Christmas Gift for my mom - the birds of the Galapagos

+ 1 to Noelani's post wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, having a wonderful Solstice, and promising to post more often.

This post is a gift for my mom because I took these bird pixs for her (I am not the birder that she is, so I channeled her during the long birdwatching walks). Merry Christmas, Mom! :-)

More playa

The vegetation and climate in Ecuador really reminded me of N. California. Alot of the same vegetation - lots of cool Dr. Seuss looking plants. And here, on Puerto Lopez, the rocky coast line really looked familiar.  This boat was being completely rebuilt - it was fun to watch it morph over the week. This poor puffer fish was probably the closest I'll ever get to
one... Every morning the fishermen came in,  dumped, cleaned and sold all different types of fish on the beach. It was fascinating to watch the whole process,  and the variety of fish was amazing. Ceviche here is a kind of cold fish soup where the fish are marinated with sweet onions and different citruses. I wasn't so sure about that at first, but it is delicious. My favorite is the calamari ceviche. They had one at the hostal marinated in lime, orange juice and cilantro that I loved.
The last pic is my crazy family in the waves on a not very warm day. Gabriel LOVED playing in the ocean, and got really good at diving through the waves. We were in every day that we could be for as long as possible.

Merry Christmas!

Haven't had much time to post, so this is pretty behind, but I'm going to try to catch up. Tomorrow we leave for a small town called Lago Puelo. It is near a slightly larger town called El Bolson in Argentina. We celebrated Solstice with Bri and Ameen in Bariloche, which was super special. The area around Bariloche is stunning - I can't even describe it. We tried to take some pix, but it's hard to do it justice.

Galapagos: Creatures of the Sea

What surprised me most was how easily I became accustomed to walking alongside sea lions, marine iguanas, and Sally Lightfoot crabs. I continued to marvel at the crabs, all 7 days, but hardly noticed the seal lions and iguanas by the third day. Perhaps that is not as negative as it sounds; perhaps we were meant to walk with the animals, peacefully, without bothering each other. Perhaps the Galapagos is the only place where that orginal state still exists?

Alas, there were other sea creatures we observed, but not (luckily) so closely. From the ship we saw sharks, orca whales, and dolphins. From the zodiac, on our last day, returning from our last snorkeling outing, a HUGE manta ray lept out of the water to say goodbye. I was awestruck.

Snorkeling was amazing, but a *bit* chilly (67-73 degrees). We didn't have an underwater camera, so no photos, but it was much more colorful than I expected, and magical to be a part of that world.

Galapagos

I don't have time to post all of the pixs, but here is one that proves we were in the Galapagos. :-) It was a great trip!

+1 to Noelani's post - vacation in Puerto Lopez!

Yes, it is finally time to relax. :-) We are still using our Spanish, but mostly to order freshly made coco helado (coconut ice cream). Yesterday, we happened to be on the beach when the coconuts were harvested, and we were treated to fresh coconut water. Not a bad life. Gabriel is loving the ocean. Yesterday was sunny and we all swam. Today is cloudy, but Gabriel still wanted to swim, and he has...twice so far! The water is very warm, so once you are in, it's all good. We walked on the beach and observed all of the crabs and snaily things, and even a snake. Even without the beach, we have a lot to do with all of the instruments and games here. Gabriel is becoming a Battleship expert, and Noelani and I are obsessed with Mancala.

Ahhh, vacation at last! Puerto Lopez

After a month of hard work, Mary planned a wonderful 6 days a la playa for us. We are staying at a wonderful place on the Coast that is a hostal, art installation and whale foundation. For our Harbin friends - the owners have done this wonderful thing of integrating the hostal into nature in this beautifully organic way. I suspect we will not be ready to go when the time comes - but next is the Galapagos!

Last Day of School

We all graduated with honors, and lots of love from our great teachers. This was a great experience, and I like to think that we all speak a little more Spanish than we did a month ago :-)
G was especially sad to leave his teacher, Carolina - she really was awesome with him.

Last Day of School

We all graduated with honors, and lots of love from our great teachers. This was a great experience, and I like to think that we all speak a little more Spanish than we did a month ago :-)
G was especially sad to leave his teacher, Carolina - she really was awesome with him.

Banos: Chiva Tour

Last weekend was the first time I felt like we were on vacation. On Friday, we took a bus to Banos, a town built in the valley of the Tungurahua volcano. Banos is known for it's natural thermal baths, and it also has more waterfalls than I've seen anywhere else. By happy coincidence, Bri and Ameen were also there, and we spent the day with them on Saturday. We took a "Chiva Tour", which is an open air bus that took us to a few different spots. In this post I have some pixs from the beginning of the tour when we saw waterfalls from afar and took a gondola ride across the canyon. Gabriel's favorite part of the gondola ride stop was helping two guys pull corn nibs off ears of corn. Also some pixs of what we saw from the Chiva, and some silly boys in the Chiva. ;-)