Peru & Ecuador - Part 7

Our first full day at Kuyana Lodge began with breakfast. All meals were included with the pricing at this lodge. All of the food we had was delicious, so compliments to the chef there. The food is locally sourced, and she found unique ways to use what was in season and available.

breakfast

Following breakfast we did a hike onsite to a waterfall. As in the previous night, there was a loose interpretation of a trail, and it was steep and slippery. Keeping us company on the hike was the local monkey, Ramona. She is a rescue animal, as her mother was killed by poachers. Ramona was quite the character, and liked being carried more than walking. The waterfall was very pretty, and though our daughter continued up the hill with the guide to see the upper waterfall, we chose to wait by the lower falls once we heard we would have to pull ourselves up the hill with a rope.

morning hike

After lunch we walked around and explored the grounds a bit. Again, we were the only guests there, so we had the place to ourselves.

around the resort

That evening we took part in a cooking class, presented by our guide. First we went into the jungle to find leaves that would be suitable to cook the fish in. We had a choice of cooking a whole fish or just a filet. Then we learned about cocoa beans and how chocolate is made. First the beans were roasted, then we removed the shells. Next the beans went through a grinder, and finally the cocoa was placed into a pan and cooked. He added a sweetener to make it so the cocoa was not so bitter. Once the fish was done, that became our dinner, and the chocolate sauce was spooned over some fresh fruit for dessert. It was delicious!

cooking class

We went back to the cabin following dinner. And again we had no hot water. This was definitely getting old.

Read My Lips

It's now five weeks that I have been dealing with lip issues. My bottom lip is much improved, no question. But it is still sore and sensitive. I have my six month skin check with my dermatologist on Tuesday, so I decided to wait it out to see what she has to say. Hopefully there is just some prescription cream I can put on to finally heal it up. I'll also be hoping that she doesn't see anything that needs to be burned off or biopsied. We have guests arriving on Thursday and I don't want to have to deal with any of that while they are here. Fingers crossed...

The dog days of summer have certainly been here. We had excessively high heat here, like a lot of the country. We were in a drought, but this week brought us some much-needed rain. It was great to get a break from the daily watering of our outdoor plants. The temperature has also been a bit cooler the past few days.

We so enjoy having the lake out our back door. The other day we watched an eagle fishing. He caught such a big catfish with his talons that he could not lift up out of the water. Instead he channeled his inner Michael Phelps and did the breast stroke across the lake. When he got to the shore, he rested and had himself a feast. My camera lens isn't long enough to capture an image that far away, but it was certainly something to see. Fortunately I can always get a nice sky picture from my backyard.

Mountain Island Lake

Cruisin' Part 4

Cabo sunrise

On Thursday we entered the port of Cabo San Lucas around 6:30 in the morning, greeted by another beautiful sunrise. It was interesting to see a U.S. naval ship in the harbor. That would be a nice assignment.

US Navy ship

one of the ship's tenders

Inexplicably, we had the shortest amount of time in this port, which has no actual dock for large cruise ships. All passengers going ashore have to be tendered into port, so you have to build in extra time for that. Due to time constrictions, we booked our excursion through the cruise line. We met for breakfast at 7:15, and then hurried to the meeting place we were assigned to catch our tender into Cabo. We had decided to take a Zodiac tour and snorkel trip. A Zodiac is an inflatable boat that can reach high speeds and thus is desirable to the military - think Special Forces here. None of us had been on one, and of course the guys were all excited about the ride. I wasn't thrilled about being bounced around, but on the plus side the boat doesn't hold too any people so the excursion was small. We had eight in our Zodiac, plus the driver and a guide. A second Zodiac brought several more people from our ship, though we really didn't see much of them once we took off. Below is the other Zodiac.

Zodiac

Paul and me 

One of the main attractions in Cabo is El Archo. Literally translated as The Arch, the three stories tall rock formation is also referred to as Land's End because if you followed a line south from here you would not touch land again until you reached the South Pole. The Pacific Ocean becomes the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) here. The rock formations are incredible, and the boat was able to take us fairly close to them. There were numerous sea lions hanging out on the rocks.

El Archo

pretty fish

After ample time to study the rocks and take photographs, we headed to our first snorkeling location. The water here was a bit colder than Puerto Vallarta, and I was wishing I had the wet suit provided on the tour there. On the plus side, it did get me swimming faster! All was going well, and we were enjoying the variety of fish in the area when the female guide swam up to Paul, Kathy and me and told us to swim to a new area. "Towards the shore?," Paul asked. She nodded yes and said she would go and tell the others. We took off in the direction she indicated. And that is when I thought I was going to die.

The three of us got hit by a humongous wave. I am talking one that expert surfers would have been ecstatic to ride. We barely recover from that, and I turned around and thought, "Holy crap!" Here comes another one, just like the other one. I have never been in that situation before. Do you ride it out? Dive into it? Pray? I saw Paul dive into it, so I followed suit. Then a third one came, and I was growing tired from fighting the waves. When I could finally stick my mask back into the water, I about had a heart attack. I was inches above some coral, and I could only image cutting myself on it.  I swam as hard as I could to the left, not knowing if it was any better over that direction. Thankfully, there were no more huge waves, and I took some time to just float for a bit and rest. I honestly did not know if I had enough strength and energy left to swim all the way back to the boat. I had been sent pretty far away from it. Eventually I made it back, as did Kathy and Paul. I don't think I have been so scared in my life. And we still had one more snorkeling stop to make. The female guide spoke softly in Spanish to the driver when she got back in the boat. She never said a word to the three of us, but Jim said she seemed pretty shaken up by what had happened. As well she should.

I wasn't sure if I was going to even get out of the boat at the next stop, but we ended up in a pretty quiet cove. So I decided to get back in the water, which was thankfully warmer than the last stop. I am so glad I made that decision, because the coral was prettier here, and there were so many fish! It truly seemed like we were swimming in an aquarium.

fish and a whale

On the way back to Cabo we saw a whale. Although this was the migration season, this is the only one that I saw on the trip. I am not going to lie though. The best thing I saw was the cruise ship. After my ordeal, I was happy to get out of the water. Back on ship we showered, played some trivia and had a low key dinner at the grill so we could eat outside. Besides, it was another formal dinner night, and none of us felt like dressing up. Then we watched the movie, "The Martian" outdoors on the big screen, and followed that by seeing the comedy/music show by Steve Moris, who used to play with the Beach Boys. It was a nice ending to the day.

Crown Princess