Oct 27
Hier in Merida tummeln sie sich noch auf der Strasse, einige sehr gut unterhalten und andere fast am auseinanderfallen. Aber eines haben sie alle gemeinsam, alle werden sie noch gefahren… wie das einte oder andere Modell die MFK passieren würde, ist mir ein Rätsel. Aber das muss ja nicht heute denn es gibt auch noch manana….
To early explorers this archipelago was known as Las Islas Encantadas… and only later it got it’s current name Islas ‘Galapagos’ meaning saddle/hinting to the giant tortoises. However this paradise consisting of 13 main islands and many more islets have much more to show than ‘just’ tortoises. Be it the different vegetation (some look more like the moon than ‘Hawaii’, the different colours of the water ranging from dark blue to turquoise, be it the sand from fine white powder to black lava stones and last but not least the vast variety of animals be it the dragon look a like iguanas, millions of birds* and the omnipresent sea lions.
I was so much looking forward to this trip once arrived in Quito.. being rainy and cold. So it was such a blessing when arriving on Baltra to set off for 1 week trip on the Angelito. It was a nice small ship with a very friendly crew and so was the rest of the group that would explore the islands together for the next days. On our first day we sailed to North Seymour where we could see the land land iguanas, great or magnificent frigate birds (who cares… except the birdies*), red footed boobies (yes this is not a spelling error!!), swallow tail sea gulls and sea lions!
great or magnificent frigate bird (here a male trying to impress a female with his red ‘bag’)
red footed booby
sea lion mother with the new born baby
land iguana
it was overwhelming to see all these animals from close.. they are not afraid of humans and one could easily touch them (NO TOCAR!!). sometimes you almost step on them because they are all over the place and when taking a picture you have to watch your step as you cannot just walk backwards to get a better focus as a sea lion may lie right behind you!
After this first half day trip we were brought safely back on board with a little Jacques Cousteau style Zodiac and were welcomed with some snacks helping us to get through till the dinner. Ha ha there were no ‘hungry’ times on the Angelito and the food was fantastic – good i stayed only 1 week on this ship!
On day 2 we moved on to Isla Santiago (Bartolomé) and also we had our first snorkelling trip (most of us were fighting a bit with the equipment, be it the mask/snorkel or simply figure out the tricks of the underwater cameras). The skills were improving gradually throughout the week.. you can tell from the quality of the pics and movies – only thing that remained was that after 30 mins i started to freeze as the water was pretty cold (even with the wet suits).
forgot the name… think it was something like yellow seagent pepper fish or so
Bartolomé was an island with a moon type landscape with black rocks which were brightened up by hundred of orange spots which when looking closer were the sally light foot crabs that moved elegantly across the rocks.
sally light foot crab
sueblue ‘on the rocks’
In order to arrive on Isla Genovesa for day 3 we had to cruise all night.. hmm we were already used to the constant humming of the engine under our beds. Genovesa was the most northern island we visited and was a mix of sandy beach and black ‘lava’ cliffs where we could observe millions of birds (some people would be very jealous*) like swallow tail sea gull (the one with the red eye liner), blue foot boobies, nazca boobies, herons and the lovely sea lions
swallow tail sea gull
blue foot booby
nazca booby
For day 4 we had to travel all the way back to Isla Santiago.. so another night cruise that started already during dinner. Thus fetching your food at the buffet was in a ‘dinner for one’ fashion.. target and run with the current! No harm done – we made it! Puerto Egas and Isla Rabida were again totally different places made of black volcanic lava rocks featuring red sandy beaches – by now you can guess who ownes these red beaches… yes the ever cute sea lions. i think i took 200 pics only of them – maybe i will drop a serie under photos later on! when they look at you with their black eyes you are melting…
a ‘screen shot’ of the tough life of a sea lion
on the next day we were due to visit the Charles Darwin Tortiose breeding center – well it was a zoo to me and i was longing to see the highlands of Santa Cruz in the afternoon where we could observe the giant tortoises in wildlife.
giant tortoise experience
land tortoise taking a bath
sueblue going tortoise…
then back to the boat ah yes and not to be forgotten – it means back on board with our new buddies the ‘birdies’. this was day five where half of the group switched – some went home and a group of birdwatchers joined us. An interesting development as we saw already millions of birds.. whereas they were hungry to see just a small or medium black finch… they looked all the same to us. Clear case this would start to cause troubles. Nevertheless another long night cruise to Isla Espanola – starting to get lost which day was which. Anyway it is the time for marine iguanas, bright white sandy beach and guess what more sea lions.
pink toed booby
sea lion taking a power nap
marine iguana with some finch on its head
day 6 & 7 was the pretty island Santa Fe and onwards towards South Plaza and up towards Baltra as we were approaching the last day of the cruise. Santa Fe was the island of the coloured marine iguanas gathering on top of each other to keep warm.
waterhole near the cliffs creating kind of a geyser when the waves hit the rocks
sea lion baby waiting for the mum to return..
land iguana munching cactus
landscape with giant cactus trees
snorkelling got more exciting… white finn riff sharks and sea turtles, mantas and sea lions
early morning cruise to the mangrove forest for more sea turtles and sharks…..
This week felt like being part of the Galapagos paradise… i hope they manage to keep it as magic as it appealed to me.
*) millions of birds: now this little footnote is mostly addressed to ‘non-birdy-group’ ha ha. it was truly amazing what a fascination a little sparrow type of bird can cause to a ‘birdy’. well i have to say, we had obviously already seen so many birds before they joined us, so to us as non-birdies this was already quite a fair amount of birds. they even kept chasing with their binoculars a little wobbler while huge sea turtles or sharks were swimming passed the boat. also typically birdies would jump up while having dinner for which ever feather is flying along the ship with a speed you would think a killer whale had jumped out of the water. we were wondering if they even slept with the binocular that they attached to their bodies with a wildlife watcher harness. Well maybe it could be of good use to fish them out of the sea if they went over board…. or also it could be used for zip lining. who knows. surely we had a good laugh and we were glad we had our own mini group… consisting of 2 couples and 2 individual travellers which was inconceivable to the birdies – they asked me 1 evening. so you are travelling as a group? i said no. so it is 4 and 2? i said no… so you are Austrians? i said no. ha ha and then she gave up.
Before i arrived in Merida, Leo asked me if i would like to go to see sinkholes… my first answer was ‘what is that’ .. after googling it i definitely wanted to see this.
Here a quick description: A cenote is a sinkhole resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath. In the Yucatan Peninsula cenotes were sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings – nowadays rather an attraction for tourists and locals for swimming or cave diving. The word has its origin from the Yucatec Maya ‘Ts’onot’ which refers to location with accessible groundwater.
What we were not aware when we set off in the morning was the fact that the trip to the cenote would be quite an adventurous one due to the fact that we didn’t pick a touristy cenote but a rather unknown one.
So as we entered the small village Tunkas, we started to ask the people if they knew where the cenote is. They shook heads and said we would have to go to the ‘Palacio’. Once arrived at the Palacio which i think was the ‘Municipality’ we asked again and then they told us to wait. Shortly afterwards Don Miguel materialised himself in front of our car and said he will take us there. So he got on the car and off we went. After asking him if it is far.. he meant oooh ‘lejocito’ solo unos 4 km… but the road was not really a road..
we drove through the bushes, over rocks, through small water pools, drove over an already dead rattle snake…(Don Miguel wanted to double check this!)
the girls preferred to stay in the car during the snake checking!!!!!!
Then suddenly he said ‘estamos aqui’ ok…. we don’t see anything but we parked, and followed Don Miguel. And then all of a sudden we saw this supernatural sheer blue colored waterwhole with meter high roots of the trees that were growing out of it up to the surface.
In order to access the cenote, we had to climb down with the help of a liana and through a short dark cave where on the other end unveiled the view of the denote….. a bit spooky.
The water was clear blue and if you had goggles i think you could look down many many meters as the water is crystal clear due to consisting of groundwater/rainwater with almost no sediments. Therefore we could observe rays of sunlight making its way down the water in turquoise stripes almost like painted by laser pointers.
oder auch einfach Ecuadorianischer Grittibänz. Guagua heisst in Quechua ‘kleines Kind’. Sie wurden glaub ich traditionellerweise den Toten geopfert – weiss nicht ob ich jetzt einfach ein Opferbrötli ass… (gab es aber als Combo mit einem Drink – gut den kann man natürlich auch mitopfern) aber eines ist sicher…. die schmecken super lecker.
This city in Yucatan, Mexico is a beauty in its own league. Showing off with the colourful colonial style houses lining the streets and Leo my roomie from Cusco is hard to beat 🙂 It was a city to explore but also to relax, to get all my beauty appointments sorted out… ready for the next leg of my trip. Yes i can proudly say i dared to have my eyelashes died in a latinamerican country and it worked out perfectly even though i assume they don’t have to do this even once a week…. seen any Mexicans with blond eyelashes!!??
I will also remember Merida as the city where people (actually men) were repeatedly starting to talk to me… one wanted even to start discussing with me the reason why the german part of Switzerland was saying yes to the immigration stop law about which we voted back at the beginning of the year and then also about misbehaving of young Europeans that travel around in Mexico… jeeze…. yes i am blond and yes i am 30cm taller than most of the other people and thus stick out of the crowd and yes you can try to sell me tours or whatever as i know i look like a tourist but please leave me alone with such discussions!!
Navigating around in the city was quite easy as the streets are in a clear block pattern like Manhattan so if you have half way an idea where you are it is perfect to explore with the help of the compass (yes i keep using it!). Also better because if i stop at a corner to study the map 5 Mexicans (sorry Leo) would immediately jump on me offering their services as tour guide and would also happily join me for a coffee or lunch. Luckily i could always say… ‘sorry i am just about to meet my friend’ …ah you have a friend here – is she from Merida? Yes she is… aahhhaaaaaa ha ha ha
Ich bin jetzt seit gefühlten 2 Tagen unterwegs… in Tokio am 12.10. um 17:25h abgeflogen und in Mexico am 12.10. um 13.55h gelandet… also über die Datumsgrenze geflogen und so kann ich den 12.10. nochmals voll geniessen… und ja die charmanten Mexikaner helfen auch ein bisschen… der Zollbeamte war total verwirrt als ich an der Reihe war und er meinte dann ‘disculpe usted es muy guapa’… war mir gerade egal dass das nicht ehrlich gemeint war… denn niemand sieht guapa aus nach 13h Flug (davon habe ich wohl etwa 1h geschlafen) zzzzZZZZZ
The name of Hiroshima means wide island. However it got much more to it than just being situated on the largest island of Japan. A landmark in the history of the WW2 had been written in this city….. as it was the first city being targeted by an atomic bomb called ‘little boy’. Only a hand full buildings survived this detonation where 80% of the city had been destroyed and 90,000 people killed immediately. As a consequence the city had been rebuilt from scratch. Most probably due to that the city has not this charm of an ancient city….
One of the most famous persons of Hiroshima is undoubtedly Sadako Sasaki who died from leukaemia which was referred to an after atomic bomb decease by her mother. Sadako is remembered through the story of a thousand origami cranes before her death which is to this day a symbol of the innocent victims of war.
origami phoenix in remembrance for the little girl
One of the most famous buildings of Hiroshima is for sure the atomic bomb dome which used to be an exhibition hall for art and educational purposes. Now it still stands for educational purposes in the form of the the Hiroshima Peace Memorial reminding every visitor the cruelty of war.
even i was surprised…. but they are really everywhere… you just have to pay attention!
Gestern und heute habe ich noch die letzten Touri-highlights von Tokyo abgeklappert… der Skytree ist mit einer Gesamthöhe von 634m weltweit das 2. höchste Gebäude (Platz 1 ist Burj el arab). Das tolle war, dass ich um dorthinzukommen, wieder mal die gesamte Palette der Tokioter Verkehrsbetriebe in Anspruch genommen habe… unglaublich, aber es gibt etwa 5 verschiedene und die Tickets sind nur teilweise kompatibel… einfach brav Tickets kaufen ha ha. Aber der Ausblick von der 450m Plattform ist atemberaubend!
Senso-ji, der meist besuchte Temple Tokios… ja das habe ich auch bemerkt, als ich ankam… konnte keine vernünftigen Photos mehr machen.. überall Menschen welche durch das ‘Kaminari-mon’ (Thunder Gate) reinspazieren….
ein bisschen Räucherstäbli abflammen ist immer eine gute Sache…… man sieht dann die Menschenmasse auch etwas weniger gut ha ha
links unten wäre noch die 5 stöckige Pagoda, man sieht jetzt halt nur 3 davon…. dafür keine Touris 🙂
Meiji-jingu: Tokios größter Schrein mit einem kleine Park welcher dem Kaiser Meiji gewidmet wurde. Heute dient er den Leuten als Naherholungsoase benützen…
 | suebluesky on Velotour oder mit dem Velo auf… |
 | Jean on camino de la muerte – WM… |
 | EstanciaElVenado on Cafayate…. the life save… |
 | etenwa on Llama con papas y mas… |
 | Pjan on Quito |
suebluesky 