Ecuador - Snorkeling, Feasting and Schalapagos

Oh dear readers📖

We'll be in touch again, like vocalists who have long since left the game.🎶

Today we are writing to you from Ecuador🇪🇨, a country as diverse as the Charango plucked instrument.🪕

Our trip to Ecuador begins after Christmas in Peru. From Mancora we took the night bus to Cuenca, which is always advised against because the night buses in Ecuador seem to be attacked quite often. Deep breath😮‍💨, everything went smoothly for us, like cobblestones.🚌🍀

After 8 hours of humid, humid bus ride with ⛔️ legroom, we arrived in Cuenca, a good destination to get acquainted with Ecuador, especially at the moment. We spent our New Year 🎆 in Cuenca, which turned into an interesting spectacle thanks to the local customs. People here burn life-size figures with masks of politicians they don't like and or just any action figure from Spiderman to Toshiiii (all made from some kind of papier-mâché).🔥🪆

It symbolizes destroying all the bad things from last year and not taking them into the new year. You jump once or 12 times over the resulting Rumpelstiltskin campfire and have luck for a year. That's probably why we haven't been attacked yet.🤑👹

With a lot of luck, we promptly drove from Cuenca to Guayaquil🌪, a city that you should definitely avoid because of 7,150 murders, a few bombs and corrupt politicians.🙃 By the way, the bus drivers here drive like an Ecuadorian version of Michael Schuhmacher🛣🏎, but didn't make it into Formula 1. Accordingly, only about 8 people threw up in front of and next to the toilet on the trip, we had the space next to the toilet.🤙🏽

From Guayaquil, after missing the plane only once and having to buy a new ticket because we are idiots, we both went straight to the Schalapagos Archipelago.🗾🏝 A dream for every biology teacher👨🏻‍🏫, pensioner,👴 🏽 Americans with too much money💰 and of course people like us👋🏽, backpackers who try to get as much as possible with a mini budget.

What can you say, even with little money, it was definitely worth it, a biodiversity that you only know from David Attenborough documentaries.🐟🐚 According to the pineapple index designed by Leo🍍, you pay more for food than on the mainland, but it It was worth every penny 🐎 (btw. Pineapple Mainland 65 cents Pineapple Galapagos $3.50). On Santa Cruz, where we spent most of our time, it was a matter of doing free activities every day to get as much out of it as possible.

That means we set off at 7:30 a.m. in the morning, dressed in bathing costume 🩳 and with snorkeling equipment 🥽 under our arms to let the sun burn us, despite the SPF 50. Fact, we also did a 20 km bike ride, which was very worth it to explore and observe the interior of the country and the giant turtles🐢 - I like them a lot. To top it all off, we didn't miss out on a snorkeling tour with 10 other white people. It was worth it, we spotted giant turtles, munching water iguanas, sharks, rays, a horde of dolphins and baby seals playing.😮‍💨

Lots of chatter, quick ending. Unfortunately we had to leave the island for financial reasons and will hopefully meander our way past the current dangerous events to Colombia. 🤞🏽

Goodbye and see you soon, full-time employees. 💼

Your golden heads 👩‍🦳👨‍🦳