Galapagos with my brother, Bill

Yes, it’s been forever since I last wrote a post. It’s been forever since Myung or I went anywhere, though, and our life is really pretty uneventful. We have our simple life. Routine works for us. I don’t regret in any way the effort it took to travel so many years, in so many ways. The rewards have been beyond what I could have hoped for. Indeed, 45 years ago when I took my first long backpacking journey, I had no idea what could be experienced. And, for sure, one thing I learned was the more you know, the more you don’t know, and that keeps my curiosity a bit intact. That said, neither of us is too inclined to do more than easy little trips now and then.

Something did happen. My brother, Bill, contacted me and said he wanted to come down. What a pleasant surprise! I’m, like, sure! Any time is good! Well, he came and visited us in Cuenca for a few days, then he and I went to San Cristobal Island, Galapagos for five days. We’ve had very different lives, to say the least, and this was the first time we’ve spent so much time together since he was a teenager and I was a kid.

I think the last time we spend some number of days together, just us, was when he was a counselor at a boys camp between Willits and Fort Bragg, California, back in the 60’s. I went up there (I don’t remember how) and I have some vague memories of the place and him showing me around. I forget what we did. Boy, have we changed since! He became a family man and, with his wife Rita, very successfully raised three daughters and was a successful lawyer. My life is long story which many of you know. Now we’re a couple of old guys, pretty much on cruise control at this point in our lives.

Our long histories, without being that close all these decades, made his visit all the better. I’m pretty familiar with Bill’s life, but he has little idea what the travel/living abroad part of my life has been like. I enjoyed the opportunity to give him a peek into it. Only so much is possible in the eight or nine days he was down here, but he got the overview. He saw where and how we live, got to be around Myung, and he and I went out to the Galapagos, just the two of us.

Enough text. Time for some pics.

We had a few days to take in some of the sites, though it rained for at least part of every day he was in Cuenca. We went on the free walking tour of El Centro. Bill took a lot of photos, and he sent many of them to me. Probably, he has photos of the cathedral, colonial buildings and all that, but I didn’t get those. You’ve seen all that stuff in my previous posts, anyway. (Can you believe we’ve been here one month short of five years?!) I did want to do with him the stuff that makes up our everyday life. So we walked along the Yanuncay River where Myung and I go all the time, often with Mandu….

… and at the brand newly renovated Mercado 12 de Abril. He took many photos there. There’s nothing like this in America, of course.

The guide on the walking tour took us to Mercado 10 de Agosto. Much of upstairs is a food court which, again, is a little different than you find in America. The carnitas are more in your face than in the States.

We went to the flower market.

So it went. I would have loved to have had him around for longer so that his stay wouldn’t have been like giving him a tour of the highlights, but he had things to do back in Stockton.

We decided to make a quick trip out to the Galapagos. So we picked one of the inhabited islands and did a few of the activities you can do in a few days. Basically, there are about a half dozen activities 95% of the tourists to San Cristobal do. Scuba diving is one. We didn’t do that. He isn’t licensed and I retired from diving after getting the bends in the Philippines that time.

The first thing we did, after getting off the plane and checking into a hotel, was take a guided walk to a place they call Frigate Bird Hill. The guide gave us a nature talk about animals, flora and fauna. It was a good place to start. 1) It only took a couple of hours and was informative, and 2) It’s the best view of the main town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, and of the sunset.

The first whole day we were there, we took a day trip to nearby (a couple hours away) Isla Espanola, That was a good place to get your blue-footed boobie/sea lion/swimming iguana fix. I always like to see something new, no mean feat for someone who has seen it all, so to speak. I hadn’t seen boobies up close, swimming iguanas at all, or swam with friendly sea lions. The trip to Isla Espanola had it all.

I don’t have a camera to take into the ocean and Bill only had his iPhone camera (He took most of the pictures) so there are no pictures of snorkeling with the sea lions. Let me tell you, that was great. These sea lions are little, not like in the North Pacific. And they aren’t dangerous, like in the North Pacific. We snorkeled around and they swirled all around us, brushing up against us and looking in our eyes as if to say come on, let’s play, can’t you swim any better than that? It was great. Up on land, we got a guided tour of different kinds of boobies (blue-footed, red-footed and Nazca) and their nests….

Cute nursing sea lion pic

We have no photos of the iguanas swimming. You’ll just have to take my word for it; they do swim.

There was another little half day island walk and snorkel trip. Then we just chilled out. We had fun eating seafood several times, bought t-shirts and all that. Then it was time for Bill to go home. Too bad. I hope he comes again.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll see him again the next time I get to Northern California. Who knows when that may be. I have no need to go, nor plans right now. Maybe in a year or so. I spent almost $40K on my rentals in the last year and am trying to recover.

So, that’s it for now. I took a little group tour to the coast last weekend. I’ll blog about that shortly.

Until then, be well all of you.