Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
them one on top of the other, and slaughter them to eat as they leisurely sailed back to their
home port. Man is the animal.
I wanted to take photos of these huge tortoises and found a cage in the right sunlight. The
big fellow in the cage obliged me by sticking his enquiring, old head out from under the
wheelbarrow-size carapace, and I aimed my camera. There was no click. I made sure that
it was on and tried again: I was out of film!
If one has ever wondered what Murphy's Law was, look no further than this moment of
frustration. I cursed my stupidity and bad luck and regretted all the photos I had taken en
route to the museum. What a blow. The museum did not sell film either, and it was too long
of a walk back to town just for that. Walking back to town, I calmed down and thought how
lucky I was that I could walk away with the photos I did manage to take. In Darwin's day,
they had an artist draw everything of interest. Always two sides to a coin.
We felt that we had seen enough of the islands and were keen on getting up to Hawaii be-
fore the hurricane season endangered our trip. Armed with shopping bags, backpacks, and
shopping lists, we made our way to town. I needed to buy a fan belt for the engine, as the
one on the alternator had all but worn through, as well as food for two months at sea. This
was to be the longest time away from land; some five and a half thousands miles separated
us from the Hawaiian Islands without a stopover.
We arrived at the supermarket and proceeded to go through our list. We got through only
about halfway when they ran out of supplies. We managed to buy some desperate looking
potatoes and eggs. Cabbages, onions, sweet potatoes, and carrots were all luxuries that they
did not carry. It was the same story at the other little stores: there were tired, withered little
vegetables, expensive weird types of canned things which we did not know or could not
understand from the store owner. It was most frustrating.
One item we did stock up on, understandably, was cigarettes. We bought out the entire
stock of Full Speed cigarettes from the supermarket. They were the cheapest and were most
likely subsidized by the Ecuadorian government. I also bought a cheap pipe and a few plugs
of wet tobacco that I smoked on watch at night. It was most relaxing. I do believe that when
I have reached the age of not caring any more, I shall take up pipe smoking again!
I was to get another shock when we took the cooking gas container to be filled at the only
petrol station in town. The fittings didn't couple. It was a completely different system. In all
fairness, the assistant tried to jury-rig something and when he turned on the supply, clouds
of noxious escaping propane had Gavin and I backing off to a safe distance. It felt to me
afterward that the weight of the bottle remained the same.
