Ancient History, Volume XXIII

In the last installment, giant lava bubbles, sharks, sea lions and penguins.

Our last day in the Galapagos started stupidly early. As in we were off the boat and on North Seymour Island by 7am early. We started out by seeing the frigate birds up close. We'd seen a bunch of them flying behind the boat over the previous days, but they're SO MUCH BIGGER when you see them on the ground. A couple of the males had their balloons inflated, which was pretty spectacular.

They inflate the balloons to attract a mate and they stay inflated for up to eight days, during which time the birds can't eat. I still can't decide if that's batshit cray-cray or seriously impressive...

From there, we headed across to the other side of the island to see the blue-footed boobies. On the way, we past a couple of land iguanas, which were rather enormous and VERY sleepy looking:

So, blue-footed boobies. They're SUPER dumb. Apparently a bunch of juveniles die every year because they fly out over the sea, spot a fish they want, and dive into the sea with their beaks open, at which point their lungs fill with water and they drown. Also? Their version of building a nest is pooping in a circle and laying an egg in the middle of it.

So yeah. They're dumb. But also kind of cute in their dumbness:

Apparently this is a mating dance

She doesn't seem very impressed...

Nest o' poop

After about an hour of going "ZOMG, there's a blue-footed boobie like a metre away from me!!!", it was back to the boat for the sail back to Baltra. We then had the joyous task of sitting around the shed airport shed for about three hours before our flight back to the mainland. The last half hour or so was pure agony, because:
a) it was about 32 degrees C outside (90 degrees Fahrenheit);
b) the plane's engines weren't on;
c) this meant the air conditioning wasn't running.

Have you ever been in a giant metal cylinder in 32 degree heat with no air circulation? It was NOT enjoyable. Thankfully, the flight back to the mainland was uneventful. Back in Quito, we decided that we should go to Boca de Lobo for dinner again. It was even more phenomenal the second time around - we ordered a dish called Ferocious Chicken and everything!

The following day, we headed up the Teleferico cable car, which offers pretty awesome views over Quito:

Back down in the new town, London Bound and I wandered around a bunch of camping stores, where we came across this:

Yup. It's a sleeping bag with arms and legs. Because, you know, who doesn't want to look like a Teletubbie while they camp?!

London Bound left the next day, and I had five days in Quito on my own. You'd think I would have seen a bunch of stuff. NOPE. I spent a crapton of time on the internet, drank a lot of hot chocolate, watched an awful lot of television ("Soopernatooral: Miercoles en Warner Channel!" featured quite strongly), and ate FAR too much for my own good. I also tried to find the archaeology museum that was apparently several blocks away, but failed miserably.

Next up? I spend forever flying to Guatemala, and climb an active volcano.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXII

Last time, I flew to the Galapagos and met tortoises, sea lions, and marine iguanas. And nearly died of fright when the door to my cabin fell open in the middle of the night...

The following morning, I was woken at the delightful time of 4.30am when we raised anchor to sail from Santiago to Bartolome. Thankfully, I was able to get back to sleep without too much trouble. By 7.45, we were in the dinghy and making a dry landing on the island of Bartolome. It was crazy volcanic, and pretty barren - kind of like walking on the surface of the moon! (I imagine, not having been to the moon...)

There was a half hour's walk to the top of the island, with numerous stops along the way to admire the view, particularly of this awesome underwater crater, caused by a giant lava bubble:

The walk got a lot harder from about half way up, because we were walking up shoddily built stairs that were on weird angles and unevenly spaced... Luckily, the view from the top was totally worth it!!

If you recognise this view, it's probably from any number of documentaries about the Galapagos, or possibly from Master and Commander. From there, we headed back to the boat to change, before being dropped off at the beach on the right in the photo above for a spot of snorkelling. We'd only just gotten into the water when our tour leader called out that there was a shark nearby and that we should go and check it out.

What he meant:

Source

What all the Australians imagined:

Source

So while we DID head over to see the shark, the snorkelling didn't last all that long! After lunch back on boat, we set sail for Sombrero Chino. On the way, there were a bunch of frigate birds following the boat, which was pretty awesome:

It was only a couple of hours sailing to Sombrero Chino, and I *MAY* have spent most of it standing on the upper deck of the boat, with my hands behind my back, pretending I was in an episode of Hornblower and singing the theme for HMS Indefatigable (see here) in my head. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I ROLL.

Ahem.

Sombrero Chino (which, incidentally, DOES translate to what you think) is absolutely gorgeous. See?

And it's covered in all kinds of awesome lava formations:

And the usual dopey looking sealions:

And GALAPAGOS PENGUINS!!!

After the penguins, we'd exhausted Sombrero Chino's supply of wildlife and sights, so it was back to the boat for cocktails and dinner, before an early night.

Up next, more frigate birds, and blue footed boobies (which are quite possibly the dumbest birds of EVER)!

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXI

Last time, I left Peru for Ecuador, went to the equator and ate my body weight in melted cheese. The day AFTER eating my body weight in melted cheese, we were off to the airport again, heading to the Galapagos. Turns out when you fly to the Galapagos? You fly via Guayaquil, which is about 35 minutes flight from Quito, and is the economic capital of Ecuador as well as its largest city. Kind of like Canberra and Sydney, really!

Anyway, the flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos was about an hour and a half. The AIRPORT in the Galapagos is basically a tin shed, with no walls, which made claiming our luggage kind of interesting... From the airport, we headed to Puerto Ayora where we were transferred to our home for the next four days - the Darwin Yacht (or, as the stickers we were given said, Darwin Yatch).

After settling into our cabins and a quick spot of lunch, we were off to the Charles Darwin Research Station to see the giant tortoises. We got to get right up close to them, which was pretty amazing.

I was terrified that I was going to topple backwards and squish a tortoise...

We also got to see poor old Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise (he died about a month ago, so now there are NO Pinta Island tortoises. SAD PANDA). He did look very lonesome...

He's the rock looking thing behind the pond.

And we got to see BABY TORTOISES!!! (Also? Do you have ANY idea how hard it was for me not to write 'Esio Trot' in all these sentences???)

The colours painted on their backs tell the keepers which species they are.

Wandering around the research station (which also houses lava lizards, iguanas, and a bunch of different bird species) took up the rest of the day. That night, back on the boat, we had a briefing about the next day's activities, before we headed to the upper deck for a few drinks. And at about midnight, we set sail! I had a rather exciting(??) night, because the door to my cabin decided to fall open by itself, and bang against the wall, scaring the crap out of me. (Thankfully, my millionty kilo pack held it closed very nicely for the remaining nights!)

The following day, we were up stupidly early and doing our first trip ashore before 8am on the island of Rabida. It was pretty incredible - the beaches are red volcanic sand. We got to see hermit crabs, marine iguanas, sealions, pelicans and Darwin finches.

Marine iguana! They're kind of gross. There's almost no fresh water in the Galapagos, so
they've adapted to drinking seawater and snorting the salt out through their noses...

Cranky looking nesting pelicans

Sealions

And from there, we went snorkelling with several schools of fish, and a very curious sealion!! That part was ZOMG worthy, because the sealion swam along side us in the waves for a good ten minutes. After the snorkelling, it was back to the boat and off to Santiago. Public service announcement: taking a shower while sailing through choppy water is...interesting. On the plus side, there were a bunch of frigate birds handing out behind the boat, which was pretty awesome.

After a couple of hours of sailing and an hour for lunch, we were back in the dinghy heading for shore on Santiago. It's pretty amazing that two islands can be so close together and so completely different. Santiago had black sand beaches and a whole stack of crazy lava formations, along with TONS of marine iguanas, and a brand new baby sealion:

Kooky lava formations

Baby sealion, mummy sealion, and a butt ton of marine iguanas

We had a pretty long walk around the island, and wound up near some inlets getting to see a group of fur seals playing, which was incredible:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

From there, we went snorkelling again, before sailing off into the sunset (literally) past a rock formation that was used for target practice during World War II (seriously), and a colony of masked boobies:

The Bishop

Masked boobies. THEY'RE BIRDS, YOU SMUTTY PEOPLE.

All in all? Not a bad two days! 

Next up, underwater craters, sharks, and a dose of "Hey, I remember this from Master and Commander!!"

K xx

Capture the Colour

So apparently there's a new meme/competition/thing floating around the blogosphere, all about travel photography. And there are prizes!!! #ZOMG

You want details, you say? BAM: Travel Supermarket are running a competition called Capture The Colour, where they are encouraging bloggers to share photos from their travels featuring 5 colours, being blue, yellow, green, red and white. A grab of the story behind the photo is encouraged! 

I was nominated by the lovely Tash of jouljet to share my five photos. WHEEEEEEEE!!!! (And incidentally? I'm super jealous of Tash because she's in the middle of a three month stint in Toronto, and can therefore have Tim Horton's whenever she wants. Although I'm not super jealous of the disgustingly humid Toronto summer weather. I remember that all too well!!)

ANYWAY. On with the photos!! 

Blue: 

2008 was a rather exciting year for me. I quit my job in Brewery Land (for good!!), went to South and Central America for nine weeks (which didn't QUITE go as planned), and moved to Canberra to start a post graduate degree in museum studies. Just after the great Peruvian medical evacuation saga, I spent a week in the Galapagos. I was literally about a metre away from this blue footed booby on North Seymour island. (And yes, I was freaking out a little because I have bird phobia...)

Yellow: 

You guys have seen this one before. I took it last year when I was in Colorado for Megan's wedding. On my last day before flying home, Lyndsy took me on a drive up to the mountains to see if we could find any early autumn leaves. Boy, did we ever! This patch of aspens was smack in the middle of a pine forest by the side of the highway.

Green: 

This is part of another story that will be coming up (eventually) as part of the Ancient History series. It was quite possibly the most exciting day of my life (and also the most disgusting I have ever felt - 35ish degrees C + 90% humidity + mosquitoes the size of cows = EEEEEEEEEEEUW), because this is Tikal in Guatemala, which was the first of the Mesoamerican ruins we visited. This is the view from the top of Temple V. I love the way the city buildings stick up out of the trees - the only sign that there's anything there at all.

Red:

Sure, I used to live in Canberra, so including a photo of the poppies on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial might be cheating a little bit. But I was living in Melbourne and visiting Canberra when I took this, so it technically still counts as travel photography. The Roll of Honour breaks my heart a little bit more every time I see it - so many men who never made it home. It's nice to see this many poppies and know that they're still remembered, and still cared about.

White:

Washington DC is basically one big city of impressive white stone these days. And they're adding more to it all the time. I love the Lincoln Memorial so I was pretty thrilled last year that I was able to get a photo of it that was a little out of the ordinary!

And now to my nominees!

Kat from The Engineer's Other Life

Deidre from Decoybetty

Pretzel Thief from Pretzel Thief

Kerri from Answers in the Journey

Ness from The Teensy Tiny Insignificant Details

How to enter:
1. Publish a Capture the Colour post on your blog with images for all 5 colours if possible. Bloggers who don’t have photos for all 5 colours will still be in with a chance of winning the iPad category prize but to be eligible to win the £2000 overall prize your blog post should feature photos for all 5 categories.

Within your post, be sure to mention the Travel Supermarket competition page http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/ so that your readers know what Capture the Colour is.

2. Nominate 5 fellow bloggers to take part in Capture the Colour at the end of your post and notify them via Twitter or Facebook.

3. By 29th August 2012, let Travel Supermarket know you’ve entered by either:

- Linking to your blog post on your Facebook wall mentioning Capture the Colour and tagging the TravelSupermarket.com Facebook page or…
- Linking to your post via Twitter including @travelsupermkt and #capturethecolour in your tweet or…
- Email your entry to capturethecolour@travelsupermarket.com, including your name, email address and phone number.

4. The best Capture the Colour entries will be shared throughout the competition by the expert judges and Travel Supermarket social accounts…

5. Each judge will select their own colour category winners. The judges will then combine to select the overall winner of the £2,000 travel prize. For further information about the judging and the prizes see the Terms & Conditions here.

Want to know more?
If you want to know more about the competition or if you have any questions please get in touch with Travel Supermarket via either Twitter (@travelsupermkt) or email (capturethecolour@travelsupermarket.com).

K xx

ABC of travel

Yesterday, the lovely Deidre of Decoybetty tagged me in this. It's totally awesome and allows me wibble on about travel, even though I'm currently freezing to death in Melbourne. (HEY MELBOURNE - IT'S SUMMER, YOU NUMBSKULL!!! TURN UP THE TEMPERATURE!) Ahem.

A: Age you went on your first overseas trip. I'm pretty sure my first overseas trip was when we moved to Canada when I was four. The longest I've gone since then without going overseas was from October 1998 to September 2002.

B: Best (foreign) beer you've had and where. Yeah, I don't like beer. But there was a moment in Guatemala when it was so hot that my brain melted out of my ears and I decided that the only thing that would cool me down was beer. So I'm going to go with Brahva (not to be confused with Brahma) in Rio Dulce, Guatemala.

C: Cuisine (favourite). Mexican. Hands down. Although I'm also partial to Thai food. NOM NOM NOM.

D: Destinations, favourite, least favourite and why. Favourite? Either London or New York. Because history and museums and nerdiness, oh my! Least favourite? It's a toss up between Salem and Philadelphia. I found both of them disappointing. Or Quito, because I was by myself for five days and was too chicken to venture any distance from the hotel for fear of getting lost and then mugged. Yeah...

E: Event you experienced abroad that made you say 'wow!'. Flying over the Nazca lines in a teeny tiny plane.

F: Favourite mode of transport. I'm quite partial to trains. But mostly I tend to wander around on foot. Because it's free and I'm a cheapskate.

G: Greatest feeling while travelling. Seeing a new place for the first time.

H: Hottest place you've travelled to. Well, technically as I was living in Canberra at the time, it would be Melbourne on Black Saturday. It was around 47 degrees C in Melbourne that day. That's around 117 degrees F. (If you want to experience it, turn your oven on to the lowest setting, and open the door.) Other than that, it would be Guatemala, where it was a millionty degrees with something like 95% humidity. It was pretty unpleasant. Luckily, the amazingness of Tikal made me (partially) forget that it was hot and damp as a fat old man in a sauna. #gross

I: Incredible service you've experienced and where. The good people at Covermore travel insurance. They were AMAZING when Ness got sick in Peru. I've never been so glad to talk to a bogan with an ocker accent in my entire life.

J: Journey that took the longest. I think technically there was a trip home from Canada for Christmas one year when I was a kid that took around 48 hours door to door. But I don't remember any of it. So I'm going to go with flying from Melbourne to Lima. Or, more accurately, Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Santiago to Lima. My flight to Sydney left at around 8am and we arrived in Lima at 11.50pm Peru time. Which means it was about 4pm the following day in Melbourne. Fun times!

K: Keepsake from your travels. I seem to have a habit of not really thinking through what I buy overseas. Which is how I ended up buying a blanket in Peru during the first WEEK of a nine week trip. It's really hard to pack a pack around a BLANKET, as it turns out. Guess how many times I've used said blanket? NADA. Not my best purchase ever. What I *do* buy as keepsakes that are a good idea? Bookmarks. Because then every time you open your book, you go "awwwwww, good memories..."

L: Let down sight, where and why. Anything in Salem, Massachusetts. Epic waste of time.

M: Moment where you fell in love with travel. It was either one of the millionty museums I went to as a kid, or watching movies I shouldn't have been allowed to watch because we were on a plane and it was on a giant screen. That's how I saw Pretty Woman when I was four!

N: Nicest hotel you've stayed in. I have no idea what it was called, but when I was a kid, my dad went to a conference in Zurich. And the rest of the family tagged along for the ride. When we got to the hotel, it turned out they'd put us in the penthouse. Which had floor to ceiling glass windows giving us a panoramic view of Zurich. It was pretty awesome.

O: Obsession - what are you obsessed with taking pictures of while travelling? Landscapes. And museum objects. Every time I get home, my mum looks at my pictures and goes "BUT WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE?!?!" Whoops.

P: Passport stamps - how many and from where? In my current passport? 17. From the UK, the US, Peru, Machu Picchu, Ecuador, the Galapagos, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico and Thailand. If you add in two of my three old passports (I couldn't find my very first passport. SAD FACE.), there's a total of 41 stamps, representing 16 different places.

Q: Quirkiest attraction you've visited and where: The big anything. Australia is littered with giant fibreglass crap. Here, for instance, is the big Ned Kelly in Glenrowan.

R: Recommended sight, event or experience: A Broadway show in New York. It's totally worth every penny.

S: Splurge - something you have no problem forking over money for while travelling. Once in a lifetime activities. Whether it's taking a helicopter to the Grand Canyon, flying over the Nazca Lines, riding an elephant, or going to the 20SB Summit to meet up with a bunch of random internet strangers!

T: Touristy thing you've done. Stood with one foot on each side of the equator.

U: Unforgettable travel memory. The Inca Trail. It may nearly have killed me, I may have cried like a little bitch until Ness yelled at me to stop because I was going to make her cry too, and it may have resulted in me almost getting stuck using a squat toilet when my quads cramped up. But it was totally worth it.

V: Visas - how many and for where? Surprisingly few, actually. A student visa for the UK, a residential visa for the UK from when I lived there as a kid, and a visa for France from back when Australia was cranky at France over nuclear testing in the Pacific, and so they made Australians jump through a million hoops to get into France. If I could find my very first passport, there'd probably be a residential visa for Canada in there too.

W: Wine - best glass of wine you've had while travelling and where. Much like beer, I don't drink wine. But I did have some pretty spectacular cocktails at La Boca del Lobo in Quito, Ecuador! (And if you're ever in Quito, you should check it out. It's a seriously awesome restaurant!)

X: eXcellent view and from where. Okay, first of all? Writing 'excellent' like that made me cringey. Secondly, here's a Peruvian volcano, complete with a vicuña in the foreground.

Y: Years spent travelling. 28, more or less. Sure, it may not all have been internationally, and it wasn't CONSTANT travel. But I don't think there's a single year in my life when I haven't boarded a plane/gotten in a car to somewhere or other!

Z: Zealous sports fans and where. We're pretty sports mad in Melbourne. I mean, we have a public holiday for a horse race, for crying out loud! But I'm pretty sure that no one in Melbourne has ever had to barricade themselves into their house in case the soccer hooligans get out of control as a friend had to do when she lived down the road from the stadium. So I'm giving the prize to Leicester, where I did my study abroad.

Tag, you're it! I'm going to tag some of my wonderful bloggy friends because they always seem to have awesome travel stories!
Jorah Day from Terminally Beautiful
Sweeney from Sweeney Says
Vanisha from Vanisha's Life in Australia
Kat from On Oxford Time
Lauren from The Blog You're About to Read

K xx

Picture-palooza

This time three years ago, I was on a plane heading to Peru. That nine weeks in the Americas turned out to be the best and worst of my life. Ness got sick (in a med-evac by the Peruvian Air Force kind of a way) and I got to be grateful that Guatemalan bathrooms are so small that you can (MASSIVE OVERSHARE!) puke into the shower while sitting on the loo. But I got to see some of the most amazing historic sites in the world, and I met people on that trip who've become some of my best friends.

Anyway, seeing as the trip was in my pre-blogging days, I now present the highlights of nine weeks in the Americas!

Arequipa, Peru

En route to Colca Canyon, Peru (complete with alpaca!)

Sunset over Lake Titicaca, Peru

Saqsaywaman, just outside Cusco, Peru

Ollantaytambo, Peru

Inca Trail Day 1, Peru

The best rock on Earth, Inca Trail Day 3, Peru

Inca Trail Day 3, Peru

Machu Picchu, Peru

Group 'Hurrah, We Did It!' photo at Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu from the adjacent mountain, Peru

Standing on the equator, near Quito, Ecuador

Giant tortoises, Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands

Fur seals on Santiago, Galapagos Islands

Bartolome, Galapagos Islands

Sombrero Chino, Galapagos Islands

Sealions, Sombrero Chino, Galapagos Islands

Frigate Bird, North Seymour, Galapagos Islands

Blue footed booby (snigger), North Seymour, Galapagos Islands

Antigua, Guatemala

Flores, Guatemala

Tikal, Guatemala

Achtun Tunichil Muknal caves, Belize

Chichen Itza, Mexico

Swimming in cenotes near Merida, Mexico

Palenque, Mexico

San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico

Cramming nine people in a tuktuk, Panajachel, Guatemala. Sara was on the parcel shelf!

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Teotihuacan, Mexico

The biggest flag I've ever seen, Mexico City, Mexico

Grand Canyon from a helicopter, USA

The ridiculousness that is The Luxor, Las Vegas, USA

Also, I REALLY wish I could show you the quarantine video that was screened on the way into New Zealand. The woman pulled a massive salami, an entire wheel of cheese and a WHOLE PINEAPPLE OUT OF HER HAND LUGGAGE. It was the greatest thing I've ever seen. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be available online anywhere, so you'll just have to imagine it!

K xx