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Published: August 6th 2019
Me
Boat to BartolomeDear All
Greetings from the Galapagos Islands! I can’t believe I’m writing that! I’m actually here on the amazing, stunning, unique and mysterious Galapagos Islands. There have been many highlights of my trip so far, and being here is certainly one of them. I’ve read and heard so much about these islands, and in preparation for this trip, watched three separate nature series on this amazing archipelago. And now I’m here! In actual fact, I was quite emotional upon landing at Baltra Airport here on Friday afternoon, I nearly cried if I’m honest! These islands are just so special.
I’ve had the most amazing first few days on the islands, basing myself in its main settlement of 20,000 inhabitants on the main island in the centre of the archipelago – Puerto Ayora, on the island of Santa Cruz, also known as Indefatigable. In Darwin’s day, the islands were named after various English noblemen and pirates (interchangeable terms here in Spanish-speaking countries…!), but in 1892 the Ecuadorian government officially named them with Spanish names, rather generic, and boring, ones at that. I much prefer the original ones: Tower, Culpepper, Wolf and Hood being some of my favourite!
Arriving here,
Giant Tortoise
El Chato Tortoise Reserve there were many formalities to go through, including paying $20 at Guayaquil Airport to enter the Galapagos, and then for some reason another $100 at Baltra Airport itself. It is indeed quite an expensive place to visit, they seem to charge you for everything here, and food, accommodation and tours are certainly not on the cheap side. But I’m not complaining, I’m here!! They also did a bag check, both at Guayaquil Airport and then again at Baltra – you’re not allowed to import certain types of plastic or food, which was a bit worrying as I carry quite a bit of plastic and food with me as I travel! But the baggage check people didn’t seem to thoroughly check my bags, so I was fine going through. Then there was a bus from the airport on the tiny island of Baltra, to the Canal Itabaca, which separates the airport island from the main island of Santa Cruz by about 50 metres or so. After the ferry ride across the Itabaca, my taxi driver, which I had booked through my accommodation, was waiting for me (yay!), and we travelled the 50km or so from there to my lodgings on the
outskirts of Puerto Ayora, up and over the middle of the island, shrouded in clouds and mist at over 800 metres high, and down once more to the coast on the south of the island.
I checked into the rather unusual and eccentric Castillo Galapagos, chosen for its wonderful reviews on booking.com, and for its seemingly calm atmosphere and location on the outskirts of town. It was a bit of a shaky start here though, and I didn’t enjoy my first two nights. Upon checking in, I learnt that since my booking there’s been a change in management, and the new guys seem quite new at what they do – friendly, but not particularly professional. It took them a while to confirm the day tour which I had already paid for with the previous owners, and for a minute I thought that they weren’t going to honour this. In the end though, I’ve realised that although they are quite new at what they do, and don’t do everything as one would expect, they are enthusiastic and seem willing to make my stay comfortable and pleasant. I am now happy I chose to stay here, particularly as I’ve seen that
the town centre of Puerto Ayora is quite the tourist zoo, and I’m more than happy to be staying in this more local part of town, away from the hubbub of the centre of Galapagos tourism. My room has been a lovely respite to retreat to and recharge my batteries, and those of my phone, camera and laptop, after each amazing day of sightseeing. So I have grown to really quite like it, and the people working here.
After checking in to my room and having a short rest, I set out to explore the place, beginning with a 15-minute walk into town and its principal thoroughfare, the Avenida Charles Darwin, running alongside the port. This is when I began to see for myself just how amazing the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands are. Until the islands were discovered by the Spanish in 1535, the animals, fish and birds of the islands had never encountered humans before, and there are no land-based predators here. This has allowed the fauna to lack any kind of wariness of human beings, and they seem to go about their business without any concern for you passing them by. On my first walk I
encountered sea lions just lazing around the port area, without batting an eyelid as sailors and tourists plied by them. I also noticed dozens of finches pecking around at the ground, only flying away when you’re within inches of them. My walk took me past the small fish market, where fishermen and fishmongers were throwing castaways from their catch to waiting pelicans and sea lions, all flocking around the smell of fish. It was like a beautiful and harmonious interchange between human and animal life: fisherman, bird and mammal all seemingly at one with each other…(!)
From here, I headed north-eastwards out of town, and onto the Charles Darwin Research Station, famous for its tortoise breeding programme. I actually spotted my first giant tortoise just off the main road on the way from the airport to my hotel, which got me really quite excited, but this place was filled with them. The station acts not only as a research centre, but also as a tortoise breeding station, to help regain numbers of these giant prehistoric-looking creatures in various parts of the islands. The giant tortoise is just one example of how each species is different from island to island,
and each species on each island is endemic to that island. It is in fact these slight differences in species from island to island, not just amongst tortoises, but also finches, and other animals, which led Charles Darwin to base his original theory of Darwinian evolution on in his monumental book “Origin of the Species” (1859), years after his sojourn on these amazing islands in 1835 aboard the HMS Beagle. The giant tortoise species, for example, varies in the shape of its shell, depending on the type of vegetation on the island it comes from, while the finch species varies in the shape of its beak, depending on whether it burrows in the ground for food or finds it in trees and branches. Such differences led Darwin to suggest that species develop and evolve dependent on the environment that they live in. This apparently happens everywhere in the world, it’s just that on the Galapagos Islands, such differences are so noticeable, as each island is really quite different from the other, so the differences across short distances of ocean are quite observable. At the Charles Darwin Research Station, you can observe many different species of giant tortoises from different islands,
and I have really come to adore these loveable creatures. It is also the home of the sad story of Lonesome George, the last known of his kind of tortoise from the northern Galapagos island of Pinta. In past centuries, Spanish sailors and pirates just loved to take away giant tortoises with them on their long sea voyages, as they could survive six months at sea without food or water, and thus made good sources of fresh meat for them. This, along with the introduction of non-native animals such as rats, who ate the eggs of giant tortoises, meant that numbers of tortoises throughout the archipelago became precariously low. Fortunately the tortoise breeding centre here, and also centres elsewhere, is doing much to recuperate their numbers, but they couldn’t do this for the Pinta Tortoise species, and when Lonesome George died in 2012 at just over 100 years old, his species died with him. I find this really very sad. You can actually, quite morbidly, see the preserved body of George in the centre, I’m not sure I really appreciated seeing him myself though… But I have really gotten to love these giant tortoises – they seem so happy and
peaceful just walking around slowly, looking around, eating every now and then, and just seemingly enjoying their beautiful world around them. A visit to the station was informative, and a great introduction to the islands. The sun was setting by then, so I walked back to my lodgings and settled in for the evening there.
On Saturday I booked a return ferry trip to the largest of the Galapagos Islands, Isabela, to the west of here. Although I’m spending a fair amount of time on the islands, eight days in total, I wasn’t able to fit in an overnight stay on the largest of the islands by far, and one of the more remote ones and less touristy. If I’m not going to overnight there, I thought at least I’d do a day trip, and I was very glad I did. The sea was very choppy on the way there, even worse on the way back – in fact, just before we came into port on the return journey, we were hit from the side by a freak wave, which caused me to sprawl flat on my face in the middle of the boat floor! Everyone else managed to
stay in their seats, I’m not sure why I went flying! People were very helpful in picking me up again though! After two hours of up and down on the way there, we docked in the beautifully calm and serene port of Puerto Villamil, Isabela’s main settlement. It was a beautiful, dusty, calm place, completely different to the tourist hotspot of Puerto Ayora. I had five hours to spend there before the ferry journey back again, and I made my way first to a boardwalk to the west of town, through some beautiful mangrove lagoons, and on towards another tortoise breeding centre. The walk took me across these beautiful lagoons, with flamingos walking, feeding and sleeping so very close to the walking area, not in the slightest bit bothered that someone is walking past them, watching them, and taking many photos of them. Indeed, with the wildlife being so tame, it makes it really quite easy to take some excellent and close-up shots of the animals here, and I was able to do just that. I particularly enjoyed seeing some of the flamingos asleep, with their heads turned back again towards their bodies and resting on them, and one of
their stilted feet literally lifted up in the air and tucked up underneath them, so that they are asleep standing on one foot – very very cute! After the tortoise breeding centre, and more loveable giant tortoises, I made my way back again, and onto the swankiest hotel in town, the Iguana Crossing Hotel, for a delicious lunch, before crossing where marine iguanas cross from the mangroves to the beach and sea, and joining a host of marine iguanas just lazing on the black volcanic rock, soaking up the sun. The marine iguana is another animal that I’ve been so excited to see, another endemic species to the islands, and one that evolved in such barren and desolate terrains that it learned to swim, dive, and eat seaweed – the only iguana that can do that! I didn’t see any swimming, but saw lots basking in the sun. Apparently, due to the cold waters around the islands and their cold-blooded nature as reptiles, they can only swim and eat for around 20 minutes or so, after which they need to come back up and bask in the sun again to warm up. They are also famous for sneezing up sea
Sea Lions
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz salt, a rather disgusting habit on the one hand, but absolutely loveable on the other! I probably spent about an hour just sat with them, watching them take it in turns to sneeze, one by one, a couple of times being sprayed myself by them…! I wasn’t able to catch a sneeze in a photo, but I did take a video with some sneezes, which I hope to upload onto my Facebook page the next time I’m in a place with good Internet connection (it is true, Internet connection in the Galapagos is terrible…!). After saying goodbye to my marine iguanas, I walked towards another small lagoon back in the village, and then slowly made my way back to the port, stopping off on the way at a boardwalk to try to get to a scenic swimming spot called Concha de Perla, but having my way blocked by a male sea lion who wasn’t letting anybody past. One Ecuadorian couple did manage to get past him by getting down from the boardwalk and walking through the mangroves, but I was happy to leave the sea lion to protect his territory, and returned to port once more to await my rough
Me and a Sea Lion
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz ferry transport back to Puerto Ayora and Santa Cruz. It was a wonderful first full day in the amazing Galapagos Islands!
Yesterday was my second full day, and although very different, it was no less amazing! I decided to rent a bicycle for the day, and hire a pick-up truck taxi to take me and my bike to the top of the island, and ride all the way back down to town again, a distance of about 18km, stopping off at a couple of interesting places along the way. The taxi driver dropped me off on the roof of the island, in a place called Los Gemelos. These are two “twin” sinkholes, located on either side of the main road passing through them, and formed by lava having solidified around a large chamber of magma, the magma running out of it as lava, leaving a huge empty shell of solidified rock, which eventually collapsed leaving a huge chasm of an area open beneath. The sinkholes were truly breath-taking to see, and rather mysterious up there at the top of the island, shrouded in cloud and mist. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised, as it is currently “winter” here, and in
Sea Lion
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz places such as this, high up and in the clouds, it’s really quite cold and wet. It is just so unusual to be at the equator, practically at sea level, and be cold – though again, this is all apparently thanks to the dominance of the Humboldt current bringing cold water and cold air from the Antarctic Ocean at this time of year. As the cold, moist air rises over the higher islands, it condenses into mist, drizzle and rain. The sinkholes were impressive enough, but what really took my breath away was the beauty of the woodland up there, called a Scalesia forest, and also endemic to the Galapagos (I learnt that in fact the trees aren’t really trees at all, but a certain type of dandelion – unusual!). I walked along a path right through the Scalesia forest, covered in every direction with every imaginable shade of green possible, with each tree adorned with dripping mosses – a whimsical world of verdant beauty. Again, there were fearless birds just carrying on with their business of pecking, hopping and nit-picking at bits of food around them, not seeming to notice that you’re there. I thought that if the Garden
Sea Lion Eating a Fish
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz of Eden existed, then this surely must have been the place for it – it was lush and like paradise. I may re-visit the place in my dreams from time to time.
From here, I hopped on my bike and began my journey southwards, and downwards, onto my next port-of-call – El Chato Tortoise Reserve. Whilst previously I had seen giant tortoises being bred and living in captivity until they’re ready to be released into the wild, at this ranch and reserve, you can wander around and see them in their native habitat – this was just gorgeous! I absolutely love these beautiful, docile and placid creatures. I do feel sorry for them though, as at times, even when I tried not to, I gave a few of them a bit of a shock when they noticed me, one of them so much that it dropped its left legs and fell sideways – awwww! The poor little (big!) thing – I waited there to check it was alright, and about ten minutes later, it picked itself up again and carried on (slowly) walking. The ranch also boasts some amazing lava tunnels, rather plentiful on this island, and formed in
Finch
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz a similar way to the sinkholes. At one time, lava used to pass through them, whilst on the outside of the lava flow the lava hardened and formed rock. After the lava had finished flowing, the tunnels of hardened rock remained, and you can now walk through them, where lava once flowed – incredible! I then had a delicious lunch at the ranch, before cycling back to the main road again. The ranch is located about 3km downhill from the main road, and although the bike ride there was fun and fast, through a seemingly endless tunnel of trees planted on either side of the road, rather Game-of-Thrones-like but longer and muddier, the return to the road involved more pushing uphill than pedalling… Ah well, it was definitely worth it, and I just loved seeing these loveable giant tortoises in their natural habitat – gorgeous! I think I have found myself a new favourite animal.
From there, I cycled the 16km back to town, mostly downhill fortunately, and mostly along a purpose-built cycleway alongside the main road. I’m actually really impressed with how the Ecuadorian government seems to be running the Galapagos National Park here. I’m going to perhaps
Marine Iguana
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz go out on a limb here, and say that I was initially surprised and a little concerned to see one of South America’s poorer countries being the custodian of such a biologically, geologically and historically important archipelago. But they seem so far to do it well – there is very little litter on the floor, compared with the absolute trash cesspits by the wayside of many a developing country nation, everything appears ecologically and environmentally minded, including recycling bins everywhere and the afore-mentioned plastic-free encouragements, and the use of the bicycle is encouraged over car use, with cycle lanes created separately alongside the main roads here. It appears to be a breath of fresh air, and I’m glad to see the Ecuadorian government doing seemingly useful things with the millions of tourist dollars that they must be making here.
Back in town, I was unable to deposit my bike back at the shop as they weren’t open again until 6pm that evening, so I used it to take me to a nearby mangrove lagoon, La Laguna de los Ninfas, which was absolutely magical. The lagoon was a beautiful turquoise colour, surrounded by dark, steep cliff escarpments about ten metres
Pelican
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz high, and had a circular boardwalk around it lined with mangrove trees and their beautiful root systems. It was quiet, peaceful, and a perfect place to end a wonderful day. When 6pm came, I took my bike back, and enjoyed my first pizza on this trip at one of the tourist restaurants in town, which was actually really delicious!
And today probably has to have been my best day on the islands so far, although the competition has been quite tough! I went on a pre-arranged, pre-booked day tour to a nearby island called Bartolome, just off the coast of the island north-west of Santa Cruz, called Santiago. Bartolome is home to a large rock jutting out of the sea called Pinnacle Rock, and is featured on many-a-picture postcard from these islands. I initially chose this tour out of many, as it appeared to do more of a hike than a snorkel, given my afore-mentioned fear of swimming in the open water. But actually, after my swimming with sea lions experience back in Callao, this fear seems to have diminished, and I was really not that nervous to do the snorkel after all. The day tour began with my
Frigate Bird
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz being picked up from my hotel to join a very pleasant group of other tourists, mostly German, but also with an Ecuadorian family and a British couple. They were all calm, quiet, and friendly - just my cup of tea. We headed by road back to the Canal Itabaca, and boarded a beautiful yacht called the Galapagos Shark II – this didn’t do much for my potential fear of open water though, particularly given the toothy, evil grin of the cartoon shark it had as its logo. Once on board, we set off across the beautiful, gorgeously blue ocean, which was quite still this time, and enjoyed a delicious on-board breakfast, before settling into the two-hour boat trip. Once at Bartolome, we disembarked, and walked up an extinct volcanic cone to view the very familiar site of Pinnacle Rock down below, a peninsula of land, a channel in the distance, and Santiago island beyond that. Compared with Santa Cruz island, Bartolome, and the near part of Santiago, was almost completely barren and desert-like, baking in the hot sun. This part of the island isn’t high enough to receive any precipitation apparently, although in the distance the central hill of Santiago
Volleyball Match
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz was poking its head up into the clouds and receives rainfall. Here, though, it was baking, and the ground was parched. The view over the desert-like area was magnificent, and once back on our boat again, we donned our wetsuits (water temperature is in the late teens here apparently) to split into two groups: one to snorkel around a beach area, the other to start in a deep water area and snorkel back to the beach. I chose to go for the latter, and with a little intrepidation, jumped in, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing! I have only ever snorkelled once before, in Colombia, and just did it from a beach only a few metres out. Here, we stuck to the shore, but just offshore the sea floor dropped off far below, to an invisible depth beyond. We hugged the shoreline, so we could see the sea floor directly below us, and there were thousands upon thousands of tiny fish just clinging to the rocks below – gorgeous! I was so happy to be able to explore, without too much fear, the very different world that is below us in the ocean. I may get to like this -
Fish Market
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz I am already thinking of investing in a waterproof camera when home for future, similar trips. On the snorkel back to the beach, about 200 metres in total, highlights were a group of clown fish (as in “Finding Nemo”), a puffer fish camouflaged in the sand below, and a beautiful blue sea star – gorgeous! There were potentially penguins, manta rays and sharks there too, but we didn’t see any, and I’m really quite happy about not seeing the latter. Once back in the boat though, whilst tucking into our on-board lunch, and literally metres away from where we had just been swimming, I did see a shark about two metres in length just below us – wow! I’m not sure how happy I’d have been to have seen it in the water! Apparently they’re very tame there though, and I have heard that some are actually vegetarian – really?! I’ll have to check that one, though I heard it from two separate and serious sources whilst I’ve been here… We were then really lucky apparently, as the guide had only seen them on two previous occasions over the last three weeks – we saw two Galapagos penguins!! Yay!! They
Fish Market
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz were gorgeous, so small, and so cute. They are the second smallest penguins in the world, the smallest being the Humboldt penguin, which I saw on two separate occasions back in Peru – now I’ve seen both!
The boat ride back was a bit rougher than coming over, but still not terrible. Two hours later, we were back on Santa Cruz, and being shipped back to our respective hotels again. It has been a wonderful day, not least because I feel really quite excited about having overcome somewhat my fear of swimming in open water, and potentially opening up a whole new world, literally, of travel exploration and discovery – yay!
So I am currently spending my final evening here in Santa Cruz. Tomorrow I take a ferry eastwards to the other main island of the Galapagos, San Cristobal, where I am booked into a lovely looking eco-lodge about two miles out of the island’s main town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, for four more nights. I am really excited to be exploring a different part of the Galapagos Islands now, after these amazing first few days on Santa Cruz. What a truly exceptional place in the world, I
Sea Lion, Fish Market
Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz feel so blessed to be here right now!
So I plan to write the next one in a few days’ time, hopefully from San Cristobal, but if not, and if the Internet connection is worse than it is here (it is really quite slow here, and I’ve had to let my photos upload overnight, they take so long!), then I will aim to publish it when I’m back in Guayaquil next weekend instead.
Thank you for reading. All the best, and until the next time!
Alex
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Andrea
Amazing!
OH my god this is like my dream trip!!! Love all your pictures of the animals and landscapes. One for the bucket for sure. I was thinking about doing a live aboard, but now after reading your post, I think doing the land thing might be more economical. How many islands you can visit? Was the area you did your day trip snorkeling a good price for experience? I never even considered you could do a bike rental. Perfect!