Chasing the dragon

I am recovering much slower than I had hoped for and I am in no mood to write yet. If this is your first visit to my blog, please click on April 2010 in the archives to the right, then click on Calabar, Nigeria to start reading from the beginning until I am able to return to my writing.

Trying to write with high pain just produces depressing results so I will wait until I either catch that damn dragon and get this pain under control or until the pain decides to go away on its own. Enjoy life! PURAVIDA paparoach

Recovering slowly

I had my seven hours on the table last week and then got post surgical pneumonia from being on the ventilator for so long. It is just now clearing up. I still don't feel very well so I won't be writing for a while yet. I will get back as soon as I can though. Enjoy the holidaze...

Out for a while longer

I am spending seven hours in the operating room this week over at Stanford Hospital. Needles to say, I am not much in the mood for writing. I hope they can help me feel better soon. One of these days, Alice, to the moon! Bam

Still taking a break

I have not been able to post lately. I hope to get back to it within the next month when, hopefully, my health will be better. If you are new here, start reading by clicking on the archives to the left and then click on April then on Calabar. That is the beginning of the blog.

Sorry for the short break in new posts

It will be a couple more weeks before I can get back to my writing. Sorry but I am having some health problems but will return as soon as I am able.

Galapagos Islands

No problem catching my early flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands. The views from the plane as we left Guayaquil were great. It was a wide verdant delta with the river winding around in all directions. We saw some more tuna boats working just off the coast as we started to climb. They had the whole flotilla with planes, helicopters and lots of boats to find and corral the fish. The flight was fairly long but the views as we came over the group of islands and did our approach to the airport were worth the wait. The first land we saw near the airport, as we touched down on the tarmack, was very arid and rocky with lots of cacti and succulent type plants. The Cacti were huge almost like trees. The landing was fine but the post landing long lines, searches of our luggage and persons was kind of invasive. The paperwork was also needlessly long and involved. They are islands! Do they think they couldn't find somebody if they got past the customs and immigration officials??? We also had to purchase $100 permits to be in the National Park. If you wanted to, you could get your passport stamped but that was yet another line to wait in after all the other long lines. A couple of hours after landing we were loaded on buses or in cars and taxis for the ride to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island where my hotel was.

My guide met me at the airport and helped me through all the hassles at the terminal. She was a nice friendly helpful woman who spoke perfect English. We took her car all the way to the hotel as we chatted about the plans we had for my visit. I checked in and had about an hour off before we walked over to the Charles Darwin Research Station. We saw Lonesome George at the Darwin Station. He is the sole remaining member of his species of tortoise. I hate to say it but he looked like he was pretty elderly so he won't be doing any more breeding. We saw lots of other tortoises of various species from the different islands. Several of them were endangered species as well. There were also the iguanas from both land and sea to check out including a rare pink species. I enjoyed my afternoon at the station.

I met another single woman at the Darwin Station and we went to dinner after the station tour. We were both at the same hotel which was all inclusive so we ate in the restaurant there. It was fun talking to her about her preconceptions of the Galapagos and her first impressions so far. She was pissed off that everything was so regulated. She wanted to go off and hike alone and experience the wildlife like that but it was illegal to be in the park without a guide so she was out of luck. Some of the other tourists were like Nazi police yelling at anyone who stepped out of the yellow or white lines where you were allowed to walk within. I could see yelling at stupid people but only if the transgressors were walking over things and trampling them or something else bad but most of the yelling was at people who just mis-stepped momentarily because they were looking around at the sights. I did not like the tension from that attitude either as I saw the same thing.

After dinner we swam in the pool and had a few beers with the other guests. It was a very pleasant evening with good people. I called it a night early and went up to my room to watch some tv and get some sleep because the next day had lots of hiking in the plan and that can be hard for me with my mobility problems.

Guayaquil Ecuador

I spent a day seeing Guayaquil. all the usual suspects from the square to the cathedral and a museum and a park. I enjoyed the day. This was a day of rest before going to the Galapagos Islands and I needed the rest. I found some good food in a small restaurant near my hotel. I went to a few different bars to see what was happening but there wasn't much action anyplace. I wandered aimlessly around the area near the hotel. Guayaquil was very busy with people running all around like they had someplace to go in a hurry and the traffic was heavy but the overall feel I got from the city was a small town.

I was happy to be back at sea level. For the last couple of months I had been up in the Andes mountains at an average elevation of around 9000 feet. The air down here at the coast felt heavy by comparison. I wasn't winded after walking around the block down here like I was up high in the mountains. My guide was very good and told me all the local history and interesting things but most of it was just more of the same... indigenous people having a good life, interrupted by the ugly Spanish who destroyed the existing culture and replaced it with Spanish Christianity and culture. This is true for almost all of Central and South America for that matter.

I was horny and would have loved to hookup with somebody for the night but the town was just boring and dead. I didn't even find anybody to talk to much less spend the night with. The people all seemed very uptight and not willing to talk to a tourist beyond the polite business level of communication. I gave up and just went back to the hotel and caught up on all my emails and internet addictions instead. For the rest of the night I watched tv in my room and read up on the Galapagos Islands. Tomorrow I was flying out early in the morning. I was looking forward to the experience.