Sexy new blog & market madness

Howdy everyone, what do you think of the new look & feel for my blog?

Today I am back in Quito, leaving this evening for an overnight bus to Lago Agrio where I begin a 5 day tour of the Amazon.  Here we stay in the jungle in huts, look for anacondas, caimans and pink dolphins, take canoe rides and fish for piranhas.

Yesterday I did a day tour out to Otavalo to check out the largest markets in South America.  They were pretty big and there was some fantastic stuff there.  I could easily have gone nuts if I didn't have to lug everything around for another 3 months.  However, there wasn't quite as much variety as I was expecting, as with markets in most places there were alot of stalls with the same stuff.  You were also expected to haggle for things, but that was fun as the people running the stalls were all lovely, although admittedly I didn't really haggle to hard everything was already pretty cheap.  The other thing was I had heard about the animal markets there were supposed to be good to have a look around, but those markets are actually in a different place and our tour didn't go there which was a bit disappointing, it would have been great for a little photo taking.

The other place we did go to was a little town that specialises in leather goods.  There was this long streets just chockers with stores selling cheap leather bags, jackets, gloves, etc.  So yes, the amazingly soft and fantastically red leather jacket was a necessary purchase.

The markets themselves were also a great place for photos taking.  When we arrived our guide told us 'make sure you use your zoom to take photos because sometimes people don't like their photo being taken or will ask you for a dollar'.  But I found the people to be nice and not mind.  I asked some people if I could take photos of their stalls and they didn't care or ask for money.  But the photos look great, there are all the people in their traditional dress and the stalls are just bursting with colours.

Penguins amongst the mangroves.

Funny.  There are a lot of amazing things to see in the Galapagos, but one thing that really seemed bizarre to me was watching penguins swimming around amongst the mangroves on one of the islands.  Penguinis and mangroves doesn't seem quite right.

The Galapagos has a fantastic history as well.  The Galapagos have been a haven for pirates, the source of Charles Darwin's 'Origin of Species', home to numerous of unique animals, a US army base in WWII, an Ecudorian prison up until the 60's (or 80's? can't remember) and the location for a bizarre real-life murder mystery surrounding a wealthy German and her two lovers.

Today was my last day so I decided to go diving again.  To tell the truth the morning was a little bit of a let down compared to my other dives.  There were only two others on the dive and they were both inexperienced and a but useless; taking ages to get down, kicking silt up everywhere and banging into things, swimming on top of you, etc.  I guess everyone has to start somewhere, but it's still frustrating.  However, we did get to see a lot of sea lions and swim about with them and swim through a small cave which was pretty cool.  Now, fingers crossed my blocked ear clears up before I have to fly out tomorrow.

Food glorious food

Food-wise some of the local soups here have been my favourite things.  As well as the posole which I think I've mentioned previously,  the Mexican 'Sopa Azteca' is awesome and the Ecudorian 'Locro de Papas' I've just ordered now.  Yummo!  The avocados here are amazing and have some much flavour, maybe that's why these soups are so goo.  Anyway,  I've had a google and found a couple of recipes for these soups and I'll definately be trying these out when I get home.



Locro de Papas



Sopa Azteca

This delicious soup has fried tortillas in a tomato broth.

Ingredients:

6 Tomatoes

2 Garlic cloves

1/4 Onion

8 Cups stock

2 Tbsp oil

2 Avocado leaves

2 Pasilla chiles

12 Day-old corn tortillas

1/2 Cup oil for frying

1 Avocado

1 Cup Cheese (preferably Oaxacan cheese)

Preparation:

1. Cut the tortillas into strips and fry in high heat until the tortillas are golden brown. Remove the tortilla strips from the oil with a slotted spoon. Place on paper towels.
2. Roast the tomatoes until the skin blackens, peel off skin.
3. Roast the garlic, onion, chiles and avocado leaves in a pan for about 3 minutes. Puree these ingredients with the tomatoes and half a cup of water in the blender. Strain.
4. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a pan and add pureed mixture. Boil until the puree thickens and turns dark red (about 5 minutes).
5. Add the stock and salt to taste. Cook for 15 minutes over medium heat stirring occasionally.
6. To serve place tortilla strips in each bowl and pour the broth on top. Garnish with cubed avocado and cheese.

Locro de Papas

Locro de papa is a classic Ecuadorian potato and cheese soup.

Ingredients:

10 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped into small and large pieces

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 white onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp achiote powder

7 cups of water

1 cup of milk or more

1 cup grated or crumbled cheese (mozzarella or monterey jack)

1 bunch of cilantro, leaves only, minced

Salt to taste

1 cup of feta cheese

Chopped scallions

Avocados, sliced or diced

Aji or hot sauce

Preparation:

1. Prepare a refrito or base for the soup by heating the canola oil over medium heat in a large soup pot; add the diced onions, minced garlic cloves, cumin, and achiote powder. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are tender, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the potatoes to the pot and mix until they are coated with the refrito. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes, stirring a every couple of minutes.
3. Add the water and bring to boil, cook until the potatoes are very tender. Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the pot, don’t mash all of them, the consistency of the soup should be creamy with small tender chunks of potatoes.
4. Turn the heat down to low, stir in the milk and let cook for about 5 more minutes. You can add more milk if the soup is too thick.
5. Add salt to taste
6. Add the grated cheese and cilantro, mix well, and remove from the heat.
7. Serve warm with the avocados, scallions, feta cheese and aji or hot sauce.

Pirate post office

Another place we went to on the cruise was  Post Office Bay.  It's one of those postcard perfect beaches, but the interesting thing about it is just off the beach is an old barrel which is a relic from back in the days when the Galapagos islands were used as a port for whalers and other sea faring folk, as well as a refuge for pirates.

The barrel was used as a post box.  People would leave messages in the barrel and other people coming through would go through the box and take anything that they could deliver.  Now the tradition lives on through numerous travellers who come through the Galapagos.  We wrote our postcards and put them in the barrel.  Then looked through the 100's of other letters and postcards for ones that were close to home.  Written on the cards were lots of promises of homemade treats or meal for a message hand delivered. 

I could only find three cards that were from Australians, and only one of these was in Victoria.  I think Beechworth is up north somewhere; but I figure it can't be anymore than a weekend roadtrip and I love the thought of turning up on someones doorstep, in this case Bev & Mick from Beechworth, and delivering a postcard written in the Galapagos six months ago.  Someone suggested they could take a postcard from their country and post it when they get home; but that just didn't seem in the spirit of things to me.

Putting my postcards in the barrel.

Shake it baby.

One of the places we stopped on the cruise was Cerro Dragun which means dragon hill - named after the land iguanas which live there.  They are pretty damn big for a lizard, but not quite dragon sized.  They grow to about a metre long (tail included).  On our walk around the island we saw about a dozen big males, a couple of the females disappearing into the bush (they're a bit shy) and one baby.  The babies are blue and for some reason he was just sitting in the top of a bush waiting for me to spot him. 

Towards the end we came across two large males having a face-off in the middle of the track.  It was amazing.  They were nose to nose starring at each other and shaking their heads.  Apparently, best head shaker is the winner and the other has to get off his turf.  And they don't shake side to side it's more of a head fit -  up-up-up up-up-up down up-up-up up-up-up down - sorry not enough internet to upload the video, but you get the idea.

Shakey shakey

Just cruisin'

The weeklong cruise seemed to go awfully quick, but we did get to see and do a lot.  We visited various islands, went snorkelling most days and got up close and personal with giant tortoises, sea lions, marine iguanas, land iguanas, turtles, penguins, lava lizards and blue-footed boobies.

On one of our first snorkels I was about to dive down to take a look at something when I heard someone call out 'Shark!'.   I turned and two feet behind me a metre and a half long reef shark was swimming by.  I started swimming as fast as I could.  My little chicken legs pumping and my arms splashing about as fast as they could, but damn, there was no way I could keep up with him and he swam off into the distance.

The turtles were a little easier to keep up with.  They can swim fast when they want to, but they've kind of got this blase, 'yeah whatever' kind of attitude.  You swim up close and they don't care, they don't leave, they don't pay any attention to you either; they just keep on being a turtle and just doing what turtles do.

Penguins are like the reef sharks, you don't have a hope in hell of keeping up with one.  Sea lions would be the same except they are curious creatures and like to play.  So they'll come up and check you out.
Penguins mini torpedoes and sea lions a little curious.

Admittedly we didn't see a lot of reef sharks while snorkelling and we would have loved to see more penguins and sea lions, but in all the snorkelling was pretty good.  The mix of warm and cool currents made it a bit of a mystery everyday as to what the water would be like.  Would it be warm or cool?  What would the visibility be like?  How tough would the current be?

Out of the water the number of tortoises, marine iguanas, land iguanas, birds of all sorts and sea lions we saw was fantastic.  I was averaging about 300-500 photos a day.  So you're probably lucky that it takes too long to upload them and I can't put lots up!

Land iguana

Blue-footed boobie

Our boat, the 'Angelito'

Hammerhead hijinx

Finally the big guniea pig thing...

Agouti - the big guinea pig thing.

I arrived on the the Galapagos Islands Monday and it's been great.  It's either the start or end of the wet season as it's still hot, but it seems to rain most evenings.  But it's ok in the day so that's good.

In my first day or so I met a small but good crew of people to hang out with.  A few people from the US, Israel & Switzerland.  We checked out some beaches, have been diving, seen the giant tortoises, marine iguanas and lava tubes.  All this and I've only seen part of 1 island!

The first night, myself and Richard - a New Yorker I met getting off the plane, went hunting for a cheap hotel and managed to talk a lady down from $45 to $30 a night each for rooms.  We thought we had done well until we met a girl, Sasha, who was staying the same place as us and paying $15 a night.  Ripped!  The next day we asked the guys we were diving with how much they were paying and they were paying $15 and $12 a night!  Obviously we must look like suckers.  That was it, we got off the boat and followed our new friend, Gilard (can you believe I kept forgetting his name), an Isreali dude, to his hotel.  We had a look at the rooms and the standard was the same as our $30 a night rooms, so we switched hotels, never to return, except when I've gone back to the restaurant next door so I can steal their wi-fi ;)

The diving, although somewhat expensive has been amazing.  Turtles, reef sharks, muebla rays, blue-spotted eagle rays, sea lions and hammerheads as well as all the usual small reef fish.

So our second dive on Wednesday was not only one of the best dives I've ever done, but my 50th dive ever!  Towards the end of the dive we saw this big school of hammerheads, then as we were watching them a school of muebla rays swam past, then a huge turtle came swimming through the rays right past us. 

There was so much going on I didn't know where to look.  I probably should have been looking at my air gauge :(  When I finished the dive it was on 0 and my dive buddy, Richard, he had to share the guides air for the last couple of minutes.

We went through air quick in that dive because we went quite deep and there were a lot of strong currents which we had to swim against.  At the end our guide was a bit far away so he banged on his tank to get our attention and for us to follow and then took off.  He was almost out of sight when Richard and I went to go after him, then I realised that the other girl was still watching the sharks and going the opposite direction.  I wasn't sure whether to go after her or get richards attention first, but turned around and saw her and I was low on air so left him to chase her.  So I was left danglling in the middle, trying to wait where they could see me and I could see where the guide was disappearing to.

So we all got back together in a group and did our 3 minute safety stop.  But Richards dive computer said we had to do extra time because we'd gone too deep.  So the guide took the other 2 to the surface then came back to Richard and I who were just hovering in the water waiting to see how long his air would last.  The guide came back just as Richards air ran out, so they shared and I got to keep my diminishing resources to myself.  Longest 9 minutes ever.  Perhaps a little excessive for a safety stop, but better safe than sorry. So yeah, exciting 50th dive.

Turtle

School of blue-spotted eagle rays

School of hammerheads

A quaint town called Quito.

Oh yeah, found out the big guinea pig thing is called an Agouti.  Poo, tried to upload a pic for you, but the internet is too slow.

So after Monteverde I spent a couple of days looking around Quito and thought it was a cool little city.
Except for the repeated warnings from the hotel guy about catching taxi's everywhere after dark.
So during the day I wandered about, but my evenings were pretty quiet as I was staying in a hotel, not a hostel so didn't really meet anyone.  Although a room to myself was nice for a change - and $7 a night, who can argue with that.

One day I went on the Teleferiqo which is a big ski-lift thing that goes to the top of a mountain called Cruz Loma which overlooks Quito.  Amazing views and from the top of the Teleferiqo you can hike to the peak of Cruz Loma.  Hiking to the peak had been my original intention, but I should have given myself a couple of days in Quito first to get used to the altitude.  The top of the Teleferiqo is 4100m and when I got to the top and had a bit of a walk around I found myself getting a splitting headache and out of breath all the time.

So no hike to the peak for me.  Instead I had a walk round for a couple of hours then went back down into the city and went to check out the 'Jardin de botanico'.

The Quito markets are also amazing.  A lot of fantastic knitted ponchos and jumpers, all made with soft snuggly wool, not itchy wool and seriously cheap.  I thought I would have my bucks until I got out of Quito to Otavalo which is a couple of hours away and apparently has the coolest markets.  As well as hand craft there are food and animal markets and all the locals dress in traditional dress.  It sounded good for a look, but was not to be as when I got out to the bus terminal there were no buses.

So instead I went to the National Museum and had a wander about the Old Town of Quito.  The Museum had a great history of the area and the development of the various cultures and how they made things ie. gold, silver, copper, ceramics.

Really there is a lot to do in Ecudor and I would have liked to go to the Amazon, Otavalo, Cotopaxii, Banos, etc.  But I was just getting a little impatient about the Galapagos as it's somewhere I've ALWAYS wanted to go. I will fly back to Ecudor to go overland to Lima so should be able to check out a bit more of the country then.

I ain't no Jane.

Monteverde is a beautiful place.  High up amongst the clouds, serene forests and an abundance of wacky birds and animals, it's the kind of place where 2 weeks isn't long enough, let alone 2 days.  But 2 days was all I had.

The first day I got up early (still on sloth time I guess) and watched the day break over the mountains from the kitchen of the hostel where I was having a lazy breakfast.  I followed this up with a wander about town and in the afternoon I did a canopy zipline tour. 

It was pretty fun.  I don't think I've ever done big ziplines like that before.  Some of them were pretty quick and some went out over the valley which was pretty high and the wind had you rocking all around too.  The last thing on the tour was a tarzan swing.  I don't think I actually knew what it was.  I just though big swing, cool.  I was wrong.  Fuck-off sized swing is more like it.  It was like 40m!  But there was another girl on the tour who was all gung-ho and her boyfriend wouldn't do it with her, so she was like are you going?  And I was all 'yeah, I'm tough.'  And I was until I got to the edge.  And at the edge I was pretty nervous.  Then I jumped.  Then when it was just that little bit too late I was like 'oh shit I don't want to do this!'  But it was too late.  And it was awesome.  Except for that bit where I nearly crapped myself.  After that I was like 'oh my god' but it was fun.  Although I did have the shakes up when I got to the ground, the other girl was all 'Wow you didn't even scream.  I screamed the jungle down' and was like 'I think maybe I was too scared to scream.'

The second day I got up early for the 6.30 tour at the Santa Elena Nature Reserve which is a beautiful bit of cloud forest.  The tour went for about 3 hours and the guide showed us lots of plants, bugs and birds, including a Quetzal - a bright blue and red bird, which apparently is pretty rare.  After the tour I did one of the hiking tracks.  I heard a hummingbird and went to take a photo only to find out it was not a hummingbird, but a big beetle the size of a humming bird.  Later down the track I heard the big beetle and turned around to find it was actually a hummingbird.  I also almost stood on two snakes.  Stupid things what are they doing in the middle of the path anyway?  It's a walking track - they don't even have legs.

The next day I had the morning to explore before heading back to San Jose.  I went to the Sanctuario Ecologica and did a couple of the tracks there.  I was pretty excited when I saw one of the big guinea pig things.  I tried to get some photos but he was hiding in amongst the trees.  However, later I came out into a clearing and there were about half a dozen of them all wandering about and chasing eachother.  I still gotta find out what those things were called.

WTF? Week 9 already?

I've now left the sanctuary and sloth-filled days and am heading off to the other side of Costa Rica to Monteverde for a few days.  Monteverde is cloud forests, canopy tours, lots of wildlife and supposed to be a beautiful place, so can't wait.

My last day at the sloth sanctuary was good.  I did get to play with Roly-bear, and he tried as usual to bite me but succeeded in only scratching the hell out of my boobs.  He's so cute though so he's forgiven.

I'm also going to miss the little old ice-cream lady.  Today I had 2 ice-creams after lunch because I know I'm not going to get any more.  The little old ice-cream lady is tiny and about 100.  She lives in a house as old and as tiny as her and it is surrounded by lots of flowers and at footpath entrance is a little blue sign that says 'Se vende helados c200'.  You go in and ask her for her homemade ice-cream which comes in 3 flavours - coconut, peanut or this strawberry condensed milk thing.  They cost the equivalent of 40c and ice-cream is in little plastic bags that kinda smell a bit fishy from being in the freezer, but that doesn't matter, you just bite off the corner and get into it.  It's so good, we've been dropping in on her pretty much daily, so the sloth volunteers must be a fantastic source of income for her.

After work we went into Cahuita for a couple of beverages at the Reggae bar which was fun, and then were home about 8pm.  Another big night out partying for the volunteers.

It's a bit sad leaving the sanctuary as I would have liked to have spent another couple of weeks there.

But this week Beth arrived who has recently come from Ecudor and the Galapagos Islands.  She gave me heaps of info and tips and told me how fantastic it is, so now I'm getting pretty excited about that.  I fly out Thursday to Quito, Ecudor and have about six weeks to see Ecudor, the Galapagos and then get to Lima.

Random slothy facts

- Sloths have four stomachs, but they don't regurgatate like cows, it just goes straight through
- It takes about 25 days for sloth food to digest
- Sloths supposedly poo/wee just once a week and always go down to the ground to do it  - except for two in my section who decided to poo & wee 3 times this week.  And do it in their container for me to clean up.
- A sloths sense of smell is their best sense.
- Surprisingly, sloths aren't very smelly at all.  It's a part of their camoflage, they
take on the scent of their environment. 
- The sloths at the sanctuary do not have fungusy-stuff growing on them as they do in the wild.  This is something they pick up from their environment. Another of their devious ways to blend in with the environment.

Yay. Play date with Roly-bear.

Today is my last day here and I'm just waiting down on the dock for baby time.  There is a caiman crocodile laying in the water just below the deck.  But the waters a bit deep so it's hard to get a pic.  Today at baby time, as it's my last day, I'm going to play with my favourite Rolo, who I like to call Roly-bear.  He's so cute, and a little fiesty.

Baby-time

Roly-bear playing on the jungle gym

I've been here for two weeks but I guess I haven't told you a lot about sloths themselves.  There are two types, three-toed and two-toed.  However, both have three toes on their back legs, it's just hte front that changes.  The two types are quite distinguishable.  The three-toed are smaller and look like ewoks, they are also very friendly and like to crawl all over you when you get in their cage.  The two-toed are larger and look more like little pig-nose bears. 

3-toed sloth

2-toed sloth

Sloths are not at all related to bears though.  They are more closely related to armadillos or something like that.  They live to about 20-30 years.  The two-toed eat leaves and fruits, the three-toed only eat leaves.  Big leaves covered with bitey ants.

If you want some more reading material and little more sloth fact you can check out the sanctuaries web site http://www.slothrescue.org/ or the blog of Becky who is a researcher here at the sanctuary http://beckycliffe.blogspot.com/

If you have any more slothy questions ask away!