**This is an ongoing series recapping my last vacation. It's amazing how easy it is to turn a relatively short trip into a long, dragged out blog journal detailing every last insignificant moment. Ask me how!**
Dolphin Trainer™ suggested we wake up early on our last day on San Cristobal to get in one last snorkel before flying back to Quito. I would have preferred to spend our last morning in the Galapagos contributing to the rarity of the giant land tortoise, but I go with the flow. We went back to Punta Corola, the same beach we visited the day before but this time we walked a short path to the other side of the point and swam to a more distant cove called Cerro Tijeretas (or Frigatebird Hill) that was also recommended to us by our dive boat companions.
It was further than we thought, but we finally made it and spent time exploring with some sea lions. We wanted to be back at the hotel by 10:30 in order to get to the airport by 11 which meant we'd have to be out of the water by 10 since it was about a 30 minute walk from Punta Corola to our hotel. There is only one flight a day leaving the island and locals never get turned away like a tourist might if they don't get there early. At 9:30 we made the fateful decision to walk from Frigatebird Hill back to Punta Corolla instead of swimming along the shore because we assumed that walking would be quicker.
We easily found the path out of the water that led up to the top of the hill where a statue of Charles Darwin overlooks the water. Apparently this is where he first made landfall on San Cristobal. We never made it to the monument where Darwin first took a dump on the island, but I hear it's nice. The trail was littered with small, sharp rocks which wouldn't be worth mentioning except for the fact that we were barefoot having left our shoes at Punta Corola. The going was slow and painful. Each step was a pointy reminder of our decision to not swim back. I assumed the trail would be short. I was wrong.
There are decisions made in life which may haunt you until your last earthly breath. If there is an afterlife, the decision to walk the trail that day will haunt me until after that. I've done hikes that have lasted from sunrise to sunset, but none seemed as long as this hellish nightmare of a trail. I don't know how people walk barefoot over rough terrain, but if necessity is the mother of invention, I would have invented shoes if I were born a cave man. This was, without a doubt, the worst experience of my life which, if you think about it, says more about my charmed life than it does about this barefoot trail catastrophe.
Dolphin Trainer™ hated it as well, but somehow he managed to go fast enough to where I no longer saw or heard him. It got so bad, I tried walking with my fins on, but that made the going even slower and prohibitively awkward. Considering we had a time deadline, I took solace in the hope that once Dolphin Trainer™ reached our shoes, he'd come back with mine and save me from this walking torture. I'm not one to cuss often but that certainly wasn't the case this day. With each step, I screamed a steady stream of vulgarities that would make any young open-mic comic shake their head in disgust.
It was horrible. Just absolutely incredibly horrible.
What seemed like hours passed and eventually I realized that Dolphin Trainer™ should have been back up the trail by now, heroically carrying my shoes so we could make our flight. Where was he? My constant invectives now turned from blaming the sharp rocks and Charles Darwin himself to a brand new target: Mr. Dolphin Trainer™. Fortunately for him (and me), he never heard the combination of insults I made up which wouldn't even be allowed to air on Satan TV.
Finally, after an eternity of punishment usually reserved for childbirth or kidney stone passing, I emerged from the bloody trail and stepped gloriously onto the sandy beach where I spotted my beloved shoes still sitting right next to Dolphin Trainer™'s shoes. Where was he? I looked out into the bay and saw him snorkeling away without a care in the world.
Bastard.
Later I found out he got in an extra 20 minutes of snorkeling while I marched on my own personal Trail of Tears. I don't know if I was able to keep my anger inside or was just too overwhelmingly relieved for it to finally be over, but I didn't say much to Dolphin Trainer™. He came in and began to excitedly talk about a shark he saw until he noticed my unhappiness. We gathered our things and silently walked back to the hotel. He stayed 30 paces ahead of me, keeping his distance from my seething displeasure. Meantime, I gained some joy by imagining scenarios of Mustard Thieves™ stealing Dolphin Trainer™ rather than my backpack.
We turned in our fins at Victor's dive shop, showered and checked out of our hotel and made it to the airport by 11:15. We had plenty of time before our flight so I no longer harbored ill will toward Dolphin Trainer™ and his extra snorkel time.
Bastard.
As we waited to go through customs, I kept staring at a poster warning about the dangers of premarital sex. I guess that's a big deal in the Galapagos what with Carlos and all. We saw Jessica and Erica in the airport, but did not sit by them. We talked to a group who did a scuba diving live aboard to Wolf and Darwin Islands, the best scuba sites in the Galapagos. Someday, when I don't suck at diving, that's where I'd like to go.
This time our fuel stop in Guayaquil forced us off the plane and inside the concourse for a 20 minute wait where we chatted with Jessica for a bit before they let us board the plane again. This time, there was no assigned seating. We happily took the best seats on the aircraft until we were rudely informed that apparently some seats were already assigned. Whatever. I didn't want to sit in that stupid cockpit anyway.
Back in Quito, we bid farewell to Jessica and Erica for what seemed like the 100th time and took a taxi through rush hour traffic back to our favorite hotel, Los Alpes. We had pre-arranged for the chicas to meet us there that night so we could all have dinner together. We were all happy to reunite, talk about our separate adventures the past few days, and share new Pepe jokes. We wandered around the streets for awhile looking for a restaurant that served guinea pig since Kem (Kim) and Rhonda (Sonia) were craving it, but we couldn't find a suitable place. We eventually settled on a hip, popular looking location which would have to do.
I don't think this restaurant had guinea pig, but they did have bread and butter which made it palpable to Darcy (Upasana) who, as a vegetarian, lives on the combo. In fact, she drove poor Marjorie crazy by demanding bread and butter every morning on the Galaxy during breakfast. In terms of nutrition, bread and butter is her bread and butter. I ordered some kind of chicken thing which wasn't so hot and I don't recall what anyone else had other than the 35 wine bottles that were ordered and consumed within two hours.
Overall, the chicas were glad they visited Isabela Island although I think one of them got sick there. They also said they missed us (which was nice to hear) but they still dreamed of Carlos (of course). We told them of our crush on Karla and Darcy said she predicted it since they were all there at the dive shop that first night when we first met her. After a full evening of conversation, we said our final goodbyes as they took a cab back to their hotel and we walked back to ours.
We did some final packing before going to bed and lamented the fact that when we told the chicas the story of our walkathon of death earlier in the day, they didn't seem to think it sounded so terrible. No matter how much we emphasized the pain, they just shrugged their shoulders as if they couldn't understand why we'd make such a big deal about it. Then they reminded us that Carlos walked barefoot over the sharp, lava rock like it was nothing at all. Oh, brother. Whatever! Like I care what Carlos did.
Bastard.
_
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment