We took an Overseas Adventure Travel ( www.oattravel.com ) guided tour of the Ecuadorean sights, including:
Ecuadorean Mountain Highlands
Amazon Basin on the Rio Napo, a large tributary to the Amazon River
Galapagos Islands
Quito (Capitol of Ecuador)
We had a GREAT time, and have posted photos taken by us and by our new Ecuador travelling companions. See the headings on each of our Ecuador pages for what the photos are showing.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
Galapagos Islands Snorkeling and Fish
John L. captured this beautiful shot of a sea turtle.
Connie took this next series of pics of a sea lion that befriended Connie and Mary Ellen. The sea lion brought Connie a blowfish as a gift. Note the blowfish in the sea lions mouth in one of these pics. Connie was using an Olympus TG-3.
This sea lion swam playfully with several of us that day and sometimes would stop right in front of us and look us in the eyes. It was as if the sea lion expected us to play with him and clap for his antics.
Blowfish is either dead or running for its life. Blowfish in the sea lion's mouth.
Connie C. took these great photos of us snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands.
Tina snorkeling. Note her red gloves and the marvelous reflections from the surface of the extremely clear water.
John snorkeling. Note his gaudy swim trunks.
John front view.
Three more more fish pics by Jim M.
Yellowtail Surgeonfish, http://www.elasmodiver.com/Yellowtail_Surgeonfish_Pictures.htm
Frigate bird over our "Treasure of Galapagos". He heard about our wonderful meals prepared by Wilson and Katy and was hoping for a hand out.
School of fish. Maybe a needle fish?? We snorkeled over many schools of fish. The only school we snorkeled over that I knew their name was when we were over a school of White Tipped Reef Sharks. I kept a very close eye on them and made no derogatory remarks about sharks.
And here they are, the White Tipped Reef Sharks! They were about 6 feet long, but Jessica said they did not want to eat us. Photo by Maggie D.
They usually slept at the bottom during the day and were more active at night. On this day, some were swimming and some were sleeping. Note the white tips on the dorsal and tail fins of this guy.
More photos to come!
Connie took this next series of pics of a sea lion that befriended Connie and Mary Ellen. The sea lion brought Connie a blowfish as a gift. Note the blowfish in the sea lions mouth in one of these pics. Connie was using an Olympus TG-3.
This sea lion swam playfully with several of us that day and sometimes would stop right in front of us and look us in the eyes. It was as if the sea lion expected us to play with him and clap for his antics.
Blowfish is either dead or running for its life. Blowfish in the sea lion's mouth.
Connie C. took these great photos of us snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands.
Tina snorkeling. Note her red gloves and the marvelous reflections from the surface of the extremely clear water.
John snorkeling. Note his gaudy swim trunks.
John front view.
Three more more fish pics by Jim M.
Yellowtail Surgeonfish, http://www.elasmodiver.com/Yellowtail_Surgeonfish_Pictures.htm
Frigate bird over our "Treasure of Galapagos". He heard about our wonderful meals prepared by Wilson and Katy and was hoping for a hand out.
School of fish. Maybe a needle fish?? We snorkeled over many schools of fish. The only school we snorkeled over that I knew their name was when we were over a school of White Tipped Reef Sharks. I kept a very close eye on them and made no derogatory remarks about sharks.
And here they are, the White Tipped Reef Sharks! They were about 6 feet long, but Jessica said they did not want to eat us. Photo by Maggie D.
They usually slept at the bottom during the day and were more active at night. On this day, some were swimming and some were sleeping. Note the white tips on the dorsal and tail fins of this guy.
More photos to come!
Galapagos Islands Animals, Plants and Places
Our tour guide, Jessica, showed us so many Galapagos animals and plants that the information overload made our heads spin. She knew all about them and tried to give us all the facts. First of all, we learned that the animals on Galapagos are not afraid of us and pretty much continue on with their daily activities and ignore any humans walking by. Sometimes, the tortoises would draw into their shells and hiss at us if we got within a couple feet of them. But as soon as we stepped back to about 6 feet away, they would stick their heads back out and get back to eating, or walking, or thinking about walking.
Jessica explaining Galapagos flora and fauna to us. She really loves her Galapagos Islands.
We took the 8 passenger "Panga" inflatable boats from the TOG to all of our hiking and snorkelinig adventures. Our drivers were, Dario, Ivan and Xavier.
Marine iguanas were EVERYWHERE! Sometimes they were directly in our way on the path, and we had to very carefully step between their tails. They never flinched and seemed to trust us completely to not step on them. Marine iguanas eat algae in the ocean and have no desire to eat any meat.
A particularly handsome marine iguana.
Marine iguana stopping traffic. Why did the marine iguana cross the road?
Marine iguana digging her nest right along the path. Tina stood very close, but the iguana "Mom" did not stop digging. However, I thought I heard the iguana Mom mumbling something about never having seen blue hiking boots before!
Marine iguana hiding. As we were photographing him, we could hear his iguana friends telling him "Carlos, remember, if you don't move, the humans can't see you!"
Marine Iguanas eat algae from rocks in the ocean and as a result, they ingest a lot of salt water. The salt is removed by a special gland in their head and they then sneeze out this excess salt water. On to themselves and all their nearby friends. Here is an Excellent video showing marine iguanas spitting out the salt from their nostrils, then a Sally Lightfoot crab eating the dead skin off marine iguana's backs and finally a lava lizard riding shotgun on the head of a marine iguana. http://www.arkive.org/galapagos-marine-iguana/amblyrhynchus-cristatus/video-11c.html
We loved the bright colors on the "Sally Lightfoot" crabs. These crabs are black for camoflage when they are young and vulnerable to all kinds of predators, but turn to these beautiful vibrant colors when they are big enough and tough enough to withstand most of their predators.
John with his tortoise "friend" on Santa Cruz island. We found that even though the other Galapagos animals ignored us, the tortoises drew in and hissed very loudly at us when we got less than 5 feet from them.This tortoise is definitely hissing.
As soon as John moved away, the tortoise got over it, stuck out his head and went on about his business.
Baby tortoises at the hatchery where they are raised for several years until they are big enough to NOT be eaten by the feral rats, feral cats, hawks, and who knows what else.
Full size tortoise with his favorite food "Sour Apples".
Dome shell tortoise in low gear
Saddleback tortoise in high gear, look at the dust he is kicking up!
Vito auditioning for the job of being a Galapagos Tortoise! Jessica told us it was against the law to sit on a Tortoise, so this is an incriminating pic of Maggie breaking the rules.
Posing behind a tortoise that stopped on our path. As Tina and I were in this pose, the tortoise dropped a very big bombshell, fresh and wet right at my feet. Photo by Maggie D.
Jessica told us that Land Iguanas like to eat tortoise poop. This iguana has just struck GOLD!
Photo by Maggie D.
Land Iguana
Beautiful hibiscus flowers at the AltaIr lodge near Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island
Beautiful swimming pool at the AltaIr Lodge. Photo by Jim Marshall.
John and Tina at Darwin's Lake on Isabela Island after climbing the 150 steps.
Banana tree:
Blue Footed Boobies:
Here is a nice website with excellent pics and discussion of Blue Footed Boobys
http://www.factzoo.com/birds/blue-footed-booby-deep-diving.html
John on the Santa Cruz beach near a lot of sea turtle nests that were recently dug. Sorry, the nests are out of the picture, but they were tapered holes in the sand about 6 feet in diameter and 1 foot deep. This particular area had around 20 of these nests:
Jim M. photo of the sea turtle nests, with the "Stop" sign to keep people from walking around in them:
Jessica is showing us a Lava Cactus (that looks like our Hedge Hog cacti). Galapagos also has Prickly Pear Cactus (that has a tree trunk structure) and a Candelabra Cactus (that looks like our Organ Pipe cacti).
http://www.galapagos-islands-tourguide.com/galapagos-cactus.html
More photos to come!
Jessica explaining Galapagos flora and fauna to us. She really loves her Galapagos Islands.
We took the 8 passenger "Panga" inflatable boats from the TOG to all of our hiking and snorkelinig adventures. Our drivers were, Dario, Ivan and Xavier.
Marine iguanas were EVERYWHERE! Sometimes they were directly in our way on the path, and we had to very carefully step between their tails. They never flinched and seemed to trust us completely to not step on them. Marine iguanas eat algae in the ocean and have no desire to eat any meat.
A particularly handsome marine iguana.
Marine iguana stopping traffic. Why did the marine iguana cross the road?
Marine iguana digging her nest right along the path. Tina stood very close, but the iguana "Mom" did not stop digging. However, I thought I heard the iguana Mom mumbling something about never having seen blue hiking boots before!
Marine iguana hiding. As we were photographing him, we could hear his iguana friends telling him "Carlos, remember, if you don't move, the humans can't see you!"
Marine Iguanas eat algae from rocks in the ocean and as a result, they ingest a lot of salt water. The salt is removed by a special gland in their head and they then sneeze out this excess salt water. On to themselves and all their nearby friends. Here is an Excellent video showing marine iguanas spitting out the salt from their nostrils, then a Sally Lightfoot crab eating the dead skin off marine iguana's backs and finally a lava lizard riding shotgun on the head of a marine iguana. http://www.arkive.org/galapagos-marine-iguana/amblyrhynchus-cristatus/video-11c.html
We loved the bright colors on the "Sally Lightfoot" crabs. These crabs are black for camoflage when they are young and vulnerable to all kinds of predators, but turn to these beautiful vibrant colors when they are big enough and tough enough to withstand most of their predators.
John with his tortoise "friend" on Santa Cruz island. We found that even though the other Galapagos animals ignored us, the tortoises drew in and hissed very loudly at us when we got less than 5 feet from them.This tortoise is definitely hissing.
As soon as John moved away, the tortoise got over it, stuck out his head and went on about his business.
Baby tortoises at the hatchery where they are raised for several years until they are big enough to NOT be eaten by the feral rats, feral cats, hawks, and who knows what else.
Full size tortoise with his favorite food "Sour Apples".
Dome shell tortoise in low gear
Saddleback tortoise in high gear, look at the dust he is kicking up!
Vito auditioning for the job of being a Galapagos Tortoise! Jessica told us it was against the law to sit on a Tortoise, so this is an incriminating pic of Maggie breaking the rules.
Posing behind a tortoise that stopped on our path. As Tina and I were in this pose, the tortoise dropped a very big bombshell, fresh and wet right at my feet. Photo by Maggie D.
Jessica told us that Land Iguanas like to eat tortoise poop. This iguana has just struck GOLD!
Photo by Maggie D.
Land Iguana
Beautiful hibiscus flowers at the AltaIr lodge near Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island
Beautiful swimming pool at the AltaIr Lodge. Photo by Jim Marshall.
John and Tina at Darwin's Lake on Isabela Island after climbing the 150 steps.
Banana tree:
Blue Footed Boobies:
Here is a nice website with excellent pics and discussion of Blue Footed Boobys
http://www.factzoo.com/birds/blue-footed-booby-deep-diving.html
Jim M. photo of the sea turtle nests, with the "Stop" sign to keep people from walking around in them:
Jessica is showing us a Lava Cactus (that looks like our Hedge Hog cacti). Galapagos also has Prickly Pear Cactus (that has a tree trunk structure) and a Candelabra Cactus (that looks like our Organ Pipe cacti).
http://www.galapagos-islands-tourguide.com/galapagos-cactus.html
More photos to come!
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Photos of our new friends from the Ecuador and Galapagos Trip
Our group on the river boat to the Yarina Lodge:
For our last night at the Yarina Lodge, Winter made all of us special hats. We really liked tham and looked great! The boys hats were a palm leaf and made us look like Robin Hood. The girls hats were made of palm fibers and were worthy of an Indian princess!
Carol D. and Ruth on the Panga at Puerto Ayora
Ruth with the shoemaker and his hand made Alpargata
Carol D. with Antonio braiding palm fibers into yarn for making of Alpargatas by hand:
Mary Ellen and Carol M. on the Panga at Puerto Ayora
Our group trying to "blend in" on the sidewalk in Quito
Patricia balancing the egg at the Equator
Maggie balancing the egg at the Equator
Mary Ellen balancing the egg at the Equator
Mary Ellen receiving a guinea pig cleansing demonstration from the shaman:
Tina and Connie drying off and hiding from the sun on our "Panga" boat ride back to the "Treasure of Galapagos I". They are wondering what kind of wonderful fruit juice will be prepared for us by Wilson and served by Victor to be waiting for us when we get back on the boat:
Great colors in an underwater photo that Connie took of Tina:
Carol M. learns to thresh Quinoa
More photos to come!
For our last night at the Yarina Lodge, Winter made all of us special hats. We really liked tham and looked great! The boys hats were a palm leaf and made us look like Robin Hood. The girls hats were made of palm fibers and were worthy of an Indian princess!
Carol D. and Ruth on the Panga at Puerto Ayora
Ruth with the shoemaker and his hand made Alpargata
Carol D. with Antonio braiding palm fibers into yarn for making of Alpargatas by hand:
Mary Ellen and Carol M. on the Panga at Puerto Ayora
Our group trying to "blend in" on the sidewalk in Quito
Patricia balancing the egg at the Equator
Maggie balancing the egg at the Equator
Mary Ellen balancing the egg at the Equator
Mary Ellen receiving a guinea pig cleansing demonstration from the shaman:
Tina and Connie drying off and hiding from the sun on our "Panga" boat ride back to the "Treasure of Galapagos I". They are wondering what kind of wonderful fruit juice will be prepared for us by Wilson and served by Victor to be waiting for us when we get back on the boat:
Great colors in an underwater photo that Connie took of Tina:
Carol M. learns to thresh Quinoa
More photos to come!
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