Other than a couple of nights when we all met up in the pub, we were mainly with our smaller group of seven which included ourselves, Wendy, Jason, Angela, Frances and for half the week only, Paula. Cheese, wine and chocolate was the order of the day (every day!) and a fine time was had by all. Or maybe Jason would argue with that  - early in the week he hurt his ribs badly and on the second last day, he broke his arm. It seems beginners snowboarding is not for the faint hearted!

The rest of us are all skiers of various levels, and were able to get on to the higher runs and explore the valleys nearby. Alpe d’Huez is a great resort, with plenty of runs for all levels. I was very proud to complete an 18km black, La Sarenne, on the last day, when Eddie and I covered a lot of ground with the lovely Claire Westbrook as our ski buddy (PJ we missed you!). Many Vin Chauds followed and although the bars were lacking the Apres Ski madness you get in Austria, I actually enjoyed the more chilled out approach to unwinding after a day on the slopes.

I absolutely loved this skiing holiday.  We stayed in an apartment - Pierre & Vacances Ours Blanc Privilege – which was better than we’d expected, the rooms were small (as accommodation in France tends to be) but the living space was big and comfy enough for us all to eat and sit around in comfortably. The lifts were bit of a trek (15 minutes with your ski boots on ain’t easy) but there was a free shuttle bus, thank God.  Having flown with Ryanair and travelled to/from the airport with Ben’s Bus, the trip didn’t cost the earth either. Big thanks to our apartment chef Frances for feeding us well on the nights we ate in, to Meatball for doing the initial legwork and to Jason for sorting out all the gear, transfers and apartment.  Roll on skiing 2011!!!

]]> http://www.lickablewallpaper.com/2010/02/alpe-dhuez-skiing-2010/feed/ 1 http://www.lickablewallpaper.com/2009/11/northern-ireland/ http://www.lickablewallpaper.com/2009/11/northern-ireland/#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:37:32 +0000 Eddie http://www.lickablewallpaper.com/?p=61 My sister got married in November, and after a great few days celebrating with the family we had a weeks holidays in Northern Ireland to look forward to. Dundalk, where I’m from, is a border town half way between Dublin and Belfast. I’ve spent a lot of time up North over the years but rarely went further north than Belfast and hadn’t been up that direction since I was a youngster on a family camping trip to Antrim. After peeling ourselves from a cosy fire and my mums cooking, we set off on the M1 towards Belfast to start our weeklong sojourn up North and see what it had to offer.

Our plan was to drive around the coast from Belfast to Derry and finish up in Rathmullan in Donegal where we’d two nights booked in Rathmullan House, a wedding present from Ríona’s bridesmaids Maria and Serena and their manboys. We wanted to base ourselves in the same place for the first few days (possible to do because Antrim isn’t too spread out) and needed to keep things fairly cheap so we booked a good value self-catering cottage in Limepark outside Armoy (about fifteen minutes drive from Ballycastle). Limepark is a cluster of old farm buildings dating back to the 1800’s that have been restored as artists studios and self catering cottages. Each of the cottages has it’s own unique character and the one we stayed in, Ned’s Loft, was like a little church with it’s stained glass windows and wooden paneled walls. Our cottage was one of the only ones without an open fire which was the only downside, but the underfloor heating and oversized duvets more than made up for it. I think we paid £145 for the three nights which was great value for this place. We made good use of our wee kitchen every night to eat in.

We spent our few days in Antrim exploring the local highlights. First on the list was Carrick-a-rede rope bridge which is usually closed in the wintertime but was still open when we got there. The bridge was originally built to give access to the tiny island off the coast from where salmon fisherman put out their nets to trap fish on their way inland to spawn. It’s not in use any more; the stocks of salmon are too low to sustainably net them but the fishermen used to take up to three hundred fish per day back in the sixties and seventies.

Not too far up the road from Carrick-a-rede is Dunluce Castle. This is one of the most impressive castles I’ve seen in Ireland, a sight to behold perched right on the edge of the cliffs. The photo doesn’t do it much justice and makes it look a lot smaller than it is, but it’s definitely worth a visit and it has a nice interpretive centre on it’s grounds run by the National Trust.

Further up the road from Dunluce is the Giants Causeway which is probably the biggest attraction in the area. The rock formations are pretty unusual and fun to potter about in but the area is fairly small and you’ll see the main sights in an hour or so. They’re free to enter if you park down the road, otherwise you pay for your parking (which goes to the National Trust anyway). Worth a visit.

After three days in Antrim, where we also visited the Bushmills whiskey distillery who put on a great tour, we set off for Derry. We were trying to get to the Bogside for 10am to join one of the walking tours but were delayed and missed the start of it. Luckily enough the group came back for us so we got to experience most of the walk. The tour was run by a republican ex-prisoner and was both interesting and harrowing. It focused mainly on Bloody Sunday which happened in the surrounding area. There’s a newish museum (the Museum of Free Derry) nearby with a lot of exhibits on Bloody Sunday and the civil rights movement which will easily fill a couple of hours if you’ve any interest in the history of the conflict.

After a quick lunch in Derry (we didn’t spend too much time in the city centre because it was lashing and we were soaked), we set off for our final destination, Rathmullan House on Donegal’s Fanad peninsula. This family-run hotel has been enjoying great press in recent times, winning awards from Good Food Ireland and Electric Picnic. We’d read good reviews, so were expecting to have a luxurious and relaxing time there. It didn’t disappoint. The drawbacks, to get them out of the way, were the pool and treatment area – which were only disappointing because we assumed there would be a spa (as our package included a massage) and a modern swimming pool. Our mistake really, we hadn’t actually read anywhere that there was a spa, but in this day and age, one makes assumptions! So we were slightly disappointed to realise that the pool area was a bit functional and the free massage took place in the one small treatment room. But the masseuse was excellent, she really knew her stuff, gave us both a good deep massage and more than made up for the lack of usual spa stuff.

Once we got over this slight disappointment we were really impressed with Rathmullan House. It’s the most relaxing hotel we’ve stayed in in Ireland, old style but in a good way and totally chilled out. The fact that its family run really makes all the difference in terms of ambiance and service.  We spent our day there walking the beach, driving up the coast to admire the lighthouse and making plans to learn more about Irish history after our week of exposure to all things past – both ancient and more recent.

The Flight of the Earls commemoration was the last historical sight we came across and it was poignant to think of how that event from 1607 led on to a chain of events which brought us to the recent Troubles and on to today.  After all the mental exertion brought on by this renewed interest in our nation’s history, we spent our last evening in front of one of the many open fires in the hotel. Our weekend in Rathmullan House was deeply relaxing and a bit different from other hotel stays we’ve had; more like being in a posh relative’s (very fancy) comfortable, welcoming home. Our 2 night stay included B&B, one dinner, a massage each and cost €215 each. Thanks again to Serena, Maria, Pip and Conor; it was a fab wedding present, and a great end to our trip north.

We arrived on Wednesday evening and left on Sunday morning, and over the three days and four nights we spent our time eating, drinking and driving around sightseeing.

We had a day in St. Emilion, which is a lovely old town with narrow cobbled streets, steep hills and lots of vineyards. There we sampled some of the local vino, had a gorgeous meal in Les Giron’dines and generally had a nice time for ourselves. We visited one of the many wineries outside the town and discovered the tunnels that run under the entire area which were built by hand years ago, but which are now used for storing wine during the fermenting process.

Another day was spend in Bordeaux, shopping and strolling around. It’s a nice city, but I was glad we had based ourselves in the country instead as we saw a bit more of the region. On our third and final full day, the sun came out from behind the clouds so we spent the day by the pool. That evening we went into Bergerac for another lovely meal in L’Imparfait. Bergerac is a small and pretty city, close to many vineyards and perfect for a hassle-free weekend break.

Chateau de Vigiers is a golfers paradise, and I would recommend it to any non-fussy eaters with deep pockets and a love of golf, foie gras and French wine. It was definitely relaxing for us non-golfers also, but I’m not sure its worth the normal rates they charge – we availed of an offer of €100 per night per room, which was pretty good value. The main consideration is that you definitely need a car, as it’s in the middle of nowhere and the restaurants on site have limited menus and are on the expensive side. We ate there two nights out of four and the food was good, but the menu was definitely geared to local tastes which resulted in us eating foie gras, venison and rabbit.

Overall we had a lovely relaxing time in France, stuffing our faces with rich food and good wine and soaking up all that sunshine we have been deprived of this summer in dear old Ireland.

We started our trip in Barcelona where we’d prebooked the Jazz hotel for three nights. It was pretty good value (about €100 per night) and had a high rating on trip advisor, but we were a bit disappointed when we got there because it was a bit worn and had a sterile, ‘businessy’ feel about it. We’d stayed in some real hovels when we were away, but wanted our honeymoon to be special so the first thing we did after eating some dodgy tapas across the road was look up some decent hotels and change our booking for the next two nights to the Abac. Good decision.

After a much needed full nights sleep, we went for a stroll around Las Ramblas, one of the main drags of Barcelona. Like the main drags of most other european countries, there wasn’t anything too exciting to see until we got to la Mercat de la Boqueria, a great food market just a stone’s throw from the main street. We wanted to get some real tapas after the previous nights attempt, so headed for the stall with the biggest concentration of locals (it was called Bar Boqueria). After a lot of dishes and a mooch around the other stalls (markets are somewhere we can both spend hours looking around, even when they only sell food!), we got a taxi up to the Zona Alta to our fancy new (expensive!) home for the next few nights, the lovely Hotel Abac.

The Abac is a fifteen room boutique hotel that was built to provide rooms for customers of its two Michelin-starred restaurant; it’s a haven of white and wood and the kind of place you don’t really want to leave when you’re there. It took us a while to figure out how the room ‘worked’, there was only one solid wall for instance, the rest were made of glass and had remote controlled curtains to give you your privacy. The remote also controlled the lighting and heating. The bathroom didn’t have a shower, or so we thought until we found out that the entire ceiling was a rainforest shower. All of the electronic equipment in the room was Bang and Olufsen, the toiletries were Hermes. I’d never been in such a place before, it was a techophiles dream :-)

We ventured down to find the underground spa that we’d read about and found out that it was for the exclusive use of two people at a time. We lounged about on the hot seats, the pool and the fart seats that Riona found a button somewhere for. It was bliss. I could have stayed inside that hotel for the rest of our week and went home happy!

We did get out an explore more of Barcelona though and bought a two day tour bus pass. I didn’t realise how big a city it was, not somewhere you could explore on foot unless you have lots of time. We took in most of the highlights, were a little bit disappointed with Gaudi’s Park Guell but blown away by La Sagrada Familia. We also managed to do lots of good eating – it was one of the aims of our honeymoon. Friends had prearranged dinner for us in a great seafood restaurant, La Bota Fumeiro as a great wedding present and we had a delicious asian tasting menu in Con Gracia that consisted of about nine courses in all, with different wines accompanying a lot of them. After a gluttenous three days in Barcelona, we picked up a rental car and headed north for Emporda, our second port of call.

We’d managed to get this booking right. We’d made a reservation for Castell d’Emporda based mostly on its website and it didn’t disappoint. We paid around €100 per night bed and breakfast which was excellent value. The hotel is a restored castle in the middle of the countryside, about ten miles from the coast. The grounds overlook a beautiful green countryside, something that didn’t meet my sterotype of a dry, arid Spain.

The biggest attraction with the Emporda region is the amount of medieval towns scattered around the place, just waiting to be explored. Most of the ones we came across were almost deserted, it was like being in the south of France without the crowds or the expense.

The north west region of Spain around Girona is probably best known for it’s most famous son, Salvador Dali. We were on the edge of the ‘Dali Triangle’, a trio of museums in three different towns in the area. We managed to visit two of them, his muse Gala’s house castle, Castell de Pubol and Dali’s own museum that he opened himself in 1974 in Figueres.

Castell de Pubol was a place that Dali created for Gala that he put off limits to himself unless invited. The furniture and collections of paintings and other tat are fantastic, they reminded us of a cross between Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaiso in Chile and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. Gala herself is buried in the crypt of the castle, overlooked by statues of a giraffe, some horseheads and a human torso.

Dali’s Thatre Museu in Figueres contains more of Dali’s work than Gala’s castle, but a lot of other art that he collected also. Because we were running out of time, we visited both museums on the same day which I wouldn’t advise as it’s a lot of weird shit to take in in one day especially with all the giraffe-ladies and doll-heads.

An example of one of the rooms in the museum is the Mae West Room. you can see that the room is laid out as her face, but when you climb up a ladder at one end of the room and look through a large lens, all of the elements come together to give the real effect. It’s pretty cool!

We had a great week in Catalonia. Spain is somewhere that we both want to return to, there seems to be some much to the country once you stay away from the tack and trouble of the resorts. It was nice to practice our Spanish again too. If you’re looking for somewhere that’s reasonable to get to and full of rich culture, great food and fantastic scenery, you can’t go wrong with Catalonia.

Coming from a humid Ecuador to New York’s snow and chilling wind was a shock to the system, but to experience the sparkle and crispness of the city in the winter was worth every numb toe and runny nose.

On one of the days, the weather went from being grey and bitterly cold to bright and sunny so we took the opportunity to spend a lovely few hours strolling from the north end of Central Park down to 57th Street. I’d never taken the time to explore the park before and it was a perfect day for a walk; cold but crisp and bright. Central Park is a great amenity and were it not for the ever present Manhattan skyline in the background, you could be in the middle of the countryside. I thought we’d have seen the last of any real wildlife when we left the Galapagos, but the area was full of life and we even spotted a large red-tailed hawk watching the world go by from a tree.

We were quick to settle back into the land of plenty although I struggled to clear my plate when we ate out. We mainly stuck to budget restaurants but also managed to fit in a couple of nice meals. The Spotted Pig gastropub in the West Village was definitely a highlight. This is the only pub I’ve ever ate in that has a michelin star and their burger and chips was probably the tastiest I’ve ever had. I didn’t realise that a pub burger could be so good! It wasn’t too expensive either (about $18 for a main) although their pints were pretty pricey at $9 (plus) a pop. We had planned on visiting after Riona had read about the place in a few magazines, but it was while we were strolling around one afternoon that we came across it and decided to have some tucker. One of my favourite things to do in New York is to stroll around the city with no particular plan and let her quirks, sights and attractions find you. There’s something here for everyone, you could walk the streets for years and never get bored. Some of my highlights included exploring Chelsea’s Indoor Market, trying the gluttonously thick chilli-hot-chocolate at Jacques Torres chocolate shop in Brooklyn, having a post-dinner cupcake in the Magnolia bakery in the West Village and warming up the old bones with Hale and Hearty’s cheddar and tomato soup. My desire to eat good western-style food again was pretty evident!

Mainly because of the cold weather (it was sometimes too cold to just wander the streets) we spent more time shopping than we had planned, just to be indoors! NYC really is consumer heaven, we picked up some great bargains in Macys (there were big sales on) and in the shops along Broadway from Canal St to Union Square. We also visited the Jersey Gardens Outlet, Filene’s Basement and Century 21- all of which contain lots of junk but we did get some good bargains in reward for our perseverance. Riona thought she had hit the jackpot when we stumbled across a sample sale in Chelsea Market and I had to leave her to it for a few hours as she wreaked havoc on her credit card

I had never been to a Broadway show and so on our last day we queued up at Times Square for discount tickets to one of the big shows. We ended up at Spring Awakening, which was great -it’s a musical tale about the sexual awakening of a group of teenagers in 1890’s Germany, but with modern music and a few raunchy sex scenes. Not one for the kids, but it had the audience veering between laughter and tears and we both really enjoyed it.

We stayed in the L Hostel in Harlem for $25 each a night and it was perfect, just a few months old, modern, clean and close to the subway. We hardly spent any time there as we were up and out each morning and not home until we were ready to sleep each night. On one of the nights we met our old friend Pam from home and another night we met Nina, a girl we had met briefly when we were in Peru.

After six fantastic days in NYC, it was time to pack our (much heavier) bags and start our final journey back home. After so long being on the road where our biggest worry was where we would go next, the thought of settling back in to a very different country from the one we left was a little depressing, but it would be nice to see our family and friends again and at least we had Christmas to look forward to.

This final entry is being written a few weeks later and already the whole trip seems like a dream! After a few days of being home, it was like we had never left. We plan to keep this blog updated from time to time with photos from around Ireland and from any other holiday we take (probably not anytime soon!). You can subscribe for future updates here. Other than that, thanks for reading! Good night, God bless and safe home ;-) 

After getting off our boat in Puerto Ayora and finishing our last excursion (a trip to the El Chato Tortoise Reserve in the Santa Cruz highlands), we set about on what would be one of our last accommodation searches of our trip! If you believe what most of the guidebooks tell you, staying in any of the Galapagos’ three large towns will be hard on your pocket, but this doesn’t have to be the case and with a bit of searching and bargaining, we got a lovely double room for $20 in the Hotel Espana (on the intersection of Tomas de Berlanga and Islas Plazas). Food wasn’t overpriced either – if you wanted to eat gringo-style food on Puerto Ayora’s main drag you’d pay well for it, but a trip to Charles Binford St will have you eating a set lunch of soup, main course and desert (with a drink) for $3. The restaurants on this street aren’t flashy, but you’ll be in good company (all of the locals eat here) and the food can be really good. Familiar Williams was the pick of the lot – we had the most succulent lobster in coconut sauce here for $12 on one of our last nights and it was superb (neither of us had tried lobster before and thought it was all it’s hyped up to be!). The more ordinary dishes come in huge portions and average around $3-4.

There’s plenty to keep you occupied around the town, but its highlight for me was the small fishermans port where the boats land their catch every day. The port has an army of pelicans constantly waiting for leftovers and easy thieving opportunities, but they’re not as ill behaved as you’d expect and most of them wait patiently for handouts from the fish traders. There’s even a resident sea lion who’s been hanging around for years (you can just about see his head in the picture below, underneath the womans arm).

On past the fishermans port is the Charles Darwin Research Center where Lonesome George lives. Back in the day, when the Galapagos were frequented by whalers, merchantmen and naval vessels, thousands of giant tortoises were taken away on ships as an insurance against scurvy – the huge animals could be kept alive as a future food-scource for up to eighteen months without food or water by simply turning them on their backs. This and the introduction of feral animals to the islands, all but wiped out the giant tortoise population, and while some species were wiped out altogether, many are still dangerously close to extinction. George is the last of his own species (Pinta) and was taken from Pinta island in 1971 to the Research Center where he lives to this day. They’re still trying to get him to reproduce with a close matching species and in July of this year he mated with a suitable female. However, the eggs are showing signs of being infertile but as of November, there’s still some hope that some of the thirteen eggs may hatch.

Just as with the unpopulated islands, there’s plenty of wildlife to be seen on Santa Cruz including lots of marine iguanas, boobies, finches and sally lightfoot crabs. There are some great places to visit within walking distance of Puerto Ayora like Tortuga Bay with its pristine white beach and Las Grietas gorge, a natural swimming pool filled with brackish water that’s reached by a $0.60 water taxi from the main port and a twenty minute walk.

We didn’t spend all of our time on Santa Cruz. Our cruise itinerary didn’t take in any of the northern islands, and one of them in particular that we were sorry to have missed was Bartolome island, so we went there on a day trip. It cost around $100 dollars each and was quite a long day (more than six hours were spent on the boat getting there and back) but worth it. There was a group of Japanese tourists on board who were so excited by every small animal they saw that they made us a bit more appreciative of just how much wildlife we had seen on our cruise! At one stage we spotted a huge Manta Ray swimming alongside the boat, and this, added to the Japanese group’s enthusiasm, helped pass the hours on the boat. Bartolome has some great snorkelling, an interesting lava landscape and probably the most famous vista of the Galapagos, the so-called ‘double-sided beach’.

We were really sorry to be leaving the Islands after spending ten days there, and if we were to do it again, would have stayed for another week or two at least, but our flights were booked and we had to move on.

If you’re thinking of going to the Galapagos but are put off by the cost of the cruises, my advice would be to go on out there and enjoy them from the land. You can always do a bit of island hopping when you’re there! The islands truly are a wonder of nature and they’re clearly not going to stay that way forever – we probably  have less time to enjoy them than we realise.

For our remaining six days in South America we flew back to Ecuador to see a bit of the coast. During this time we visited Montanita which we disliked (too many fake hippies) and Canoa which was lovely and chilled out. We enjoyed Canoa, but really we should have just stayed in Santa Cruz as it would have been nicer and we would have avoided a lot of travelling.

After Canoa, we returned to Quito for the last time, where we ate an excellent meal in El Arabe and stayed close by in the homely and cosy Blue House.  It certainly was a step up from our previous accommodation in Quito which was in the very welcoming but slighty scummy Hostel Sucre (the cheapest bed in the city I reckon at $4 for our own room). After spending our last day in the excellent Artisan’s market in Quito getting a few gifts for the folks at home, we finally left this part of America behind and flew north to New York, our last stop before returning home to Ireland.

We spent five days on the Archipel II and visited five of the main islands in the group: San Cristobal, Espanola, Floreana, Isabela and Santa Cruz. We had read online that the islands, which are all volcanic, are not that pretty and so were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the place as well as the excellent wildlife watching.

The Archipel II is a luxury class “eco” catamaran with a seven member crew and room for sixteen guests, but as it was only the beginning of the high season, there were only eight of us on board. After flying over on a plane full of people in their sixties, we were quite pleased to see that we would be joined on our boat by six other ‘youngsters’ like ourselves, all from different countries and all good craic. The boat itself was great; although perhaps a bit lacking in atmosphere, it was quite luxurious and you couldn’t complain about the food or general service. Our average day involved waking at about 6.30am, breakfast at 7am, hopping into our small speedboat at 8am and beginning our first excursion minutes later. After a few hours we would return to the boat for lunch at 12pm and then leave again around 2pm for the afternoon activity. Activities were always either a guided walk along one of the island trails or snorkelling in the clearest water I’ve ever seen. After this second activity we’d have some afternoon refreshments and as we soaked up the rays on the sun deck, the boat would sail on to the next island. We rarely sailed at night. The sea was not very rough so neither of us were sick thankfully, and as with our boat trip in Indonesia, we both really enjoyed the hours reading and chatting with the other passengers as we motored along through the deep blue sea. Most days the weather was great and although at times it was dull or overcast, it was always warm and sunny.

Because we were with a nice group and the wildlife and scenery was so good, we really enjoyed all our activities but were quite disappointed with our guide who was verging on rude at times and generally unenthusiastic. This is no reflection on the boat as he had never worked with them before and was just assigned to it at late notice (most of the boats don’t have their own permanent guides: they are assigned by the national park authorities). In a way, it would have been great to have a better guide who could have told us more about the endemic species and how they differ, but in another way it didn’t matter too much as unlike a safari trip, for example, the animals don’t exactly need spotting! The snorkelling everywhere was really enjoyable, but to be honest it wasn’t as good as Borneo. And of course it was a lot colder. Generally wetsuits weren’t 100% necessary but they did make it much more comfortable and enabled us to spend longer in the water (the water temperature was about the same as Ireland at its warmest).

Over the five day boat trip, we saw many sealions, iguanas, pelicans, albatross, boobies, mockingbirds, Darwin finches, tortoises, lava lizards and crabs, while underwater we saw many colourful fish, turtles (sometimes mating), rays and white tip reef sharks. There were many really cool moments, including some of these main highlights:

On Espanola, we witnessed an Albatross mating ritual, which was really very funny to watch. Originally there was three birds involved but number three soon bowed out and left the other two to it. What followed consisted of quite a bit of rapid opening, closing and touching of beaks, accompanied by lots of squawking at various volumes and pitches. They were still going strong when we eventually walked on after about twenty minutes of giggling and photo-taking.

At Shark Alley on a small island off Isabela, we saw about thirty or forty white tip reef sharks in a narrow, shallow, natural canal. We also came within about two or three meters of these reef sharks when snorkelling in Gardner Bay. After a few minutes observing these, we moved along the path to where we witnessed two angry-looking marine iguanas locked in a head-to-head battle of endurance and strength. This duel involved a lot of spitting as well as quite a bit of gum and teeth baring which we hadn’t seen before. Vicious stuff!

The best stop on our itinerary was probably Gardner Bay on Espanola. We were lucky to have a beautiful blue sky day here and the beautiful beach had about one hundred sealions on it, plus marine iguanas, sallylightfoot crabs and red lava lizards. We also spotted a rarely-seen Galapagos snake and spent a fascinating few minutes watching three mockingbirds eating the placenta of a sealion who had just given birth. The newborn pup still had the cord attached and apparently the birth had been witnessed by other tourists an hour previously while we were strolling up the beach.

The baby tortoises we saw at the Isabela Tortoise Breeding Centre were just plain cute, especially when you compare their size to their grandparents, who are huge creatures that often live well past one hundred. The work of the breeding centre is very important as the tortoise population has been decimated over the last fifty years of human habitation, primarily by the introduction of mainland species such as goats and pigs. The centre helps boost the population of various endangered species before releasing them back into the wild.

One of the most common but amusing sea-birds on the archipello is the blue-footed boobie. These oversized, dopey-looking creatures with their big blue feet, never failed to bring a smile to our faces and it’s no surprise that they’re the unofficial emblem of the islands.

After five great days on the islands, our boat landed in the most populated town in the chain, Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz. We had another five days left before we returned to the mainland and although we didn’t have very high expectations, we enjoyed the second half of our stay just as much as the first.

Mindo is only briefly mentioned in the guidebooks we looked at, but it really deserves more attention. We were advised to go there by a couple we met in Peru and we’re glad now that we took their advice. It´s a small town, really a village, in the middle of one of Ecuador’s cloud-forest regions that´s best known for it´s bird watching. After getting off the bus on the main road about ten kilometeres from Mindo, we got a lift in the back of a truck to the village (the main mode of transport in the area) and booked into Hostal Rubby, a fantastic guesthouse run by local bird watching guide Marcello and his lovely wife Norma. We were the only guests for the three nights we stayed so had the best room in the house, the loft room complete with three beds, two hammocks and windows looking out over the trees. It was great value at seven dollars each per night including breakfast. We ate lunch there most days too, three bucks for three tasty courses. The place is named after Norma’s daughter Rubby, a little girl of eight who has a severely debillitating syndrome which means she has limited mobility, no speech and a mental age of two. Although we weren’t able to communicate normally with her, Rubby made us welcome by pulling at our hair and playing around us. We felt honoured as Norma said she doesn’t interact with the guests at all unless she likes them. She’s a lovely little girl but has it hard living in Ecuador where there are very few facilities for kids like this. Norma mentioned that they are looking for a trained therapist to work with Rubby… if you know anyone in that field who would like to trade their skills for some free time in Mindo, they should get in touch.

Marcello has a reputation for being a really good bird watching guide and we´d hoped to do one of his early morning trips the morning after we arrived, but he´d been booked up a year in advance by a pair of specialists who had him for two full weeks, so we had to make do with another guide who wasn´t the best! We spent five hours walking around Mindo the following morning looking at birdies, but we were a little disappointed with what we saw. All wasn´t lost though, as we´d learned that there was an Ecuadorian-German couple who would allow you into their garden for a few bucks and bring you coffee or tea as you watched countless hummingbirds buzzing around the place. It was excellent – I´d seen some of these birds before but never close up, and they´re really entertaining to watch. After about three hours watching them, I knew it was time for us to go when I realised that the plastic bits were coming off my camera as the glue melted in the heat!

There’s lots to do in Mindo including white water tubing and swimming in waterfalls but the water was low when we were there so we chose to visit a butterfly farm and zipline course. We went to the see the butterflies first and again spent a lot more time there than we´d planned. Although it was small, the place was full of butterflies, some of which were nearly seven inches in width. They were really nice to watch, and one part of the farm had a hatching box where you could see the pupas changing into butterflies over the course of about ten minutes. They also had some other animals, mostly frogs and, for some reason, preying mantis´.

On our last morning, we decided to give the zipline a try. Of the two zipline courses, one is owned by a consortium of locals and the other by some Costa Ricans. We did our bit to support the locals and did their one and they were willing to give a bit off their price so that helped! There were ten lines to traverse and the whole thing was done in about 40 minutes but it was the best ten dollars I´d spent in a long time. The guides would spin you upside down and stick you in all sorts of funny positions as you zipped across the valley on a metal cable. I´d done similar things before and thought that I wouldn´t get much out of it, but it really was a rush and pretty scary too!

We only spent three days in Mindo, but it´s the kind of place you could spend a lot longer in. If you´re ever in Quito and looking for somewhere more tranquil to pass a few days, you could do a lot worse than hanging around with the birds and butterflies in Mindo.

Samona Lodge is the real deal, it´s definitely not a place to go if you´re shy of snakes or spiders or any kind of creepy crawlies. We spent four wonderful days there and both agreed that it beat our previous jungle trip back in Borneo by a mile. By the end of the first day we had already seen much much more than we had anticipated – gangs of squirrel monkeys crossing the river jumping from tree to tree, a huge Anaconda about 6 meters long, sloths sleeping on branches along the river bank, huge vultures and loads of other birds.

Over the next three days it just got better. Naiser, our guide, was an exceptional spotter and although our trip was pretty short (really just three full days), it was completely action-packed, jammed full of wildlife viewing and adventure. It has definitely been one of the best things we´ve done in our six months away.

The jungle is just a wonderland of green. There is so much vegetation – you look at some trees and they appear to have about twenty different plant species growing on them. It must be a botanist´s paradise, as well as a heaven for wildlife geeks (which we have temporarily become in the last few weeks).

Each day there was a different programme which included: motorised boat trips on the river (day and night); day and night-time jungle walks; a local village visit where we helped make and eat some delicious yuca flatbread; a visit to the local shamen who performed a cleansing ritual on us; boat trips to a nearby lake where we watched the sunset and fished (unsuccessfully!) for piranhas; paddling on the river in a cozy (i.e. tiny) dug-out canoe; and walks around the lodge after dinner at night. Its hard to describe it all in detail as we did so much and really loved it all, but there were a few particular moments that stood out.

The Anacondas were just amazing. So bloody huge! We saw them three or four times in various positions and they never ceased to impress us. I have a fondness for snakes, I´ve discovered, but even the anacondas were outdone by a tree boa who practically performed for us one night from where he was resting on a tree in the camp. He wasn´t that huge; just about a meter and a half long and quite skinny, but it was like there was a snake charmer at work- he was just a joy to watch as he coiled his body upwards and reached out to us with his tongue first, trying to get a feel for what kind of creatures we were. We saw a similar tree boa coming back from our next night trip on the river, but this one was less interested in us than he was in the bird´s nest he was twisting his body around, no doubt with murder in mind.

Then there was Eddie´s favorite, the tarantulas. On our first night walk we saw a baby one, which naturally we were all very impressed with until a few minutes later when our guide spotted a huge mama about three times the size of the first one. She was pretty impressive I must say and we all took photos of her next to an average sized camera to give an idea of scale. The next tarantula we saw was on the dinner table; he very obligingly posed for photos and then managed to scramble over almost all the cutlery on the table before one of the staff lifted him off to let us eat our dinner in peace. At another meal we were greeted to the sight of a wolf spider on the ketchup bottle. Huge spiders on the dinner table almost became the norm.

One of the best activities was not one listed on our itinerary, but was probably one of the most impressive, because it was right there on our doorstep! On the second night, after dinner and our usual discussion about what we had seen that day, Naiser took us on a walk around the camp. The place was crawling with life! This was the night we found the boa constrictor on a tree (on a branch hanging above the walkway down to the boat), but before that we had already spotted numerous tarantulas, some of whom lived in the thatched roofs of the bedrooms. We also spotted a christmas tree frog on a plant in the middle of the camp, the red eyes of caymen lurking out from under our bedroom (the camp is on stilts above a swamp) and loads more weird and wonderful insects. The entire camp was so full of wildlife, we almost didn´t need to leave it!

At times it felt like we were the only people out there; although there are other lodges nearby, we only passed other boats once or twice a day. The first night we returned from our night walk in our motorised boat; it was pitch black (except for the light from Naiser´s torch searching the river bank for movements) and just as we left the Laguna Grande, the skies opened. We felt like national geographic explorers, zipping home in our canoe with torrential rain pelting down, the sounds of the jungle night air all around us and the rain water pouring down the backs of our ponchos. What adventure!!!

Our last night came sooner than we would have liked. We went back down to Laguna Grande to see if the Anacondas were still around (one of them was) and then we watched a really spectacular sunset. It looked like the sky was on fire, the photos look almost fake. After darkness fell, it was the clearest of nights and the stars were just amazing.

Everything about Samona Lodge was exceptional. The food was excellent and there was plenty of it (they were also very accommodating regarding vegetarians and food allergies). Our guide, Naiser, was brilliant, he was an exceptional spotter and seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and wildlife. He was like a cross between Rambo and George Clooney (well I thought so anyway). The lodge can accommodate loads of people, but it was very quiet when we were there, there were only five of us in our group which was great. The accommodation was fine, quite good I thought considering where it was. Each room has it own bathroom (cold water only) and mosquito nets over the beds. These are very necessary as there are lots of cockroaches and other crawling uninvited guests, so that net was well tucked in each night (by the light of our candles and head torch). We booked through Happy Gringo in Quito and paid $200 each (incl. the $20 entrance fee) plus optional tips.

After dinner each night, Naiser sat down with the group and pointed out everything we had seen that day in a picture book which lists all the local wildlife. Because of this we were able to note almost everything we saw and so for the record here´s what it included: two Anacondas; a few fresh-water pink dolphins; numerous tarantulas and a few other spiders; a few types of crickets and katydids; numerous species of ants (including the fascinating leaf-carrying ants and painful fire ants); piranhas (only Naiser caught one though); a few poisonous types of frogs, other harmless frogs, toads, bats, geckos, two tree boas, a freshwater turtle, the smallest monkey in the world (I don´t know it’s name), a huge earthworm, a freshwater stingray and a couple of caiman (which are like alligators). And just in case there´s any twitchers among you, here´s a list of all the birds I managed to note down: a spectacled owl, lots of stinky turkeys, parakeets, macaws, kites, swallows, terns, kingfishers, coromants, fruitcraws, woodpeckers and a few different types of tucans, parrots and tanagers.