Quilotoa

Buenos dias!!! This weekend some of my friends and I went on a little excursion to a lake. I thought, we have thousands of lakes in Minnesota; this won't be anything new. But with the mountains and everything, it was really spectacular. The town and lake are called Quilotoa. It was a kind of torquoise color. The lake is in a volcanic crater, so no water comes in or out.

The day we got there we walked down into the crater a little, and then we took horses back up. They were actually more like mules. They crater is at about 3.800 meters above sea level, so walking around gets pretty strenuous.
















Our hostal was super basic. We met some Italians staying there. Also, there was a monkey, Juanito. He obviously does not belong in the mountains, but he was really cute.




















On Sunday we walked all the way around the crater. At such a high altitude, it was pretty tricky. We had to take many breaks. It took about 4 hours to go around. It was absolutely beautiful.

Mindo

Hello again. As promised, here are some Mindo pictures. They are a little out of chronological order, but I'm sure you will understand. This is the waterfall we repelled down. It's on private property, and the guys who own it are super nice. We didn't repel down the whole thing, just from where there's that sort of ledge in the middle-ish. It was about 40 meters. Here I am with my friends beforehand. Surprisingly, I wasn't really that nervous. But some of the others were. So we decided to put on some war paint (aka mud) before we climbed the rest of the way up.















Here I am going down the waterfall. It wasn't too hard. I slipped a couple of times, but I didn't get hurt or anything. The view was amazing. The waterfall is beautiful. You can kind of see the bottom there. I think that little white blob is my friend Caitlin.




















We went horseback riding too. That was pretty fun. The whole area is breathtaking. Mindo is in the cloud forest. I'm not exactly sure what qualifies something as a cloud forest, but there were definitely a lot of clouds there. And trees. We saw a toucan on the ride. At the end, we stopped at a guy's house where he had a bunch of hummingbird feeders up. I saw so many hummingbirds--probably 6 or 7 species at least. They are so cute and amazing! It was really cool.




















Sunday morning we woke up early and went birdwatching with a guide. That was amazing as well. We saw four species of toucans, a quetzal, some parrots, and various other birds. About 500 species of birds have been spotted in Mindo alone. It's a hotspot for birds. Absolutely incredible.

Another super fun activity we did was zip-lining. We went on a cable from one place above the rainforest canopy to another. I wasn't really nervous about this either. From the cable to the trees is a long way down, but it was a beautiful view. Here I am on one of the cables. It's probably a little hard to judge distances in this picture, but the cables ranged from 125 meters long to 500 meters long.





















Another thing you could do while zip-lining were a couple different poses with the help of a guide. This one is called superman. Look ma, no hands!! It was great for seeing the forest below, because I was looking down the whole time. This part was particularly cloudy, but I still had a good view of all the vegetation. It was incredible!!!















Needless to say, it was a pretty action-packed weekend. I definitely enjoyed it. Hope you are doing well. Cuidate!

GALAPAGOS!!

Hola! How are you? I know this post is a little overdue, but it's getting to be midterm time, and I suddenly have homework and stuff. We did a lot in the Galapagos, so this is going to be a very brief summary. I have lots more pictures, so if you want to see them, give me a ring when I get back. This is the view from San Cristobal, the island we landed on. The water was super pretty.

There are many lobos marinos (Sea Lions) on San Cristobal. They aren't very afraid of humans, and they are pretty much everywhere. Here is one.



















After San Cristobal we went snorkeling near Isla Floreana. I'd never been before, so it was pretty cool to see all the fish. The sea lions would swim right by us. They were probably only a foot away at times. I got stung by something, probably a jellyfish, but it didn't hurt too much. And it definitely didn't ruin the rest of the snorkeling. The water was pretty chilly because right now it is the cold/dry season on the islands.















We went to eat on Floreana, and the marine iguanas were just hanging around, sunning themselves. Here we are with one of them.



















Next we went to Isabela, another island that is very gorgeous. The island itself is shaped almost exactly like a seahorse. Kind of cool. I thought this sign was funny. It says "Iguana Crossing, Reduce Speed." There I am, pretending to be an iguana.















We also went to visit a crater on Isabela. Sierra Negra, the crater, is the second largest in the world, with a diameter of about 8 miles. Pretty much everyone got burnt this day, but it was worth it. It was pretty sweet.















The islands are relatively young, and there is volcanic activity on the newer ones. They were formed like the Hawaii chain, as the earth moved over a hotspot that is under the ocean. This means theres some other cool formations, such as a tunnel that used to be where the lava flowed. We walked through it, which was pretty neat, but there were some tight spots, such as here, where you had to crawl. At the end of the tunnel we saw an owl.















Of course, we also visited the giant tortoises. They can weigh up to 500 pounds and live for about 150-175 years. Something I found interesting is that they only lay 4-6 eggs twice a year in their nests. That is much less than sea turtles lay. Like I said, there's much more, but these are some highlights.



















Galapagos was definitely cool, but a little different than I expected. Our professor reminded us that Galapagos is important not for the number of different species that live there, but for the amazing number of species that live ONLY there, that can't be found anywhere else in the world. The island has never been connected to the continent, so any species found there had to arrive there in some fashion--swimming, flying, blowing in the wind, attached to floating debris on the water. In order to survive of course there had to be two of them. And over time they evolved to be completely unique from any other organisms. Pretty fascinating. But, anyway, enough with the science lesson. Hope you enjoy the pics!!

Coming soon: The cloud forest; adventures in Mindo.