Travel Blog '09 -- Part 20 -- The Last Day

**This is an ongoing series recapping my last vacation. Once finished, I will begin another 20 part blog recapping all the exciting behind-the-scenes drama of this recap blog that has lasted five months longer than the actual trip.**

What could possibly be said about the last day of a trip? That's just the boring travel day back home. There's nothing to talk about. What am I going to do, tell you about the movie they showed on the airplane?

Yep!

Buckle up.

Captain's Blog. Trip date: March 20, 2009.

We ate our final complimentary breakfast in our hotel, Los Alpes, and chatted with fellow guests. There were always interesting travelers to converse with in that intimate dining room including the older pair of gentlemen who gave us the idea to tour the Inti Nan Solar Museum while they spent a full day at a market up north shopping for ponchos and other stereotypical South American items. There was the professor who spoke many languages and seemed to personally know every person he came across. I bet he could beat Kevin Bacon by a few degrees. We also ended up in a lot of pictures with very nice couples: "Hey--you two boys are staying at the same hotel as us...why don't you join us for a picture?"

It was almost like staying at a hostel. That is, with private showers and toilets you can flush paper down. Also, replace the idealistic twenty-somethings who want to share a beer with you with idealistic sixty-somethings who want to share a group photo with you. That's Los Alpes!

This time, our taxi to the airport cost only $5, the cheapest price yet! He must have been new to the job. We did our usual "here? there? back over here? maybe it's there?" search for where we were supposed to go for customs and we ran into a Galaxy reunion. The chicas, Bill and Suzanne, and Janet and Robert were all waiting on line. The chicas flight got postponed so their choice of an earlier flight did not pay dividends especially when it got delayed again and they finally landed back in Canada sometime in April.

Bill and Suzanne told us about their own Inti Nan Solar Museum trip and their adventures shopping for ponchos and other stereotypical South American items. Apparently that's a solid one-two punch if you ever visit Ecuador. Janet and Robert took some kind of train ride after their stint on the Galaxy. I think Robert (one of the liveliest eighty-something I've ever encountered) was kidding when he said it reminded him of the very first train ride. Not his first train ride, the very first train ride. Oh, he's a kidder! Uh, right, Bob?

Once again, we said goodbyes. We made "we should go to Dolphin Trainer™'s zoo and play with the dolphins!" reunion plans with the chicas and after 11 days of practice, I was able to mispronounce Upasana's name one last time. With that, we bid farewell to Ecuador and boarded our plane.

Well, Dolphin Trainer™ got to board the plane. I was chosen for a random search by a female security guard. I was ushered into a corner with a small table and informed that she would empty out the contents of my backpack one item at a time. She showed no emotion as she picked up each item. Even the ponchos and other stereotypical South American items gave her no pause. Then she came to my roll-on sunblock stick which I always use for my nose when I hike.

"What's this?"

Sunblock.

"You should have checked this."

But it's not liquid. It's a stick. It's like a big, thick chapstick. Do we have to check chapstick?

"Next time check it."

With that, she finished up and let me on the plane. We flew back to Miami and I watched the movie "Flash of Genius" starring Greg Kinnear as the guy who invented the intermittent wiper and successfully sued all the manufacturers who stole the concept and successfully ruined his entire family life in the process. Not sure what I'm supposed to take from that. Maybe, "Fight for your principles because you can win and your life will be worse off for it!"

The pilot periodically alerted us to significant details such as when we passed over the Panama Canal, the weather in Miami, and the status of the roll-on sunblock hijacker who forced his way into the cabin at the beginning of the flight and caused a bit of a delay before takeoff. The pilot also used the opportunity to practice his Spanish which sounded like a ninth grader reading straight from a Spanish book: "Whole-lah Scene-yors Why Scene-yor-eetahs." That's when I realized that it's not my lack of Spanish that's holding me back from a career as a bi-lingual pilot.

In Miami, Dolphin Trainer™ and I wandered around the airport for food and once again ended up at a Nathan's Hot Dog stand where we got strange looks as we tried to converse with the people eating around us and invited them to be in some group shots with us. Finally it was time to say goodbye to Dolphin Trainer™. He was headed back to Chicago and I back to Las Vegas. He gave me a parting gift, Obsessed, the book he had been reading all trip. It looked like an intriguing thriller which is a change of pace for him. I've done a road trip with him every year since we met in Antarctica in 2005 and he always brings along a book from a specific genre. Last year it was The Time Traveler's Wife, the year before, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and the year before that it was Are you There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Obsessed is about a guy who steals the idea for intermittent wipers and goes on to enjoy a happy and productive life even though he ends up losing many court cases. Not really. It's about a professor's strange class assignment concerning a missing girl. It's fast-paced, but has a let-down ending. Kind of like this blog if you're expecting a big finish and you think the passive voice makes for fast-paced action.

After being away 17 days, I arrived home and was greeted by an apartment with no running water. The unit next door was being remodeled and they accidentally decided I wouldn't need to shower or use the toilet when I came back. So, my vacation sort of lasted an extra day in one sanitary sense. It was fixed the next day. Since I had no vacation photos to sift through or vacation video to edit, I instead sat down to write a never-ending blog about my trip.

A month after the trip, USA Today travel reporter Laura Bly published her article about the Galapagos. She also posted a video on youtube. Some video highlights: Dolphin Trainer™ swimming at 0:18, Pepe handing Dolphin Trainer™ and I some postcards starting at 0:46, and nude photos of the chicas at 1:28.

Speaking of the chicas, Upasha$s9hasan@ywhda visited Las Vegas in June for her sister's bachelorette party. I hooked her up with some discounted "O" show tickets, had a nice dinner with her sister and two of their friends, and waited in vain for her to demonstrate why her nickname is Darcy Pewksgoode. She brought with her some classic Canadian gifts: maple tea, maple syrup, and a hockey stick. I gave her some ponchos and other stereotypical South American items. Is that line funny yet? No?

During our last daily briefing on the Galaxy, everyone exchanged email addresses and snail-mail addresses to stay in touch and exchange photos. In June, Dolphin Trainer™ sent out DVDs he made of the photos he took and the video he edited together from the crappy footage I took. Seriously, I'm one horrible cameraman. Somehow he was able to turn Pepe-like footage into a brilliant Carlos-like video. It's especially good for him because usually he is the star photographer of any trip. However, it became apparent that would not be the case on this trip when, on the way back from Espanola, Jessica opened her laptop and invited everyone to see the photos she had taken so far. They were amazing. Visually stunning. You could see the shock and jealousy dripping from Dolphin Trainer™'s face as he viewed her artistic masterpieces. So, thankfully he was able to claim at least one post-trip award for "Best Video" even though there was no competition in the category.

Here are some random notes I found nowhere to place except here at the end:

1. Karla is starting her own business called Galahouse which, like most businesses on the Galapagos, has zero presence on the web. She still owns half of Galakiwi so you can contact her here if, by chance, you ever travel to San Cristobal. She can get you good deals on anything and hopefully she won't be married to Carlos by the time I return.

2. There's something odd about being on a boat 600 miles off the coast of South America, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and seeing someone on their cell phone.

3. While waiting in line to eat dinner at Hotel Miconia the night before our San Cristobal scuba dives, we talked to a lady who gave us dining advice for the island. She said to avoid one place which was absolutely horrible. Just disgusting. A negative 5 out of 5 stars. I told her we certainly wouldn't be eating there, thank you very much. Later, Dolphin Trainer™ told me she was talking about the place we liked where we ate lunch earlier that day.

4. I didn't notice any difference between the beaks of any of the finches I saw. I guess I just proved evolution wrong much in the same way as those Einsteins who think they've disproved global warming every time it's cold outside.

5. Be sure to put your roll-on sunblock stick in your checked baggage. Lives are at stake.

There is one more post coming before this travel blog is over: Galapagos photos with high-larry-us captions!
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