RANSVESTIA

Ecuador, belong to that country and comprise a national park. They are right on the equator and December is winter time down there so I expected it to be blazing hot but it turns out that the Humboldt current which rises in Antarctica and flows deep up the coast of South America wells up to the surface in this area and thereby keeps the temperatures rather more temperate than tropical.

After what seemed an interminable (about three-hour) flight in an old turbo prop plane we landed on Baltra Island. This had been an American Air base during the war, which accounted for the air strip, tower and small airport building. People from several different tour plans were all on the plane and we had to get ourselves sorted out into groups. I was scheduled to go on the yacht "Isabella" and found myself part of a group of thirteen-three Americans, one Spaniard, one Iranian living in the United States and seven Germans. so as a result I got a chance to practice "meine Deutsche." We bussed down to the dockside and were taken out to our yacht (commercial now but had been a yacht) in skiffs and got acquainted and had cabins assigned. Since I was a single woman and the Iranian was a single man they solved the question by splitting up a young German couple and putting and wife and me together and the husband with the single man. The cabins were quite small with an upper and lower bunk and our own toilet and shower so we got along famously. I got a kick out of the sign behind the toilet which said, "With the exception of toilet paper don't put anything in the head unless you have eaten it first." That was pretty much to the point.

We used the yacht as our hotel of course and thus could go from island to island at night and wake up at the next one we were to visit. Some of the tours go to the only hotel on the islands and then go out daily in a trimaran to one or another of the islands. This is a very effete way to do it and means that while you sleep on land you spend too much time going to or coming from the islands and don't get to see as much. There are also a couple of larger vessels that sail out from the coast but that takes three days each way before you even arrive and there are too many aboard and they didn't look like very nice cruise ships anyway. But the Isabella was almost perfect for the purpose. It was clean, chummy, excellent food, friendly crew and enough room. The ship was quick, quiet, and provided a sea voyage as well as an island visit. One night when we had to go all night from one to another of the outer islands (some of them are a long way apart, we hit some really good seas and of the 13 passengers only

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