Met a
guy from our boat named Andy who is from Germany. He followed us to our hostel
and we chatted enough that we decided to head to dinner and chat some more. He
was on his way to check something off his bucket list as well. He was going on
a 7 day cruise to head up to Islands Darwin and Wolf to hopefully swim with
whale sharks. He is down here with his family two kids 12 and 15 and wife. His story
is quite epic and again alludes to my new bucket list check box. He worked for
a sales company that sold protective equipment for hospitals; unfortunately he
worked too much. realized it and didn’t think it was fair for his children.
Since he has been backpacking his whole life with his wife as well as when the kids
were little he offered them a trip of a lifetime. He quit his job as did his
wife (Highschool geography teacher) to set out on the world for one year and
see and do as much as they could. Hesitant at first the kids started to love it.
The 15 year old kid was left with a host family for 3 months in Peru to learn Spanish
while the family moved on to later meet him in Buenos Aires. They have been
through Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, Islands in-between, Central
America and their final destination in the coming weeks is a week in New York.
Felt like I was listening to a movie.
We relaxed, I read a book on the balcony and sure enough the
guy I met day one in Santa Cruz, Tato, was strolling around. I felt I had to
grab a beer with him because he leaves in a week and I haven’t had the chance
to do much more than see him walking around barefoot all the time. We meet up
at a bar called the Iguana for a bit then I headed to the hostel…Unfortunatly
the woman who runs it didn’t tell me that there was a curfew for the front
door….I pounded on the door a few times, no answer, then stepped back and
started to figure out how I would get to the 3rdfloor balcony of this hostel.
This
was the game plan: - Balcony two shops away is easy to get on, check.
- From there I could go left, two balconies over to our hostel.
- Next, I could get on a 2.5 story balcony one shop to the far left of our hostel.
- Then from there to the 3rd story of where our room was…easy enough.
- Turns out, I only had to get onto balcony two of our place and found an open stairwell door…
Quite the process...felt like I was Jason Borne sneaking around
town
The plan on Saturday was to head to
the variety of beaches located past the San Francisco Partnership college on
the West side of town. On the way there are sea lions everywhere. Literally
everywhere you looked, walked, and for the most part could smell and hear as
well. They smell worse than a dirty dog, and sound like people leaving the Pickle
on at 2am on a Saturday night in Eau Claire. We passed a bunch of “beaches”
that were again occupied by more sea lions than people. But there was a great
path that lead to this epic snorkeling cove called Las Tijeretas. Crystal clear
water that was as cold as a bottle of water from the fridge.
Taking loops to
snorkel and then warm up, snorkel and warm up we met a couple from Switzerland
who were taking a year break from work to tour the globe. They had been to a
slew of islands in the Philippines, through Indonesia, and north through South
America. Add that to my bucket list…one year around the world. They chatted and
showed us where they saw this sea turtle hanging out which is what the included
video is of. 
Pretty sure my waterproof camera didn’t like the salt water
and is now currently resting in a bag of rice on the porch…I hope it comes back
to life…or else add that to the issue list…BUT we headed back from the beaches
and over to a surf hangout called La Loberia on the opposite side of town. No
one particularily surfing but we watched the sunset. There was also a baby sea
lion trying to locate its mom. Even if its mom had been there she wouldn’t of
known because according to the park guy someone had touched the poor pup and as
a result of their greasy hands…similar to birds and their chicks, would no longer care for their
baby because of scent. Nature in the Galapagos.
Came back and cleaned up. Which I found out a new pet peeve
of mine. Cramped bathrooms are not cool man. But I wandered the streets with
the guys in search of a cheese empanada and found one at a place where we could
watch the all-star soccer match tour happening throughout Europe right now.
Passed out mighty quick and woke up to be on the boat by
7am. It was a quicker ride than on the way there and we were back by 10am with
a whole day of relaxation ahead. Got a chance to talk to Matty B which was
great to hear how AFRICA went. Jeeze that’s awesome. Bryant, I know you’re
getting at life regardless and probably don’t have service. But ONE of these
days I willlll get ahold of you in the Montana wilderness. I got to talk to Rachel hear what shes been up to, which was great and
THEN did a few laps at the station beach. Supa tired.
THEN…….
HORRIBLE NEWS FOR THE STATION….Lonesome George…The one and
only Pinta Tortoise left anywhere in the world, one of the most famous endangered
species and individual animal, on pretty much every sign, every t-shirt, lives right down our
gravel road…DIED THIS MORNING…by 8 am his caretaker found him warm yet
unresponsive and not breathing and he was taken away to be examined. It was most
likely old age seeing the old guy was 100 years old…but we’ll see tomorrow at
work how that has affected not only the station but the town, which plays off
his historical cause for tourism…Crazy time for us to be here when we are now as
close as we are to the most recent animal extinction in the world right now…
Overall, great to relax for the weekend, get off of Santa
Cruz, explore something new, meet some great new people, and add something epic
to my bucket list. I'm off to watch Finding Nemo and fall asleep.btw, Bings homepage today was quite epic as well.
This is absolutely amazing! Surreal.
ReplyDeleteNeat video, my favorite part was when there was the nature. You should have put it to some death-metal though, it wasn't relaxing enough for me.
ReplyDelete