Wednesday, October 18, 2017

My Dream, My Van.


THAT WONDERFUL VAN...

Many of you may recall a very excited post from last May where I actually bought myself a VW Westfalia travel van! Yes, it was exciting indeed. In fact, it was and is my dream car. I saw it online from a family leaving the country, and despite its high mileage couldn’t resist the great deal. Having taken a loan for some home repair (Yeah, yeah, hold your judgment. We’ve all raided the repair fund one day, haven’t we?) I had the cash on hand. So I jumped. Oh, the euphoria. I had manifested my dream car. No matter that it was now in Cuenca, Ecuador, and I was thousands of miles north spending the summer at home in New Mexico. The distance felt like a minor detail.

WELL… that distance is becoming more of a burden. I have yet to actually SEE my dream car, and due to the generous efforts of a dear friend who I’ll admit helped push me into said purchase, it remains in storage in Cuenca, accruing storage fees and some other repairs that increasingly are making my great deal not so great. But the dream lives on and I’ve been trying to bring the vehicle north to Mexico. I felt like it was within a couple week’s reach when all of a sudden none of the information felt right and I felt like I was heading for big, expensive trouble. Apparently I had none of the paperwork I needed (that had never been conveyed to me despite numerous requests), and the shipping company said it would not ship my vehicle after all. So it remains in storage in Cuenca and we're back to the starting line. 

I have a couple of options. I can fly down in December, drive the van to a Cartagena, Colombia dock, ship it to Panama, and then drive it up to Mexico over a couple weeks. This would make Aiden miss several weeks of school, but oh-the-adventure. OR I could sell it to a lovely couple, wash my hands of the headache and mounting costs, and remember a fine moment with my dream car that never really was. But damn it felt good in the moment! Plus I’d have a good chunk of money back in the bank at a time when money is extremely tight (and yes, that home repair still needs to get done).

The one thing that speaks to me on this front is that I have yet to find that adventure partner to drive with me, and being a single female with a young boy in an old VW on Central American and Mexican highways feels sketchy these days. On the other hand, when does one get this opportunity. I mean, really? Or rather, when does one really grab this opportunity and make the most of it. The hard part was getting a van, right?

So please send me your suggestions and insights. 

There are times on the road when my greatest sadness is not having people on hand with whom to share ideas. This goes for so many things: questioning which housing location is best; whether to buy or not to buy a temporary car while living in one location; where that circus class is that everyone else is talking about; or how to find the immigration office to get… something I apparently don’t have, according to the immigration official who stamped my passport when we entered Mexico. I was too tired to understand what exactly I did wrong on my immigration form. The point is, one of the difficulties of traveling solo, even with a great and helpful child, is that in the decision-making department, you are indeed and always, solo. 


I know everything gets figured out. Or it doesn’t. But some of these decisions hang on me with quite a weight. One friend thankfully reminded me to only focus on what I WANT. So is it adventure? Or comfort and simplicity, without fulfilling the dream? I’ll go try for some more clarity.
In the meantime, feel free to chime in. You all have been so very helpful in the past.


Friday, May 12, 2017

Colombia Pt 1 Living the Dream

Explora Love
Explora Museum. Love.

 
In Medellin, even park benches are stylish!
Downtown in Botero Park
Street Art (everywhere!)


High above Medellin
Cable car ride

Outside Botero Museum
Botero Museum
Medellin's famous father


Indigenas at First Communion
Guatape Street
Guatape Street
Guatape
Guatape



I climbed 700 steps up this mountain
View from the top of ^ that mountain
  






































Outside Medellin












Colombia!
It’s that feeling when you first meet a new lover… and it seems so right. You hold your breath, conserve your movements, and speak in hushed tones so as not to disturb the precious moment for fear it might vanish or somehow change irreparably. That was Medellin for me.
I had been dreaming of traveling to Colombia for years, since I was in graduate school in 2009 and wanted to do my fieldwork there. The country’s very brief wartime calm was broken just before I was to finalize my thesis choice, and I was advised it might be too dangerous with Aiden in tow. I chose instead to head to Cambodia where the immediate violence had ended three decades earlier. But my heart never quite forgave me, and Colombia spoke to me, reminding me of its call, ever since.
I nearly skipped it this time around as well. Too many months and some disappointments, coupled with naysayers reminding me of the expense and unknown nature of it all, almost had me spooked. Luckily, I persevered, and in a world filled with decisions that might be considered not well thought out or foolhardy, this was one of my best.

Colombia is Extraordinary. It is young and exciting, exceptionally beautiful and varied. It has every ecosystem and a… vitality, for lack of a better word, that I haven’t felt anywhere else. I am head over heels in love.

We landed in Medellin after a flight from Quito and a night layover in Panama. (One glance at a map should show you how seriously difficult it is to get anywhere to or from Ecuador to anywhere else in the world, including a hop upland to Colombia. It’s the main reason I will Never live in Ecuador - along with a few other items, noted in an earlier blog). We took a taxi directly to the Poblado district, where the majority of tourists congregate. It is stylish and relatively pricey, trendy and oh-so-cool. It’s where expats go to party, and the streets are safe enough to walk late into the night. High-end fashion stores dot the streets, alongside street cafes and overflowing bars.

What stole my heart in Medellin – a large and crowded city situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains – were the trees. Trees are everywhere, along small paths and dotting large highways, alongside streets with highrise hotels and surrounding towering apartment buildings, and throughout quaint neighborhoods. I tend toward small towns generally, but in Medellin there were parks and a river flowing through, and a sense that this town was organized and intelligent. The transport system – a metro and cable system -- is the cleanest and most efficient I’ve seen, bar none. Riding over the dense metropolis was a positively lovely experience. Speakers not only noted the metro stop, but told you some of the attractions you might find at this given location. Then it told you which stop was coming up next. Any intimidation I might have felt evaporated. I could ride the metro all day. The cable system isn’t for tourists, per say. It was designed for the poorer neighborhoods which are built up the mountainsides, and which previously had little easy access into the city. It was a quality of life issue and Medellin, at least in this instance, did not leave out the poorer areas. But tourists do ride the sky cables, and get an incredible view over neighborhoods they so far have been advised not to venture into.

And the people. Colombians are warm and helpful, beautiful and very, very proud. Many are excited that visitors are coming, though little do they know just how many are on their way! They want to know how I like their country. “What do you think of Colombia?” I’m asked time and again. “Amazing,” I say. And I mean it. When I tell them where I’m from, they say, “Breaking Bad?” One street vendor – I kid you not – said, “Roswell! Aliens!” Yes, yes indeed.

With a seed now firmly planted that I could change my life and move to Medellin, I needed to convince Aiden; so we spent time visiting some kid-friendly sites, of which there are many. Aside from lovely parks, there’s a top-notch Explora museum, with more high tech gadgetry and displays than I’d seen anywhere in New Mexico. Dozens of young tour guides were available to explain each exhibit, whether it be on neuroplasticity or how light travels. Five hours in and the museum closed on us, leaving no time for the nearby planetarium or Botanical garden. Barefoot Park was also a hit, including a silent walking tour among towering bamboo trees (barefoot, of course, though it’s not a requirement), then in sand and among blocks through which one is to navigate, eyes closed and hands behind one’s back, using only soft touch of the foot. The tour ended with a jacuzzi-like pool to refresh your feet and awaken your senses. So civilized. Nearby is a Museum of Water, again far superior and interactive than any I’ve seen. I was and am immensely impressed. Sadly, Aiden remains unconvinced. “But there are no 10-year-old kids here! We see only babies and teenagers, there’s no one my age.” He is correct in his assessment only in that we have not spent enough time. It was only as we were leaving that I began getting a flood of responses to a post I left on a FB page for expat families.  Want a playdate? But it was too late. With only a month for this country we had already moved on.

We left Medellin far too soon, as far as I was concerned, but a week was all we had planned before heading further north toward the coast and the ever-popular backpacker destination, Casa Elemento, placed high on a mountain edge.
The hostel is located 40 minutes up a rugged dirt road, which intensifies after the season’s daily rainstorms. Hoards of backpackers wearing strappy shirts and sandals, now covered in mud and shivering from the chill and rain, convene at the reception squealing about their ride up the treacherous hill on the back of a moto. “I fell off three times! How many times did you fall!?” and the requisite (mostly from Brits) “Fock-n-A!!” repeated in a kind of loop.

We found out about this place through some backpackers in Banos, Ecuador. I mentioned our upcoming stay in Santa Marta and they conveyed a story of armed bandits storming random hostels and robbing all guests, which may or may not have been true. But in Aiden’s mind, Santa Marta became the definition of a firey Hades, crawling with thugs out to get you. He was literally traumatized. This same couple told us about Casa Elemento, high in the mountains above the town of Minca, about two hours from Santa Marta. So we changed our plans.
Despite its lack of hot water or even cabana doors, it turned out to be the most expensive place we’ve stayed during our 8 months traveling! We could have chosen the hammock deck and paid half the price, but with a reputation for partying backpackers and a bountiful drug supply, I decided a private cabana would be worth my peace of mind. And it was.

The London-born owner has a goldmine on his hands, and he works hard as hell to make it great. Five top chefs supply breakfast, lunch and dinner, with limited snacks (tho a heavenly 5pm brownie option), and lots of cheap beer. There is a small pool, but it’s the giant hammocks, including one that swings, overlooking the immense valley below – with a view of Santa Marta and the ocean on clear days – that gets the most attention. Jeeploads of tourists arrive for the day, which during our stay, happened to be hoards of loud, garbage-tossing Israelis. The Israeli invasion, as some called it, come to take advantage of the photo opps and jungle tours, including a zipline, climbing wall and canopy staircase. But mostly they come for the hammocks.

Aiden was in heaven. I think he would be happy staying only here for the rest of our stay. This was clear one day as I emerged from the cabana to see Aiden, sprawled on the hammock giving a lesson on Greek mythology to a pile of young gals from Australia and Canada. “You should be on the Ellen show,” one told him. To which he replied, “You just need to read Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes AND Greek mythology.” Happy and pumped, he told me later, “I made a bunch of friends today, mom!”

This was good news in one way, as Aiden was still convinced there were no children his age living in Colombia; and in Medellin it was true we saw few families with kids his age. But the exposure to a backpacking culture – all much older than he -- is not exactly the kind of interaction I aspire to for my impressionable son. For example, learning to play Cards Against Humanity isn’t exactly what I had in mind for new, cultural experiences. But feeling safe, knowing Aiden is comfortable enough to explore and be independent, and finally having him shut up already about all the things he’s going to do the very day and week we get back to Santa Fe was sweet relief indeed. Plus, the owner and staff were so good to us it was hard not to fall in love with the place.

It was during this time I did a typical, crazy and completely impractical Zélie thing and I, uh, bought a VW van. Yep, right here in Colombia, via the internet, sight unseen. In fact, I still haven’t seen it as I’m having it delivered to a friend in Cuenca, Ecuador while I figured out the next move. I couldn’t help myself, and I had a serious pusher who kept telling me what a deal it was, and how I needed to think about this brief time with my son that would soon pass and he may never speak to me again, etc. etc. Unless, perhaps, I bought this van. So I was weak and thrilled at the same time, logistics be damned. Plus, for anyone who knows me, it’s been a dream of mine for about my entire life. A real live VW van with two beds and room for dogs. I was in heaven. Now I just have to be in the same country with said van. And with said dogs. Oh my. If it were up to me, I’d stay on in Colombia for the summer exploring more of the country, and maybe heading further south. But Aiden has been promised a summer in Santa Fe, and I already have some serious money paid for summer camps back in the land of enchantment. I’ve never been known for choosing the easiest path on anything or any place, and this one is certainly no exception. But oh, the thrill of living your dreams can’t be beat. Buy the van and the rest will come, I say. Make it so. Please.


p.s. Any suggestions on this car/location predicament and what to do next are more than welcome. The Darian Gap is keeping me awake at night.

Moving north toward - and above - the coast. Case Elemento, above Minca, Colombia.


 
 
 

They knew I was coming



Aiden in the Jungle


Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Ecuador is that hairball that just can’t be thrown up.




They say that Santa Fe will take you in or throw you out. I think Ecuador is the same way. Some days I wish I could be thrown out, or rather thrown up, with more definitive force. Instead, it’s more like that hairball stuck in one’s throat that just won’t move—or so it’s felt like to me after almost two months in this country. I couldn’t possibly leave earlier because, well, I had already purchased a flight to Medellin, Colombia, for a great rate, and I’m nothing if not a sniffer of good deals. I didn’t want to lose that deal only to pay double to leave earlier. Not always smart when it comes to my own intuition, but definitely thrifty.

But here I was stuck in a country that did not like me. And the feeling was mutual. It might be that my expectations were too high. I had read all sorts of retirement articles that touted Ecuador as the Holy Grail of elder years and easy living options: great weather, medical care, low prices and safe streets. Plus, a couple friends from Santa Fe had already spent years there, and said it was awesome. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, first off, Peru spoiled me immeasurably. Peru was so dramatic and fabulously beautiful, that the dusty hills of Ecuador just didn’t quite compare. Plus, and this is a big one cause I really shouldn’t fault Ecuador --I take all the blame myself, really --but it was the rainy season. And while I did expect a bit of rain, perhaps even a bit every day, I did not expect it to rain buckets on a regular basis every damn day. If I had wanted rain I would have gone to Seattle for a few months! Almost without exception, each person I spoke to said it was unlike any other year. There was more rain than they’d ever seen. It didn’t help that the apartment my friend Wanda and I were going to rent was no longer available. This, after already making a down payment and spending many an hour with the home’s owner (apparently this is not uncommon). And yes, of course, it’s all for the best; I was not meant to spend many months in Ecuador. But at the time, I just couldn’t understand why it was so HARD. I say this despite being taken in by a dear friend from Santa Fe who snagged a fly, sprawling penthouse apartment overlooking downtown Cuenca. It kept us high above the smog-spewing trucks and buses, but inspired more netflix viewing than city engagement.

Ecuador is also expensive. After Mexico and Peru, Ecuador, whose currency is based on the US dollar, was about double the price of other countries. And it only works in cash. If you want to pay for anything with a credit card, you have to fork over another 6-14% charge! So cash was king, and a lot of it was needed.

I decided to explore a bit and, as the Buddhists say, Change my Mind, in an effort to maintain my oh-so-optimistic disposition that was being frayed by the day. I went to Vilcabamaba, a small town in the mountains with spectacular views. My mountain nirvana was rudely disrupted when the owner of our hotel leaned over our dinner table on day one and began to spew pro-Trump, anti-Obama rhetoric for practically our entire meal! He literally did not leave our table for a good 40 minutes despite such comments by me as: “Well, one of the reasons I enjoy being out of the country now is not having to engage in this kind of conversation. Do you mind?” Indigestion ensued, helped by the fact that few people eat salads here, and I was on my umpteenth portion of fries, rice and greasy meat. (Restauranteurs say that salad ingredients purchased merely go to waste. Alas.)

Still, the mountains helped me. Exploring might be just the trick, I figured. So I made a plan to go to the Galapagos Islands for some immersion in nature, sun and sand. This was an exceptional if outrageously expensive option. It also was the basis for my decision to halt travels earlier than planned, skip my long awaited French family reunion, and return to Santa Fe for the summer. (See earlier blog post on Galapagos.) Empty pockets can change plans faster than gut feelings, apparently.

Next I went to Banos, known for its thermal baths and high–action sporting activities. The bus ride over was strewn with cracked pavement (a new highway, I was told), enormous sinkholes, and mudslides both massive and minor. Seems like roads were built here with little consideration of gravity. Curse of the weather is that when rain falls, the completely denuded sand and dirt hillsides simply slide into the roads (wait, was that huge boulder there when we drove by ten minutes ago???).
Luck must have been with us a bit as one fridge-sized boulder crashed to the ground and merely nicked the back of our van. Once in Banos, Aiden and I spent hours watching people throw themselves off a bridge attached to a not every flexible rope, a kind of bungee jumping without the bounce. And we found some thermal pools that were a bit less pee pee filled than others. So good times were had.

  I also took a day trip into the jungle and had a fabulous time. Jungle! That’s what I needed to turn the table on my Ecuador mindset. So I plotted to head up north for a “deep jungle” experience. I went with what I thought was a respectable outfit, one of only two agencies listed in the Lonely Planet Guide, and shelled out many hundreds of dollars for a 4-day jungle immersion. The overnight bus/disco/high fidelity violent movie house would not have been so dreadful had someone actually been at the station to pick us up at 5:30 am when we finally stumbled out the door and onto the dirty platform of the abandoned bus station. But no one was there, and the feeling of dread in my stomach started to rise. Was Ecuador once again kicking me in the proverbial groin? In a sense, yes it was. The tour I had paid for was not the tour I received, and while I tried to stay positive throughout the jungle journey, I couldn’t help wondering if I was trying to make something work that really was not supposed to be working. When you feel the gut talk to you, listen to it type thing?? Still, I had some amazing experiences in the jungle and wouldn’t trade them for the world. I had them in my mind as we left the jungle and headed toward the entry and exit town of Lago Agrio. But as I looked out the window, holding, white-knuckled, onto my seat so as not to fly into my neighbor’s seat while swinging side to side on the swerving road, I felt bombarded by imagery of oil pipelines. Pipes everywhere. Gas trucks and signs that read: “El Petroleo mejorera tu communidad”, basically, Oil and gas will make your community better. The Cuyabeno Reserve I had just come out of isn’t quite as famous as it’s southern neighbor the Yasuni National Park, but it’s just as popular with the eyeing, sucking, probing oil and gas companies trolling for new places to stick their pipes. In fact, one oil and gas exec I met from Brazil said it was “all in the jungle now”. Even if it is a national preserve? I felt sick. Not lost on me were the Big Science marches around the US. After spending time in the jungle one realizes how rich and diverse this land is: a medicine cabinet, a pair of lungs, and a home to millions of creatures and plant species.

I had in fact left my jungle tour early, completely broke (after purchasing one more day in a vain attempt to recover what I had initially been promised. but it rained – Amazonian Poured—all day, and I never left the lodge). And because I had been devoured by mosquitos. Somehow my ribs and groin area were of special interest (if anyone has seen my photos, you might not that I was always wearing long pants, long sleeves, hats and scarves for goddsake!!!). yes, I was ready to leave, but not before getting some money from an ATM. Well, seven attempts later I had $200 in my hand and $500 taken out of my account. The bank in question threw up its hands and handed me a list of bureaucratic paperwork by which I was to document their theft. The gut punch was getting stronger: Ecuador was trying to spit me up and just didn’t know how many ways to do it. Luckily, I had another 8 hours of swervy bus ride to contemplate it.

Amazingly, I loved Quito. Enormous and busy, dirty and crowded, I loved it. I loved its beautiful old neighborhood architecture, it’s energy and life, and it’s fantastic parks. Must be getting close to closing time, I thought. Things always look better just before I’m about to head out. Back in Cuenca, for the first time since I had arrived almost two months earlier, the sun was blazing and the sky clear. It, too, was beautiful. Hence, the hairball. Won’t cough me up yet. To make matters more interesting I met a couple who previously lived in Santa Fe and moved to Cuenca to remodel (apparently for a daughter who then changed her mind) a 13,000 square foot historic house where they now lived with their three cats, throwing lavish parties for local orphanages and well-heeled Cuencanians. Fate knows how much I love a good story, and this was a darn good one. But it wasn’t going to swallow me. Cough me up, I demanded! I’m heading out! Following the Sun! On Saturday we head to Colombia.


Thursday, April 13, 2017

This is what conservation looks like: Galapagos 101





I didn’t know much about the Galapagos Islands. I had heard there were blue-footed boobies, iguanas and the giant tortoise, each living without predators. And that it was difficult and very expensive to get there. Still, people said to go. It’s like nothing else, they told me. You won’t regret it.

My experience in the remote Ecuadorian island chain went beyond incredible, sharp-edged lava landscapes, clear waters and rare and docile animals living in a protected environment. It took me several days to realize that I wasn’t just entering a unique ecosystem preserve; I was entering a conservation mindset like none I’d encountered.
Isla Isabela
Galapagos is made up of more than a dozen large islands and many more small islets. The largest of these include Isla Isabella, Santa Cruz, and San Cristobal. Other islands can be reached by boat, each offering a unique landscape or species. Isabella offers penguins; Seymour, the rare land iguana. Many visitors choose to visit each island by boat, some sleeping as their vessel move from island to island by night. This option was simply too expensive for us this time around. Instead, we based out of Santa Cruz and took days trips to nearby islands, spending much of our time in and then under the water.

The Galapagos Islands’ growth plan is based on the idea and practice of sustainability and conservation. No animal is to be touched, and one always stays a meter’s distance from the variety of large, lounging creatures: marine iguanas, sea lions, tortoises and the like. It became famous largely through Charles Darwin’s, The Origin of Species, in which he wrote about the evolution of small finches on various islands, noting how these small birds had evolved to meet the conditions on various islands. The Theory of Natural Selection. And while the writing on Galapagos animals is only a very small part of his work, Darwin has become a kind of founding father to Galapagos mythology and renown.

At The Charles Darwin Research Station, based on the island of Santa Cruz, naturalists work to preserve and reproduce some of the last remaining Giant Tortoises. These gentle creatures were nabbed by pirates and early colonists as an easy food source as they could live on ships without food or water for up to six months or longer. Preservation and breeding efforts began after researchers realized the creatures were almost extinct.

At the Station, signs referring to Darwin’s work abound: “The only thing we can be sure of is change,” or “The most adaptable to change survive.” And yet the way I saw it, Galapagos is and works hard to remain, frozen in time. In so doing, it also has seen a way to create an economic return that few other National Parks or cities in Ecuador can claim.
In 1978 UNESCO designated Galapagos as the first World Heritage site. A variety of conservation efforts have forced locals to adapt. For example, because of lobster overfishing (and the illegal harvesting of lobsters with their eggs) restaurants are allowed to serve lobster only two months of the year. Restaurants comply, and fishermen were encouraged to convert their vessels to serve tourists.

From the moment you set foot on Galapagos, you are entering a conservation zone. No fruit or organic matter is allowed. Your bags are carefully checked before you enter the plane at your departing city, and your luggage is sprayed with disinfectant while in the overhead compartment. Once you’ve landed, you step through a disinfectant puddle before entering the small airport, which is built with sustainability and energy conservation in mind (with levers that open when the temperature becomes too high). Then trained dogs are let loose on your luggage to sniff out natural elements (like my all-natural hand lotion, apparently).

Signs everywhere remind visitors not to throw trash on roads or in the ocean. No one is to approach or touch any animals, and along the stretches of road, there are turtle crossing signs. In fact, when a tortoise stopped to drink in a puddle in front of our bus, we were not allowed to move it. It’s an illegal act, our driver said as we waited five very long minutes.
It’s not just about animals; it’s also about the environment generally. One restaurant featured a sign advising their patrons that they didn’t offer straws because the instruments polluted oceans and didn’t biodegrade.

Many snorkelers and divers would agree that Galapagos is not best for color or tropical fish as there is little intact coral reef, and the species found there are far fewer than the Caribbean or IndoPacific. It’s about the big animals: alongside the white and black tipped sharks, sea lions, and sea turtles, there are also eagle and manta rays, and at greater depths, schools of hammerhead sharks.
One of the joys of this adventure was introducing my 10-year-old son Aiden to the world of scuba. Only one adventure dive in, he’s ready to get his PADI license!

Galapagos is also about turtles: sea turtles at many of the islands and the giant land tortoises that wander many islands. We spent time visiting the rehabilitation centers of Isabella and Santa Cruz, as well as a private ranch on Santa Cruz that has tortoises of all sizes in their natural environment enjoying the rich vegetation of the rainy season. We sipped iced tea, as the bellows of mating turtles broke the calm. Unfortunately, the last giant Pinta tortoise, ‘Lonesome George’ died in 2012 having failed to produce offspring.

What continued to strike me was the level of consciousness about habitat. Each tour is required to have a knowledgeable naturalist. Beaches and streets are clean, and I saw many tourists inspired to pick up random bits of trash when encountered—rare indeed. The water is crystal clear, and animals show little fear. One afternoon, a large marine iguana swam up to me and my son as we sat on the beach. He stretched out alongside us to absorb the suns rays, completely indifferent to our presence.
Visitors be forewarned: the equatorial sun is brutal and despite wearing 30 sunblock, hats, glasses and long-sleeved shirts at all times (also in the water), I was burned within minutes of exposure. April is apparently the hottest month, with the sun directly overhead.

So we hiked and swam, kayaked and snorkeled, watched amazing blue-footed boobies and red-breasted frigate birds fly overhead, and marveled at the gentle nature of the protected bays, which harbor dozens of baby sharks.


I leave these beautiful islands with a heavy heart, knowing I’ve witnessed something unique indeed. Not just protected species that exist nowhere else, but a way of thinking that is also endangered. One that informs and educates, teaches respect and responsibility and shows us circumstances where man and nature can coexist peacefully – and result in economic bounty for local communities. How different the world would be if people in other regions showed similar respect to the land and seas, and to the creature inhabitants of each. My comfort is in knowing that my young son now knows this is possible. He has seen it in action, has seen the economic and natural promise, and vows to   recreate it. It is the hope we should all share.

P.S. Here are a few more shots.

Hour 8 in a day
Blue footed Boobies


Playful friends off Isla Santa Fe

First time scuba diving. First of many!
Beach heading to Tortuga Bay


Diving companions


Giant tortoises out and about 





The dock at sunset
Fresh water pool
Sitting with a lazy friend. Isla Isabela


Preparing for a first dive

Kayaking at Tortuga Bay, Santa Cruz





My Dream, My Van.

THAT WONDERFUL VAN... Many of you may recall a very excited post from last May where I actually bought myself a VW Westfalia travel v...