Crossing the line

It was 12 years ago, I doubled checked the date, that my story begins. So much has changed in those twelve years and yet, in so many ways, it seems like yesterday that we set out on the adventure I am going to share with you here. I had dreamed of making this journey since I was a very young child looking in wonder at the pictures in my Dad’s National Geographic magazines. I believed that one day I would swim with turtles and rays and that one day it would be me in a canoe on the Amazon…….

I consider the start of our journey to Ecuador the moment I was sitting reading a form that I needed to sign. It said in bold writing “Yellow fever vaccine is generally safe. Mild side effects may include headache, muscle pains, pain at the injection site, fever, and rash.  Severe allergies occur in about eight per million doses, serious neurological problems occur in about four per million doses, and organ failure occurs in about three per million doses”. I look up at the nurse; she is preparing the injection so I sign the form. Well there was no going back now.

The next distinct memory of the preparation for our journey was a Bill Bryson – “A walk in the Woods” moment in an outdoor clothing shop. The sales assistant asked “Where are you travelling to?” Simon my husband and fellow adventurer replied excitedly “Galapagos and the Amazon.” I think I actually did see pound signs light up in the assistant’s eyes. The list of items we would need seemed endless; bags, bottles, sprays, straps, clips, and so on. However, I have to say, at some point in our adventure I would be grateful to have every one of them.

After much packing, unpacking, repacking and some mild panic we made our way to Heathrow, staying in a hotel for the evening as we had an early start the next morning. We took off on our first of 11 flights to and flew without incident to our first touchdown in Miami.  However a mistake with timings meant there would be a mad sprint through the airport to the connecting flight. Because of increased security in American Airports our dash was not helped by having to take off our shoes and stand in a “sniffer” box which blows air up your clothes (Marylyn Monroe like) to test for explosives. We passed that test – phew.

Next passport control Simon made it through this stage with out delay checked in by the stern face US customs agent but when I presented my passport he narrowed his eyes and looked repeatedly from his computer screen to my passport and back at me. I gave him a friendly smile – it didn’t help. “Just a moment Mam, I’ll need to check with a senior officer.” Cold dread flowed through me and the minutes were ticking away to the gate closing for our next flight.

I tried to stay calm but my palms were sweating and my heart was racing. It was some relief that the senior officer arrived quickly, he looked at the computer screen then at the customs officer  “Does that look like her?” he jabbed at the screen and shook his head. “Sorry Mam – our mistake carry on” My heart stopped pounding in my chest and I managed to breathe again. I’ll never know what the problem was. We made the flight with minutes to spare and sat wondering at the efficiency of the airport staff that must have managed to get our luggage off our arriving flight and on to our connecting flight in record time. Unfortunately that turned out to be wishful thinking. Although we arrived safety in Quito, after descending through thickening fog, our luggage was to spend the next two days fog bound in Miami and we were due to fly to Galapagos the following day.

Never mind – we were in Ecuador and our coach had delivered us safety to our hotel where we discovered that there was a sleeping volcano at the end of our street which often puffed smoke and sometimes rumbled a bit. 

Quito is an amazing, dense and sprawling city that fills the valley between volcanic craters the buildings wash up the sides of the slopes reaching up as far as building was possible and disappearing into the trees. It is the second highest capital city in the world at 9,350 feet above sea level making the air very thin and causing some people to suffer from altitude sickness. Although I had feared this would make all movement a gasping struggle for me, luckily we were both unaffected, perhaps we are in fact mountain people.

The hotel we stayed in was five star and very comfortable. It was guarded by two men armed with semi-automatic rifles and due to the political unrest at the time we were advised not to walk around the city on our own. We didn’t have long in Quito so we decided that we couldn’t stay in the hotel with so much to see. We took advice from the hotel staff about where to go and not to go and set out equipped with bottled water and a Latin American Spanish phrase book.

Apart from a few hard stares we safety made our way down Avenida Rio Amazonas to the local shops and bought some further supplies including Leys crisps and orange pop using a sprinkling of Spanish and some gesturing to make ourselves understood. We visited a local artisan market and then window shopped and strolled through a small tidy and very green park. On our way back to the hotel we stopped again this time to purchase some very dark high coco chocolate that we were told would stave off any headaches brought on by the lack of oxygen, though we still seemed to be OK even after our gentle exercise. The woman in the shop smiled at us recognising we had been in earlier, suddenly I felt very at home, as if I was in my local corner store. A feeling I not expected in this very different city.

Back in the hotel Rio Amazonas we had an interesting three course meal which included banana and large blue maize in various guises in each course. Later we drank coffee flavoured cocktails in a bar where the seats were made of hairy black and white cow hide and the glass counter was full of coffee beans. It was obvious that bananas (or plantain), corn, beef and coffee were celebrated as the main economic crops of Ecuador.

The next day, still without our luggage, we would leave for Galapagos flying first to the river town of Guayaquil where on landing the whole plane was fogged with insecticide before taking off again to fly to the Galapagos Island of Baltra. Here we would board the boat “Cachalote” (Spanish for Sperm Whale) that would be our home for the next fourteen days. This is where our seahorse island hopping begins and I end the first installment of my tale of a journey that would see us crossing the line many times.