Galapagos Islands 22.- 25.11

The day before I flew to Galapagos I booked my flight and the schooner " Free Enterprice" . I really was lucky to get the seat for the flight and a cabin onboard,
happily alone due some cancellation. I soon found out that the company of 16 other passengers were extremely nice and pleasant people. I knew from beginning that the cruise will be most enjoyable. As it did! Our group consisted of Louis 69 and his goodlooking daughter Sarah 29, Australians from Melborne of Polish origin, Andy and Kelly 26 from Australia too, charming Susie 39 from Madrid, Spain with her friend Yves
from Geneva, Switzerland, very pretty Sandra 22 from Cork,Ireland, always happy Steffi 26, Martin and Reinhard from Cologne, Germany, Chris from Oregon, an English Canadian family of four from Houston, Texas USA and a french guy , whose names I just cannot remember. All very nice people. So Louis and I were the seniors, all others very young ones. During our cruise, which was partly sunny and partly cloudy we visited five islands like Santiago, Bartholomeo etc. were we saw those most strange land and sea iguanas with a maximum length of 1,20 meters, land and sea turtles some of age up to 160 years, snakes, lizards, birds, crabs and fishes like nowhere else. But maybe the most fantastic ones were the sea lions who did not mind, if we were sitting next to them on land and making pictures or who were most playful in the waters around and with us. We walked quite a lot, we did snorkel several times, and on my 68th birtday on last Monday we climbed a volcano of 114 m with 372 partly steep steps. I was very proud to manage it, just to stop a couple of times to take a deep breath. On the top we could then enjoy a beautiful view. On that evening the ship cook had baked for my honour a big birthday cake ( diameter about 40 cm and height 20 cm )with congratulations from the crew. We all ate with great passion, but we could finish only a half of it. The evening was a success with drinks, music and dance.
Earlier that day I tried to climb to dinghy , when a bigger wave casted me into water
my backbag became wet, and my camera which was inside did not work anymore.
I was very afraid that the memory card was damaged, but only two pictures were lost, like a camera shop in Quito could find out next day. However those sweet ladies Sandra, Sarah and Susie promised to send me later the copies of their videos or photos. In all , it was a very happy cruise with nice fellow passengers and friendly staff and partly excellent food.

Quito, Ecuador

Last week I stayed in Quito just two nights, but was very active strolling a lot in the city. It was much bigger than I had thought but quite interesting too. In the second evening I found an unexpensive bar, which promissed jazz for the evening. I was surprised when young people started to flow in, but when the first sounds I could understand, the band was a local copy of Santana, a pretty good one. Next day I left for Galapagos for four days, and came back to Quito yesterday afternoon. Later in the evening I decided to go to new directions, and found new excellent bars. Inthe last one
they had Colombian band, which mostly played cumbia and salsa. The music was fine, but most interesting there was Paulina 23, a local beauty, whose work was to bring customers to their table. However she had a lot of time for me to chat about everything. She just happily laughed when I said compliments to her about her looks.
Today I flew to Cali, Colombia. I shall tell you later about Galapagos.

Portobelo, Panama

Day before yesterday I made a trip trough Panama from Pacific to Caribic to visit the old ruins of Portobelo fortress, which was distroyed by famous pirate Henry Morgan some 300 years ago.I drove to there with Ismael 31,a taxi driver, whom I had met a day before. I found his price USD 100. reasonable. The journey was over 200 km
and took some six hours. Yesterday we first did visit Panama Canal at Miraflores locks and then beautiful Causeway Marina including lunch before having drinks in San Felipe, the old capital of Panama. It was then time to get to Tucaman airport via ancient ruins of Panama Vieja. The flight was in time and for some reason Copa Air put me in business class to honour my first succeeded visit in Panama and first flight with local Copa Air. At 10PM I arrived to my hotel in Quito, Ecuador.

Panama City , Panama

My first day here has been very pleasant, especially after 26 hours travelling from home to my hotel here. It is quite far away from city center,right in the middle of former rain forest, USD 20 by taxi to drive. Weather is beautiful, even rainy season and 27C.Most impressive anyhow are the friendly and gorgeous young ladies, with very pretty faces of beautiful darker skin. I´ll wonder, if the great beauties of Columbia are even more exiting. The next good thing is beer, only two dollars.

Very rainy days

It has been recently very typical November days. A lot of chilly, wet days. That's been a bit uncomfortable to walk with the dog around. Hopefully there will be a big change,
when flying very early Monday morning via Copenhagen and Newark to Panama City in Panama.I'll stay there for three days before continueing to Quito in Ecuador.Everything after that is still open, except my return to Finland from Panama on December 19.

A visit to Germany

One week ago I came back from Germany, a four days combined trip both business and pleasure with my son Tomas, to Duesseldorf and Essen. Duesseldorf ranks in my personal opinion on third position of pleasant stay in category of bigger German cities. Munich and Hamburg lay ahead, maybe partly due my romantic memories in both places long ago.
The old part of Duesseldorf, just at the banks of Rhine is very pretty and amusant with its many excellent restaurants and taverns. There we met Mr. Peter Gloystein, who is my very old friend since 1968, and Tomas's godfather. Peter is a most entertaining person
with a huge knowledge of German history, economy, music, theater and art, a board member of Bayreuth Music Festival etc. We always have very interesting discussions and
a lot of fun with some quantities of beer. He and his British wife Jean are currently living in Bremen but moving soon back to Duesseldorf, to the other side of Rhine when their new home will be finished, probably in February next year. From there I shall be only a walking distance away, just over the bridge, to the Old Town during my next visit.
Essen was purely business. Exept to Tomas, who every evening, after I retired around 11pm, did dive into the night life of Essen. I admired his little sleepings 3-4 hours
a night, and then very sharp at the fair next morning. But so was I 40 years ago.
We went to Essen for International Board Games Fair, where we were looking products for coming seasons. This business of our company Marektoy is very interesting and also rewarding, when introducing new games every year to young and old. Due it's social and many other aspects concisting character, this business is a constantly growing one all over the world. We'll see if the possible recession will hit there too.