Galapagos Islands yee ha!, woo!, yey! ... but mostly phew! What a diverted mission!I've been in the Galapagos a couple of days now and am beginning to remember what the point of all that sitting about in planes, airports and (err..) convention centres is. Initial impressions are.. confused. It is definitely home of the bizarre. A sort of revenge for Jurassic park where you tread carefully to avoid treading on mini Tyrannosaurus', weird outback scenes blend into Asian jungle then sudden cacti forests line the beach, with some black volcanic rock sprouting up one side. Hmm, and then we have 'boobys' with 2m wingspans dive-bombing the sea from their mangrove swamp hideaways, as you float yards away trying to outstare the Iguana on the beach. No tortoises yet, but you can see the trails they leave from the night before in the sand. Frankly I think someone has been messing with the Starship enterprise holo-deck and somehow I stumbled in there in a drunken haze... not sure this explains how the Iguanas got here, but I suppose if I was an Iguana I'd be staying too. I'm staying in a small town called Puerta Ayora, which is not teeming with giant tortoises or indeed anything much. Its a nice little port beside an amazing aquamarine sea that makes you want to dance, jump up and down and swim simultaneously (it takes a while, but you soon get the hang of it.. looks good too, so I'm told)(funky). Those pelican like birds do come up to you along the front too. Most tourists have vaporised apparently after America gave up flying, so it's quite quiet, although there are a couple of ropey looking discos with blaring Latino (can't wait). The family I'm staying with seem quite nice too, and have so far tolerated my Spanish conversation/crucifixion admirably.. For some reason they also thought my four-hour siesta was excessive (and spent most of the first day taking the piss out of me)... clearly none of them have ever been to university. I start Spanish classes at 7:30 am (already woken by penguin sqwaks and tortoise hisses)(oh, ok then roosters and dogs) for a quick 5 hour jaunt... it is tiring and my brain is not sure what's hit it, but hopefully some of it will stick and when I return to Quito they shall wonder what happened to the grinning halfwit who pointed hopefully at things. And then the world will be mine (cue Mighty Ming laugh). Quito was actually a bit much for my tender lungs.. really quite repressive pollution spoils an otherwise nice place. I had an odd night at the branch of the school there, where they had a "show" which turned out to be local trannies, and ended up with them and us in a sort of conga to "we are family" in Spanish. Surreal is not the word.. NYC was also surprisingly cool, if all a bit weird. We avoided the disaster scene (although the smoke was obvious), although talking to everyone you couldn't avoid the subject. Most people seemed more upset and shocked than vengeful. One giant Polish guy with an Axel Rose style USA headband we met in a bar even gave me a bear hug and declared "together we'll pull through". I burst into God bless America and had the boy in tears (this last bit may be a lie). Anyway, thankfully no more planes for a month (or threats of being shot down by US airforce if you veer off course)(not good for the Mike positivity meter). We actually met the pilot and crew in a bar in Newfoundland (somewhat worse for the wear) and had a good laugh with them (not about the airforce bit). The captain was a loonball and proclaimed of one of the waitresses "I wanna bite down on that ass and get lock jaw". It was at this point we ordered the bottle of Jack Daniels and gave up on any hope of ever getting out of Canada...So, enough already. I'll be in touch when the sun ain't shining, otherwise I'm the one floating on the back of that turtle with the big cigar...