Category Archives: Lima

La Reserva Pacaya-Samiría

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After squeezing out of the over-stuffed combi from Tarapoto, I found myself wandering through the river port town of Yurimaguas in north-central Perú. The combi, a minivan remodeled to hold 12 (very small Peruvian) passengers, had 16 of us sardined on top of each other careening down from the Highlands.

As the result of endorsements by friends, telling me how pleasant Tarapoto, the “City of Palms” was, I looked forward to getting there after my 4 month Lima sojourn. Facing either a 24hr bus ride or a 1hr flight, I took a taxi from the SAE/Lima clubhouse to the airport. It was a cost difference of about $60 and very much worth it; however Tarapoto wasn’t.

Perhaps I invested too many expectations into this small town, having read so many guide books laying around the SAE/Lima Clubhouse. Perhaps those friends who spoke so highly of Tarapoto aren’t really friends. Perhaps it was just me, unable to define what I was looking for to clear my mind of a city of 10 million. Whatever the cause or causes, Tarapoto disappointed. Perhaps it could have been the haircut.

My First (and last?) Selfie

My First (and last?) Selfie

My last one in Lima had grown out unevenly and I wanted to just comb my hair straight back and keep it simple for the jungle. The young lady who sat me down and snipped away had other ideas. Sadly, I have a feeling that she had failed to articulate those ideas down to her fingers and I ended up stumbling away with perhaps the worst chopping that I’ve ever had; certainly the worst in South America.

But she had recently moved to the “Big City” of Tarapoto from a small village bordering Ecuador and I was her very first Gringo! And the first gringo that she had ever talked to. This was a big day for her tiny shop. She was nervous and flirty and amazed that I could speak Spanish, so we had a thoroughly enjoyable time together talking about all sorts of things.

As part of a larger task, I am learning to forgive perceived injustices I’ve carried as resentments over the years. I have Balkan blood in my veins and it’s normal for a Serb to pass on a grudge through generations or even centuries. If you doubt this, simply ask a Croatian. The two cultures have been at each other’s throats for a millennia. Thus, I have some deep cultural teachings to overcome. It’s now 3 weeks after the haircut and wearing a hat is no longer mandatory. All is forgiven, Floricita. Pretty much.

What truly sealed the deal about my dislike for Tarapoto happened when I found out, after an hour’s walk in searing heat and a truly brutal sun, that the chocolate factory tours were shut down because of a remodeling project. That was it; I’m out of here! I was crammed into the combi the next morning, barreling on to Yurimaguas.

Mototaxis in Yurimaguas

Mototaxis in Yurimaguas

Smaller, dirtier, and far more humid than Tarapoto, Yurimaguas is a major shipping gateway to Iquitos and the Amazon. It is also the end of paved roads in this part of Perú, and even dirt roads end just outside of town. I enjoyed my stay and found it very pleasant. People and goods arrive from the mountains and the coast in Yurimaguas for transshipment down the Huallaga River to the larger, faster Marañón and finally down to Iquitos.

The other option for reaching Iquitos from within Perú by way of water, is to reach, by land or by air, the city of Pucallpa and board a similar type of vessel traveling down the Ucayali. I expect to be in Pucallpa next month for another, very different jungle experience. Just upstream of Iquitos, the distance changing with seasonal flooding and the variable nature of large rivers, both the Ucayali and the Marañón join to become the Amazon.

By any metric the Amazon is the largest river in the world. And even here, more than 2,000 miles from its delta on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, here where it first gets its name, IT’S A BIG RIVER. Certainly at this point the Amazon equals the breadth of the Mississippi at its fullest, and either of the Ucayali or Marañón flows would rival the Missouri or the Ohio. But at this juncture I’m downstream of where I want to be so let’s go back a few days.

Yurimaguas is where I had planned to board one of Eduardo’s Boats. But Eduardo is dead and his 2 sons are now rivals in the transport business, constantly fighting each other for commerce. What was once the shipper of choice, Eduardo’s Boats is now just one of a number of shippers vying for trade. After some consultation with hotel staff and folks on the street I chose another option to make my way downstream. I’m happy that I did.

Passenger/Freighters at Yurimaguas

Passenger/Freighters at Yurimaguas

The idea of fighting for hammock space crammed shoulder to shoulder with other passengers sounded less and less appealing. Without problems (when did that last happen?) the downstream voyage takes about 3 days of constant heat, humidity, and the farts, belches, and snores of scores of unwashed bodies. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for me to break up the trip into 2 segments, going ashore at the village of Lagunas about 1/3 of the way to Iquitos.

Instead of the large and very slow passenger/freighter, I boarded a 3am speedboat in Yurimaguas and came ashore at Lagunas 5 hours later. Standing at the top of the muddy bank, José was waiting to grab my bag and take me to his office. I had signed up for his tour, Huayruro, to take me into the Pacaya-Samiría Reserve. For several days José and his wife Emilia would be my hosts and guides. We floated and paddled downstream in a dugout canoe, staying at mosquito-netted camps along the way.

The 2 of them, members of the Cucama indigenous group, are people who can and do live off the land and the rivers with a fishing line, a skinny bamboo fishing spear, a box of matches, and of course the machete. Oh, and bottled water for the gringo. Along with a roll of toilet paper for the white guy as well.

José and Emilia

José and Emilia

They had never taken someone my age on a trip with them and to say that I was pampered doesn’t do their hospitality justice. I sat amidships in the canoe and was expected to document the journey with photos and witty conversation while the two of them did all the paddling. Spanish is also their 2nd language so we got along very well. But less than a week was more than enough for me.

Near one hundred degree temperatures competing with near one hundred percent humidity takes an ever increasing toll on me each year. The mosquitos, though less in numbers and less voracious than those attacking me in the Everglades years ago, are not my favorites either. But with the oppressive heat/humidity combination and just sitting in the canoe most of each day, I struggled mightily. Though not with food.

José just speared one of many fish

José just speared one of many fish

José, paddling from the front while his wife sat in the stern, for seemingly no apparent reason would randomly steer toward one bank or the other on the opaque brown river. He’d then reach back behind him to grab his spear and within seconds he had a fresh fish at his feet. After several of these he would slice off a piece of one of the fish and thread it on a hooked fishing line tied to another 1/2-inch thick bamboo pole.

Our first piranha

Our first piranha

Then he would slap the hook onto the water’s surface with a quick flip of the pole and literally in a second or two, one of 3 species of piranha swimming nearby would become the next course in our next meal. Emilia had only packed some salt, a few tomatoes and a bag of onions when we set out. And for the next few days I picked fishbones out of my teeth breakfast, lunch and dinner. Piranha, by the way, is supremely delicious.

We went caiman spotting at night and saw even more birds by day than I had seen in the Cuyabeno Reserve in Ecuador last year. Parrots, Macaws, 3 kinds of Kingfishers, Egrets, Storks and many more took flight around each bend in the river. The Pacaya-Samiría Reserve is a national treasure and surely a place worth the struggle to reach for anyone visiting Perú. One can also visit the Reserve coming upriver from Iquitos, paying 3-5 times as much but with more pampering and fancier accommodations. Your call.

Eventually the torture ended, after the 3 of us each grabbed a paddle and fought our way upstream back to Lagunas. I was so truly taken with my guides that I left Emilia with a princely sum of 50 soles as a tip. That’s about $14.26, not a trivial amount in the jungle. But José was too wiley for me and when he dropped me off at the backpackers’ hostel, I found out that he had already paid for my night! I was humbled mightily.

Dawn on the Huallaga

Dawn on the Huallaga

Early the next morning, just after sunrise, I boarded another speedboat and zipped down the Huallaga. An hour into the trip and the river joined the Marañón, one of the major rivers in South America.

From there it was an uneventful 6hr ride to the port of Nauta where I got off in a driving thunderstorm for yet another crammed, sweaty combi ride, this time into Iquitos. I set aside 3 weeks for Iquitos, and like so many other places, 3 months would not have been enough for this amazing island in the jungle.

The largest landlocked city in the world (nearly 1/2 million population) without a road leading to it, Iquitos is worth a very long look. I’m doing just that.

On The River

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Sitting here in Iquitos at the Yellow Rose of Texas, I have time to reflect. Plenty of time, really. I’ve given myself 3 weeks to soak up the history of this city and to find a way for explaining to myself just what Lima was all about.

My 4 months in Lima slipped by in a blur. After a number of false starts I finally admitted to myself that I was standing too close to events while still caught up in them to be able to recount anything accurately. This opportunity for a bit of geographical separation permits a chance to place those months in context. Here at the Yellow Rose, where I generally breakfast, I can more clearly look backwards and a bit forwards as well.

Also here at the YRT, “where the beer is colder than your ex-wife” you can find a Margaritaville style sports bar, restaurant and cafetería (what they call a coffee bar in Latin America rather than what we call a collection of steam tables back in the US of A). It will also host a TV broadcast of Super Bowl 50, so I expect to return and fight for table space this next Sunday as well. The staff is bilingual and the tables are plentiful with an unhurried feel to the place

I got to Iquitos by floating down 2 rivers after spending several days in a jungle reserve with an indigenous family. Now I’m here, where one of the rivers, the Marañón joins another, Rio Ucayali, to become the Amazon. And I’m trapped. There’s a vaguely Golden-ish Retriever asleep on my right foot and I haven’t the heart to disturb her from her snores.

Even as auspicious dates play a major role in traditional Chinese culture, so too I saw no reason not to incorporate them into my own life. A week ago, January 23rd, marked the day one year past when I landed in Ecuador on a flight from Miami. I commemorated this day by saying goodby to Lima and boarding a flight to Tarapoto. I have 5 months left on my Peruvian visa. On the surface that seems to be a lot of time, but Perú is a big place with much to see and do. And if I hadn’t left Lima when I did, I might never have done so. Yet since I accomplished most of what I set out to do there, I can view the time spent as time positive.

Primary among my goals was the important one of personal physical well-being. Traveling full-time I had fallen into the trap of many who live on the road: I was eating a lot and doing little about it other than to eat some more. Compared to my “sedentary” lifestyle before I started flexing my passport, my new habits included virtually no time to maintain any sort of muscle tone. This turned out to be a dangerous and eventually a life-threatening practice which I realized far too dramatically in September.

Once visitors arrive in the Galapagos (always, of necessity, by air) they need to board a ferry and cross a small channel between the flat rock that hosts the landing strip and the main island of Santa Cruz. As I was hoisting my bag, too big and too heavy, to heave it onto the top of the ferry, I almost landed in the water between the dock and the bobbing vessel. It was a dramatic reminder that in 9 months of travel with no proper physical exercise, I was woefully out of shape. I already knew this from earlier experiences, but there is nothing like a close call offering potentially great bodily harm to drive home the point.

An extended stay in Lima would offer the chance to rectify my physical decline and it did. Shortly after settling in at SAE/Lima I enrolled in classes at Ashtanga Perú. This type of yoga is a highly energetic form which requires the practitioner to balance on one’s hands between poses and expects the neophyte to have already attained middling level of flexibility. It kicked my ass.

But now, with the knowledge of Ashtanga gained, I can be holed up in even the smallest of hotel rooms, and have enough space to roll out my yoga mat and pummel myself into keeping up a modest level of muscle tone. By far I haven’t incorporated all the poses or asanas, but I carry a plasticized chart of them and slowly move forward, learning new asanas over time. I owe a deep thanks to Fernando, Pedro, and the rest of the staff at the Lima studio.

El Enano, Miraflores, Lima

Pulling this feeling of gratitude forward, I’m also deeply indebted to the folks at “El Enano,” which is Spanish for “the dwarf” though I never once saw one. This outdoor eating establishment, open virtually every day of the year from 6am to the next day is hugely popular with Limeños. El Enano was half way along my path to and from the yoga studio, so after practice each day it was my sole choice for breakfast with none of the other nearby eateries coming close.

Posted along the inner wall of the seating area (26 bar stools bolted to the concrete) and up near the ceiling was a menu of nearly 200 items. By far the majority of these were fruit juices, offered either singly or in combinations of 2 or more fruits. There were simply not enough days in the week, nor weeks in the months I lived in Lima for me to try them all. Though I did mark off my choices on a take-away menu I carried in my backpack just for this purpose.

Combos like carambola/maracuyá/tuna (tuna’s the fruit of a cactus) or fresa/mandarina/uva (strawberry/tangerine/grape) kept my imagination soaring and always in anticipation of the next day’s selection. Up in the northern hemisphere we keep hearing about “superfoods” and how their concentrated benefits outshine conventional products. Unless you can actually see them, arrayed in their spectrum of colors, it will be nearly impossible to know what we don’t know; thank you Donald Rumsfeld.

Shortly after arriving in Quito, Ecuador early in 2015 I discovered the wonder of such fruits that I had never heard of let alone tasted. More than a dozen years living in Hawai’i had kick-started my love of tropical fruits, but the sheer variety here in South America vastly overwhelmed even the wonderful options back in Honolulu. And now that I’m here along the Amazon, Perú offers even more than I found in Ecuador. Fruits like arazá, copoazú, taperiba, mamey, camu camu, aguaje, gamitana, cocona and many more are exciting elements in my daily life.

Fruit Vendor, Lima

Fruit Vendor, Lima

And if, for some reason, the 4 blocks to El Enano from the SAE/Lima Clubhouse were somehow too far to travel, I just walked 3 doors down to the corner and visited the pushcart street vendor. Pretty much any direction from the Clubhouse and no more than a block or two distant, vendors with their pushcarts offered fresh produce and/or fruits with this dizzying array of options.

The fruit-sellers all had their assigned locations and would set up just after dawn, hawking their freshest of fresh foods throughout every day but Sunday. Life was good and it was easy. Healthy eating, in spite of not cooking for myself, was never a difficult prospect. From weekend organic farmers’ markets to natural food stores, good food that was good for you was never far away.

Also close by I met a slowly roving band of cynical middle-aged expats who moved in circular migratory patterns throughout my adopted neighborhood. Introduced to them by a Canadian SAE Club member early in my stay, I paid my dues and joined the club for a bit. Buying a round for whomever stumbled into whichever bar they fancied that hour of that day made one a charter member. I was in.

After a week or two, or perhaps three, or was it four? (I’m a bit cloudy about those details) I realized that I didn’t want to resurrect old depression-inducing patterns and learned to keep my distance from the gang. They were nice enough guys, at least superficially, but endemic bitterness toward a world that done ’em wrong grew to be too tedious for me; especially after the 47th time of hearing the same grievous injustices.

I did pick up some tips on how to snag the best hookers and score some righteous weed. Great, just what I needed. NOT! Though they did introduce me to my street-smart Spanish teacher and until we had a cultural falling out a few months later, Ely taught me a great deal. However, picking scabs, especially in this tropical heat, will fester wounds, so let’s say goodbye to Ely and the gang and then move on. But before I go, I will say that I benefited from yet another ayahuasca delayed effect that I never would have discovered if not for this group of merry men.

Just like the disappearance of my life-long seasickness through after-effects of ayahuasca, which I discovered during September in the Galapagos, hanging out with the barflies in October taught me that I could, for the first time ever, successfully mix tobacco, alcohol, and weed without puking my guts. In previous encounters over many years I could mix any 2 of the 3 and remain vertical. But try as I might, and yes, I have tried over time, I could never join all three in one harmonious union. Now I can. Ain’t that something real special?

So yes, one could argue that Lima did slow my forward progress. As if I have some defined direction or timetable. But I don’t and if I did, just which direction is forward? And when do I have to be there? I’ve mentioned before that early on, really the first week in Quito, Ecuador a year ago, I learned that I can only make decisions one step at a time because each step opens up the most amazing circumstances and I’m taking my time to feel them out.

Two weeks from today (Super Bowl 50 played last night, I’m a bit slow posting this) I’ll be puking again at my next ayahuasca sessions. This particular retreat serves up a “pre-game” purgative for all the participants before we start with the brew of the vine. Designed to void all the cheeseburgers and fries we seem to accumulate in our “normal” lives, the folks at Nihue Rao believe that no one really practices the proper diet before an ayahuasca retreat, so the purgative will level the playing field. As it were.

So that was Lima, and this is Iquitos, with yet more jungle experiences to follow.

 

 

Sirens’ Song

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When Carlo Ponti released Ulysses with Kirk Douglas as The MAN, I was 6 years old. Never one for understatement, Ponti’s over the top epic grabbed my entire being. The direct result of my watching his movie was that year or 2 later I took the plunge and borrowed both the Iliad and the Odyssey from the Bookmobile that parked in front of our house. Reading was my life back then and Homer, if anything, was even more captivating than Ponti and I devoured those 2 books. They were Adventure personified and I fantasized many incredible journeys growing up in those days.

At that age I had to be selective in my choice of adventures, since several of Ulysses’ trials were a bit too nuanced for a 1st-grader. I could understand his battle with the Cyclops; didn’t everyone have a monster under the bed? But the Sirens? I don’t know about you, but they looked pretty good to me! Yeah, there were some rocks and a treacherous sea, but I figured that there must have been some place to drop anchor and take up with all those beautiful women. Hmm, even at 6 years old…

Lima plays its own Sirens’ Song and I must admit the tune had its effect on me. After 3 months going underground in a full immersion, awash in diversions of every choice, I have only now been able to surface and take a breath, conceding that I was spellbound. But that’s not why I’m here in South America. I’m not ready to wash up on the rocks. At least not here, not now.

It will take me another month to wrap up some things. After that I’m gone. It’s been an instructional time here and I could easily call Lima home. The Peruvians that I’ve met are warm, open and love life. I’ve checked out a number of interesting and affordable barrios in several places around Lima and even La Punta in Callao.

As it happens I was in Callao the day before the US Embassy sent out an emergency alert, warning that the bordering city to Lima, the massive port of Callao, was declared a danger zone by the federal police. Finding the Christmas spirit, a number of armed robberies and fatal shootings convinced the police to close the city off and let the bandits fight it out. There really is a war zone there and if you do have the urge to visit, plan carefully. Anyway, I ate a fantastic ceviche in La Punta at a landmark establishment and truly enjoyed the day with one of my 2 Spanish teachers.

I’ve been working with Ely between her shifts in a casino as she scolds me into repeating, ever faster, corrected phrases that I had earlier botched. She’s a quick-witted soul who is striving to improve her lot. Having to quit attending the university when her dad walked out on the family, she’s been helping her mom raise her 11-yr old brother and will probably never have the chance to resume her schooling. Already in her 30’s she knows that time is not on her side.

But she speaks English very well and hopes to set up a personal guide service working through the SAE/Lima Clubhouse. The Club is always being asked for advice on things to do here and Ely is as good as anyone for revealing some of the treasures buried here in a city of millions (I’ve heard “official” population figures of anywhere from 8 to 10 million, but no one will ever really know).

Before he ran off, Ely’s dad was one of thousands upon thousands of independent taxi drivers in Lima. Unlike Ecuador, and especially Quito, taxi drivers in Lima are fully un-regulated and the single most dangerous form of transportation in the city. Every guidebook agrees with the US Embassy and warns about kidnappings, armed robberies and other delights when the unwary hop in for a frightening cross-town ride.

When we ride the taxis Ely does all the interrogation of potential drivers while I stand away from her with my back to the street. Gringos are always charged double. But we have no trouble. She is street-smart and knows where and how to move anywhere one could want to go, so she can spot a weasel and rejects most taxis.

Visiting, day and night, many off of the guidebook listings, we’ve used the taxis; independent, broken-down private buses; combis, which are minivans stripped down with miniature seats bolted in; an occasional city bus; the limited access Metropolitano bus-train and other, less traditional ways of going from A to B. I’m helping Ely draft a brochure for her services and it will be posted prominently here at the Club. I’m rooting for her to make it and I think she’s got the drive to succeed.

Jenny, on the other hand, is my academic teacher. One of the English and Spanish language faculty at a university here, she’s moonlighting and has been affiliated with the Club for several years. We visit museums, cafes, and some notable highland restaurants. Jenny’s been helping me to understand the immense social upheaval caused by decades of gruesome terror during the years of the Shining Path maoist guerillas. It’s not a pretty lesson and many of the photo-essays on display are very hard to stomach. Yet like the Holocaust museums, the belief in Perú is that if we continue to see we will continue to remember and we must never forget.

At the height of the insurgency, during the 1980’s and 90’s, the Shining Path took few hostages and wiped out entire villages and even regions of the country. They were such a destabilizing force that millions of indigenous families and whole pueblos fled the highlands to flood into an already over-crowded Lima. The city will never be the same.

The shanty-towns that crawl up the steep hillsides circling Lima are now home to a disturbing and restless population entirely unregulated by any standards. Up in the hills, the residents pay 5 times the cost of water delivered within the legal city limits. Water delivered in open barrels with E. coli and other biological goodies at no extra charge. Ahh, city life.

Once the home of the Spanish colonial Viceroy, Lima has been an upper-class city for hundreds of years, with the white criollos ruling a poor and backward country. This tight group of powerful families kept immense riches harvested from all parts of Perú. Even now there are wealthy sections of the city that steal one’s breath with their opulence. Billionaires? They’re quite happy here, thank you. For centuries Lima had a ruling class and an underclass and it was easy to distinguish who was who. Until the Shining Path butchered its way onto the scene.

Never a big fan of television, I watch even less here in Lima. But I’ve seen one commercial many times now and it, in a microcosm, is indicative of the immense social change. The opening shot is of a man stepping down from (what else?) an overcrowded city bus. He looks like millions of other Limeños, an ordinary sort dressed casually and walking purposefully while a voice-over begins extolling the virtues of building wealth. This everyman nods his way past street vendors, shoe-shine men, small shops and other scenes from the bustle of big-city life.

Eventually he enters a doorway and is handed a hardhat, walking past groups of workers in an ever-expanding view of a major construction site. He strides up to face a newly poured concrete pillar, gives it a hearty slap, turns around and gives the OK to the expectant workers. He smiles, they smile and then all hop back to building this skyscraper as the commercial fades to the investment logo. Everyone’s happy.

This man, short of stature with prominent indigenous features, looks like most of the people on the street and the message we received was to judge him by his performance and not his appearance. With so many waves of refugees fleeing the central mountains into Lima for 30 years, the power structure has undergone massive change. This man represents the change.

Whites, while still at the controls of the super-wealth, are no longer necessarily the ones getting things done on the ground. They are frequently no longer the major players nor the ones in charge of running the chaos of 21st Century Lima. It’s been a very painful growth and anti-discrimination signs and posters abound throughout the commercial districts. But discrimination still exists and the signs are simply the admission of a work in progress.

Which is about all that’s working now. Perú holds its general elections in 6 months. My friends tell me that this will be like all the previous pre-election times when all governmental offices essentially close up shop and go home. For the full 6 months. But for me, this was a boon.

Personal and family business mandated a quick spin back to US soil. So this past week I dropped in on my Tampa-based older brother and we connected with my younger brother too. It was great seeing both at once and we ought to do it more than every 1/2 dozen years or so. On my way back into Perú I made the obligatory stop at the immigration booth at the airport.

Known for a dearth of compassion, the airport office almost never gives out more than the standard 90 day tourist permit. Yet when I got to the front of the line and spoke, in Spanish, to the official I pleaded my case for an extended term. And when I asked the officer for the maximum time of 6 months (which is often granted at overland immigration stops but not at the airport), he just glared at me and said NO. But then he wrote 183 days on my passport, smiled and sent me on my way. I think that he was being filmed and wanted to project his limitless powers to the powers that be. Good Man, and by the way: thanks!

So his getting back at the system through his rebellious action gave me the opportunity to invest this wealth of days into a 5 month jaunt around what a number of anthropologists believe to be a cradle of civilization. I’m reading the book 1491 these days and it is riveting. The author is taking revenge on his grade school and high school history teachers by showing what the Western Hemisphere was really like before Columbus and his ilk set sail. To all of you who, like myself, were subjected to standard public school drivel, we’ve been lied to; big time.

New (though some of the conclusions are more than 30 years old) discoveries about just how large and complex indigenous cultures were have trashed what we learned way back when. Although way back when isn’t too far back since the author’s sons are receiving the same old lies. Those pesky Pilgrims were really far more doltish and the surrounding “Indians” were far more advanced than what I learned in Mr. Scandary’s 5th Grade history lessons. Though I did like his collection of old National Geographic Magazines.

I’ll hit the road soon. Though I make no promises, I believe that my posts will resume a more frequent schedule. I’m eluding the Sirens and making a break for the jungle in February. We’ll have to see. In the meantime, happy holidays for and to all. I never did like prepositions.

Galapagos Wrap-up, pt. IV

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Arriving on Isla San Cristóbal I was more than ready for change. My time on Isla Isabela had put me into a dismissive and negative mood and the sooner I was off the island the better. So I went to Isabela’s airport an hour early and met Veronica, another passenger also eager to be gone. She’s a director in the Ministério del Ambiente, kind of a Parks & Recreation Bureau within Ecuador’s central government.

I didn’t know it at the time but she’s a high-level functionary within the workings of the country’s civil service. I found this out later when visiting a Sailors’ Museum and saw a bronze plaque with her name on it. The plaque commemorated the new museum and its major benefactors, with her name prominent on the list.

Anyway, Veronica suggested some things to do while I visited San Cristóbal. One of them was the path that began at the island’s Darwin Interpretation Center and continued to the summit of a hill overlooking the main city of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. Following that advice I was to take that trail several times during my stay, each time just before sunset. Muchas Gracias, Veronica!

She was very proud of that trail, having recently attended its grand opening after having worked to get it funded and built. She also took my phone number and promised to call and meet while we both visited the island. But this time I was ready for those notorious subjunctive tenses and (rightfully) didn’t expect the call to come. By now I’ve started to recognize “the meeting that will never be.” On the road for less than a year and I’m already making some cultural progress ;}

Who I did meet though were people very different than the folks on Santa Cruz or Isabela. I found people who were not on the make. The people of Santa Cruz, and more specifically Puerto Ayora, are there for your money. They are friendly enough to be sure, but the town and the island by extension, is there to redistribute the wealth (and property if you don’t hold on to your purse) from the visitors of the developed world and relocate this wealth among the people of the developing world. Visitor and resident alike knows this and there’s no misunderstanding. And at a coarser and sleazier level the same is true on Isabela. But San Cristóbal is different.

It also has an airport allowing flights from the mainland, though the traffic is far less than at the main landing strip on Baltra servicing Santa Cruz. And it also has sights and tours to some relatively unique features, like the only natural fresh water source in the Galapagos. What keeps this island different in flavor is the presence of federal offices, a large naval base, and national commercial fishing administration. There are dry-dock facilities, freight-forwarding yards and other trappings of non-tourist related activity. So one’s chances of meeting someone not involved with tourism are far easier on San Cristóbal. No scams for a change, and a welcome one too.

In Puerto Baquerizo Moreno the streets are clean. And the waterfront promenade with its one-way street was named, but what else? Avenida Charles Darwin. All the shop fronts and park benches in the sun and the shade were well-cared for. This port town was neat, proud, and yet still had time to be friendly.

Just outside the Darwin Interpretation Center there is a brand new UNC/Chapel Hill facility housing earth and/or natural sciences graduate students with lecture halls and common areas as well. The architecture blends well with the surrounding structures and land forms. It was the beginning of fall semester and the grad students seemed to be mixing rather smoothly with the local residents. This island is definitely different from the others.

Yet again Janina was right by revealing to me that the people can be every bit as interesting as the animals. I got a first-hand view of her thesis and now am a believer too. People can and do change rapidly in different social structures. They had clearly done so among the inhabited islands of the Galapagos. But do they evolve? Maybe, if they are as adaptable as guppies.

Which brings me to perhaps my biggest failure while visiting the Galapagos: I never visited Floreana, the mystery island. The last, smallest, of the inhabited islands, Floreana boasted a tale of death, perhaps murder and certainly deceit; mistresses and scandal with transformation following hellfire. Being south of the main island group, this outpost holds itself back from the others.

Set completely ablaze by a whaler’s prank in 1819, it is now believed that a number of important and unique species of animals were lost in the conflagration that consumed the entire island. Descendants of the original settlers from early 20th Century still run the single hotel on Floreana. And if I ever return to the Galapagos, I’m going there very early in the trip.

Back on San Cristóbal, one night walking, I encountered a sea lion pup not more than a very few hours old. Cruising along the town’s seawall and encountering herds of sea lions is vaguely reminiscent of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The difference being that the hundreds of sea lions use the beach here, plus the common piers and sidewalks to bask; Watch your Step!!

Barely able to move with most of the umbilicus attached, as was the placenta to the mother, this particular little pup was too weak and still too new to use the flaccid skins that would become flippers. When I returned barely 8 hours later those same flippers had somehow “inflated” and were now able to carry the pups weight as it struggled to find its mother to nurse.

Witnessing both of these sea lion pup events I was accompanied by a recent friend, Michaela. Twenty years my junior, this owner of a German travel agency and I had bumped into each other on 4 islands now, so we ended up wandering the docks and eateries along the waterfront. I was fortunate that Michaela speaks far more English (she’s fluent) than my 4 words of German. We compared notes of our various day tours and she collected the information for her clients back home. My second regret, after Floreana, is that I never directly introduced Janina and Michaela. I’ve made some amends via the computer and I sincerely hope that both of them thrive.

In Puerto Baquerizo Moreno I had my first (and only) lobster in the Galapagos. It was pretty good and pretty cheap. Seafood in the Galapagos is generally a bargain.  Along with visiting Floreana, I will spend more time on this island should I get blown back to this part of the world. If I weren’t so fond of Janina and her family on Santa Cruz, I’d fly directly here from Guayaquil. And being retired, I’d happily and easily spend a month in these islands. Now THAT, would be a vacation!

It’s mid-November as I’m writing this and I’m living a comfortable life in Lima; the Galapagos is a long way away. When I consider those various experiences there and the people I met, I think often about how I could improve on my trip. And the most obvious change would incorporate my new love of being aboard a boat. I would root out more day-trip boat tours, or perhaps even a short multi-day cruise. But I wouldn’t learn to SCUBA dive here. These waters are for experienced divers.

The unique life systems that motivated Darwin to devise his theories were themselves the results of unique geologic and geographic conditions found nowhere else on the planet. These islands sit at the collision point of 5 major and 4 minor ocean currents.

From the massive Humboldt Current bringing both cold water and surprisingly cool air temperatures up from the Antarctic, to the nutritionally important Pacific Equatorial Under Current bringing food eastward from the ocean depths to feed the whales, to the Panama Current bringing rain and clear diving waters, these currents form a complex set of powerful forces which endanger the unwary. So learn to dive elsewhere, learn safety and emergency procedures and then you can put the knowledge to good use here.

A day-trip for SCUBA divers will cost somewhere under $200/person. It’s all-inclusive with well maintained equipment, just show up with your bathing suit (and a set of warm, dry clothes). But if you’re like me with size 13 feet, bring your own fins. Each of the populated islands offers day-trips and with some pre-planning before leaving home one can easily dive in almost all of the biomes in the islands.

What about the last-minute cruise packages, said to be possible at amazing discounts? Possibly. But marketing has changed over the last several years. When the Islands started accepting tourists wholesale a generation ago, the park was geared solely for the well-heeled who could afford multi-day cruises aboard all manner of yachts. There were no land-based facilities and the choice was expensive cruises or stay home.

As more travelers visited the islands, the galapagueños rose to the challenge and began offering trips for land-based tourism. Each year saw newer and more extensive and comprehensive ways to experience these islands without committing to an expensive cruise package that virtually dictates every minute of every day. The change in emphasis from cruises (which, to be sure, still exist in a multitude of options) to land-based day trips brought about a corresponding change in what gets flogged to the newer generation of bargain conscious traveler.

Now that all the hip travel guides mention the lure of last-minute cruise deals that is exactly what is (said to be) offered by every business everywhere on the islands. Of course it begs the question: if they are all last minute, how can this be a bargain? I’m still waiting for that answer. The various agencies, sporting goods stores, and shoeshine boys, each of whom offer tickets to everything everywhere network amongst themselves with smartphone apps, so the deals of a decade ago are deals no more.

What this means is that one sees a leveling of pricing that follows the increase in choices. So one now still has the option for a pampered but rather rigid cruise package (which take the traveler to places off-limits to the day-trippers) or a more personalized though still regulated series of land-based 1/2 day and full day tours. As there is some wriggle-room in pricing for the land-based tours, a general homogenization of offerings among vendors markedly dampens opportunities for bargaining. Yet it doesn’t hurt to ask. Hidden treasures exist if you seek them out and you don’t have to pay the asking price.

The Galapagos Islands is an experience every bit as astounding as people say. I barely touched on what is there and how a visitor can see it. I met a Scottish couple in Quito who spent £800 between the 2 of them, for a week. That’s a bit less per day than I spent and one of them had a sea lion come up to him and kiss his GoPro® while snorkeling off Isla Española. I watched it on their computer back at the SAEX Clubhouse.

There are as many ways to visit the Islands as there are visitors. Pick one…