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.

After settling into our lovely (albeit expensive at $11 each – the official currency of Ecuador is the US Dollar) hostel, we headed out to the pricey but lovely Cafe Eucalyptus where we wined and dined while watching the locals strutting their stuff to two great salsa groups in a ´battle of the bands´. I think this place is usually a gringo hangout but this night it was 90% Ecuadorians and boy can they dance! It was a great start to our month in Ecuador (which is the last country we will visit in South America) and it set the tone for what has been a great few weeks. We knew when we left Peru that we wanted to fit loads into our last month so we had lots of plans for activities and trips in Ecuador and so far it hasn´t disappointed.

As we really have had enough of cities by now we only stayed in Cuenca for a day and a half, the first of which was a Sunday so everything was closed. It’s a very pretty city (like most of the cities we´ve been to in South America), but we didn´t do much other than wander around and visit the Museo del Banco Central. This museum is well worth a look, especially the very creatively curated second floor which focuses on the indigenous people of Ecuador. This exhibition is really colourful and includes an English language section on the Shuar people (the rest is all in Spanish so maybe an English speaking guide would be worth enquiring about). In past times the tribe used to chop the heads off their enemies and shrink them down to the size of a large fist using a closely guarded secret recipe. We saw three or four shrunken heads in display cases (you can see pics of some on http://www.head-hunter.com/art_implosion.html), along with life size models representing some of the people, houses, clothes etc. of the various tribes of the Amazon. There`s also some Inca ruins out the back of the museum, but to be honest unless you`re really into looking at old walls its not all that stimulating.

As we were wandering around Cuenca, we came across a demonstration made up of about five or six hundred (mostly indigenous) Ecuadorians who were participating in a national campaign against water privitisation and/or contamination by large companies. Across South America in recent years, water supplies have been and continue to be privatised, which to me is just completely ridiculous; water is essential for life and there are a lot of people on this continent (and every other continent) who just cannot afford to pay for it. Nor should they have to. And although I don´t always approve of their methods, I can`t help but admire the willingness of regular people all over South America to stand up for themselves against huge corporations and national and international policies which are really all about money and not about people at all.

The last thing of note in Cuenca was a great little Indian we found which does a two-course lunch for $2.50 – Bapu on Calle Larga (just past Benigno Malo)… yummy yummy!

On the Monday afternoon we left for Banos and eventually got there three buses and three taxis later (if you´re ever going that way, stay on the Quito bus until you get to Umbato, buses don´t run from Riobamba to Banos in the evening). Banos is a large enough town set at the edge of the jungle which is choc full of tour companies which rent mountain bikes, quads, dune buggies and motorbikes and also arrange (dodgy looking) fifteen dollar bungie jumps, rafting trips, hiking, horse-riding, canyoning and jungle trips. There are also two hot springs and countless waterfalls nearby. We spent three days in Banos and managed something active each day. The first day we rented mountain bikes and cycled 19km (mainly downhill) past villages and waterfalls to the village of Rio Verde and the Pailón Del Diablo (the Devil’s Cauldron) waterfall. It was a good trip and if we had more time it would have been great to keep going all the way downhill to Puyo, about 68km away I think. But as it was almost 5pm when we left the waterfall, we just had time for a beer at a roadside shack before hopping in the back of a truck with the bikes and returning back uphill to Banos the easy way!

The next day we did a half day white water rafting trip with Rainforestur, which was absolutely brilliant but for the fact that the guides didn´t bring enough helmets and wetsuits, so Eddie had no helmet and I sat wrapped in a towel for the lovely restaurant lunch which was included afterwards. So although I wouldn`t be recommending Rainforestur, other than the equipment problems the trip was actually really great and it´s something we definitely both want to try again.

On our last morning in Banos we hiked up to the cross overlooking the town (another trip you could make a day of as there`s a few hiking paths and a restaurant up there) and then boarded a bus to Quito to sort out our jungle trip and begin the long hunt for a last minute deal to the Galapagos islands.