Friday March 15, 2008 Tornadoes, Flights, SEC Basketball

Wow...the return trip to America, always a fun adventure. We decided to see The Discotecas of Ecuador Friday night. Well...Peter fell through a window, don't ask...Maria has scars. And then we thought it would be a good idea not to sleep before catching our 4am bus to the airport.

The whole group of zombies died in the airport terminal while waiting to fly back to Miami. Once we finally reached Miami by noon, we realized that the Dawgs had been tearing up the SEC tourney. We also heard about the tornadoes in the Atlanta area, and were glad when we found out that everyone was safe.

Somehow I landed us tickets to the Semi final Dawgs game for Sat. night. Once we loaded up in the plane, we headed for the runway, and right before we took off we got word that another tornado had hit and the ATL airport was shut down. Our plane was delayed and we sat on the tarmac for 4 hours. We got back into Atlanta to hear the final minute where the Dawgs secured a win and a chance for the Finals.

So...we picked up early on Sunday and went down to the GaTech campus to tailgate, and cheer our Dawgs on to an SEC Championship and bid to the NCAA's!! GO DAWGS!

Friday March 14, 2008 Quito Exploration

As we were flying back into Quito we ran into some trouble. The rain on the island actually shut down the airport. It was unbelievable. The roof was leaky and we were all huddling in the one dry area. Then our guide Rodrigo talked to one of the workers and got us into the VIP lounge. There were two British ladies in there and everything else was empty. Dry couches, marble floors, cocktails. A bit ridiculous, but it was nice.

Quito was pretty, although we were there last year. So we headed out to the traditional market to get some cool Ecuadorian stuff like Alpaca gear. That night we ate a a wonderful Andean restaurant and were entertained by these guys playing traditional music. Great last day.

Thursday March 13, 2008 Turtle Zoo?

This is sunset in Porto Ayoro. It is acutally Wednesday night, but I feel that the whole 24 hours in port deserve their own post. I thought all of the cute little yachts were awesome as they were anchored in the harbor. The taxis knew where all the boats were and would run you back and forth to your boats. It was awesome.
This is a little sailing ship whose crew we met. It was four guys...A Brit, A Welsh guy, A South African and A Dane. They had sailed from London through the Panama Canal and they were circumnavigating the globe. What a life...in that small boat too!!
A tribute to our OTR habits in Athens.
We went to the Darwin Center and checked out all of the different tortoises. These little guys are about a year or two old. They all have different characteristics depending on the type of food they eat. The ones that eat from tall cacti have long legs and long necks and saddle shaped shells while the ones that eat from the ground have short legs and short necks and round shells... cool adaptations.
Now this guy is Lonesome George. The last remaining tortoise from one of the islands. They are trying to save the species and have him breed with different females, but he is over 150 years old and they say he may be impotent. Shame.

I got up close and personal with a Galapagos tortoise. The name Galapagos comes from these turtles with saddle shaped shells. Galapagos is a form of Spanish for saddle.
This dude is over 100 years old...how huge is he...they never stop growing.

One final documentation, just to make sure that Ling Ling gets into all of my travels. We are still at 5 continents. I just thought he may want his picture sitting on a Blue Footed Booby.

Wednesday March 12, 2008: Flamingos!!

Floreana Island. The first inhabitants were a German Dutchess and her three lovers. Nice. Anyways we got to see the flamingos again in the lagoon. The land was very Jarassic Park. The trees and odd shaped topography. The coolest thing is to see how the forest falls right into a beach. This is me and Rebecca. We had just been walking through the water and rays were swimming over our feet...wierd.
Here is a shot of us just enjoying the beautiful water, land and warm weather.
Huge flocks of flamingos. Notice the scrub brush trees behind, so odd to have in paradise.

We went snorkelling around a point, called the Devil's Crown. It had incredible currents and was wearing all of us out, so we got the little zodiac to pick us up and move us out of the current. As we rolled out of the boat, we fell into a famiily of 4 black tip sharks. We also saw an awesome octopus. But the best part of the snorkel was the dolphins. A pod of over 30 dolphins came up to us and wanted to play. It was so great to hear them underwater. We all climbed back in the zodiac to chase them. They would come and jump right infront of us when the zodiac was going fast. What playful animals!!
Here is a whole group photo back on the boat. Good ole Eden Yacht. It is mainly junior fellows, but there are awesome seniors with us too.
We landed again at Post Office Bay. This is the most amazing thing. Everyone drops off post cards without postage and the next travellerst that are going that way pick up the cards to take back with them. I picked up a card that goes to someone in Nashville. I can't wait to see their faces when I give them something that was in the Galapagos just a few weeks ago.
We also went down into a cave to check out a lava tube. Here is Beau and me. You can't see much, but neither could we.
After the lava tube, we played soccer with the crew memebers from the different boats. It was awesome!! They are really good and were suprised to see a girl actually get out and play with them.

Tuesday March 11, 2008 Espanola Island

Today's landing on Espanola was beautiful. We acutally pulled up to a little area that the guides had created from the stones that we could just step up to out of the zodiacs. Very quickly we saw and smelled the sea lions. They were laying all over the paths. I found this little guy and figured I would curl up with him. This island is known for its huge population of Boobies. These are the blue-footed species. The chick is about 2 months old and is huge, but he still has his cute downy feathers. I was so pumped to see these creatures that made these islands famous. They were everywhers...so this one posed beautifully for me. Espanola also has its unique type of lizard. They are black red and green from the different things that they eat . This guy claimed the rock to show off his Godzilla-esce-ness. Two things to see here... the gorgeous ocean in the back. But the awesome Masked Booby on the rock. Those birds are so cool!!We went to see the blow hole springs. When the tide is in and the waves are crashing, the water shoots up over 25 meters...WOW. The most beautiful scenic site on this trip was definitely the coast of Espanola. It looks almost like the northern cliffs of Ireland. The waves crashing and the wonderful sunlight made it impossble to pull ourselves from our positions on the rocks overlooking the water.

Here are a couple of group shots...the boys... And the girls
When we got back to the beach, all the sea lions were lining the area and begging to be photographed. They would lay on the sand until the tide came in and hit them while they were sleeping. Then they would move up about 5 feet on the beach and sleep again until the waves hit. This vicious cycle continued for a couple hours. Hilarious.
Here's one being washed in by the tide.
Beau and I went snorkeling, still repping in the gear that we got on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Awesome Day!!

Monday March 10, 2008: SCUBA and Sea Lions

Today was our SCUBA trip. This picture was post dives...so sorry about the ratty hair. Anyways, our guides were awesome. We saw a five white tip sharks, huge schools of spotted and goldent rays and tons of great fish like surgeons, angelfish, moorish idols, and parrotfish. After the dives, we had a 3 hour boat ride to our next island. Plenty of time to relax and catch some sun. A huge flock of frigate birds were following the boat. There were about 15 and they were awesome, just gliding on the air from the boat. When we reached Sante Fe, we took a break for lunch before heading to the island. Most of Santa Fe was sea lions, and they are such funny animals. I was really interested in them because they are closely related to the fur seal (I wrote my research on the fur seal for Antarctica...shameless plug for my other blogs...) So here...I compiled my favorite pics of sea lions from Santa Fe. And yeah...they pretty much just laid around and slept all day. Stretching. Yawning...lazy beasts.

This was a really cute pup that wanted to show off his manly neck.

Another Santa Fe native, the Land Lizard.

We learned about the Darwin finch which is the basis for most of Darwin's theories from these islands. Kevin was on the other boat of 16 Fellows and it was awesome to meet up with them for our tour of Santa Fe.
Gorgeous scenic views.
This was my favorite animal of the trip. This little pup kept climbing up on his mom and making noises at us. And instead of turning his head to check Colleen and me out, he would bend his neck backwards. I have some great video of this cutie.
Right before we were going to get back on the boat for dinner, we came to a beach filled with hundreds of sea lions. They were awesome. And this little guy was napping so I couldn't help but take a picture with him. Male seals have harems of about 15 females and their pups. When I went over to take a picture with the sleeping pup, this male decided to try to show me who was boss. This little pup, was practicing his manly skills of showing off his size, so I decided to play along. He got really confused that I wasn't scared. We met back up to watch the sunset with the other group. Ben and I were reppin the under armor...shocker.