Southern Exposure

Thursday, January 22

We slept in until 9:30 am, and by the time we rolled out of our room in hopes of having breakfast at the hostel, they could only serve us coffee and one glass of juice. We weren’t particularly impressed with our hostel and it was not available to us the next day, so our plan was to find another place to stay in the neighborhood, visit the Kawasaki dealership to make the last attempt of checking on the problem with my oil leakage, in addition to changing the oil on both bikes and putting a new tire on Matt’s bike. We were also going to a Mac store to try to figure out what was wrong with our laptop.

We checked out a couple of hotels in the area and made a reservation in one of them for the following night. There were a great number of travel agencies in the neighborhood advertising trips to the Galapagos Islands. Although we have dropped the idea of going there because of the cost and the time it would entail, we decided to pop into one of the agencies and find out what kind of packages were available out of curiosity. The pictures that hung on the walls of the Galapagos sea lions, tortoises, and lava lizards as well as sunsets and the white sandy beaches were quite amazing. Knowing that this was probably our best opportunity to ever visit the Galapagos, we made a split second decision to go to the islands if we could find a suitable tour.

There were two options available, both for a five day/four night adventure that started the next day. The first option would have us staying at an all-inclusive hotel with day trips to volcanoes, beaches, wild-life watching, snorkeling, horseback riding, and other activities on two different islands. The second option was a yacht cruise that would visit four different islands with similar activities, but a better variety of site visits, and for a higher price of course. We visited four different travel agencies in order to compare prices and offers, and settled on one agency that seemed to be the most professional.

The lady manager offered to store our bikes in her garage for the duration of the trip if we were to book with them. That was a huge plus for us. We were given two hours to decide because the flights left in less than 24 hours. We went back to the hostel and tried calling Matt’s dad who had been to Galapagos before in order to find out which option was better for us. They both sounded wonderful, the first one seemed to be more active and adventurous, while the second more unique and luxurious and covered more sites. Matt’s dad wasn’t available, but Matt’s mom voted for a yacht, saying that a bit of luxury might be a nice break for us. Deep down I think we both were leaning towards the yacht.

The time has come for us to walk back to the agency to book the trip. Because we were flying out of Quito tomorrow and booking at the last minute we had to pay cash for the yacht part of the trip, which was a very hefty sum of money. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of me with all the cash I was carrying, which was more than our bikes’ air freight cost. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we could not miss our chance to visit the Galapagos when we were so close. We handed off the money and our passport info to the travel agent and agreed to be back at the agency by 7 pm to pick up our tickets and to follow her to her house to drop off the bikes there.

Our next stop was the Mac store. We told the service guy that we could not connect to the Internet anywhere, and of course when he tried connecting to the network it worked perfectly. We asked him where we could buy a USB wi-fi adapter and he directed us to a store about 10 minute cab ride away. It turned out to be a Mac service store which is not what we needed, but there we got the name of the computer store where we could find the adapter.

We were off to the Kawasaki dealership to book an appointment for next week after we are back from Galapagos. The dealership – Kawamoto – was a good size retail and service shop. They had about eight KLRs on sale (price tag with taxes $10,750 vs $5,500 in US), which was a good sign for us. We talked to the service manager who looked like a mad scientist in his Kawasaki shop coat and were scheduled to bring in the bikes next Wednesday morning.

We continued our search for a USB wi-fi adapter, but unfortunately the biggest computer retailer in the city carried only PC compatible adaptors.

Back at the hotel, we quickly shuffled our clothes and things between the bike boxes and our carry ons for the islands and drove to the travel agency to meet with the agent. She handed us our papers and tickets, and we followed her to her house. Parked the bikes in her garage, left our gear in her house and she dropped us off at a Tandori restaurant for dinner. The place was written up in the book as the best Indian in the city, but it was probably the worst Indian food we ever had – completely flavorless and tasteless. Or well, hopefully the food on the boat will be better. We went to bed early anticipating a long traveling day tomorrow.