier in the week -- new baby girl condor!!) and Mitad del Mundo (the equator). We took a few buses and ended up at Mitad del Mundo, which is where French explorers determined the equator to be in the 1700s. That place has a big monument, lots of shops, restaurants, and crowds. However, the real equator is actually located something like 250 meters away, so we went to that one as well (located at the Intinan Museum). We were really glad we went to that second location because we got a private guide to teach us about the ancient tribes and the different tools/mechanisms they used for keeping time, and to show us some (hokey) demonstrations, such as water going down the drain in different directions on each side of the equator, and balancing an egg on the head of a nail. We had a lot of fun there. After that we decided to skip the zoo and just make our way back home.

Instrument to show which hemisphere the sun is in.

Friday was the real start of our adventures - we got picked up at 5:45am to go to the airport for our flight to the Galapagos Islands!! We flew into Balta Island and landed on their one runway. After customs and whatnot we met Enrique, who was our guide on the yacht. He had to wait for another couple, so the captain took us via bus to his yacht. We met the other passengers (7 others, plus 2 more coming), and dropped stuff off in our cabin (which was the smallest room I've ever seen for two people... a South Dorm single would have been a palace. Seriously, if one of us wanted to pass the other to use the bathroom or leave the room, the other had to sit down on the bottom bunk.). We ate lunch on the boat (which was really good - all of the meals were!), and then set sail for Bartholomew Island where some of us went snorkeling (I cannot belive I didn't even think to bring my contacts or an underwater camera for this)! We saw so many types of fish of all sizes, and there were so many of them! There were also manta rays and the biggest star fish I've ever seen (bigger than my face). Apparently there was also a white-tipped reef shark that swam under me at one point (I didn't see it). After rinsing off on the boat, we all went back to the island to hike to the top and look out at the iconic Pinnacle Rock. Enrique was just FILLED with knowledge! He pointed out wildlife (like the Galapagos penguins), taught us how the islands formed (and showed us the lava flows), went slow enough for the older couples, but was still engagings and active enough for the younger people. He even took really great pictures of people with scenery (some people are incapable of doing that). He has been, without a doubt, the best guide we've had by far. That night I think I was still not used to the boat (and our small cabin), because I got sick, and then went to sleep up on the lounge chairs on deck (where I got sick twice more). Oh well.

Lava tunnel!

Pinnacle Rock is on the right -- we went snorkeling around it!

Saturday morning we explored Genovesa Island, starting with a wet landing (we hopped out of our panga boat into a few feet of water) at Darwin Bay. Enrique gave us (another) excellent tour, and we saw sea lions, pelicans, red-footed boobies, frigates, lava gulls, night herons, crabs, and other crazy creatures. We also went snorkeling here and saw more amazing fish, but I think the site we were at on Friday was better. After rinsing off on the boat, some people went to do more snorkeling, but my dad and I went on a panga boat tour of the island, where one of the crew members took us around and pointed out interested things on shore, like sea lions, bird nests, crabs, etc. We also saw some sea turtles surface briefly a couple times, and on our way back to the yacht we saw two frigate birds attacking another bird. Frigates are lazy jerks and don't like finding their own food, so they look for birds who have eaten recently, grab them, and shake them until they throw up, and then the frigates take their food. The poor bird they attacked a few times managed to fly away eventually (but was probably hurt). It was a crazy sight (and I have a video!). That afternoon we had a dry landing (hopped out of the panga onto land) on another part of the island called El Barranco, where we climbed Prince Philip's Steps to the flat top of the island. There were a ton of masked boobies here, as well as others, and we caught a glimpse of an owl. Enrique also pointed out the different lava formations and features.

Frigate birds pecked a hole in this bird's neck to get the food out. Needless to say it is dead.

Red-footed booby!

Masked booby!

Dinner time!

That night was crazy - we were sailing to another island and there were REALLY rough waters. We started sailing during dinner, and after the night before I didn't feel up to dinner inside, so Enrique brought me toast and cheese on the deck, and another crew member brought me ice cream cake! Then I opted to sleep up there in a little nest that I made - I took the cushion from a lounge chair and propped it up against some oxygen tanks, next to the side of the ship, with my feet by a trash can. That was really nice because I got fresh air, and I could rest my head in my arm, which was on the railing, so I was completely moving with the ship and not being knocked around (I highly recommend this tactic). One of the older passengers came by and said she was "essentially a pharmacist" (drug dealer??) and offered me some anti-nausea medicine that they give to cancer patients during chemo. A younger passenger also gave me some ginger tablets that apparently help settle your stomach. Well, that night it turns out that I was fine! Unfortunately, most other people on the boat were not. The deck turned into some kind of sick bay, with people heading up when they couldn't handle their rooms anymore. A crewmember was handing out barf bags like candy. It wasn't pleasant (especially since they came into my haven and made me listen to them get sick). But I was fine!

Sunday I woke up to the beautiful island of South Plazas (I really liked waking up outside and seeing the things around me. Seriously - next Carnival Cruise you take, sleep on the deck (haha, good luck with that)). This was probably one of my favorite islands (in part because after the night before we all just wanted to be on land, but mostly because of how beautiful the scenery and wildlife were). The island was covered in some kind of flowering plant that was almost like a succulent, but it changes colors during the year. We saw that it was mostly red, but there were still some patches of green here and there (and on the underside). There were also colonies of sea lions (bachelor colonies of unlucky males), and baby sea lions, too! We even saw a couple climb up the side of a cliff from the ocean -- incredible watching them maneuver with flippers. The island was also home to Opuntia cacti and a bunch of land iguanas. The male iguanas are yellowish-orange, and the females are dark and blend in well with the rocks (I almost stepped on them a couple of times). At the top of the cliff we looked over the other side and were able to see manta rays in the ocean, and the wind up there was ridiculous. It started sprinkling a little bit, but not for long. We slowly made our way back, enjoying the sea lions and the views as we went.

How many iguanas do you spot?

Then we sailed to Santa Fe Island where we saw the biggest Opunia cacti I've ever seen -- they had trunks! We also saw some hawks and a lot of iguanas. At one point we saw a male eating yellow flowers that had fallen from a tree, and then he ran and chased another nearby male away (dang those things can move fast!). Enrique said he was just trying to protect his flowers, which I thought sounded absolutely hilarious. Later on the walk we also saw two lizards in some kind of battle - they were keeping their distance but maintaining eye contact, and then periodically lunging at the other. Enrique said that when food is scarce, they find other lizards to fight, because when something grabs their tail they lose it, so the lizards try to eat other lizard tails. On this island our trail started on one beach and ended on another, and both beaches were absolutely covered in sea lions. They were everywhere! At one point there was a male in the water who didn't like the way a guy on land was looking at him or something, because he made his way over and ended up chasing the other guy around the beach. It was really cool to watch. Then went back to the boat and got our snorkel gear on for our last (and probably best) snorkeling adventure. We jumped out of the panga a ways away from the beach near where the reefs were. There were a bunch of fish there that we followed for a while, and then all of a sudden two sea lions came out of nowhere!! They were really friendly and curious, so they swam right up to us and were swimming around for quite a while (WHY DIDN'T I HAVE A WATERPROOF CAMERA?!?). They were scared off by when the panga motor started, but they came by a bit later. We also saw 4 or so giant sea tortoises! They were... giant!! And they seemed to exert no effort but were able to move quite far. We swam with them for a while before finally going back to the boat. What a great last snorkeling day! That evening we sailed to Santa Cruz Island, and some of us spent an hour in town shopping and just enjoying land. I spent that night on the deck again because I had grown to like it up there (and couldn't stand our small room).

This guy loves his flowers.

Monday we were all up bright and early to leave the ship and get some last-minute land tours in. I really wanted to go to the Charles Darwin Research Center, so my dad's travel agent arranged a private tour for us while everyone else went with Enrique to the highlands. We said goodbye to everyone that morning, and then went to the Center. Unfortunately our tour guide was complete crap - he was texting most of the time and even made some phone calls, and the extent of his guiding was to read the signs that were in front of us. Not great. But I saw lots of tortoises! I'm glad that I went, because I would've regretted it if I hadn't, but it's too bad that we missed out on one last tour by Enrique, who we knew was an amazing guide. Oh well. After that we crossed Santa Cruz Island and took a ferry across to Baltra Island so we could catch our plane to Lima, and that was about it for the day.

I think I'll stop here for now. The next update should cover our Incan stops - Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu! Spoiler alert: Machu Picchu is AMAZING.