Quick Update

puffer fish

penguins

white tipped reef shark

the group on my cruise after a hike

my roommate on the cruise, nicola (guess her age and I will tell you if you are even close)

sunset sailing

giant iguana

baby sea lion

giant tortise

the first island, south plaza

Addition, I am now bored out of my skin sitting in the Lima airport waiting for Peter as his flight was supposed to be arriving at this very moment but somehow got dealyed over one and a half hours when it was leaving Dallas. Blast the damn Texans.

Hello everybody, I am currently bored out of my skin sitting in a hostel in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Probably one of the most boring cities I have ever been to, as it is quite dangerous and I am not willing to wander around solo, plus I now need to be at the airport in two hours in order to head to Peru. I read a full book today, "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks and I can recommend it to anyone who like "The DaVincci Code" because it deals with an ancient Jewish codex and is quite well written. A little info on what I have been doing..

I left Colombia on the 3rd of January, or so I had planned. The airport in Cúcuta, the city I was staying in (remember..) was closed when my flight was supposed to leave for Bogotá because of the heavy rains that they were experiencing. The rains also happened to knock out the computer system so it was taking a minimum of 5X as long to check all of the passengers in, and I had a few hours waiting in line, probably two, before I actually checked my baggage. When I arrived in Bogotá the airline had someone waiting for me at the door on the plane and we legitimately sprinted for about a mile to the international check point but the line was realllly long and the woman who could have authorized us to skip the queue was apparently in a sour mood, so we just kind of stood there for a few minutes before he told me I missed the flight. This was at about 9:30PM and I was kind of flustered, having just ran all that way carrying a lot of things and being on my own in Bogotá with no clue what to do. The guy turned out to be really quite nice and the airline, COPA, had exceptional customer service. Since the 10:45PM flight from Bogotá to Guayaquil is the only one that runs on a daily basis through their airline I had to sit in a back room reading and listening to my ipod for almost two hours while they organized a morning flight that would bounce me through Panama City, Panama and then get me to Guayaquil relatively early in the day. Around 11:30 I finally got the airport hotel that the airline paid for me, and it was quite luxurious, so that was all great, as I had planned on spending the night in a $10 a night hostel in Guayaquil. I got a free steak dinner, but by that time of night I couldnt bring myself to eat a full meal, so I kind of just left my steak on the table and felt like a real waster. I woke up at 6:30 and headed back to the airport, and got some cool pictures of the Panama canal as we were landing, so the detour wasn't too bad all in all.

I spend 1 day and 1 night and then went to the airport quite early on the 5th in order to catch my flight to the Galapagos Islands, where I spent the next 8 days on a cruise ship with 6 crew members who didn't speak English, 1 bilingual guide, 2 Australians, 3 Scottish people, 3 people from London and 4 other Americans. It was quite a shock speaking so much English and I will update you all on the Galapagos when I have a change to put up my photos, because I can't really do it justice and I don't quite have the time at the moment. On Wednesday, or yesterday the 12th I flew back from Baltra airport in the Galapagos to Guayaquil, and spent yesterday and today insanely BORED OUT OF MY MIND. My flight to Peru tonight is at 730PM and my Dad won't get in until after 9:30 so I have a few hours of sitting around before he gets there. Then, after eh arrives we have an overnight in the Lima airport before our connection to Cuzco leaves around 5AM.

I will post photos after Peru once I am back in Argentina and have my computer. Hope you are all enjoying the start of 2011!