Ecuador – robodawno.com

June 21, 2007July 3, 2018

Quito and around

it´s our last afternoon in south america. boo/yay!!

we´ve spent this week around quito, ecuador. quito, though it´s a huge city, is really quite nice and homey. we´ve toured around, finished the last of our shopping, checked out cool cafes and restaurants, and done our fair share of relaxing.

on tuesday we took a bus to the equator, just north of the city. there´s a big monument and a bright yellow line on the pavement. the funniest thing is that it´s actually not the right spot – i guess the french screwed up when they built the monument! we went to a small museum next door and they gave us a GPS to use to find the real equator. turns out it´s right on the highway!

yesterday we went to the neighbouring town of otavalo to check out the market and the countryside. it was pretty rainy so we didn´t do the hiking we had planned, but enjoyed a change of pace.

June 18, 2007July 3, 2018

The Galapagos Islands

Today we finished our tour of the Galapagos Islands. It was absolutely incredible. For those of you who don’t know, the Galapagos Islands are located on the equator off the coast of Ecuador. They were formed by volcanic eruptions and are famous for their endemic species. It was on these islands that Charles Darwin did research toward his theory of evolution and natural selection. To read more about it, you can click here.

For 8 days we lived aboard the cruise ship “Yolita” with 14 others plus the crew. It was one of the smallest boats on the water so it was a pretty tight fit. Usually we would travel in the night to an island. In the morning we’d have an early breakfast and then hike around the island. We’d return to the boat for lunch and then snorkel. Afterwards we’d travel to another nearby location and either relax on the beach or do another hike.

The coolest thing about viewing the wildlife is that they are not afraid of humans. It meant we could walk right up to them on the land, and swim right next to them in the ocean. We think the pictures speak for themselves. So enjoy!

Note: We have yet to develop our under water pictures so we can’t show you the white tip sharks we were swimming with.

PS One week until we’re home in Medicine Hat.
PPS Happy Father’s Day!

June 14, 2007July 3, 2018

Galapagos Islands Short Blog

Hi everyone!
We´re currently halfway through our Galapagos Islands tour and it´s pretty fantastic. So far we´ve seen loads of animals, birds, reptiles and sea life. We´ve played with sea lions, snorkeled with white tipped sharks, and watched a couple of blue footed boobies do the nasty. It has been quite eventful.

We´ve gotten used to living on a boat… so much so that when we´re on land we still wobble back and forth without any reason. The cabin we are in is quite small, but fortunately it´s located in the bottom of the boat so it doesn´t rock as hard as the people who are staying upstairs.

We´ve taken quite a few pictures so we´ll have to sort through them and post them when we´re done our tour.

June 9, 2007July 3, 2018

Riobamba, Baños, and beyond…

Hello,

The last week has been somewhat of a long week, so here are the highlights.

We started out in Riobamba with high hopes of riding the Devil´s Nose train. The Lonely Planet guide book describes this journey as a spectacular ride. We would probably not use the word spectacular, but everyone else on the train seemed to enjoy it. Though I can´t give it a very thorough review because I fell asleep by the end of it.

Next up was Baños. We were really excited to visit this town because of all the outdoor activities it had to offer. Unfortunately, we seemed to run out of luck with the weather. It rained most of the time. We still managed to rent bikes and cycled along waterfall alley, as well as hike to the top of a neighbouring volcano.

The rain slowed us down enough to realize that we needed to treat our weathered bodies to a massage, a morning at the hot springs, and DawnO got to attend a couple of Yoga classes while I was catching up on some reading. We even treated ourselves in a little chocolate café and spent the best dollar each that we have ever spent in the history of robodawno. We had chocolate fondue and it was worthy of the word ´spectacular´.

We have returned to Guyaquil via our final and worst night bus journey (Complete with bumpy roads, a puking passenger who we´ll call ´Ralph´, non-reclining seats, a constant binging and no bathroom). We are currently recharging our batteries and are getting quite excited for our 8 day Galapagos Islands cruise which starts on Sunday morning.