Call Him Tong

August 12, 2010

Isla de la Plata Tour
Courtesy the Burton Family
August 2010

Recent guests, the Burton family from Texas took the impressive photo of the whale breaching while on an Isla de Plata tour about a week ago. The humpback whales (ballenas jorobadas) migrate by our coast from June to September, and they are spectacular to watch. We can see them from our balcony and still get excited if we spot them performing their acrobatic antics off our beach. But a closer view, such as the one pictured is a special treat and folks taking the Isla de la Plata tours this time of year are capturing shots such as this one.

Magnificent Frigates
Courtesy Danny Radd
July 2009

Isla de la Plata (Silver Island) is often called the “Poor Man’s Galapagos” because it has many of the same indigenous species that are found in the Galapagos and (according to our guide when we took the tour a couple of years ago), contains the largest nesting ground for the Magnificent frigate bird. It is called “Silver Island” because Sir Francis Drake is rumored to have hidden a large treasure there, and a guide and permit are required to tour the island. Among the bird species to be found, blue-footed boobies are especially plentiful and absolutely fearless of people. Assorted tours are available for around $50 which includes the guide, two-hour boat ride out of Puerto Lopez (40 minutes north of Olon) and island tour. I think most all of them also incorporate a lunch and snorkeling in a nearby cove with the Galapagos turtles after the island hike. On the tour we took a couple of years ago, we had a tasty lunch on the boat and lured the turtles to the surface with watermelon before jumping in to swim.

 

View from the long trail
Courtesy the Mensh Family
August 2010



Our next guests aren’t due to arrive until the end of September, and for the first time since we arrived in June, we have the house for an extended amount of time, and enjoying a chance to relax.  Since we have yet to install a TV dish at our house, we watch a lot of movies.  Through the years, I have lugged probably over 150 DVD’s to Olon from the States (and another 300 or so are waiting in storage). We particularly like the boxed series DVD’s. For us, they bring a sense of routine normalcy (“honey, our show’s on”) and we’ve watched every movie and series many times. So it’s been with great joy that we’ve discovered the bootlegged DVD’s available for $1-$1.50 here.  Current movies, HBO series, TV documentaries in English can all be found – sometimes before they’re even released in the States – though navigating the occasional title menu in Russian can be disconcerting . Lately we’ve been watching Season 3 & 4 of “Dexter” – strange show, but it grows on you.

Courtesy the Mensh Family
August 2010

Our language skills are improving, but barely. We should be practicing more at home with our flash cards, but since we must listen to and speak Spanish daily we are making progress. I have forgotten most verb conjunctions except the present tense (“Voy a la tienda ayer” / “I go to the store yesterday”) and I’m sure I sound like an idiot but know I must speak it to improve. The Ecuadorians are wonderfully patient and helpful to correct our attempts.

Patricia, at Oloncito Market gave me several Jehovah’s Witness brochures (English/Spanish) to help me learn.…..So darling and thoughtful….still grateful to the Zamorra family for inviting us to sit with them (at their family plot) during Lolita’s funeral….I felt honored. She and the staff at the market are helping me to “hear” the numbers during transactions…which is harder than looking at the figures they tally on the pad of paper next to the register.

For some reason, I keep mangling the word “dólares” (dollars) with “doleres” (hurts) and get corrected on my pronunciation frequently (“I have three hurts to pay for this….”). The word “sal” (salt) is another one. I mean, how hard can that word be (pronounced like “Saul”)? There is only one syllable that can be emphasized, yet every time I request it, I get a confused look like I’ve just asked the person to disrobe. I don’t get it.

Masked Booby
Courtesy the Mensh Family
August 2010

On the other hand, Ecuadorians have a difficulty pronouncing certain English words. My name poses no difficulty if I spell it “Li”, except I usually have to repeat myself, so most folks around here call me “Li Li”. But Todd’s name is a different story. For some reason (even though phonetically spelled here as “Tad” – using familiar sounds), his name is invariably enunciated as either “Tong” or something like “tongue” with a long “o”. Anymore, he just introduces himself as “Tom” (“Tome”) and calls it a day.

Blue-Footed Booby
Courtesy the Mensh Family
August 2010