(This piece has a sound track: Can’t touch this, by MC Hammer. Put it on while reading this – I’ve been singing it all day long!) Hammertime! Teeuw deeuw deeuw deeuw, tu duw, te duw. In case you don’t get it yet: we saw a hammerhead shark!! Lots of hammerhead sharks!! During both dives today! All the signs were there: terrific weather, a dive site where they are regulary spotted, and a main street were at least one quarter of all the t-shirts on sale spot the image of a hammerhead shark, but you never know… but we did it! After more than 300 dives we finally got to see them… very cool! It didn’t matter that the visibility wasn’t all that great, that there were lots of very cold thermoclines or even that we had to swim through a big cloud of nasty (stinging!) little green jellyfish, because we saw them! And as a bonus, we came across a number of white tip reef sharks, a type of manta ray (only slightly smaller), a large sting ray, a group of eagle rays, an occasional sea lion, huge turtles… a terrific diving day.
So whatever happens next, we love the Galapagos islands. And we still have another day of diving to go tomorrow, and after that we’ll be aboard the Flamengo for a week long cruise. We’re excited to find out what other animals we’ll encounter. Yesterday we made a brief visit to the Darwin Research Centre on this island and there we saw giant tortoises and iguanas. Those last animals also roam the streets of the town, and one of the species apparently spits! What the…? Iguanas aren’t supposed to do that, lamas are! Furthermore we’ve met a lot of pellicans (especially around the fish market) and a tuna. On our plate, of course.
Although the tuna was pretty good, Ecuador is not excatly a gourmet destination. The last few days we had great trouble finding a decent restaurant in the centre of Guayaquil. We ended up eating at hotel restaurants twice! It’s a shame, because a few years ago the city of Guayaquil developed a beautiful promenade along the river Guayas. A perfect spot for some nice restaurants and cafes, but all you will find there are little fastfood joints, and the one restaurant that looked slightly better, managed even to mess up a bacardi and coke. Oh well, the next few days we’ll hopefully feast on fresh fish a lot. Although that does feel a little bit weird, sailing in a protected natural environment and marine park…
