11/5/11
Most of you know that I spent the summer on a boat and was more or less enslaved for said amount of time. Well Elliott and I just got back from an 8 day tour of the Northern and Southern Galapagos islands via boat. This was a different experience.
IT WAS TERRIBLE. First of all, instead of getting up at 3:30am (which I´m used to on a boat) we had to sleep in till 7. Ugh. Then we had a two course breakfast with a multitude of choices. Echh. After that we had to drag ourselves off the boat and take guided hikes or snorkels to the islands. This included sea lions (babies and mothers) NOT keeping their distance and playfully interacting with us both in and out of the water. We wish we´d had our seal clubs to teach them a lesson in personal space, jerks. There were also plenty of bird species that were curious enough to follow us around, just like that friend that you always try to avoid but always comes along (AKA Dave). If the rules had allowed it, we´d be eating blue-footed boobie soup on a daily basis, and laughing while we did it. On top of all that there were brightly colored fish, sea turtles, hammerheads, and plenty of other marine species that were clearly just attention-whores showing off their obnoxiously unique shapes and colors.
Another contrast to fishing was the service on the boat. Your cabin gets cleaned everyday with fresh sheets and towels. Um, excuse me, I like the way my stuff smells after weeks of use without cleaning. Assholes. While fishing I was on a boat occupied solely by men, but not in the "Galapagos," we had several smart, cute, and entertaining girls on the boat with us. They were constantly trying to talk to us and ask questions. It totally sucked. They even gave us free alcohol from time to time, which made me want to punch them in the face. It´s like "I can do it MYSELF!" O ya, and the weather was good which made us want to vomit.
Our suggestion: If you can, do everything possible to avoid it.
We´re leaving Quito tonight to meet Travis in Cusco. We hope it´s the opposite of the Galapadon´t Islands.
Happy Saturday,
Mac and Elliott
PS if you´re too dumb to realize we´re being sarcastic, stop reading our emails.
