Angry, Yasuni, Niebel

On my last week in Ecuador I went to a Lodge in the Rainforest, run by the local Sani on the border of Yasuni National Park.

It is one of the most amazing places, maybe the most amazing place, I have ever seen.
We went there by boat - seeing Oil production sites, destroying the forest, all along the way.

Back home I started reading about this paradise and am both saddened and enraged by the role the german government, represented by our "development minister" Niebel (FDP- what else?!) plays.
Here´s an article (in german). (There are more on Spiegel online etc.)

"This is the chance of a lifetime: a unique opportunity to preserve the moths that hover over a tapir´s eye just long enough to drink from its tear duct, or the poison-dart frogs that piggyback their recently hatched tadpoles from the forest floor uo to the small pools that form in bromeliads high in the canopy. Let´s hope the world takes it." (BBC Wildlife, David Herasimtschuk, Oct 2011)
Well, I guess Germany won´t.

Thanks to farsighted people like Mr. Niebel my Niece and Nephew won´t be able to discover places like Yasuni once they´re my age.
But I guess we cannot really afford to spend 40 mil dollars on something as ridiculous as protecting one of the worlds most biodeverse places on earth (and it´s people!), the money is much better spent on saving another bank, and another one....and of course we have garanties there that the money is well spent.
Tell the ecuadorians to cut down the forest, once they replant it they´ll get money for CO2 savings or whatever ...

Link to Yasuni-itt: http://yasuni-itt.gob.ec/

Juvenile Condor

Amazing birds!
This is a wild juvenile, who came to visit the captive Condors at Hacienda Zula a couple of times - she was very inquisitive.

Merry Christmas, Wesołych Świąt, Fröhliche Weihnachten & Feliz Navidad!

" It had taken all my life to understand what that means: baboons, elephants and people belong with the ones they truly know. We need more than strangers around us. Mark and I had studied the significance of social sytems of other species for decades, but in doing so, we had left our own families. And what we learned was that it is not so much that the troop is incomplete without some of its baboons or human beings, but that the individual baboons or human beings are incomplete without their troop.[...] Because most people are as scattered as desert lions, one can find plenty of strays in the dunes; all you need is a net to bring them in. To be complete we need Nature and our troops, but both are slipping away beyond our reach. We must save what wilderness we can because it was our first home, and without it we will never fully understand who we are. [...]we must put our troops and our families back together again. Like Kalahari lions at the end of drought, we must form a new pride. "
Deliah Owens, Secrets of the Savannah

travelling

I took a boat trip to the Isla de la Plata from Puerto Lopez - it was fantastic! Saw loads of seabirds, including blue-footed boobies, and marine green turtles. When I cycled to a beach close by I saw hundreds of tracks of turtle hatchlings, reminded me of 6 great, hot weeks when I volunteered at a beach in greece where we guarded nests, dug up old nests, counted eggs...
See, again? Happens all the time - tings remind me of other travels. And 90 % of the time its good memories so I like it ;). The hostel in Puerto Lopez was great, I had my own cabin in a beautiful garden, just across the beach. Went swimming, lazed around, ate invertebrates...ahem...yes....abandoned my vegetarianism for a week to eat shrimps & mussles. Muy rico!
Was kind of sad to leave, I could have stayed a bit longer, esp. as diving didn´t work out for organisational reasons. At least I could do some snorkeling.
Now I'm back in Quito an though I do enjoy having access to a book store (reading "black swan green" at the moment and love it), a veggie reaturant and everything I feel like every day I spent here is wasted.
So, tomorrow it´s off to Yasuni, the rainforest, the amazoian, the oriente. Off to a lodge, a tent, a canoe and loads od mosquitoes. Btw. I did manage to get preventive pills `gainst malaria in the end. I met a canadian couple in the hostel who´ll be doing the same thing, so we can go to the airport together ;). It always depends a lot on luck and good guides and patience to see stuff in the forest - so I hope we´ll have all of those.

Tavel Time

This morning I left Quito and took a plane to Manta, on the coast.

And finally - I was waiting for it ! - I had my first unpleasant Taxi driver. He tried to talk me into not taking the bus but his Taxi to Puerto Lopez for 40 $ (3 $ by bus) and told me it would take 4 hours (2,5 hrs) and didn't accept my first two polite refusals...when he finally dropped me off at the bus station he ripped me off but I was just glad I got rid of him. How I missed that :).

Just an indicator that things at the coast are different - people scream at you, try to drag you into restaurants, there is loud music everywhere...
Puerto Lopez is a total tourist town, not the "fishing village" my travel guide made me expect. The people in Zuleta were incredibly nice by the way.

Well, the hostel is nice, I saw Frigatebirds, Pelicans, Geckos and tomorrow I'll take a tour to an island - so I'm not complaining, things could be much worse.
Might even go diving, haven't decided yet. Forgot everything from my course last year...went into a dive shop today and will think about it tomorrow.
And it's good to see the sea again - I've spent so many months in Greece, Thailand, Jersey, Honduras and Australia at it, that it almost feels like coming home though that might sound ridiculous, I know.
This is a bit like Utila...I don't know, but I've seen quite a few places by now and now I always end up comparing. Is that good or bad or doesn't it matter?
It's diminishing the sense of "childlike wonder" a bit but it also makes dealing with reality easier. Been there, done that - kind of.
But then I sit here and I watch a 25 Frigatebirds circling over ther harbor and 5 pelicans dive for fish - and it´s fantastic. No matter how often I've seen pelicans, they are still great and Frigatebirds are a first (I think...) - so I know how special this is and enjoy it maybe even more?

But back to comparing: Number One of beautiful places on my list ist still Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia.
Hard to beat. Probably impossible :).
But I´ll give the Isla de la Plata tomorrow a chance. Hoping for seabirds and if I{ m really, really lucky maybe some sealions or dolphins. Will be glad about any nice day, hopefully with nice people.

BTW, In Quito I accidentally ran into the biggest fiesta they have, that was fun ! :)

Quito

Back in the capital of Ecuador, Quito.

Said Goodbye this morning and went with the bus from Zuleta to Ibarra, from Ibarra to Quito and with the Taxi to the hostel. Found the office of the lodge in Yasuni I´ll be visiting next month and paid - have I mentioned that I hated ecuadorian banks? :)

Tomorrow noon I´m taking an inland flight to Manta and from there a bus to Puerto Lopez, close to Machalilla Park. Hoping for seabirds, snorkeling and sun ;).

Right now Im trying to find malaria pills (yeeeees, I should have bought them at home, but for the condor place you don't need them...) that work. "Funnily" enough the pharmacies seem to only sell stuff that the ecuadorian plasmodium has long since developed resistencies against...
Mum, you just didn´t read this, ok ? ! :)

Ok, back to the busy streets (it´s a kind of fiesta today), city wandering, trying to learn spanish, figuring out Quito, good food, strolling aimlessly, looking for pharmacies and a camera shop...

"I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses."
Bill Bryson, Neither here nor there

Last days at the Hacienda and a bit sad to leave. Had a great time here and will miss some people and animals.
But it's raining, so it's easier to look forward to my week at the sea .
Hope all goes well with travelling, I like being places not so much getting there.