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1991 5 of 6

Friday, October 25: Wake about 5AM with a strongly sexual dream and lay there thinking I'm not QUITE where I want to be (see previous): Manzanilla poisoned Floreana lady. BUTTON mangrove has POINTED leaves, WHITE mangrove is ROUNDED. Black mangrove is the third kind. 11:15AM, sitting on bench in Main Square, Puerto Ayora. No big maps. Two small cuts on right knee from fall, left ankle feeling MUCH better when I sit. Prince of Luxembourg causes great fuss: HE'S seeing the incubators this morning, so Linda can't be available for US til 1PM. Then Juan Carlos rents a BUS to highlands of Santa Cruz, leaving Santa Fe for tomorrow, maybe losing Chinese Hat. Lots of souvenir shops closed; Bank of Pacific huge new building with iguanas basking on concrete; little boy, I guess thinking to chase them toward me, steps on a big one's tail as if flees to avoid him. All buy books and postcards across from Hotel Galapagos, where we'll be staying later, and the PAVED street roars with busses, cars, and motorbikes. Cruising might be easy here, cute middle-aged guy eyes me, looks ahead, then eyes me again. He wasn't hustling tourists, either. Lots of military uniforms around, near the sign for Destalamente Naval. BUSSES exist to transport people to the other end of the island, and lots of people ride around in open backs of trucks. Eric and Kali look at photo books---Olympus Cameras is buying all Eric's film from the trip, and Kali is his "bag toter and reflector holder." They straggle in for the 11:30 panga (bar La Panga) back to boat for lunch. Kali and Eric come to chat, then wander away. Bed last night SO relaxing that I woke at 6:05 and wondered precisely WHAT I was doing here. No doubt islands have INCREDIBLE animals, but I'm ALREADY jaded with sealions and Yellow Warblers. The Galapagos Turtles this morning, surely I thought beforehand, would be interesting, but there's so much PEOPLE chatter: J Marie REALLY chews your ear off WHENEVER she can, even when I wander away from her to photograph. Voices will ALWAYS be on my TAPES! But it's all certainly extraordinary. Good breakfast (ALL meals are good, imaginative, and widely appreciated DESPITE the fact that J Marie is vegetarian, Delores eats no tomatoes or eggs or fish, but shrimp is OK, etc). Onto panga for rare DRY landing on slippery steps of dock, but we HERE have to put on LIFE jackets (as we do in every PORT!), which DOES remind me of Antarctic zodiac-rides! Past LOTS of ships in LARGE sea-swell in OUTER harbor, to INNER tiny calm harbor at lowest tide, marks on mangrove at LEAST six feet up. Onto dock after other shouting groups and onto trail to Darwin Station, where we tour an interesting museum after photographing many LABELED plants and trees, and shooting a huge marine iguana right at entrance pier, romantic under lowering mangrove branches. Lots of photos of TEXT, videocam SO convenient, and then Juan Carlos has bad news: the Prince of Luxembourg (who later turns out to be on, or even President of, the Darwin Station Board of Directors) has dropped in for a visit this morning, so we won't be able to see the incubators this morning with Linda, as hoped, and there's no SECOND herpetologist available for our tour. This brings enormous consternation to Delores and Michael. They KNOW they'll be able to come back the week after next when we're at the Hotel Galapagos, but know also that the Lutzes, the Komodo people, WON'T be with us then. We'd scheduled snorkeling with the sealions at Santa Fe this afternoon, but we can't see the incubators until 1PM (they INSIST on lunching 12:30-1, and are scheduled all AROUND that time), look til 2, and it takes 2.5 hours to get to Santa Fe, which puts it too late, around 5PM, for being in the water! They look to rearrange everything by putting in the highlands this afternoon, push off Santa Fe and South Plaza to tomorrow, and maybe dropping the Chinese Hat, or squeezing it in with something else. Lots of talk, and Michael is very concerned about possible concessions in FUTURE planning, and later Delores says she's getting so pissed she's thinking of demanding a large REFUND of the "$30,000" she's paid for the Resting Cloud. So they agree, everyone leaves Van Sicklen building but me, and as I leave at 9:15 I don't look where I put my left foot as I step off the entrance-porch, and I twist it under me, foot flopping inward so that the outer edge of my upper left foot takes the worst of it, with a secondary hurt in my right knee where it hits the dirt (thankfully in my heavy denims, rather than my white cotton lightweights), and tomorrow I'll have a half-dollar sized circle of five small cuts already scabbed over. I HEAR bones crinkling in my foot, but hope it's only JOINTS popping, not bones breaking (though Delores keeps talking about "breaking the base of my fifth metatarsal). Fall to the ground with (no pun intended) a sinking feeling: "Oh, no, will this mean the trip is over for me?" as two Spanish-speaking guides rush over to help me up. I had my video camera in my right palm and it flipped out, leaving my right palm free to hit the sandy ground and get embedded grains that I hope I scratch all out. Then to another (formerly hatchery) building with displays, and then out to a feeding area for four adults, munching away, luckily, at their twice-a-week feeding, otherwise they'd be scattered through the huge compound. Next are three females with one male, then others brought from various islands for maintenance breeding. Out about 11 and walk back past the manzanilla poison tree; I keep taking pictures, then to the road where we find the Hotel Galapagos, everyone going into the WWF building for tee shirts and Delores's iguana, floppy in black felt. I keep looking for a map but can't find one. Nothing really strikes me, though I AM impressed with the range of BOOKS available. Sit finally in the central square and write (F, above). Panga returns at noon and we're back to the boat for lunch, then by panga to the CLOSE entrance to the Darwin, now into the central area to meet dykey Linda, who takes us into the hatcheries. Lots of one- and two-year-olds, lots of photos, and OLD incubators. Then past the corrals we'd already seen and through a locked gate to the inner sanctum, where they keep land iguanas. LOTS of huge yellow and green crested monsters, lots of photos, and lots of talk. Linda encourages donations and on the way out at 2:15 we pass the brother of a Cincinnati zoo-keeper who has a shirt of Komodo Dragons that the Lutzes react to. Again to the Hotel Galapagos, walking becoming painful, and this time we go IN for 700 sucre Coca-Colas in spacious lounge looking over agave and bay through huge windows. Get second Coke---each time he has to RETURN to office for 300-sucre change for 1000 bill. Will be nice place to stay. Bus arrives about 2:30 and Kali and Eric pile into back, so I get right front seat, great for viewing outskirts of Puerto Ayora, only 3000 four years ago and now around 9000 people. Cloudy, but he says we're lucky it's not raining in the Highlands, as it usually is. Higher into hills, passing lush flowers around poor tin houses, and balsa trees. Off onto red-mud road through barbed-wire gate to the Divine Ranch, long drive in rutted fields, glimpses of Crimson Flycatchers, and off at foot of trail. Walk through wet grasses and I'm ahead when I spot the first Galapagos Turtle-shell off the side of the path. It hisses as it draws in its head, Juan Carlos saying it's not a menace, only the sound of the air leaving the shell as the head is drawn in. See a few more here and there, then over a fence there are TWELVE by count, and Eric later estimates 30, and Michael goes off on his own for MANY. I hurry ahead for MANY first contacts with the ET models, and others follow behind, then go up to restaurant for grapefruit juice from a cooler and special mountain coffee, the first of which is tart and good and I don't taste the second. Lutzes are there after Delores and I exhaust what appears to be the largest, and I later wander back and find two more head to tail, but the first one is totally "in" and the guy behind seems pissed. Finally Michael and Delores join the group on the veranda of the rancho and Juan Carlos appears with the bus and we're back to town about 6PM, phoning for panga through radio that doesn't quite work. Back to ship in near-dark and have dinner almost immediately, and then Delores says we can watch slides, pleasantly saying that I can start, so I sort of steal a lot of ohs and ahs by giving the first penguin and ice pictures, and the main comment about their professional and Velvia shots are on the incredible color and clarity. Lots of people doze off during their 40-50 slides after my 30 or so, but then Juan Carlos announces that he's going into the Halloween party tonight, who wants to come? Kali and Eric and I! We play cards a bit with the Lutzes, Mary dropping out and I coming in, and I've been drinking Southern Comfort so am feeling NO pain! Two full tumblers and I'm slurring my speech. I win after Kali gets three scoreless games, and then at 10:30 we're into the panga for the NIGHT ride through the harbor, quite thrilling. I take my video camera, and when we arrive at the Disco some guy is using HIS, so I feel permitted. Juan Carlos gets us admitted free as his friends---no, there's a 2000-sucre charge that I PAY for him! The line of white-faced Raggedy Anns in strange dresses, the iguana roars (to Delores's disgust: "He only hisses! Did he blow salt through his nose?"), and the bikinied "beauty" appears in the Caballeros! Couple guys may be gay. We ask for beers but they "have none." I ask for vodka and naranja and everyone agrees, but when we try to pay, "It's onto Juan Carlos's bill." Drink and try to photo, and it's loud and lots of fluorescent lights and darkness. Sit and stand and bob with the infectious Spanish disco tunes, catching some on tape, hoping the iguana comes out OK. At 11:30 we start thinking of leaving, Juan Carlos dancing with his former girlfriend, who's now married and OUT as a guide for Quasar Nautica. He says we can leave at 12, and we watch as the prizes are announced and leave as the curfew means "lights out" except for the disco with its own generator. Leave at 12:05 for a magical ride across the bay (and pitching in 5000 sucres for two of our four drinks), and loudly into J Marie's but she doesn't wake at 12:30. Up at 2:35 as noted for Lomotil (nothing came of it) and Bonine.

Saturday, October 26: At 8AM I write: Ship started at 4:30AM, says Mary, got into Halloween party at the Puerto Ayora Disco at 10PM, loud, taped music, chorus line of 8-10 Raggedy Anns in whiteface cupid's bow lips, Mother Hubbard hats and blue polka-dot pinafores, the manager of Hotel Galapagos is an iguana, and a "rise-again" coffin has a cock inside. Back outside at dot of 12 as lights go off. MAGICAL boat to ship, magical in dark. Tape it over sound of panga motor. Cruise into Santa Fe for breakfast and out for another wet landing, and up a STEEP cliff where my SWEAT condenses and causes a symbol that only my reading my instruction book AFTER tells me about as too much moisture. Lots and lots of land iguanas and when I show my video (one whole hour!) that night, I'm verbally slapped on the wrist for tempting the iguanas with plucked flowers. I keep thinking I've SEEN it all, but there are still cute sealions and perky lava lizards and floating birds to capture again and again. VERY hot and I keep camera at arm's length afterwards to keep it DRY. Lots of still photos as a consequence, but only when J Marie says she may BUY some of mine do I think I may even go through the UNMOUNTED stuff. Back to snorkel, FANTASTIC with one and then three seals, exhausting myself and WOLFING down a lovely shrimp buffet lunch, and then do a DRY landing on a jetty for orange and red susuvium plants and birds, birds, birds over steep cliffs that I switch from telephoto to wide angle lenses, getting them ALL salted up. GREAT views and shots and stories with frigatebirds fighting over a seal placenta and mother not quite figuring how to nurse her newborn. I'm ALWAYS behind, and many leave at 5 and we're left til 6, sitting on beach and gazing at ruling-seal of jetty, Sally Lightfoot crabs, and fearless Yellow Warblers, and lots and lots of marine iguanas. Back aboard by 6:30, lots of talk about tomorrow while I borrow a drop of their lenscleaner and a lone tissue for all my lenses. Started showing my last video to good reception, stop for dinner and it puts EVERYONE to sleep by 8:15! I brush my teeth thoroughly, sorry I have nothing to watch, and go outside to ALMOST see a totally naked Mary going to bed, and Delores's head, I don't want to see anymore, and open crew hatches (later I saw that the two bunks literally meet in a point at the front of the hull). Sit on the farthest point and ASTOUNDED to hear barks, whimpers, coughs, croaks, snufflings, barks and burps from the shore! GOT to RECORD this. Meet Michael and HE comes out, too, and we're looking over the side and see GREEN PHOSPHORESCENT flashes near what turns out to be the anchor chain. I hear little SPLASHES and think I see a SHAPE in the water, saying that I'm really feeling SPOOKED. Few on OTHER side and few far out, but when I go to back I find the SUMP OUTLET stimulates the phosphorescence. Later Juan Carlos says there are THREE kinds of bioluminescence, some an INCH in size. Read directions and put the controls up to MAXIMUM light, but haven't played it yet. In about 9:30 and crawl into bed, but up again at 11 when the ship starts up, to pee, and decide to use HER john, since I decide the little irritating noise comes from her CLOSET, moving a hanger, AND I'd stumbled into the TOES of the guy on one side of the long table. Don't quite shut the door and the ship gives a lurch and the door SLAMS shut, bringing J Marie out of a sleep with a pinwheel arm to each door. Off to sleep and up at 6:15.

Sunday, October 27: Find her up already, and she and Michael are reading by themselves in the lounge. I write some at 6:50AM: Immense dream of inventive man whose car was wrecked when he parked it at the corner on a hill and it slid backward into an intersection where it was demolished by a truck. It was his work area, and I retrieved two objects, one of which I forget, the other was a tiny rubber-plastic toy that loped and leapt and crept forward at random moments, and I turned it over to find plastic cage within cage, separating little lips like labia to reveal inner workings that contributed to its varying gait. I felt privileged to meet and help him. To summarize 10/27 so far: we're eating by 6:50 off Tower, and Juan Carlos says we can go in EARLY, like 7:30. Do so and beat everyone there. To end of short lavatrail and back to beach at 9:45, saying some can return to boat and others can swim or snorkel. I do one side and then they decide to return, almost forgetting me at 10:30, and I shower and hang stuff out and chase boobies off bowsprit and shoot Michael and Juan Carlos about to skindive, and pulling up anchor, and get beer and write this at 11:30. Breakfast was orange juice, melon pieces (the FRUIT salad last night was great, though the "steak" was tough, but the french fries were good), and PANCAKES, quite good. Out, as noted, BEFORE 8, recording date and time on my video for the first time, and practically ignore seals on beach and marine iguanas on path, but nesting swallow-tail gulls, frigatebirds, and red-footed boobies are irresistible. CLUTCHES of black marine iguanas on far rocks and LOTS of seabirds wheeling off the cliffs. Back at 10 and start snorkeling, but we're quickly back to ship. I try videotaping Michael skindiving but am content with Juan Carlos's body. I keep writing after showering and hanging out clothes to dry, and lunch is at 12 of fried chicken, good heart of palm salad at the start, and pea and carrot salad, and I drink a beer (they have an honor system that I sometimes honor) and two cokes, quite full, and Michael comes back having seen a ray, a school of large fish, and a sea turtle---ah, as we pangaed out this morning we saw a PAIR of turtles we probably interrupted copulating! And now at 1:50 both Eric and Dick and Mary are napping, J Marie and Delores are sitting on the floor doing camelback humps and stretches, Kali just gives up to nap, and I'm feeling stuporous myself. Caught up to date NOW, on this EIGHTH day of trip, almost 1/3 through, as well as almost HALF through the ship. On 33rd page, about three per day! Lie down for rest at 1, seeming to need it, and at 2:30 they try starting engines to go to Prince's Stairway, and FINALLY succeed (as I do lots of lightwork) at 2:50! Up to take Motrin, pee, and change from shorts to long pants for afternoon's hike. Off on the panga at 3:10 to see the Reina Silvia's boat cruising the cliffsides, so we diagonal across the bay directly to Prince Phillip's stairs, just a cleft in the cliffrock with a mooring post at the base. Relatively easy 70-foot climb to arid plateau-top covered with nesting masked boobies with frigatebirds thrown in, with an occasional iguana to delight Delores. Through thickets of desert branches---last El Nino was nine years ago, so a big one is due soon and this, the end of the dry season, particularly dry---to see nests in trees and on ground with even a NEWLY hatched chick with no feathers yet, up to almost flying juveniles. Lava rocks underfoot like an ill-made jigsaw puzzle. No owls. No other groups until the VERY end, when they're blocked by our return over a narrow bridge connecting two clefts. I'm out ahead, wandering slowly, taking in the desolation, existentially wondering about my presence, rather disappointed not to see LOTS of the 700,000 pairs present, but the panga trip back with lots of birds on the cliff from 5-5:45 was glorious with cactus, tiny trees, pelicans, lots of waterbirds and even a few land birds, and back to play some rummy, dinner of beef stew with cling peaches for dessert, and watch the first hour of Alice's Antarctic tape, that I brought, before everyone falls asleep about 9PM.

Monday, October 28: Wake at 5:15 to pee, having wakened previously with almost-strong wave-slaps. Up at 6:40 to write to now at 6:55 and French toast is served alongside watermelon after orange juice, with hot water provided for tea. Second order of French toast goes down easily, and Juan Carlos suggests and Delores mandates we sail to Black Turtle Cove FIRST, since there's no sun on the North Seymour dry landing. It takes an hour, and of course as we start up, the sun comes out on our landing beach left behind. I get up onto very TIP of bowsprit and get to see a sea turtle and a huge manta ray bounding away from the ship. Sail from 7:45-8:30, and everyone's in the panga after I put on LONG sleeved shirt for first time (put on the sweatshirt for the AM breeze), putting sunscreen only on face and hands. Put shoes on but others are barefoot or in sea booties. My going LAST means I have a FRONT seat until Eric legs into the bow as we enter the harbor at 8:45. I miss all the golden rays and eagle rays, but get lots of mating turtles and white-tipped sharks. Red mangrove all over, Sally Lightfoots, and one sea iguana. Lava herons and pelicans lodge on cactus and mangrove. Another boat behind us in the outer bay, but we have the inner coves to ourselves, when we're not chasing Dick's camera-top and then BOTTOM cameracase overboard, dodging mangrove arms, one of which seems to hit J Marie in the pregnant stomach! Lots of camera talk and about all I say is "There's a turtle." Three-four mating pairs, some with three or four in a row, but top one is "only masturbating himself," as Juan Carlos says with obvious relish. He chatted with me on the bowsprit about my NYC life, and his mother owns a Galapagos travel agency and operates a hotel/SAETA laundry franchise he'd like to expand. But in Quito. He's coming to the States in January, but I don't rise to the bait. Seeing the turtle reminds me of the one I saw yesterday on the way to the steps. We stay out til 10:45, just over two hours, getting very hot, and by 11:25 I've had two Cokes, four chocolate-chip cookies, and three pieces of cheese with crackers. Women talking of laundry, while all joke with Eric's wearing the same shirt every day on the trip so far. Now we're on our way back to where we started this morning. I finish FIVE rolls of TV film, I GUESS starting on last, or sixth. By 12 lunch I find I have SEVEN rolls of 12 hours, having finished seven hours already. After lunch I check through first three to find I've gotten them RIGHT, and at 2:15 everyone starts getting ready and I dash through to be last AGAIN on boat at 2:30. Another rocky landing that everyone negotiates safely, and we're into an almost deserted blue-footed booby hatchery, only a few adults and juveniles left. VERY narrow path, and by the time we get to the frigatebirds, Juan Carlos's constant comment is about staying on the paths. There are a few full-bellowsed males, but mostly distant and behind branches, and I must constantly "push" my lens to focus on the BIRD and not the BRANCHES. Delores gets chewed out: "You've been here before, you should know better," to which she clearly manipulatively says, "I didn't NOTICE." Hear amplified announcements for the 100-150 passengers on the Santa Cruz, where the passengers are divided into groups for zodiacs and seatings: Albatrosses, Boobies, Cormorants, Dolphins, Egrets, and Flamingos. One group AHEAD of us, speaking German, had an inquisitive college-age fellow and his girlfriend, but he really LOOKED at me. Out to beach as it begins to be loaded with at least four groups of 15 from the Santa Cruz. News of an old Frenchman from the Nortada who's in a local hospital dying of a heart attack. Over a HUNDRED marine iguanas singly and in groups on beach, with sealions, birds, and warblers and finches, and iceplants. I get ENTHRALLED with a school of rays being caught by the breakers, and the fact that sealions actually SURF through the transparent combers, but so rarely that they're almost impossible to photograph. Just when I'd KNOWN I had to CUT down, I take over 45 minutes today, mostly on empty BREAKERS. Toward sunset, seals come out to greet their pups, MORE rays, more birds, and delay return to LAST panga at 6:05, after sunset between Daphnes, my battery expiring (with exposure experiments) as the light dies. It's cooler, and we both (Juan Carlos and I) have to pee. Back to wash, look at a pre-made TV tape on the video that WORKS from the START, and during the beer at dinner I get TIRED, hardly staying awake during preparation for tomorrow, brush teeth, and fall into bed above the already-asleep J Marie at 8:50PM! RIGHT to sleep!

Tuesday, October 29: Wake at 1:50 to pee, then at 5:50 to lie awake til J Marie goes to the john at 6:10 and I'm up and writing by 6:35, breakfast at 6:50. Finish bacon and eggs (and too-sweet passion fruit juice) at 7:10, everyone still gabbing. Delores's accent GETting on my NER-VES. Interesting New York Review of Books dated October 24 on Ballard's "Kindness of Women" (meaning SEX), and at 7:40 catch up and prepare for landing. Pack and ready---and Juan Carlos wants our TAME tickets NOW! Board panga at 8:25AM. Smooth ride across to Daphne Mejor, but the tide's OUT and I just CAN'T find the second foothold on the sheer rockface of the landing. Finally stretch out and OOMPH my way up, and the rest is easy. Not many birds along the way, but there are boobies on eggs and chicks RIGHT on the foot-wide path, a great Tropicbird (THIS is what was on the nest in the cleft next to the blowhole!) in its cubby hole, and only ONE shot of a distant one flying inside the caldera and one QUICK closeup in the air on the way back. To the rim after Dick falls and scratches his lower leg AGAIN. Juan Carlos gives the news that the Nortada heart attack was to a 48-year-old CREW member! Three of us older than THAT; Dick's birthyear is 1929 in his book on the Taruhumara Indians, whose index I critique. Lots of dead birds and two puffed frigatebirds in the caldera, plus two egrets later. The boat WAS to have refueled in Baltra, but the round-trip meant the boat would have returned at 1:30, so we get back down at 10:20 and return to the ship to sail to Baltra by 11, refuel, and HOPE to leave early enough to get to Bartolome by 2PM, early enough for two landings and swimming with the penguins! Quasar Nautica say they didn't even know J Marie was PREGNANT, and she certainly CAN'T climb Alcedo, so I'm the last AGAIN of us five, only Kali near, at 43, to my age, Delores and Michael in mid-thirties, and Eric "still" 25! Keep catching Eric "regarding" me, probably wondering what he can GET out of me, since he seems SO much an opportunist. He's now disgusted we're not doing anything, still loading fuel at 11:30, and Juan Carlos said he had to get permission even to walk on the BEACH, since Baltra looks SO militarily commercial. Film it anyway, just to "touch" it, since I feel they'll plead SPEED not to let us go ashore. Looking forward to Bartolome to extract me from the "wish the trip were over so we can get ON with it" feeling that's starting to show its ugly head. Delores walked past 6-7 times with laundry to dry on rail, keeping the clothespins full. Now 11:35 and we seem to be lining up for fuel? J Marie seems determined (since only we two sit around dining tables while the Spanish tapes blare from loudspeakers) to "entertain" me with talk, since everyone else is on deck. NOT ashore; I watch fueling (screwdriver jams too-wide hose into hole), and I actually READ. Lunch 1:10-1:35, take mosquito pill, pile togs into snorkel-basket, and ready for long afternoon. 2:15 SMOKE pours out of kitchen. Engine stops. Cooling system failed. I'm in the bunk 2:20-4:20. SAIL offshore Bartolome by 5:30. Sunset at 5:52, photoed. THEY play cards and I DON'T, because they don't ASK me! Pot roast dinner and in rice I get GLASS and don't finish that OR poor Ecuador corn and cheese. Finish Antarctic video, Southern Comfort on canned strawberries good. Everyone to bed at 8:40: up tomorrow for coffee, 7AM landing, breakfast, 9:30 landing, lunch, two MORE landings! BUSY!

Wednesday, October 30: Up at 1:40 to pee, then at 5:30 to lay til 5:45, then to my bathroom to shit the good shit and dress in jeans and heavy socks and up with camera on deck for sunrise at 5:55. Clouds, wind, and gray. Record at 6:04AM. Toast and tea and coffee are out at 6:15, and I have four or five slices with butter, guava marmalade, and one drippy cherry honey. Three cups of tea and pee TWICE. Panga boards at 6:45, Delores and Michael last at 6:50, land at 7, and climb quickly past pioneer plants and lava tubes and aa and pahoehoe lavas and cinder cones and iron-rich colored rocks. Up scree, then sand, then log stairs, then actual plank stairway. Good view from top, two lighthouses, and photos without sun. Lots of tourist ships (ALL ships are tourist ships, even Tui de Roy's chartered ship for Malcolm Forbes was a tourist ship). Down quickly and into panga at 7:50 for slow ride along rocks and cliffs for crabs, marine iguanas, lava herons, a blue heron, and one standing and two swimming penguins, to which I devote LOTS of film. Cool morning warms up a bit to take jacket off, and we're back to ship at 8:30 for toasted cheese sandwiches and orange juice followed by apricot juice, and Dick actually tries and approves of the jelly on toasted cheese, telling me HIS favorite sandwich: peanut butter and jelly, closed-faced, dipped into egg and fried like French toast. Have to try it. Catch up with this at 9:05AM, ready for a two-hour ride to Rabida, being told that Alcedo is TOMORROW! My foot is better, but by no means perfect. Hard day coming tomorrow. Put on bathing suit, listen to talk, sit outside for a bit, play solitaire, then we're there by 11:35. Check stuff in snorkel basket and put on socks to stand in sun outside as we approach Rabida. Along shore in panga and see one penguin, but not any more. Land at 11:45 at far side and walk past salt lagoon with sealion bachelors, a monster beachking, and a few females with nurslings. Pelicans nesting, but sealions drove flamingos away. Green iguanas on rocks, some dead pelicans in nests, and rocks mark end of beach. Back to OTHER side to snorkel ONLY along rocks, NOT along beach or be attacked by male sealions. (Eric said one swam toward him and opened his mouth just as he dove beneath Eric.) VERY clear water and sun catches blue-green GLINT in eyes of black wrasse. Spectacular! Many pairs of male/female parrotfish, the angelfish herding the brown-striped surgeonfish, the unidentified rose-bottomed brown fish, a number of zippy sealions from a CAVE under the rocks. Eric points out a deadly Spiny Rockfish, and the seafloor is CARPETED with schools of brown-striped surgeons. Only marine iguanas I see are on rocks. Swim WAY around for half an hour and back AGAINST current, fighting cramps in lower calves. Delores has her period and isn't swimming (or eating lunch) at all. Back last, in time to see a juvenile Galapagos hawk after its mother flew away and before Eric chased the juvenile away by getting too close and spooking it. Back to ship at 2 for waiting bonito and rice appetizer and tomato, potato and DARK fish (tuna?) with great platter of cut fruit: apple, tangerine, and grapefruit. Finish at 2:30, having hung snorkel clothes to dry and rinsed off with fresh hose water before SECOND snorkel at St. James Bay, said to be as clear, around 4PM. GREAT snorkel and walk to 6:05, back to boat for GREAT shower and dinner 6:45-7:15 and THEN hassle with packing---I finally take Michael's backpack--- which lasts til 9:30! AND we're to be up at 5AM!!

Thursday, October 31: Wake at 4:50, fruit and tea and tomatoes and cheese for breakfast. Last minute fusses get us into boat at 5:40AM, luggage over first, and by the time I start up, last, having Juan Carlos redo my sleeping bag WITH the extenders, and they're ALL ahead of me. Juan Carlos waits for me, I say he can go ahead, others get to top in three hours, I'm last before Michael at 10:40AM, in four hours and 40 minutes, "Faster than Barry Boyce." Take SOME video, but mostly agony, agony, agony, with my 35 pounds, though Michael has almost TWICE that with about 60 pounds! I leave water at base of hill: fuck 'em! Eric making BEAST of himself. Then I feel WORSE going to the "next camp," up and down four or five exhausting times; feel AWFUL! Put stuff down about 1PM and wander til 4PM along rim for garua wind and tortoises. Back to set up MY space by 4:45, no one BACK yet. Halos around sunset are fetching, but they joke at me for leaving water behind, so I have to scrounge for it, feeling like a thief. Dinner reasonably filling, and it doesn't get cold, thankfully, after the sun sets, though the wind leaves enough water to make EVERYTHING wet. I start fully clothed, finally taking off piece by piece until I'm almost in my underwear, and gratefully the sky is clear early on, so I can gaze up at the stars in the hopes of falling asleep, which I grimly know I probably won't do with any ease.

Friday, November 1: Up at 12:15, 1:20, 2:05, 3:40, 4:15, 5:40, and start back after breakfast at 6:50, getting to FIRST camp at 8, bottom of scree at 8:30, and onto ship at 11:45 after 2,100+ paces along the final stages of the beach. Lunch at 12:30 after I shower, then to flightless cormorant Gutheral (?) Point for blue heron and aa lava from 1:30-2, nap from 2 to 3:45, to James Bay GREAT to 6. Dinner of shrimp and noodles, with orientation at 7 for tomorrow, and fix EVERYTHING, wash white pants, take sleeping pills, and to bed at 8:05PM! Asleep QUITE quickly!

Saturday, November 2: Heard motor start, some say VERY late, at midnight, and blessed oblivion til 5:05AM! NINE HOURS SLEEP! Leave and pee in MY room, pants still damp from "washing" last night, and out at 5:30 before sunrise to see NO whales as we pass the northwest corner of my trip. Sunrise almost cloudless at 5:50, reset my TIME which had been incorrect on the camcorder, and chat with J Marie as we sight Roca Redonda. Captain says we cross equator in half an hour, but do so closer to 7:15AM. Breakfast at 6:45, cereal and toast and pineapple and tea. Take pills, photo a bit, then dress in long sleeves and booties and sit on the bowsprit until the wind threatens to whip off my cap. Back to change into bathing trunks and damp white pants (almost completely dry after I wear them about ten minutes) and take a mosquito pill against flies at Punta Espinosa on Fernandina this morning (hope!) and get this out at 8AM, as boat rocks furiously and things bang around in cabin and halls, retrieve my sunscreen from the shelf of the upper cabin, be sure to take my LAST tape, since I'm within five minutes of end of tape 6, next to last, and finish this to date by 8:10AM, and Delores is taking sand from under Michael's moleskin---I'd better check that too! She DOESN'T look under mine, just says it's sticking. I'd taken a Bonine at 5:30, for possibly rough passage around cape, but Juan Carlos says it's smoother than usual. Now 8:15, about an hour to landing, and I'm counting: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, only ONE full day afloat left. Hotel Galapagos will see me washing and hanging out clothes to dry! Wonders! The day after tomorrow! Again, that feeling of "enough" of the ship, but at James Bay last night it was total magic, possibly the best part of the trip: clouds revealing and concealing sunset, lots of birds in the skies, iguanas and seals and pelicans on horizon-rocks, great tide pools with anemones and snails and 6-7 sizes of crabs, even two warring schools of 3-4 inch fish tumbling in one area, roiling the surface, then glinting in the sun as they turn on their sides to feed, play, or kill. Quiet surf outside of cataracts into and out of connecting thirty-foot deep grottos gouged in the aa lava, relieved by slick ropy coils of pahoehoe. The dance of the red and the black crabs, the rings of tiny white snails at various tidal levels, the linear "sandstone" (still lava) with waves from uplift, the bubbles and cracks and undulations and stone-churned cauldrons in the shore; the single, pair-with- nose-nestled-in-groin, and cozy-groups of 3-8 iguanas I could easily wander through for hours, and the others seem tranquil too, though Juan Carlos has to show off by clapping to make a young sealion leap into the air, after he'd pulled up a rock to reveal the slimy worms, anemones, sea slugs, crabs, and one large pencil sea urchin. Talking of snorkeling today, what to wear, and even the indomitable Delores is complaining about her sore toes, but we conclude it's not arthritis. Boat rocks harder, Fernandina large outside the window. At 8:35 decide to get sunscreened for the landing, BUT everyone starts shouting "Dolphins!" and take distant photos of Spinner Dolphins, white on bottom, and then there are close WHALES, maybe sei whales, two of them, and Juan Carlos hollers for the panga, and Michael, J Marie, Eric and Kali go out to see, but I stay on bowsprit and see they don't see MUCH, from 8:45-9:25, and Michael says, "No closer view than from the ship; Juan Carlos jumped in and chased it away!" NOW sunscreen and we're still Fernandina bound at 10:05AM. Funny red spots on TOP of right foot, left foot still sore. Delores and Eric talking of what to do while we're in the Hotel Galapagos. Others read, I'm really glad it's getting to END. Off at 10:40 for dry landing that becomes wet when we find the tide higher than we thought. Iguanas, iguanas, and more iguanas. Dark from sea, light from sun, reddish, greenish, yellowish, fatter and longer than ever. Lots of photos, and then to tide pools and leave lava walk for afternoon, so back to bays to snorkel, getting wave-washed trying to find an exit to the rock-aisles, and lots of FISH, FOOD fish, and three seals at end play and play and PLAY with me. Finally out about 1:50, long-rocky slow-surgey ride back to ship for 2PM lunch of chicken, cactus ricecake, potato "pancake" one inch thick (like rosti, later!), and green bean and bacon salad. Lots of Coca-Cola. Talk is of immediate landing and at 2:40 we're back ashore, this time to walk an HOUR over the pahoehoe to its boundary with the aa lava, incredible ropy disks, plates, churns, arenas, chasms, amphitheaters and stairways. At last back to beach and I get enthralled with tidepool (after Juan Carlos leads us back to old pier, inhabited by three poor half-blind seals from fly-eye infection: VERY sad). Back to pool at 4:30 and sit til 6 while others go to other beach and some return to ship. I'm in heaven: starting with five cavorting seals, 100 predatory Sally Lightfoot crabs, an incredibly tame lava heron six inches from my foot, as was a Sally Lightfoot crab, and loads of iguanas swimming, eating, running, and snorting salt. Then the fish, crabs, and snails in the water, more seals, some WANTING something from me, made more poignant by the fact one is blind in one eye! And a black and white-topped bird that Juan Carlos thought might be a Wandering Tattler, but the drawing doesn't look like the evenly black and white checkerboard wingtops. Pelicans flying in echelon, boobies in clumps, others in swooping files. Magical moments, just sitting watching. But the iguanas are SNORTING for territory, the crabs EAT each other, the fish ATTACK, and the seal is half-blind. IS the world savage and evil? Are humans, as BAD as they are, the only moralists? Time to think may not be all to the good. Back at 6:10 to find EVERYONE at the table: four reading books, three writing journals, two staring into space, so I stop staring and get my journal out too, to 6:40, when dinner's about ready. Two beers down already and will probably end with Southern Comfort---about half a bottle left, and got to finish! Moody and misty and romantic---what a PLACE! What a day! What moleskin on my blisters! Dinner soup served at 6:40. Bed at 8:40, again with sleeping pills---and two aspirin as antiinflammatory medicine for my foot, as recommended by Delores, since Delores finished all her Motrin on her period.

Sunday, November 3: Wake at 4:40 when engines start, doze til 5:40, no sunrise expected, but get dressed and watch captain steering from back lounge with his foot. Breakfast at 7 and dressed for wet landing at 7:30. [Talk with Dick about self-publishing: $2000 for 1000 copies of 500-page indexing handbook, for "rule of thumb" selling price of $15.95. Bookstores take 40%, distributor takes 15%. Design FOR self-publishers. Pagemaker for IBM AND MAC has Indexing. Like Lutz's book. Compuserve about $15/month and WORTH it to send book to and from Dick and J Marie. Publish under MY imprint---NO marketing. 200-page novel, 500 copies, approximately $1050; 1000 approximately $1300. Advertizing USUALLY about $1/copy---$500,000 for 500,000 copies. He suggests I read EITHER Dan Poynter's "Self-Publishing Manual", OR "The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing" by Tom and Marilyn Rose, by far the best of THIRTY of these.] Load at 7:45 and land in HUGE swells at 8AM, scrabbling over HUGE lava chunks between beaches, crossing HUGE marine iguanas, then inland past LOWER-lying corals at BEACH to HIGHER (about twenty feet) white coral brains. Get "lost" looking for land iguanas and Eric FINDS one and I photo it and show it to Delores later. Hot, hot walk and TIRED back over beach at 12, leaving 12:15 EXHAUSTED. Drink LOTS of Coke and start lunch, then nap 1-2:30, looking at Isabela passing outside portholes. Board panga for Elizabeth Bay panga ride for sea turtles, unseen hawksbills and rays, just a few iguanas, herons, and lots of mangrove, then at 5:30 a WEARY ride back to "Bird Rock" for PENGUINS and boobies and a SECOND trip with Juan Carlos and Eric at sunset. I also shot ship and passengers and kitchen and Almir. Eat at 6:30; they're running out of food, TINY pieces of chicken and LOTS of rice, and wait for tomorrow: ten hours to Puerto Villamil, lunch at 12 on ship. Five hours to Puerto Ayora, dinner on ship, then leave. See last of Delores and Michael's slides on THEIR iguanas and Antarctica's albatrosses, and at 7:45 I prepare to wash teeth, take a Bonine, and go to BED. Also got BOOK information, above, and exchanged business cards. I'm to send J Marie xerox of "nonmounted" instructions. Sit out back for awhile, thinking, but there are no stars and NO lights and I begin to think I should have worried about the ship NOW! How experienced ARE these sailors? WHO relieves the Captain during a ten-hour night cruise---EVERYONE?? ARE there lighthouses at ALL the points? Where are the uncharted rocks? We started cruising at 7PM, should be there, in ten hours, at 5AM. Wanna bet?

Monday, November 4: Wake at 10:30PM, 12:15, 2:30, and buffeting is pretty bad but not the WORST. Wake at last at 5:10 after CRAZY dream (see below), and we're nowhere NEAR land. Get up at 5:35 and shit humongously and find J Marie slept in STEERING cabin: "I didn't displace ANYONE because they were ALL up steering all night," And at 5:50 she asks Captain when we arrive, and he says "Ten minutes," and when I put on shoes for purchase and protection on deck wet and slippery from FIRST rain of trip, I see PALM trees on far left, which must be those they imported to give Villamil, a village of 600-700, the "most beautiful look of any town of the four in the Galapagos," though the work on the airport THERE has stopped "for various factional reasons." Now that I write this at 5:57AM, everyone's looking for rocks at the entrance to the harbor. Now the dream: a combination of Susan McMahon and Delores Fernandez (they're close ANYWAY, I should recall) is with me on a trip to what may be Paris. We stay in what HAD been an inexpensive hotel for which I BELIEVE I've reserved for $40 per night, but it LOOKS redone and VERY elegant and she's worried it'll be too expensive. PREVIOUS bit had me riding on TOP of a two-passenger elevator going up and down in an office building in which I wanted to reach floor 8, but kept getting on EXPRESS elevator that went to a fashion photographer's penthouse on 28. At the hotel I ASK about a famous restaurant and get TAXIED to it: it too is VERY elegantly redone, and a "My Fair Lady" type production number has elegant couples in evening clothes promenading down grand staircases to the "Luxury Dining Room" to symphonic strings, which shifts to a jazzier sound as the LOWER passengers descend on an ESCALATOR to a cafeteria that's STILL trying to be very elegant. At the entrance to a shop I give an odd SPASM of a jerk and knock over an amethyst crystal with a barnacle (from the top of the turtle yesterday) on a wand, breaking it into three pieces. I'm aghast, but say it was an ACCIDENT as the doorman holds up the three pieces to me REPEATEDLY, and I say, "Well, what can I DO, REPAIR it?" Jerk about suddenly waiting on line, and again in a lobby, and these elegant old women look at me with withering disdain. When I waken, tossed in bed by the boat's rocking, I realize my DREAM body is experiencing the shocks my PHYSICAL body are undergoing---not a FIRST (like feeling cold when I'm cold, having to pee when I have to pee), but surely the most DRASTIC. Ship has now STOPPED at 6:05 and I go back up on deck. Stops raining for a bit: ships are anchored way OUT from town, so it's a dry landing from the PANGA. I collect my rain-damp snorkeling clothing and snorkel and mask, put things out to dry, and fill my wallet for tips and beer and excursion to Villamil. Everyone's up but Dick for early breakfast-start at 6:25. Breakfast OVER at 6:55, just after Dick arrives, and everyone in cabins 3 and 4 complains of the NOISE, the "stinkiness" of cabin 5, and the bounciness of cabins 1 and 2. I guess I pretty much lucked out. Everyone torpid after eating, except Mary bouncing about, asking the Captain, "Was it hard for you last night?" "No," simple response. Sun tries to break through, but there are DARK clouds in the east. "It's a pretty little village, like a postcard," she crows. 7AM: I'll be off this ship in twelve hours, after dinner. Another phase of the trip over---where's the NEXT "boat on water" piracy threat? Juan Carlos, exiting to talk to Captain, sits momentarily ABOVE him on railing, his feet on the same level as the Captain's seat, and I see him in this pose OFTEN: on the top of a rock, STANDING on the bowsprit rail looking for whales, STANDING in the panga, front and back---his GREAT ALTITUDE! Did I mention that Juan Carlos gave me the great (outdated) Quasar Nautica GUIDEBOOK last night? Best "get" of trip! Start packing, a good thing because my Park Entrance Tax paper is buried in my other papers, found at 7:40AM. Off at 7:45 and land at "picturesque" Villamil at 8, but it's embarrassingly poor to photo (Blue Whale is new ITALIAN hotel to RIGHT of beach for 3500 sucres per night and 1500 sucres for food!) (with hot showers and hot TUBS!). Two dreary flamingos in dreary pool and it's rumored it's "one mile" to 1915-1918 convict-built stonewall 300 meters long and 10 meters thick at the base. It's 10 KILOMETERS round trip! Leave for there 8:45, arrive and climb by 10:15, and EXHAUSTED back along mangrove, woods, beach track by 11:50, and back to ship for colorful lunch at 12:05. I photo it, have a liter of Coke, and conk out at 12:30 as I almost complete packing and lie down. Lie and then go to photograph from porthole, and think, and up at 5:35 to find we're not even there by 6PM! Finish ALL packing, and find Videocam instructions on dining table! Write this to 6PM, sweating like crazy but "fresh" in never-worn Van Gogh Movers teeshirt. How HUMID it is; RAINED all day on and off, NOT in Villamil, thank God. No one seems to know how this will END! Everyone's in upper cabin, waiting, and at 5:45 Captain says, "Fifteen minutes." Dark closes in and we can't see ANYTHING. Enter harbor at 6:30, but no one answers radio calls from Captain or Juan Carlos. Crew mutters and works at anchor. Juan Carlos says he'll take "all baggage" to hotel and be sure to check Delores into the biggest room. COOL outside, enough for jacket. I bring up shoulder bag, loaded with everything, and write this by 6:45. Kali and Eric going home Saturday. Shoes on, this written, anchor down, ship rocking, all due in for pizza as Delores's treat (Recall Mary's comment on Michael's statement: "As long as she brings in the money," and her "I was determined to get a job that brings in at least a quarter of a million a year.") At last Kali goes below to get a pair of socks! Boat rocks to a halt and people talk of trivia. LAST panga ride---loaded with luggage and in the dark! Juan Carlos is 26 years old, J Marie "older," Mary is a few years older than Dick, so she's oldest. They're now totalling our BAR bills, at 7:07, and Juan Carlos STILL can't raise the office or the hotel! Total inane madness, as we rock in Puerto Ayora swells. My beer bill is 21 beers plus $10 teeshirt, but they SAY they're missing three CASES of beer, or 72 bottles! I accept an extra five, making 26, practically two per day, ridiculous. Juan Carlos keeps calling HOGA, HOGA for Hotel Galapagos, and no answer! It was $10 per WEEK for soft drinks, so it's $15 for our stay, for a total of $51 bar bill. Off at 7:15, through DARK bay and DARK streets to "Las 4 Lanternas" for "4 Lanterns" pizza and two bottles of wine for $19 and $18! I give $20 toward bill, and I don't think anyone else paid anything else. I gave $50 to Captain for him and the crew, and slipped Juan Carlos $50 at the table, as directed by the groundrules. To Hotel Galapagos at 9:20PM. Rules: 1) electricity only on from 6-7AM to midnight, 2) spiders are endemic and safe, 3) desalinated water for cleaning and cooking is perfectly safe, 4) laundry is outside my room: no machines, all by hand, on stones; fill out laundry slip; take in morning, it's washed and dried and put on a line, take it off "if climate permits, there'll be no water, only sun." 5) bar and soft drinks absolutely self-service honor system. The good water comes from the valve in the FAR corner of the bar; 6) keys always in office, 7) meals: check what you want: breakfast at 7:30, lunch at noon, dinner at 7PM. Wednesday we get a chartered bus to the highlands, Tuesday do we want to charter a boat? Juan Carlos Naranjo gives his address to Michael and Delores. End orientation at 9:40PM. Into room at 9:45, GREAT! Room is listed at $38, breakfast at $5.50, lunch at $6.50, and dinner at $10, plus 10% tax and 10% service = $72 per day! I'm EXHAUSTED and RIGHT to bed. RIGHT away, my house spider in the bathroom is three inches across legs. One below front door is only one inch. Swell. ALL clothes off but right sock for moleskin, earplugs in, lights off 9:55. Up again to take RIGHT sock off---my FEET REALLY feel in BAD shape!

Tuesday, November 5: Wake at 6:15, room bright with light, birds calling, ocean surf audible, and funny drips that may be rain or someone's showering. Dream: I'm watching an elaborate opera with viewers on enormous vertical walls of seats that move up and down. It's very modern music, and some predict it'll be great, some that it'll be awful, and some say it's a kind of elaborate hoax or ruse just to get publicity for author or composer or the Arts Center that's putting it on. Then there's a mysterious segment in which a painting or manuscript is completed or verified by superimposing two pieces and getting a photographic negative of the solution, in tripartite sections. More to it, and it seemed wonderful and rich when I woke in the dark, but had no energy to transcribe it then. What a WONDERFUL hotel to WAKE in! Unpack and separate MORE than $10 in laundry out and shower and curse Kali for singing "Star-Spangled Banner" in the shower next door. Delores said that our Captain was the captain of the Solitude when it sank, and Juan Carlos was the guide on the Merak when it smashed into the rocks. Shower and get things away and out to breakfast at 7:30, having to RESERVE my two slices of bacon before the others take them, and have a good talk with Jack Nelson, the owner/iguana. Delores and Michael charter a boat for South Plaza Island for today for $120, first for four since Kali isn't going, then just us three when Eric checks out (and supposedly not for money [though he says he HAS no money], since Michael offers him FREE passage if he wants it. Hm.) I lounge in hammock and boatman comes at 9:03AM. Guide arrives at 9:05, with pickup truck. Delores, of course, then has to go to the john! To boat at 9:35, to island by 11:45, onto beach, photo; I return to boat at 12:30 for lunch, back at 12:45, around trail, lots of birds, seals, iguanas, and Michael gets "light-headed" at 3:30 and we're back on board at 3:45 for LONG ride, tranquil and physically rocky, back to bay at 6:15 and hotel at 6:35 by "carro" paid by Michael with whom I must square. To room at 6:45 to wash and put things away, to dinner at 7 to fruit with whiskey. Buy $14 AWFUL red wine for Michael and me and dine from 7:15 to 7:45, when I'm DYING to sleep---odd chocolate dessert. To bed at 7:55! Wake at 11:25 with odd dream, pee, brush imaginary spider from left ankle, and open day-bag to find that water from the boat made this BOOK wet! Hope not MUCH is lost and it DRIES OK! (and it did, perfectly preserved!) Write day til 11:30 and then dream, odd since BOTH main characters are dead: Bruce Lieber is somehow John Lennon's BROTHER, and they're staying upstairs from us (Mom, Rita, and I in about 1957, though Rita isn't 10 but about 14), and I've wanted to get Rita a DATE with John Lennon through Bruce Lieber, for her birthday, which is now LONG past. I think I've had a dream LIKE this before, because there's a FAMILIAR sense of "If I can just do THIS, THEN I can ask Bruce Lieber for a date with John Lennon for Rita." GET "this" done this time, but I have something ELSE to do, but get the angry report from Mom that Rita's CRYING about it, and I'd better do SOMETHING FAST. I feel TERRIBLY guilty and start upstairs to FIND Bruce Lieber when I wake up.

Wednesday, November 6: Wake at 5:50, MUST have been tired, and laze til 6:45, put things away, shower, and get to breakfast of eggs and bologna and Delores tries to toast bread, incinerating a slice she can't get out in order to toast ANOTHER slice for herself. I stay outside from 7:50 to 8:50, watching waves and thinking of my last full day in the Galapagos. Lots of tiny marine iguanas in front of hotel. Back to restaurant to glance through Tanaka's book from 1971, and on the bus it turns out he's ARRIVING today. Also look at Salwen's better Galapagos book. To room for jacket and sunscreen and bus is BOARDING at 9:35, early! Up to three HUGE holes of lava collapse, then to SAME farm (see notes in back of "Wild Seed": Garrapata: bird that eats ticks off cattle, but ALSO (they think) eats FINCHES, so FARMERS want them SAVED for cattle and ECOLOGISTS want to get RID of them. They're SCALESIA trees, not EScalasia. It's BABACO fruit. 10/29, 2:15PM: smoke and engine off! Mary's tears are "lantern flowers." Light yellow Ecuadorean fruit juice is naranjillo. We went twice to Steve Divine's farm in the highlands. The "deadly" fish was a scorpionfish. The blossoms the iguanas like so much are muyuyo. The red candle-flowers are Guyavillo. For our rental, my share of the boat was $100, the highlands was $25, and the transfer from the hotel to the plane is $16, for a total of $141. List of books glanced through at Hotel Galapagos: 1) Tanaka, Kojo: Wild Life in Latin America (Japanese), 1971; 2) Salwen, Peter: Galapagos, The Lost Paradise, 1989; 3) National Geographic: Majestic Island Worlds (Galapagos first), 1987; 4) Moore, Tui de Roy: Galapagos, Islands Lost in Time, 1980; 5) Cribb, James: Subtidal Galapagos, 1986; 6) Steadman, David: Galapagos, Discovery on Darwin's Islands,1988(mine,17#Brit); 7) Farb, Nathan: Galapagos (photos), 1981; 8) Rogers, Barbara Radcliffe: Galapagos, 1990; 9) Time-Life Books: Dangerous Sea Creatures, 1976; 10) Earle, Sylvia: Exploring the Deep Frontiers, 1980; 11) Rowell, Galen: Mountain Light, 1986 (only photos, no Galapagos)) from 11:30-2:15, with ALMOST same pictures, except a vaquero herding cows, some horses, and an abruptly-ended turtle-fuck. Back to Lava Tunnel and Delores INSISTS on returning to town to shop, "And I'm HUNGRY." Only later do I recall she's CLAUSTROPHOBIC! Off at 2:20 at tube-entrance, long hot bumpy core I'm DELIGHTED to have TV of, and back out at 2:50 JUST as bus pulls up. Back to "Henri's" in town, "guide's friend," but he only has Rosti Potatoes with eggs or cheese, which I choose with a $2.20 Budweiser. Eat quickly and back to Hotel to get traveler's checks, and walk WAY into Fundacion Charles Darwin for three extra-large (everyone INSISTS) teeshirts for $33, she giving me $17 US in change! Back to hotel, tired, to write this to 4:50, planning to take Southern Comfort over to lounge to look at books. Delores and Michael come in at 5PM and say they're going to dinner! I say, "5PM?" They say, "Yes." So I read til 6:30 (see above list), and manager gives me 1) comment cards for all five of us, 2) asks how we want our bills, and 3) presents ME with break for a) $330 for boat, b) 5 x $25 for Highlands, and c) $80 for five transfers tomorrow. I get out for 4 Lanternas, finding Michael and Delores RETURNING, but they come BACK with me to find I owe $141 of extra-hotel bill, and he gets beer and Delores gets Coke while I get two glasses of wine (marked up from 1500 to 2000 sucres) and Lomo (sirloin) scallopine, not so great, and so-so chocolate dessert, for TOTAL bill of 10,000 sucres, which I pay $10,600 and Michael contributes 500 to even out the tip. I'm GRATEFUL for their JOINING me. Some CUTE guys at next tables, and we leave at 8PM for hotel. Eric comes in and we all talk MORE, and I leave at 8:15 and brush teeth and write this to 8:30, doling out last pills and getting ready for 8AM bus tomorrow, which means packing, paying bills, and breakfast before then. Take a Buspar, just in case. Get to bed, prepared to lightwork, at 8:40PM.

Thursday, November 7: 2:20AM: Frustration dream: I'm riding on a crosstown bus on W. 100th St. in northern Manhattan, when "last stop" is announced. On getting off, I see conductor handing out transfers to Second Avenue, Third Avenue, and Fourth Avenue lines. It occurs to me I could go UP Second Avenue line to do one errand at East 220th Street, so I ask for a transfer. "I'm all out," she says shortly. "But I NEED one," I protest. "I'll go get one," she lies, and leaves. I wait and wait, and complain to local newsstand operator, who can't do anything. Well, maybe I can walk to 121 W. 100th St., where Bernice Cousins HAD been moving OUT, but now I can check on---what WAS it? And in this DOUBLE frustration I wake to pee and take a second Buspar, hoping the light I turned on THREE times will NOT light at 6AM! Better pull plug! 2:35AM, recall SECOND dream fragment: I'm having a VERY late lunch in the IBM cafeteria (like at Henri's, yesterday?) and my "moral supervisor" says, "Remember, you have duty July 4, I have duty December 25, and we have to find someone for January 1. I agree, though puzzled as to what I DO as this is my first time as some sort of supervisory "watchman," and hope I can get off by the 9PM FIREWORKS so I can watch them without shirking my duty. Also, he mentions to Sherryl, he has to know her HOURLY whereabouts! We both think this is rather stringent for a mere TEACHER at IBM, but it seems to be becoming a kind of esoteric, important, SCHOOL. She stumbles, saying, "Well, I was maybe going to see my Mother this weekend, or my brother upstate---," and the dream ends in unresolved problematic frustration. 5:40AM Dream 3: Some guy and I are trying to take a 5-6 year-old boy away from his parents and home to develop into some kind of seer or prophet, but the parents want him home and have taught him to say "Please don't take me away. I want to stay home with my parents." We try toys and tricks and games, but still he refuses. We don't want to try force. We ask anyone we can: how can we best do this? It shifts slightly when I ask some sexy guy, "How can I get someone to think of ONE WORD I want him to say. Call it thought transference." The task seems to be of great difficulty. It shifts again to trying to get some authoritarian WOMEN to approve a PROJECT we want to do, and getting Juan Carlos's advice on how best to do it: bribery, good food, sex with Juan Carlos? Wake and note this THIRD dream and take a third Buspar and shit to 6AM. Back to brood and up reluctantly at 6:25. Don't shower for first "day" in ages (probably will before dinner tonight to get humid smell off body), and put everything into two packs at 7:05. Over to pay hotel bill of $205 in traveler's checks, mad because they don't take credit cards. Look at more books to 7:30, breakfast of flapjacks and wieners til 7:50, and then MAIN manager takes Mastercard and I blurt, "But I already paid in traveler's checks!" And he makes the exchange. Bus WAS to be at 8, but I get my passport and flight tickets back from Eric and note this at 8:10, late. Into bus with Eric and Kali at 8:25, and Michael and Delores join at 8:30, my duffel packed on TOP of the bus! So much for last of Southern Comfort! Start off at 8:30 to airport, Eric and Kali jabbering FOREVER! VERY dusty road, and bumpy, stalled behind bulldozer for bit, Denis (the manager) jabbering. Land at wharf at 9:50, SCHOOLS of grunts. 10:10 onto ferry, over at 10:17, and onto bus at 10:25 on Baltra. Baltra is total ugliness, into barracks-style airport at 10:40. Line for tickets, told "get passport stamp from Galapagos." Line forms at 11:30, but stewardess says, "No boarding for an hour." I stand and read, Delores joins me and talks, we DO start on at 12:30. Then note in notes: this is at start of "Wild Seed:" Get into line with US group at 11:30 as plane taxis in. Delores comes and talks with others and we start boarding at 12:25, getting glorious right window. Michael EXPLODES at Delores for getting no-pack-forward seats and she wheedles him into putting camera bag overhead and sitting next to her in front of me. I set watch ahead to 1:33PM, only 3.5 hours to fly? Off at 1:45, said to be 90 minutes. Some bumps going up and some during flight, and I'm HYPER so I take another Buspar, then two beers with lunch, only 1000 sucres. Awful chicken and veggies and rice, clouds mostly below, except strip of coast, then roads and villages and industrial zones, then CIRCLE Guayaquil and land exactly 90 minutes later, though she says it's only 3:10? Lounge AGAIN CLOSED to shopping. To quote Eric: "Bummer." Announce boarding at 3:45. Board 4:10--great? Move at 4:25, off at 4:30, land at 5. Clouds mostly, nice to land LOCAL, without immigration or x-raying film. Luggage comes quickly, but my duffel has a WET streak across the top that smells of SOUTHERN COMFORT! All but a SIP lost. NOT many clothes VERY wet, thankfully. Delay going to hotel while Delores and Michael and Kali and Eric stop at American Airlines office two blocks from hotel (which office closes at 6PM) to get their tickets all changed to SATURDAY, so I tell Sulaikah I want tours for Saturday through Wednesday and she says I should try at the Metropolitan office near our hotel. To room to find my pants HAVEN'T been done because of the INK stain. I labor and labor with soap, gasping in high air, to get MOST of it off by 7:15, when I dress in AWFUL old dirty white pants and down to meet the four to go to Rincon de Francia for $98 drinks and $50 food that Delores and Michael pay for when they WON'T separate check into three different plastic-paid parts. My cream of mushroom soup tasty (Michael DUMPED pepper into it) but not NEARLY creamy enough; my pate not very rich, and I eat pickles wishing they were gherkins; Kali is allergic to cheese but practically finishes his French onion soup; Delores loves her ravioli; Michael finishes all but the huge pieces of fat of his Tournedos Marchand de Vins; and my Chateaubriand is dry since I'm having NO wine but they graciously open and serve me Guitig mineral water without my asking. Leave at 10:30, EXHAUSTED, but not quite as put out as the French couple next to us: he in PARIS teeshirt and jacket, she in skinny black silk sharing his cigar, rolling their eyes at Delores's INCESSANT LOUD prattle. To bed and INSTANTLY to sleep at 10:50.

Friday, November 8: Wake at 6:05 and lay til 6:50 to make it eight hours. Up to shower, taking the moleskin off and scraping off all the smelly dead skin and putting on a simple bandaid---also taking off the second-toe protector. Put ALL stuff away by 8AM, and AGAIN hassle pants: put them into TWO bags, they'll do one FREE, sorry. Down to non-eating Eric and small-eating Michael for breakfast, me with $6 buffet, and we meet at 8:50 with Kali and Eric to grab cab to Colonial Quito for 600 sucres (I thought, and would have paid, what I thought was 6000 sucres on the meter!) to Plaza del Teatro. Walk short way to San Agustin, across to Santo Domingo, getting San Francisco which I thought was La Compania, then to Museo de Arte Colonial where they leave me and I tour it all and can't video polychromed wood, only the patio, then to another church turned into an Infant's School, down to La Merced, to reconstructing-now Plaza Mejor, Cathedral, and CLOSED La Compania. It's only open in the early morning. Back to Theatre at 11:55, EXHAUSTED, to hotel for 1500 sucres, up to room to collapse. Decide I MUST have lunch, so after watching GOOD TV I'm down, around three blocks, and eat at downstairs Tavelli for 1200 soup (awful vegetable with grease and bones thrown in free), arroz con pollo, GOOD, and papaya juice (I HOPE with good water) at 2:30 for which I pay 1500 she bills me, returning 500 bill I can hardly tip with, so I guess it included tax and tip. Call Delores when I look at the Galapagos Travel sheets and see La Terraza del Tartaro only two blocks from here. She says "Fine for 6PM, since we have to be up at 5AM for flight tomorrow." I'm out to Terraza, up to ninth floor, see side elevator, and down and up to tenth floor to see good menu, but they only open at 7PM. Back to phone Delores and Eric, getting Kali, and it sounds fine with them. To Metropolitan at 3:30, getting $34 Otavalo tour for Saturday but NOTHING for Sunday through Wednesday. ALL FULL! Check at Ecuadoreana and find same news. Back to hotel at 4 to doze til 5, then watch TV to 5:45, having phoned Sulaikah to say "No tours, do YOU have any?" She calls me at 5:50 to say, "Your flight is Sunday; American Airlines is open til 6:30 tonight. Check." I dash out with ticket and itinerary that DOES say Sunday, November 10! I'm SAVED! Back to hotel, ecstatic, and take key down to say I'm here TWO more nights and that's ALL! Meet Eric and tell HIM the joke! Back up, energized, to finish this and my pants return AT LAST looking great. Finish this by 6:45, then dress and down to meet them as planned at 6:50PM. When I unpack pants I think they're $16.56, but a later look proves they're only $1.65! They're waiting for me and Delores PRAISES my white pants! To top at 6:59 and door's still closed, to open at 7:01 and we're seated by the fireplace until 7:10. AWFUL thin cream of mushroom soup worries me, but the REST is all good, my Lomo al Verano excellent and TOO much to finish (my Salteandro drink mostly creme de menthe), and the flaming bananas prepared AT the table are wonderful, topped by a Pinot Undurraga for 12,000, a total of 82,884 that Kali and Eric SHARE with me, disgusting Michael who throws in an extra 5000 sucres tip. Back over crowded Friday night streets, and I zip out of clothes and gulp down pills and put in earplugs for VERY noisy streets, and get to bed feeling STUFFED but pleased at 9:25PM. Can't sleep and don't turn on TV for relief.

Saturday, November 9: (from "Wild Seed" notes): Wake at 4:20, look at watch at 4:55, doze, think, feel tired, and suddenly it's not 5:40 but 6:40! Up and dress and gather stuff and chocolate. Down at 7. Four others from our hotel and we're picked up at 7:20. To three other hotels: Colon, Oro Verde, and Quito, waiting at each, going through the "middle class" northside of Quito, SAYING "We're fifteen minutes late," some Otavalo markets closing at 11. Delays due to road construction. GREY cloud over city, military guards at some rich enclaves or embassies, and stop in Calderon at 8:15 for "Figuras de Masapan," with other stuff, and I feel TOTALLY "tranquilized out." Disgusting tourists outside smoking. I don't feel INTEREST IN, or a PART of, this, KNOWING if I were on a comparable tour in France, Italy, or Germany, I'd be up. Read. Leave at 8:45! 9:35 stop at VERY touristy "Equator Line." Jabber to 9:45. 9:55 stop at Casa de Fernando to piss and eat cheese to---oops, CLOSED, as was El Rancho a minute later! Stop at 10 at Las Cabanas de Napoles. "Did you like it?" asks driver. "Yeah," I snap. What: rolls of bland cow and goat cheese with even more bland biscuits? The sad zoo with two coati-monkey types, birds, and geese? Piss in urinal while women use men's john. Leave at 10:25! Otavalos are Japanese and Jews of Ecuador: All over WORLD! Stop above Otavalo 10:45-10:50. In at 11:05, corner of Sucre and Quito, and I take three circle-vistas, despairing of anything else. Couldn't buy a thing! Faces: old, young, suckling, mad, pleading, happy, handsome, distressed, ethnic, touristic, selling, buying, calculating, aloof, friendly, desperate---impossible to begin to try to capture, and I'm among last to bus at 12:30, wet from rain and sweat, sorry not to have caught "free" music from "Idealism" that I should PAY for it if I record it. Cotacachi main street for leather from 12:50-1:32 (kids singing and selling). Feel just mentally AWFUL! Lunch at pretty (cloudy) Puerto Lago from 1:55-3:40! BEST of three cream of mushroom soups. GOOD shrimp and bacon, and bananas flambe WITHOUT ice cream. Raining ALL THROUGH lunch---this is El Nino for SURE. Road back is long: dramatic sweep over muddy river, built by oil company to get oil out, and I'm just EXHAUSTED. Still gray over the city; would I rather have it sunny and over-hot or cloudy and not much view? To hotel JUST at 6PM, no tip as she averts her face distastefully as I leave bus, and to room feeling exhausted and CHILLED, like I'm coming DOWN with something. Watch TV for a bit, but the RECEPTION goes, and I feel feverish, so I FORGET free drink and dinner and take ten vitamin C pills and a Buspar and sleeping pills at 7:10 and try to sleep. Toss and turn. At 7:40, before I drop off to doze, Sulaikah phones to say she has two BAGS she must take from hotel to airport, so she CAN transfer me for $8! I feel GREAT: if I'm coming down with the flu, cholera, or diarrhea, I'll have someone to TEND me on the way to the airport! Look at watch at 10:30, then at 11:55, hoping it would be at LEAST 2, and then thankfully to sleep after peeing and wake at 4:05 to record three dreams to 4:40 (below), when I can RIGHTFULLY start my long return-home day!

Sunday, November 10: 4:10AM: Three sets of dream summaries: 1) slicing, molding, and measuring male sexual performance, 2) spiders at party, and 3) outrageous opera. To start with 3): AGAIN I have a reserved seat HIGH in an old opera house, but I go downstairs through a side entrance and into a "lower orchestra," where sightlines are SO bad that many seats are empty: a) in the CENTER front, where seating is on sofas turned perpendicular to the stage, so you have to crane your head and neck sideways, b) on the sides, where construction girders, set outcroppings, TV camera ramps and emplacements, and arrays of microphones totally obstruct the view, and c) further back, where screens and elements of the set block a view meant to be seen from ABOVE. I look at some single seats, but the opera's already started and the number of people I'd have to step in front of in the narrow row is too formidable, so when I see a woman seated on the step in an AISLE, I notice cushions on a section divider that do NOT obstruct the view from behind because the aisle stretches behind, so I sit on a cushion and turn to the stage to see the end of what I hope is the FIRST spectacular effect, as huge aluminum balloon with streamers hanging down, representing a ZEPPELIN taking off, is ascending into the flies with such SPECTACULAR effect that I expect to hear audience applause, but I don't. This is followed by a TRAIN and a bus, coming from opposite sides of the stage, meeting in the center and both roaring into the audience on special ramps built over the audience, and the SOUND effects (like the helicopter in "Miss Saigon") are truly convincing of size, weight, and power. Then two SPEEDBOATS start from the stage, obviously miniature, and roar audiovisually in rivers along each side of the train/bus ramp, and I think, "Oh, 'Boats, Trains, and Planes,' like the movie comedy with John Candy." The sounds of the boats go Doppler JUST as they pass MY seat, and I wonder if it's chance, or they can somehow arrange it for EVERY seat in the house. But AS these effects culminate, MY seat starts rolling BACKWARD and UPWARD as each main stage-effect widens and deepens the view, until I'm pulled back JUST about to where my original subscription seat was! The opera is an old Korngold or Friml antiquated piece with set songs and a stupid plot, and as a duet finishes and the curtains close for intermission, the two old women next to me say to me, "You could become pregnant here, because, as you know, the plot device here is that HE is pregnant!" I don't remember that, OR the women, but they remember ME, because the nearer one asks, "How was your trip to Greece?" "My trip to GREECE! Well, SINCE then, I can ALSO tell you about my trips by train from London to Hong Kong, my trip to China, my trip to the Antarctic, and my RECENT trip to the Galapagos!" My talk is interrupted by well-dressed volunteer society usherettes handing out a contest/lottery/opera-support brochure that involves paying money to solve an illustrated mystery in the pages of a brochure you'd buy, with a large cash prize for the first correct solution. I debate contributing and trying to solve the puzzle when I wake and find, gratefully, that it's 4:05 and I can start my day! 2) About the spiders, starts with my going from the dining room at 1221 Dietz into the kitchen, and being stopped by Mom's shocked glance to (her) upper right, and in (my) upper LEFT of the doorway is an ENORMOUS spider whose legs and body seem to be made from bent BANANAS (so it MUST be a tarantula?). I react rather calmly, and I'm suddenly sitting in a living room at a party and, on the coffee table in front of me, a fat BLACK spider has been pinioned by a hand-barbell, and a remark LATER says he was permanently deformed "like an arm numbed from having been slept upon." It's my and Mom's apartment, and a long, lobster-like creature scuttles across the coffee table and we apologize to our guests, saying we've NEVER had such a problem with spiders. There are also FLIES, in clouds, in places, and we're both spraying furiously, and I go into her bedroom at 1221 Dietz and she's spraying and I suggest it might be more effective if we SHUT her DOOR after we spray, so all the flies can't escape the spray by leaving the room. Afterwards, in the kitchen, there were two large SPLOTCHES of blood or catsup on the white tile floor, alongside an array of long-to-short catsup LINES, and I remark that it's QUITE unusual to have TWO adjoining catsup accidents, too. 1) In some sort of medical experiment the psychologist is sucking off the HUGE veined cock of an older male patient, who is in such a frenzy to cum that he's plunging his cock in and out of an inexperienced mouth so that the saliva and precum is mixed with BLOOD from cock-lacerations and the mouth of the doctor. We exclaim over the oddity of this experiment, and at the moment of orgasm the cock is cut off by an enormous cleaver that takes off the front part of the legs in a huge half-wedge, and a similar cleaver from the back cuts through the buttocks and the prostate, leaving an anatomical SECTION of the desired physiology at the moment of orgasm. It's very CLEANLY done, no blood, and the wedge-surfaces are clapped with wax or varnish to keep them intact. This wedge is later somehow made into a mold for a series of sex machines that can be fitted onto various bodies and legs for MOTION studies like in Masters and Johnson. Somehow sexy and medical, prurient and scientific, all at the same time. Shower by 5:05AM, and watch Norman Mailer on TV and brush teeth til 5:25. Then start packing, faster and faster, and call bellman at 5:55 to pick up two bags, give him 2000 sucres, and leave with him, hoping I have everything. Down to lobby and Sulaikah isn't there yet, but after I pay my bill for $371,000 sucres (I hope) and cash in 17,000 sucres for $15, there she is with two women---and I thought she said two BAGS! Out about 6:05 to small car she drives, and I give her $20 for $8 transfer and the rest a tip, and she seems genuinely pleased. She sees Cotopaxi and I film it; "In fifteen minutes it's clouded," she says. Madhouse airport at 6:20 made easy by her directions: this line for checking in luggage, then SHE holds my carry-on while I check ticket and get boarding pass for 33F (smoking, she cautions), but 11A back from MIA-NYC, which means LEFT side for continent! Great! All kinds of baggage transfers, and I have to go through customs at Miami. Then to window for $25 cash departure tax, and through immigration line to get exit stamp in my passport. Through x-rays, film out, key setting off personal alarm, and buy B&B for $16 and try a last time for pipes for Stephanie, but what was $3.50 at Figuras is $12 here, so souvenirs are NO bargain at the airport. Have to check B&B prices in NYC. Through to American Airlines lounge---English at last!---at 7:15 and get body-frisk at door and seating-ticket taken at door. They serve tiny cookies and orange juice and coffee! I take glass of juice and as they announce DOUBLE passport exit-check, I step down unseen step and spill half of orange juice (maybe Southern Comfort and orange juice are my water disasters?) on my bag, thankfully waterproof, and surprisingly roomy, even WITH B&B inside. Back to catch up with this by 7:25, feeling fairly GOOD, though left foot hurts on top and I'll be GLAD to get home. No, darn, ticket says seat on next flight is 11F, NOT 11A, so I'm STILL on right over ocean! Drat! Fill out customs form. Miami 1:50 to 4:40 in New York City, 8:20 Quito to Miami 10:50, three whole hours in Miami AGAIN, though maybe TWO hours with TIME change? Check hotel bill for ERROR in Friday night meal! At 7:35 call for seats in BACK of plane---me! Settled by 7:50, having OPENED my "AM" pillbox in my BIG bag, which I put overhead, while keeping camera and this and my book under my seat. Plane seems VERY EMPTY for my having to take a window in SMOKING. [Notes in "Wild Seed" followed by "Queen of Angels"] [Watch end of Jill Kinmont story, "Wind on the Mountain"? with Beau Bridges, and "High Noon" with LLOYD Bridges.] 11/11 Wake at 2:30 for Buspar and vitamin C and piss. THAT FINISHES NOTES FROM YELLOW PAD. FROM "WILD SEED": 8AM: baggage loaders ONTO plane have stickers they remove to put on "boarded" sheet! 8-5: nine hours to go! 8:15 LOTS of people board, and LOTS of luggage outside! At 8:25 my ticket is changed AGAIN. Take Buspar. Luggages taken OFF and RECHECKED. Military guy checks guy seated in front of me. Wow! Plane nearly full; flight three hours 38 minutes, 39,000 feet. 8:35 they're working on air-conditioning problem! 8:50: Air conditioning NOT fixed: maintenance delay of thirty minutes. 8:55: Thirty to sixty minute problem, but we must LEAVE plane. 9AM off: body temperature outside. 9:20 in comes more orange juice, and nuts. 9:50 make reservations on 4:30 flight 574 to Laguardia at 7:10. Still no air conditioning fix, BUT still no luggage OFF-loaded onto waiting trucks. I may be here to 11/14 after all! 10:15 get cheese sandwich and juice; this I consider breakfast and take pills. 10:25 they're sending a plane from Miami, here by 2PM? BUT---STILL no luggage on trucks! 10:28 plane from Dallas! At 10:35 take off carry-on luggage---damn, no sleeping pills! 11:10 pick up immigration tickets and luggage and MAKE RESERVATIONS for tomorrow! 11:30 name called; get old ticket, stand in line for new reservation. Finish reading Butler's "Wild Seed" and dig into bag for "Queen of Angels." Line for re-reservations is endless. At 12:20 Sulaikah shows up and commiserates, verifying we'll stay at Hotel Quito, "Where you have a beautiful pool to spend the afternoon, if it doesn't rain." SUPPOSEDLY a plane will pick us up tomorrow, BUT if that's the case, why re-reserve SEPARATELY? 12:50 BACK to desk and hand in my tickets: "No, no flight tonight." To hotel about 2PM, driven by Sulaikah, taxi to Alameda Real and get NEW charge-card slip MINUS Schurmann's dinner. Lunch in coffee shop at 2:30, after seeing that Techo del Mundo is closed, but taking photos from it. Watch TV all day: the end of "Other Side of the Mountain" (1975) about Jill Kinmont, and "High Noon," which sure is slow! Don't feel like going out, but feel I MUST get in something to eat before breakfast on the plane tomorrow, so phone down for room service, who gives me a big story about not packing a box lunch in the evening, or having it on a plate, but I say I want it in BAGS and order sandwiches, and THEN he agrees to a box lunch, and to two beers. Watch more junk TV ("How Smart Is Your Dog?" on Family TV, for example), drink beers and eat food, including an unknown fruit that I hope doesn't make me sick, and finish just before 9, getting a phone call that I owe more money: "The prices on your Room Service list are wrong." "Send up the manager," I shout, and hang up. Get into bed about 10. Phone rings at 10:45 to ask for my NAME! I determine to write a letter of complaint to Intercontinental Hotels. I wake and look at clock just before midnight.