July 2006: Surf Trip to the Galapagos Islands

Page 1 - Galapagos Bound

Oh boy, here we go again. Just get back from a week and a half in Costa Rica, and now Carol wants me and Jason to go down and check out a new tour operator we’re booking with in the Galapagos fucking Islands!

How insane is this?

The Galapagos Islands!?!

One of those places I’ve always wanted to go, ever since first hearing about it when I was a little kid.

And now I’ve been assigned to go to there, and ride waves, to check the place out.

Well twist my arm off, why don’t ya?

Right this second, I’m sitting on a bed in a hotel room in Quito Ecuador. Ecuador owns the Galapagos Islands. We’ll be there tomorrow.

Been a long-ass day to this point, and I’m resting up for tomorrow’s final hop out to the islands.

We flew from Miami this morning, and since Jason wanted to skip on staying in a hotel room prior to departure, he came by and picked me up at midnight thirty last night. I was packed and ready, so we threw the shit in the car, tied the boards to the roof, paid a final goodbye to Charlie, and hit the road.

And down I-95 we go, in the wee hours of the morning, sleepless.

Drop off the rental car and by the time we’d made it to the airport, it was already time to check the bags and go find somewhere to hang out for a while before the boarding call was made. And by this time I’m just as dazed as they get.

I do NOT tolerate sleep deprivation worth a shit at all. I’m one of those unfortunates that needs an honest eight hours a night, or otherwise I become defective.

So I drag my sorry ass on to the airplane along with Jason, find my seat, and attempt to doze, or rest, or something, for the next four and a half hours.

It ain’t easy getting a little shut-eye on an airplane, and I didn’t really do myself any good.

Ecuador

Finally arrive in the vicinity of Ecuador, and the clouds miraculously lift and off in the distance, there’s a few mambo-sized snow-capped volcanoes, and below us is some pretty mountainous terrain. Soon enough, Jason notices that the pilot has put on the brakes, but that we’re still a goodly ways up in the air, and comments on that. I’m looking outside (just call me window-seat Jim), and it appears as if the land is going to come up to meet us, as opposed to us descending down to meet the land like normal.

Sure enough, without any proper approach descent, suddenly we’re veering low over a sprawling city on a fairly level area, sandwiched between some healthy mountains, with steep gorges and a seriously rough landscape around it even where there’s no proper mountains. One of the large snow-capped volcanoes in particular is really beautiful and symmetrical. I think the name of this one is Pichincha, but I might be wrong.

I’m looking ahead, and right smack in the MIDDLE of the city, is a single long runway. I mean it’s right in the MIDDLE of town. The plane banks left and we line up with it and we sail on in at rooftop level for a nice easy touchdown. It’s only after we’re down that we realize that the usual repressurization and ear popping has not happened on this landing. We never got that far down toward sea level. We’re on terra firma, but we’re also still way up in the air.

Off the plane, and through customs and baggage claim, and we’re greeted by our tour operator holding a sign with our names on it.

Too easy.

Annabel is just as nice as can be, and whisks us to a waiting van that takes our boards, and another car that she gets into with us, and it’s off we go to the hotel.

Mercure Accor hotel, Quito, Ecuador

The whole thing, from spotting our names on the sign immediately upon leaving the baggage claim area, to driving off toward our hotel, took less than fifteen minutes.

Very well organized on the ground here.

Outside, the weather is just superperfect, with wall to wall sunshine, and an air temperature that reflects our over nine thousand foot elevation above sea level. It’s PERFECT. Nice and cool and dry. After the heat humidity of July in Florida, July in Quito, Ecuador is a welcome change of pace.

Driving through Quito, there’s nice places and not so nice places. Some of the people down here are quite poor, and on the street corners, you can see mothers with SMALL children attempting to hawk trinkets or sweets, scrounging for a meager income.

It’s sad, but there’s nothing in the world I can do about it. It’s way bigger than me and I’m just one little grain of sand on this very large beach.

We honk and weave through the traffic and finally we’re at the Mercure Accor hotel, which is quite nice.

I’m dead tired and can only think of falling on to the bed and zoning for a while. Sleep deprivation has completely taken hold of me and I’m just about as useless as it gets.

After a bit of a rest, Jason and I take ourselves a little walk around the general vicinity of the hotel. We visit our tour operators office where we meet Washington who’s also as nice as can be, and then it’s off to go find some food.

The Ecuadorians don’t come off as open and friendly as Costa Ricans do, but neither are they unpleasant. Just a bit more reserved, I suppose. People are all over the place and with the sun shining down, I find myself enjoying the place, despite my less than stellar condition.

We finally find a little place and order a couple of burgers.

The food’s cheap and quite tasty.

I’m snapping pictures here, there, and everywhere, and we finally make our way back to the hotel where it’s time to just chill.

Not much to report from this point on. Mostly just laying around, trying not to fall fully asleep in order to be able to do so at a reasonable hour later on this evening so that we can wake up at the right time, refreshed.

Next time I do a trip like this, I’m definitely going to reserve myself a room in Miami, drive down there early, and get the proper sleep my body demands before launching myself off into the sky.

Tomorrow, the Galapagos Islands.

I can’t fucking wait!!!