The morning of September 24, the day we were to depart the Delfin III, I woke up feeling hungry and went to the lounge for a cookie before breakfast.  During breakfast, I started feeling gastric-intestinal discomfort and headed to the cabin to eat dry toast and sip Coke.  I almost never drink Coke or any kind of pop. yet the carbonation has always seemed to help when I’m sick.

Unfortunately, the wife of the man who had been sick in Cusco had also become quite ill when we were on the Delfin III.  Probably his problem hadn’t been the high altitude sickness after all.  She missed a full day of Amazon activities and it appeared that I was next.

I wasn’t just going to miss out on activities. I, and therefore Randy, was going to have to deal with me being sick on a travel day.

Randy and I went through all of our various meds and I took whatever we thought might be beneficial.  We did not take our anti-malaria meds that morning in the mix of all that,  and never took them again.  

I slept for a couple hours before disembarking.  Two of our friends got in line extra early for the bus in order to get us the front seat. After another hour or so of sipping on coke during the drive, I felt pretty well and was able to move on with the activity of the morning. 

We visited a private agency formed to help endangered species including manatees turtles, sloths, snakes and macaws. 

They have a professional staff of biologists and veterinarians who work in conjunction with the Dallas World Aquarium. 

Their goal is to release the animals back to the wild whenever they can.  

These manatees, also called sea cows, are two young females.  The smaller is two months old and was injured by a machete.  The larger, two years old, is assisting in  socializing the younger.

This is a two year old male.  He and the female in the previous tank will be released to the liberation pond together with eventual release into the wild.

This manatee has only been at the center for three days.  He has a harpoon injury.  He will be treated and released quickly.

This sloth was used in the tourist trade for pictures and was not healthy, likely due to stress.  It will be remediated and released if possible. 

This chart shows the number of releases per species.

This is a type of pygmy monkey – the smallest monkey species in the world.

These monkeys won’t be released into the wild because they would be attacked by a native monkey group.  Instead, they will be released into the extended grounds of the center.  About 50 have been successfully released onto the grounds so far.

We saw five  liberation ponds the last stop before true liberation.  There were three manatees in the largest pond but we did not see them

Paiche are the largest fish in the Amazon region.  It is a popular fish to eat and was  served on the Delfin III.

We flew back to Lima one more time and then said goodbye to Enrique.  He had taken very good care of us over the past two weeks and greatly enhanced our trip. Our next activities were in Ecuador and we would have an Ecuadorian guide.    We also said goodbye to those on our tour who were not continuing to the Galapagos.  The twelve of who were going on were met by another Amazon representative, who took us back to the same Lima hotel we’d stayed in twice before!

The same representative met us the next morning and took us to the airport for our flight to Quito.

The twelve of us were truly without our Avalon support handler in the Lima airport and on the flight to Quito.  All seasoned travelers, we felt we could handle it as long as things didn’t go awry!

But first, I needed to spend my remaining Peruvian soles.  The amount was equivalent to about $60 USD so I went shopping in the airport gift shop.  It was my birthday after all.  I ended up buying a small Peruvian nativity scene to go with others I have collected from our travels.  I also bought a pair of earrings using the same type of red lucky beans we had been given in the Amazon.

In the end, I took out the credit card to buy one more item.  It was not to remember something we did in Peru, but something we won’t ever do. 

Rainbow Mountain, more accurately Vinicunca, is a 16,500 foot mountain somewhat near Cusco.  We saw signs for day tours to the mountain while we were in Cusco.  Enrique said he has taken people to Rainbow Mountain and only about 60 percent of those who try to hike it are successful.  That isn’t going to be me!

Our flight was uneventful and we were met by William, our new Avalon guide for Ecuador.

We had registered our trip with the US State Department and had received reports about fires in Quito.  The fires were in the national news in the US as my cousin contacted me saying she hoped they wouldn’t derail our trip.

The fires were still visible although the situation had greatly improved.  Apparently, the fires were set by an arsonist.

We arrived at our hotel and were surprised to find chocolate covered strawberries and a large slice of birthday cake!

A couple hours later all twelve of us joined together for dinner by choice – even when we didn’t have to! We really did get along very well throughout the trip.

Someone told the restaurant staff that it was my birthday and it got celebrated again!   Enough already!

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador on September 25, 2024, my birthday.