On the Extinction of Species

The article below on the Galapagos Islands was scanned from an article on page 46 of The Economist June 5, 2010 issue (double click on image below to enlarge):

For us seniors-Remember when video

Click on the lower left start arrow to open video:

News from Nicola in snowed out DC

Hi all,

As I'm sure you have heard, D.C. is snowed in! So I wanted to share some of our photos and walkabouts! The videos are clear, but not as clear as the originals ;-). We also have another good video of Ruben digging down in the snow on the Mall...but it seems to be to big for the blog.

Hope you enjoy the photos! http://drkola.blogspot.com/

And I hear we have another 10-20 inches coming tomorrow around noon....so lots of apartment time for us! For those of you who haven't been to D.C. often, the metro can't run with snow greater than 8 inches...so even if the government wasn't closed today, I couldn't have made it to work!

Stay warm and dry - whereever you may be.

Smiles, Kola

Hi Kola,

We enjoyed seeing your blog as passed on to us by Chuck. You've certainly had your share of snow. In the Pacific Northwest the weather has remained mild, and except for a deep 1-week freeze prior to Christmas, we feel we truly haven't experienced winter. It's stayed quite mild here ... just a bit rainy now and then, but still many days of glorious sunshine and mild temperatures. I've already been out gardening twice since the New Year!

Rufus and I have just returned (VERY early yesterday a.m.) from another OAT trip, this time to Costa Rica. It was an action-packed trip and we loved it! The routing for us was from Seattle through Dallas and on to San Jose. It was a wonderful trip, but a bit sketchy on the return. Dallas attained at least a foot of snow on Thursday where we arrived from San Jose in mid-afternoon, just in time to mess up flight plans from Dallas back to Seattle. Fortunately we got seats on Alaska Airlines, and after 3 hours on the tarmac in line for de-icing we were finally able to fly home, arriving only 3.5 hours later than originally planned.

Have you taken any big trips lately? Hope you are well and happy. Please greet your parents for us.

Best regards,

Jane LIttlefield

P.S. Marilyn and I also went on the OAT Costa Rica and found both tour and tour guide (Victor) absolutely the best.....

Chuck

Peru Pours and our Tour Group Comments

Recent heavy rains in the Peruvian highlands washed out part of the
Inca trail and the railway leading into the base of Machu Picchu, Aquas
Calientes, the town where we stayed. Hundreds of tourists and hikers
were stranded for days. The picture below was carried in the LA Times
(double click on picture to enlarge):

From:	Carol & Richard
Sent:	Wed 2/03/10 10:02 AM
To:	Chuck

Hi Chuck!!!

How are you guys? Thanks for the picture. We have been reading
about that mess and said "Good thing we did that LAST year!"
Is that our hotel in the lower center? Kind of looks like it.

So what have you and Marilyn been up to? We went to Panama in
August with OAT. Great trip. It was very easy and relaxing compared
to Peru/Ecuador. We're off to Tanzania with OAT in September.
Not sure where we'll go between now and then, but it will be somewhere.

Take it easy and say HI to Marilyn. Thanks again for the picture.

From:	Gary & Tooie
Sent:	Wed 2/03/10 2:16 PM
To:	Chuck

Thanks for the picture. We are sooo glad we went their last year.

How many years will it take, if ever, to repair the area to look like it did before the rains?

Our hotel, along the river, was an experience of a life time. I sure hope it wasn’t damaged.

A friend from OH just called to let us know PBS Nova has a great hour

show about MP. Gary just set our DVR to tape it.

Hope all is going well for you two, 2e

From:	Jay
Sent:	Thu 2/04/10 7:53 AM
To:	Chuck

Hey Chuck,



Thanks for the news. Peruvian tourism will surely take a big hit

with Machu Picchu not accessible.



After hearing me raving about how great our trip was, some friends

signed up for the same trip beginning in March this year. I passed

this info about the problems at Machu Picchu on to them and they replied:

"I just spoke with OAT and they say the Peruvian government now estimates it

could take 7 weeks to get things going again.  That's about the time we

leave. OAT is willing to let us postpone to another time or take a different

trip."



An internet search on "Machu Picchu news" gives more details on

how bad it was for the tourists in Aquas Calientes.



Jay

Boobie Mating Dance 3-25-09

Hi all, Hope you like some of the videos and photos...I still haven't had a chance to even look at most of the shots!

Chuck - I'll "edit" these into the appropriate days at a later date ;-)

Sugar Cane Video

Speech,speech

Mail these ?

Post office on Floreana (by Kola's camera: and others)

Overseas Adventure Travel Peru and Ecuador tour, March 2009

The videos and pictures contained in the blog sections below begin with the last part of the trip and is, therefor, in the reverse order of the actual trip events. This is because Blogspot uses a "last posted, first viewed" sequencing of uploaded material.

The Galapagos Islands

Videos of bus ride from airport and facts about Santa Cruz Island
to Puerto Ayora and pontoon boat ride to TipTop III to begin tour
of The Galapagos:


Windy Puerto Ayora and ride to Tip Top III:


First lunch aboard Tip Top III prior to visit to Charles Darwin Research Center:


Charles Darwin Research Center and giant tortoise shells and species:


Grand Tortoises/turtles and natural selection in the Charles Darwin
Research Center:


More on The Galapagos Tortoise:


South Plaza Island and lecture on sea lions vs. seals:


Land iguanas:


Santa Fe Island (no fishing allowed this day but plenty of kayaking,
some effortlessly):


The life of a sea lion:




Sea Turtles:


The following videos were taken on Espanola Island during a long
hike featurig nasca boobies, land and marine iguanas, a blowhole,
lizards, the blue footted booby courtship, white tipped sharks,
sea turtles and black mangrove trees:







The tradition lives on in the old Post Office on Floreana Island:


I asked if there was any mail left behind by any California and quickly
found one from the Westwoood area, located about 18 miles from my
home in Manhattan Beach. It took me two months to deliver the post
card to the Westwood address and below is the response I received from
Jenny Wu:

Hello Chuck,

I found your email on your blog and just wanted to drop a note to say THANK YOU for picking up my pseudo post card. Our guide didn't tell us to bring post cards with us so it was a last minute effort. I didn't think it was going to make it back.

Thanks for sharing your blog. You must have traveled to Post Office Bay around the same time I did (March 23-30). I went to Peru in 2004 and those pictures bring back lots of fun memories.

Once again, thank you for delivering the post card and keeping up the old tradition. It was a very nice surprise and I hope you will have yours very soon!

All the best,

Jenny


Floreana nature hike and zoomed image of a long Flamingo:


More history on the Galapagos:


Galapagos and Pirates:



Galapagos and politics:



Tour of turtle reserve next to national park:



The following four digital still shots of the Galapagos Tortoise were
taken in the Discovery room of the Los Angeles County Natural History
Museum in Exposition Park (I learned a tortoise, which are land based and
have different set of hind legs like an elephant, can be called a turtle, but a
water based turtle cannot be called a tortoise....for what's it's worth):










Soccer time in Quito:



Last dinner on trip in Quito, March 29, 2009:

Quito, Ecuador

City Tour:

Kenko Ruins

Native Dress and Weaving Demonstrations

The Galapagos Islands

Fly from Quito to Baltra Airport and small barren island, initially built by the US Army in WW II (to protect shipping in the event The Panama Canal was attacked), and ferry to south Santa Cruz Island to board Tip Top III and begin tour of Charles Darwin Station and Science Center in Puerto Ayala (actually turtle sanctuary, home of "120 + year old George," the last of his particular species, and built upon Darwin's studies and arrival in the Galapgos in 1835 aborrd HMS Beagle). The last part covers the hiking tour of South Plaza (and North Plaza island) which shows the native brush and co-habitation and existence of sea lions, lizards and land iguanas). The following are all digital still pictures with videos to follow later.

Music by Tuntur Taky:



Santa Fe Island (no snokeling, but a "no paddling" kayak adventure-
see later video), to Floreana Island and the wooden barrel of
Post Office Bay put in the 18th Century by Whalers, hike to Witmer farm
house and pirates' caves, ending with home hosted lunch (ends with
a picture of a Valencia orange tree).

Music by Tuntur Taky, Condor Pasa:



Continuation of shots from home hosted lunch and last two nights
on Santa Cruz Island in resort with pool and beautiful grounds, followed
by coffee plantation, farm (and my favorite) still for making
sugar cane, 110 proof alcohol, more pictures of Puerto Ayala Bay and
Charles Darwin Station, lunch at restaurant, its grounds and interior,
Bella Vista lava tube, airport to board jet back to Quito for two days
including shopping (again my favorite) for Espiritu de Ecuador and
Lovisone licor de chocolate, inside bar watching Ecuador vs. Brazil
Soccer Game (ended in a tie although Ecuador had the most attempts
at scoring but couldn't match the Brazilian team' great defensive plays)
and ending with pictures of underwater shots of Floreana's Devils Crown
(extinct volcano) site of a wonderful, swim with the sea lions snorkeling
outing and a greater flamingo, a great male frigatebird,
blue footed booby and Galapagos hawk:

Cusco, Peru and on to Quito, Ecuador and The Equator

For the first 4 1/2 minutes of the picture video. the scenes are in Cusco, Peru visiting the jewelery store, local school where most of the children speak Que Chua, Incan native language and Pisac ruins, then Sacred Valley of the Incas (Valle Segrado) and lunch and views of the Urubamba River where we leave our tour director Juan de Dios (pictured with his family) and then fly to Quito where we meet our new tour guide, Roberto, go on a city tour of colonial Quito, visit the Inti Nan Museum and Middle of the World Tour at the Equator.

Video Pictures- music by Kuntur Taky, Flor Indio and Llorando Llorando:


This bird at the Middle of the World site (Equator) began what
was to become very observable in The Galapagos Islands-
most of the animals seemed as if they were posing for the
photograghers - just like the poses of our tour group pictures.

Video Pictures- music by Kuntur Taky, Urphila:

Pisac Ruins

Perched high on a cliff is the largest Inca fortress rivaling that of Machu Picchu and overlooking a long valley of green and luscious fields:

Courtesy of Jane

The following pictures were taken by Jane as we toured from Lima to Cusco. This is Part 1 and each picture had text attached, but for some reason the descriptions do not appear. So it's back to the drawing board for me to figure out- in the mean time you can still enjoy a small portion of Jane's pictures:




The series of pictures taken below by Jane were all in Equador,
beginning with the school visit and ending with the jet flight from
The Galapagos airport to Quito for the flight back to Miami. Music
is from Jakaru, Lejania and Huamahuacaqueno:

Majestic Machu Picchu

Video of the hotel and room in Aqua Calientes, the small village at the base of Machu Picchu:



Video of Machu Picchu and history by Juan:




This is part 2 of the digital pictures taken by Jane. No descriptions are needed as in Part 1 since all were taken at Machu Picchu on a very clear and sunny (just a touch of rain) day at the hidden Inca royal palace known as Machu Picchu. The last picture is of the band from which this sound track was taken:


Machu Picchu in a different light:


Leaving Machu Picchu by overeating (at Toto's):


Aqua Calientes Market Place at Train Station in Machu Picchu town:


Train ride (and entertainment) back to Cusco:

From Cusco to Machu Picchu

From Cusco to Machu Picchu - music by Jakaru, Yuyarino:


Machu Picchu - music by Jakaru, Phalawatus:


Machu Picchu and village - music by Kuntur Taky, Dime Tu

School visit

Visit to school during bus trip through Urubama Gorge, near Cusco and on the way to the train station to Machu Picchu. Not shown nor recorded-probably fortunately, is our group's singing Row, Row, Row your boat, a big hit with the kids):