Boog's Blog

Sunday

Snorkeling between the towers, beach hike, highlands excursion

Morning snorkeling in clean and clear crystal waters between the rocks charles darwin saw called tiki rocks. An eroded channel idea for viewing swimming turtles, many, and similarly for sea lions which approach to investigate us. Fishes and more fishes.

Afternoon walk on a beautiful beach, swimming, strolling. Oyster catchers adapted to here, used to migrate from north America. Had to change their diets as no oysters here. Converted to sea urchins and barnacles.

Highlands adventure. Chatum tortoises, large and little ones at a conservation center. Hike up to a high lagoon fogged in.

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Saturday another perfect day

Early morning to see an elusive rat, not seen. Great sighting of a blue Booby up close. Many sea lions playing, approaching and waiting for the return of their mother. Fausto called them, gif behind a bush, and many came seeking the sound.

Santa fee land iguana, feeding, Thermoregulation responses.. Watching it a small cactus leaf in one piece, another scraping the spines of prior to chomping.

Different cacti tree for the iguana feeding. Talk yes with the spiny bits up near the top, tough bark. Adaptation at its best, maybe even better example than the finches.

Snorkeling adventure. C+according to Irby but quite a bit higher for me. Many fish, of course, in warm warm water. Great care needs to be taken with the equatorial sun.

QB now an expert on frigate birds. Perched on the winch, males, with their tomato patches and females were on display for an extended period.

Land walk in the plazas, north and south. On the map these appear as two horizontal stripes with a narrow channel between them, just of the Santa Cruz mainland. Sea birds and a different landscape.

Red billed to Tropic bird and it frigate predators.

Swallow tailed gull; watched courtship and mating.

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Friday cerro dragona on Santa Cruz

06:30 departure flight to Baltra island and then on to the Beluga boat/yacht.

First main sighting: a flock of blue footed bobbies sardine fishing. Diving, surfacing and diving, maybe 75 of them.

Lava gull only 300 of them left. We managed to see three.

Stilts, land iguanas, finches, egrets, Galapagos mockingbird walked between our legs when we did not clear a path for it, nests in cactus

Many mosquitoes and other boring bugs at dusk.

We have a particularly nice room on the top deck. Private, good views. Usable but hardly elegant bath.

Dinner coffee was"Lava Java" from the Galapagos

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Thursday, last day and night in Guayaquil. Friday morning we take a plane to Baltra and then the boat, no connection on boat. Little if any on the islands.

Presley Norton museum. Small archeology museum with excellent descriptions of artifacts ranging from 5000 or so years ago to the best present. Instruments, essentially whistles, driven by water, three toned were new to me. Pottery of course.

Rude and disinterested service in the non tourist places like pharmacies, supermarkets. The guides and locals mentioned this to us. Only the tourist places are polite and service oriented, just starting to learn according to locals.

Group dinner at Caracol Azul. Flight tomorrow. An interesting week seeing some of this country, is landscapes and people. A few times my Spanish was understood -:)

Four men, eight woman on the trip.

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Tuesday

Leaving the forest and onto the beach. Stopped at a fascinating ship shaped church with truly impressive views of the long and very well used beach towns, each apparently different in culture.

Montañita,a surfing and drug culture beach community will have an south american completion tomorrow, today it looked more family oriented,a beach community.

Tried and failed at long board body surfing. Feel off quickly.

Humidity, yes. Almost condensing this evening. Rather nice this evening.

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Tuesday

Field Trip to the South, Salinas, on the beach and home of some special Hummers that live on nearby cliffs.

About 150 km south of Guayaquil, very popular beach area for both locals and tourists.

Meeting at 8 am does not mean 8 am, seems to mean not before. We waited quite a while for our 8am guide to arrive. At least the lobby was nice.

A long 90 minute drive that took 3 hours plus. A tour through the salt marshes and to a large flock of Peruvian pelicans. Migratory. Anna works at the salt reserve, a reserve for birds as well as a commercial salt venture. Finally got a clear understanding of the production process.

Got to put my feet into the pacific ocean here and then refresh with tomato arbol as a juice. An interesting fruit drink. Numerous coastal photos. Sea lions here have thick black guy.

Farallón dillion for lunch. Seaside restaurant with an interesting story. Cervice and ahí,a very piquente sauce,juice of salsa is mild but the chilles …..

Off to our residence for the night. Will be forever memorable. Two sisters bought property in a remote, 10 kms inland on a road that required fording two streams and discussions about getting through to the place with just a 2 by 4. No cell, no electrify until some at night by generator, no refrigerator, set in 100 hectares, they just bought it six months ago, plan to run a remote glamping and experience hotel, farm the land with a tenant on the property.

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Monday

Reserva churute mangrove forest, bird watching with Anna. A good drive away from the city.

http://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manglares_Churute

Anna is a field biologist that specializes in birds and aquatic birds. There are 1600 species of birds in Ecuador, hummers being the largest group.

Motor boat ride in the reserve pretty but few birds, nothing like Costa Rica. Excellent spoonbills.

The walk in the forest was hot hot hot buggy and hot and buggy. The netting works but adds to the temperature that it already got and muggy. The vegetation was too dense to see many birds. Very many could be heard and identified. Some real birders were with us. One had three cameras, one on a heavy tripod with a lens that extended almost three feet. He knew all the birds and stopped to photograph and track many. Held us up for at least an hour and a half.

Visit, via some of the worst roads we have been driven on, worst anywhere, to a very interesting cocoa farm. Also raised dragon fruit, guava, passion, and more. Full tour through the growing and processing up to export. Trading at each stage of fruit production, then freshly made hot chocolate, made in a small home pot with added cane sugar, fresh, and cinnamon. Excellent and different.

Dragon fruit very profitable,300 fruits per year per plant at 1 dollar each. Why don't you grow more dragon fruit I asked. Ah…. Our heart is in the cocoa.

Then a long trip to see the rare horned screamer, in the duck genera,one three species of these ducks. The horn is really a front facing feather. We saw it through a spotting scope, the screamer being a few hundred meters away but nicely perched for viewing.
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Sunday, Easter, heavy rain last evening

City tour with Fernando, and then Cerro Blanco forest climbs. 444 stairs to las peñas, the oldest area of Guayaquil.

Racism prevalent by color but not much by wealth or the reverse depending on the age of the respondent.

20% of births are too girls under 18; 25% under 18 years of age, church being no help.

Cerro blanco, reserve built by the large and old cement company. In theory giving back for their environmental destruction. In theory.

Fernando has, he says, a very expensive home water filter. Separated acid from basic in the tap water. Acidic for washing fruit, basic for drinking. So he says.

Easter Sunday in the main cathedral- with an orchestra.

Iguanas park with 300 or so iguanas and the ground and in the trees. Protected, a tourist attraction, right in front of the cathedral, many pics on Flickr, lettuce sold to feed them. Surprisingly active, not like in Costa Rica.

Las peñas started in the 1500's and later was a drug infected slum. In the 1990's cleaned up. Great views from the top of this small mountain. Shops, bars on the way up the varies levels.

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The missing toquilla hat picture

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Saturday free day in the city.

Breakfast, going native with ceviche, here with popcorn,plantain, and corn nuts added. Apparently one adds what we call bar food to the ceviche (with large shrimp-many). Smoked salmon on the side.

QB acquired a simple but fun foldable toquila, also called a Panama hat.

The jardin botanica is quiet but bug infested. The taxi driver stopped so we could get repellant, told him we had. Then at the gate they offered us repellent. We were properly warned. Oddly the attendants would not call a taxi on their local phones, happy to help us use my phone.

The garden visit reminded QB why she is not a field biologists though this place does not have so many high weeds on the paths.

Street life. Vibrant and varied. Buskers, street vendors, persons selling single plastic glasses of cola from a bottle, limes conveniently priced at a dollar a packet, and homeless of course.

Stratification and equalitarian. Developing a theory but more research required. Today I discussed with a taxi driver the prevalence and appropriateness of having a mistress. Research continues.

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