Ecuador - The Galapagos

Keeping my blog up to date is sometimes quite challenging. Sometimes you simply have a very slow connection, sometimes the changes you have made don't get saved before the computer crashes or there is simply no Internet available at all. This was the case in the Galapagos and so I was not able t create any postings at all. The plan was to get my blog up to date during my visit over the Holidays in San Francisco, but for many reasons I was just not able to do more than post a couple of pictures. Actually quite a few .... Now twice my comments have been erase due to computer problems and here you are now witnessing my third attempt. I promise to save frequently. Like in just now. Simply enjoy the photos and I promise to provide more details later, although that might be after my return to San Francisco in 2007.

Giant turtle in the Darwin center of Santa Cruz Island. Here eggs are brought in from all the islands to breed the eggs and raise the young turtles for abut 5 years until they are big enough to survive on their own.

A Land Iguana hanging out in the sunshine, soaking up the warmth. I got really close in front of him to make this shot. Nice hairdo ....

A "sinkhole" we visited on Santa Cruz Island. Te flora down in the hole is endemic to the Galapagos.

A lava tunnel from the last eruption many million years ago. In these tunnels hot lava was flowing into the ocean. The sea water cooled down the exterior and created the tunnels which extended further and further into the ocean.

The harbor of Santa Cruz shortly before our departure.

Sea Lyons hanging out in the surf. It was amazing how close we could get to them, it would have been no problem to touch them.

A Sea Lyon cleaning itself after rolling around in the sand.

A Sea Lyon baby struggling in the rocks.

A mix between Land Iguana and Sea Iguana ...

A closer shot, this example was about 3 feet long.

Of course there has to be a "Kitsch" shot, it is not coming out as great as in the original photo, but it hopefully can describe the atmosphere.

More Sea Lyons .....

Sea Iguanas hanging out in the rocks, soaking up the sun. They actually spend many hours a day sun bathing to heat up their bodies before they go hunting in the ocean for more than an hour.

A light house on one f the islands.

A big group of Sea Iguanas sunbathing.

The Galapagos are all about boobies. I would have never thought to hear me say that I have seen enough boobies for the next 5 years .... Well, these are actually birds and here you see a "Blue Footed Booby" posing.

A "Masked Booby".

An old volcano covered in eerie lighting, in the foreground a lagoon where there were many Flamingos.

Flamingos feeding in the lagoon. More pictures once I have worked them in photoshop.

A "stop sign" not to enter the breeding area of the sea turtles.

The beautiful beach where we watched the sea turtles.

A big crab running around the rocks.

The same volcano crater as above with a beautiful beach in the foreground.

A mail box installed on one of the islands. In the past sailors who came by could drop their mail and pick up letters for their destination harbor. All letters would be hand delivered for free.

Another "Kitsch" photo of an island in the sun set.

Happy Holidays

Hello All,

A couple of days ago I was still in the magnificent Galapagos Islands and now I am back here in the cold winter of San Francisco. Well, it is not really cold in general (60 degrees), but considering that I was used to shorts and flip flops and about 90 degrees it feels like Antarctica.

My friends gave me a wonderful warm welcome and an awesome birthday surprise party .... it feels good to be back for a little while.

In case I have missed you with my Christmas eMail I would like to wish you a wonderful, merry, merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best for 2007. May the new year bring you all you are wishing for, but definitely lots of health, happiness, luck, love, peace and of course a good dose of fun too. I will be heading to India on January 1st to continue my adventure. All the best,

Ralf

On my way to San Francisco

Hello,

It is December 19th and I am leaving Quito (Ecuador) for San Francisco. Will update my blog shortly. Look forward to seeing some of you in San Francisco soon. Have a wonderful day!

Cheers,

Ralf

Next stops:

San Francisco (USA)

Ecuador - Impressions of Quito

From Santiago I flew to my last destination Quito in Ecuador. After a short stop in Guayaquil we reached the airport. Quito (official name: San Francisco de Quito) is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in northern Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin on the eastern slopes of the Pichincha ( 15,728 ft; 4,794 m), an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains. The city's elevation is 9,300 ft (2,850 m) above sea level (measured at the Plaza de la Independencia), making Quito the second highest capital city in the world. The city's population according to the most recent census (2001) was 1,399,378. In 2005, however, the estimated population was 1,865,541 (canton). The area of Quito is approximately 112 square miles (290 km²).

The new part of town is not really nice, although most of the tourist "life" happens there, however the old part of town is really beautiful, with lots of colonial style buildings and small little streets and alleys. It does not feel like a tourist center and it is primarily locals walking about and all the shops are geared towards the local population, very little touristy stuff. It felt like in every door entry there was a little business established, selling fruits and vegetables, meat, fish or different dishes. Sometimes I had no idea what it was that they were selling. I even ventured into a local hair dresser. I guess I was the first gringo customer ever and for about $2 I got quite a good haircut.




An old mansion being restored close to my hotel.


On Sunday there was an arts and crafts market in a park nearby. This band was playing and selling CDs. Very similar to Peruvian music.


I simply liked the contrast of old and new in this photo.

The "old" town was full of beautiful old buildings, the streets were closed to traffic except buses to convert the whole area in a pedestrian only zone for Sunday shopping.



The "Plaza de Armas" or main square.


One of the many little food stands in a doorway. I had no idea what type of food it was.

Again the contrast old and new, this small alley with old houses stretching up the hill side and on top some modern new facility (unfortunately I have no idea what it was).

In the park there were also lots of little food stands, fruit juices, BBQ and much more.

Chile - Impressions of Santiago

Santiago, the capital of Chile is located at the foothills of a large mountain range. It is a very modern city and there is a lot of construction going on. Especially the new areas in the business district could be anywhere in Dallas or Boston, modern glass and steel towers hosting lots of office space. Nevertheless there are very many old parts of the city, personally I liked Bellavista the best, not much traffic, cozy atmosphere and lots of street cafes, bars and restaurants. A perfect area to enjoy the great weather. It was kind of funny to walk around in shorts, T-shirt and flip flops, enjoying the sun and warm temperatures, but then having Christmas decoration and lights everywhere.

I have to admit I did not do many "touristy" things and spend very little time exploring the city. After San Pedro de Atacama I was just too tired, physically, but also mentally. I took the time to relax, see a dentist to check up on the tooth that bothered me so tremendously in the dessert, catch up on my blog and just "chill" a little.


One of the many modern office high rises in Santiago.


The B&B I was staying at, the perfect place in a quite side street (next to the French embassy), just a few minutes walk from Bellavista.

After a couple of days I moved to a different hostel, the "Happy House Hostel" in a different part of town. The Barrio Brazil must have been a very wealthy neighbourhood in the past, now it seems to be getting slowly better after many years of neglect. I especially liked this little area with many old houses and a really good restaurant.

The "Happy House Hostel", one of the best hostels I have ever stayed at. A little more expensive, but it was worth it. An old refurbished mansion, high ceilings, hard wood floors, painted in many funky colors, cool interior design and an awesome roof deck. Almost a "home away from home".

Finally I started exploring a little. Nothing special abut this photo, I was just trying to capture the atmosphere for you.

More impressions ....

Of course I fulfilled my tourist duty in the end. I spent one day walking around the city, using the great subway system to explore as much as possible in one day .... I was exhausted by the end of the day :-)

The Presidential Palace .... when Pinochet took over many years ago it was set on fire and under mysterious circumstances Allende died. Interesting, just two days after I left Pinochet died and there were big demonstrations and protests right here. Glad I missed that.

Santiago offers an intriguing combination of old and new ....

.... especially here. The old church on the main square, right next to it an ultra modern glass high rise and kind of in between this huge Christmas tree.

Next to Bellavista is a mountain with a cable car going all the way to the top. from up there you have spectacular views of the city. Well, I went up there with thousands of Chileans since it was one of the most important religious holidays. Going up was no problem, but coming done there were lines hundreds and hundreds of meters long ..... finally I decided to walk, got lost and was completely exhausted when I finally returned to the base station.



The view from the mountain, unfortunately it was a little cloudy.

Extremely frustrated with Google / Blogger Beta

May the powers of the Internet be with me. Sitting here in Santiago, Chile trying to update my blog and catch up on some of the days I have not been able to post recently. Unfortunately I can only post text. Driven by extreme frustration I have decided to make this part of my blog. Not that anybody at Google seems to be paying much attention, but it is obvious that there are some major, major problems with the new Google Blogger Beta product. There are already over 65 postings from extremely frustrated Google users trying to upload photos to their blogs without success. And I am pretty sure there are many more out there who have not participated in any Google group yet. When trying to upload photos into my blog, the simple error message states:

"We are sorry, but we were unable to process your request".

That's it, no further information. No acknowledgement anywhere that there are problems. Only once a Google employee responded to these postings so far, some users have had the problem for over 3 days. You might wonder when it will be resolved .....

Now this leads to a different issue, the complete lack of any support infrastructure at Google. Of course you could argue that it is a free service, however since Google is generating a ton of cash by providing this environment you would think that professional support might be adequate. Unfortunately you could also say, well it is a "BETA product" and issues like this should be expected. On a side note Google mail has been in BETA for over a year, if not longer and Google tried really hard to push over to Blogger Beta. Not that the new "BETA Blocker" has improved much over the former product. Many of the old issues still remain and the few functional enhancements for the template management do not really impress me much. Maybe I am simply missing something. However, I only want to maintain my blog and be able to upload photos efficiently, which has been a problem all along. But now it seems to have gotten worse ..... Maybe somebody at Google will read this and fix the problem.
End of rant.

Chile - Atacama Trip to the Lagoons

Other activities in Atacama included at trip to the lagoons close to Atacama ("Ojos de salar"). At first we reach a salt lagoon with a salt concentration similar to the "Death Sea". It was amazing just to be floating around in the water and taking in the amazing views of the mountains in the background.

The lagoon was actually a deep green, however I was not able to capture the colors. Especially when my battery died and I was not able to take any photos.





Just floating ... it was a strange feeling ..... but good.

The next day I went horse back riding. At this point it was still fun. On our way back we entered the "Quebrada del Diabolo" (The Devil's Gorge).



Over thousands of years water slowly carved this gorge into the mountain. Unfortunately soon thereafter my horse slipped and I lost my balance and fell off the horse. Although I really know how to fall it was extremely painful. I hurt my shoulder, my elbow, my hip and especially bad was that I cut my hand and had a piece of rock stuck into it. Back at the hostel I decided to "operate" myself .... I was simply too scared to go to the hospital and have somebody torture me with tweezers to get the rock out of my hand. Well, so I tortured myself with my little cuticle scissors ..... boy was that painful. Finally I managed to pull it out. Yippeeeey :-)

Well, the aftermath was that I had to use Iodine to disinfect the wound .... ouch.

Chile - Atacama Trip to the Tatio Geysers

Surrounded by an impressive scenery and arid beauty, the Tatio Geysers is a geothermal field of volcanic origin, where water and steam spring up violently from deep inside the Earth. The geysers are located more than 4,000 m (13,120 ft) above sea level, and therefore morning temperatures are very low. It is also the time of day, between 5:30 and 7:00 am, when the geysers are at their peak and streams can easily reach heights of 10 meters (32.8 ft).Nearby there are hot springs where you can enjoy a thermal bath.

I got picked up at 4:00 am to go to the Tatio Geysers. The bus ride was horrible, freezing cold (-15 degrees and the road was so bumpy that it was impossible to sleep on the bus. I do not remember exactly what time we arrived at the Geysers. Dawn was just approaching, we put on every piece of cloth we could find and walked around to look at the Geysers.

With the sun rising , the steam and the shooting water cascades provided a ghostly atmosphere.

The rising sun reflected on one of the mountain tops.

Hard to see, but this is Captain Adventure in full garb in front of one of the Geysers.

The rising sun, the mountains, the steam .... just another "Kitsch" photo.

.... and since you have not seen enough just one more :-)

Aaaaahhhhh .... after freezing our butts off we went to the hot pools nearby. The water was about 50 degrees Celsius at the hottest and a moderate 30 at the coldest spots. We soaked for about 30 minutes before we continued our trip. Lovely.

We drove through the high dessert and suddenly we reached this green valley with lots of birds roaming around. Beautiful ....

Once a big group of French photo tourists (they all had the most expensive cameras with big hunking zoom lenses) left the place I was able to take in the beautiful landscape.

The small creek lead to a lagoon where we saw lots of Flamingos, unfortunately we could not get any closer to have a better shot.