April 1st 2009 - A Party To Say Farewell

After a nice fruity breakfast at the hostel, Mia and I headed out to buy drinks for the party tonight. We went to SuperMaxi – via the market to get me an Ecuador shirt – to stock up on booze for our send off party. $100 got us 10 bottles of various liquors and spirits, 12 beers, many mixers and a few others bits and pieces on the side. We taxied back to the hostel before I had lunch with the extended Internationals and a call home to speak to the parents.

After I hurried to Mulligan’s to watch the England game, chatting to a German guy called Matt about the game. England were 1-0 up after 60 minutes when I left to head back to hostel to meet some of the others and watch the end of the game. A few of us went to find a pub for the Ecuador game but everywhere was either full or charging an entrance fee so we went back to the hostel to set up a stream and we were then flooded by locals for a different experience to what we were expecting. It was a good game, with tension rising significantly after Ecuador took the lead and the game started to reach its conclusion. But then Paraguay equalised right at the end and there was dismay from all around.

Our Group headed out for dinner at a cool art house restaurant place before heading back for our Group Awards ceremony. We laid out the alcohol and got into the spirit of things. Everyone seemed to have fun and gave speeches, with the ceremony ending with Hildes speech and everyone hugging her – she has been a brilliant guide. After the Awards ended, the party began and we danced and drank - throughout the night saying emotional goodbyes to Sally and Maïté, neither of whom were coming to the Galapagos with us. I’ll miss those girls.

We headed to Bungalow 6 to continue the party but it was a strange atmosphere with the girls departing us in the morning. I chatted to an Ecuadorian girl – telling her some terrible jokes – before joining the dancing group. Having one final drink in the club with Mia we managed to convince a local that I was South African, Hilde was Mongolian and Christine was Japanese. Back at the hostel we carried on drinking until the early hours became the not so early hours before finally getting to bed for the final night before heading out to the Galapagos.