Harmony in the Galapagos

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Islas De Galapagos, Isla Española/Hispaõla,
12-10-1990, Morning.

Having an early morning swim while my fellow passengers are still recovering from their first encounter with high waves and green Galapagos vomit, I'm having my first encounter with the Gapagos Islands' fearless animals...sean lions defy me to participate in their sub-aqautic play, their slender seal-like bodies all around me, dark shadows shooting past my snorkle, their acrobatic actions in their salty liquid realm would put any human professional swimmer a blosh of shame to the face...

Though these stunning islands have been a favorite anchor place by an succession of human fortune seeekers like buccaneers and pirates, whalers and maritime traders using the Galapagos islands as a safe anchoring place, fire wood and fresh water, giant tortoises that could be stacked in the ship's hold in their hunderts and kept alive for long periods of time without fodder or proper care...just waiting out their consumptive fate while being stacked on top of each other in a pitch dark ship's hold, the ship's numerous rat population gnawing away at their unprotected flippers...

Though after the buccaneer time was over and the islands used as a penal colony, independent settlers joining the happy mêlee bringing with them cats bound to go stray in such great feral hunting territories, dogs keen on ripping unsuspected marine iguanas to bloody strips, cattle wandering around and devouring the few last sprouts of green in an otherwise barren landscape...

Though the the islands becoming a national park in the 1959 bringing in much needed currency for the Ecuadorian elite but only noicy visitors who for the most part would trample around the rocky islets wondering what the hell they are doing here spending so much cash and nada to see but a rocky and barren landscape populated by bored looking animals and a moderate temperature...

Still the animals made so famous by Darwin's short five weeks stay, are still continueing their relaxed pace of life, reproducing and trying hard to ignore the groups of camara-hung tourists that obediently follow their guides on pre-determined paths, having to return and take a different path when a sea lion feels to lazy to leave his favorite haunt, waiting like for a red traffic sign when a 200 kilogram giant tortoise lumbers across the path in search of a juicy cactus forest...

Despite the all-encompassing and dramitic influences of the human invaders, tranquility and harmony still rule the lives of the original Animales De Galapagos.

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Photos

Turtle
swimming along our boat

gull
spreading your wings as a greeting?

sea lions
at play