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Published: December 17th 2006
blog by Dave NOTE: If you want to see all the pics we've taken, you're best bet is to double click on any pic and from there you can get a slideshow through them all. Galapagos Islands
When I was a little lad, I used to be obsessed by wildlife programs. So much so that my family still think I missed my calling as the next
David Attenborough. On demand, I could name any animal that appeared on screen, such was my fixation with the natural world.
There was one particular place that especially captivated me with its mysterious creatures found nowhere else on Earth - and this place was the
Galapagos Islands, formed over millenia by volcanic activity in the Pacific Ocean.
You can therefore imagine my excitement as the next part of our trip was to this isolated group of islands, situated over 1000km off the coast of
Ecuador, made famous by the expeditions and scientific writings of
Charles Darwin, who arrived on
The Beagle way back in 1835.
We left
Quito very early morning to catch a flight to the island of
Baltra in the
Galapagos which took approximately 3 hours and
included a brief stop in the city of
Guayaquil en route.
You would think that having arrived in the right neck of the woods there wouldn't be too much more travelling involved. You'd be wrong. The only thing on the island of
Baltra is the airport, and ex-USA military base so from here we had to then catch a bus for a few kilometers to a small ferry crossing. It is also worth noting that the only thing on
Baltra is the airport because the USA military managed to kill off all flora, fauna and wildlife with their artillery etc. during their years there. Another sensitive approach to one of the last paradises on earth.
This tiny crossing only took a further 10 minutes and once safely over the
"Channel" (the sea) to the island of
Santa Cruz, we then had a 40 minute taxi ride down the length of the island on the only road here to
Puerto Ayora. From here we would set off to our final destination of
Puerto Villamil on the island of
Isabela, but not before we have had to endure a further three hours on board a small motor launch.
I
believe "endure" is as accurate a description as is possible in this case. The sea crossing was possibly the scariest and most uncomfortable piece of travel we have undertaken to date, which is quite a statement given some of the flights and hellish coach/train journeys we have experienced. The tiny boat had to accommodate ten passengers and their luggage, and therefore sat very low in the water. Add to this an alarmingly rough sea and a captain hell bent on breaking the water speed record, you get some idea of the scenario.
At times we were sailing through air and not water, landing with a huge smack into the next wave that made the boat shudder and creak and all of us cling to the rails so we didn't get tossed out of our seats. We all tried to put a brave face on things - not easy when your face is green, unless you are the Incredible Hulk or Kermit the Frog.
When we finally reached the harbour at the end of this nightmare, breathed a sighs of relief and retrieved our hearts from our throats, we were made to instantly forget our woes. All around us
sea turtles frolicked in the lagoon,
sea lions lazily dozed on the backs of the fishing boats, and several
pelicans cruised the waves like huge aircraft coming in to land. Fantastic. As it turned out, this would only be a taster of things to come.
Just prior to this hellish boat ride, we had become acquainted with a couple from
Bristol, UK who would be spending the exact same time as ourselves here, doing the same project. Richard and Jenny are recently retired teachers who decided to do a spot of travel in
Latin America for seven weeks. As it turned out, we were all staying at the same accommodation in the village and so we soon became good friends spending most of our days and evenings together.
Our lodgings were a group of fairly decent chalet style rooms that were attached to a family home in the centre of
Puerto Villamil. The couple in charge of our welfare, initially at least, whilst the owners were away for a few days, were called Mary and Osvaldo. They were very friendly and helpful in all respects as we settled in, and were also able to accompany us all to
the
Giant Tortoise Breeding Centre on our first morning.
The walk to the centre was in itself a 30 minute nature trail through all kinds of terrain during which we had our first close encounter with the large black
Marine Iguanas that populate the island. These fantastic creatures can be seen everywhere along the rugged coastline either basking on the rocks or creeping across the sandy beaches. One of the most interesting things about these critters is that in order to combat the salt water that they take into their bodies whilst feeding in the ocean, they have to sneeze out the excess salt. It looks hilarious if you see a group of them all doing it together.
At the
Giant Tortoise Breeding Centre we were introduced to Oscar and Fernando, the guys responsible for the maintenance of the enclosures and the feeding and care of the occupants. Throughout our stay these guys, especially Oscar, made us feel tremendously welcome and ensured that we had plenty to do every day, including feeding, cleaning, and monitoring the resident tortoises, as well as the occasional spot of landscape gardening.
The main reason that such a breeding centre exists is
that there are now virtually no baby tortoises surviving in the wild. The nest sites and habitat are being destroyed by the introduced species like donkeys, pigs and goats. Even on the rare occasions when the eggs successfully hatch, the tiny tortoises often fall prey to the rats, cats, and dogs that have been brought here by man in all his carelessness. This means that these little chaps need a helping hand during the early, vulnerable years of their lives, and the centre cares for them during this period.
There are twelve sub-species of land tortoise, each slightly different in appearance depending upon which island they originated. There used to be fifteen but mankind managed to hunt and kill three species to extinction. The breeding program has succeeded in reintroducing approximately 2000 juveniles (3-5yrs when released) onto their respective islands since the
Galapagos National Park decided to intervene in the mid 1990's.
Each of our working days finished at 12:30pm. This was perfect as far as we were concerned as it enabled us to explore the islands and enjoy the wildlife that is so abundant here. It's incredible to think that in the first couple of afternoons we
spent scouting the trails near the village, we were lucky enough to see so much amazing fauna, including the bright red
Sally Lightfoot Crabs that literally litter the beach, plenty of
Sea lions playing in the shallows, the cheeky little
Galapagos Penguins that surfs the waves, and the half dozen or so
Greater Flamingos that waded in the lagoon right behind our homestay.
Also on a daily basis we would lose count of the number of
Lava Lizards that would scuttle across our paths, and we tried and failed to record all 13 species of
Darwins Finches that are all very similar in appearance. Bronia and Richard had a frustrating time trying to convince the various birds to pose for their cameras and would often just end up with a picture of gravel or grass or shrubbery as the subject flew away.
We were a few minutes late for work every day as we'd invariably stop along the route to point out something new. One morning I stopped us all and pointed into the undergrowth. There, hidden amongst the rotting leaves was a tiny land tortoise that had hatched from a hidden nest within the centre
(sometimes the centre doesn't catch all birthing sites) and had wandered out of the tortoise corals in search of food.
I picked it up (see pic) and carried it to the centre, cradled in my hands to show to Fernando the supervisor. He confirmed our suspicions that it belonged to the centre and hatched a month ago. Had we not found it the likelihood is that it would have afllen prey to a predator. It was baptized "David" and got the number FC03. In five years from now it can be reintroduced to the wild.
Perhaps the most spectacular sight that we encountered in our first week though, was a vast cloud of seabirds a few metres off shore. One type of seabird endemic in these islands is the absurdly named
Booby, of which there are three kinds. There are almost too many jokes that can be made about "spotting Boobies", so I will use some decorum and refrain.
The most commonly seen is the
Blue Footed Booby, which - guess what, has blue feet, and bizarrely the
Red Footed Booby (which we didn't see), has red feet. Go figure. The
Nasca Booby which we also
saw occasionally is black and white, and is very different in appearance.
It was these
Blue Footed Boobies that made up the majority of the cloud, diving like missiles into the surf and re-emerging with some of the fish that had triggered this frenzy. Meanwhile, huge graceful
Frigate birds hovered over the scene hoping to steal an easy meal amongst the melee with
Brown Pelicans also joining in the fray. The whole ensemble was visually spectacular and we later learned that we had been privileged to have witnessed these events as many islanders go months without seeing it.
The only real historical "building" of note on the south of the island is the
Muro de las Lagrimas, or
Wall of Tears which, as its name suggests, is a large wall built out of large chunks of lava rock. It was constructed in the 1950's by the islands Ecuadorian penal colony, under extreme duress, in the intense heat, hence the "tears". The prison closed in 1958 after several successful and violent escape attempts, but the wall remains as a stark monument for tourists to visit.
The 8km walk to the Wall is initially punctuated by lots of interesting
trails that have been created by the
Galapagos Park authorities and which lead to some areas of natural beauty. These include the
Playa del Amor (presumably so named because it is a
Marine Iguana breeding ground - it was teeming with them),
Tunel del Estero (a huge collapsed lava tunnel) and
El Estero (a lovely peaceful mangrove with a cold water spring under the sea).
We visited each of these separate sites along the path at the end of our stay, but on our first walk with Richard and Jenny we really just made a beeline for the Wall, albeit after lingering each time a breathtaking view appeared or a new and astounding creature popped up.
We eventually arrived at the
Wall of Tears after two hours and took a moment to admire the view and appreciate the intensive labour that had no doubt been expended to create it. The wall is a roughly circular construction about 300ft long, 18ft in height and about 10ft thick and sticks out strangely as the only man made object as far as the eye can see.
As we turned to walk back our attention was diverted by a crashing from
the undergrowth which we duly investigated. There, larger than life, was a huge male wild
Galapagos Tortoise. Fantastic. Our first we'd seen in the wild. Clearly the release program was proving effective. In fact, as we moved farther down the trail back toward the village, we heard some more similar crashing around but despite our best efforts we could not locate its source.
Toward the end of our first week, just as we were settling into some sort of routine, Olga, the real "landlady", which seems a suitable term, returned from the mainland to replace our lovely Mary. The first impact that she had was to fall out with Mary about the care of us volunteers, thus frightening away our friendly stand-in hostess. She then proceeded to address us "Gringos" in a most unfriendly manner, alienating us all within the first day. She didn't manage to dampen our spirits though, as by this time all of us volunteers were getting along like a house on fire.
Our first free days on
Isla Isabella during our stay was the weekend, so we were determined to make the most of it. To this end we booked with Richard and Jenny
two day-long excursions through one of the local hotels.
First up was a trip to see the crater of the
Volcan Sierra Negra which dominates the skyline at the south of the island. This magnificent caldera is the second largest in the world at 9km across and is still very, very active. This was illustrated by a huge eruption at the craters rim on October 23 2005 when rivers of glowing lava poured from several ruptures in the mountainside and ash spewed into the sky for more than a week.
We had to achieve our close-up view of this crater in three stages. First stage; we would travel by jeep to a point about halfway up the side of the volcano before secondly being assigned four-legged all-terrain vehicles in the form of horses. Anyone who knows me well will know that this mode of transport will not have been my first choice, but it was about time I gave it a go.
My poor horse was very used to carrying people who had no clue at all about technique, attitude or poise. It seemed to be on autopilot from the word go, which suited me just fine,
and we arrived without incident at the dismount point from where we would continue to stage three; a hike on foot through the lava fields.
We had already been able to see across the crater from horseback as it was a superbly clear day and we were all eager to get a little closer.
The northern side of the crater (where the recent eruption occurred) was nothing more than a scarred wilderness of broken and fragmented lava rock, and we picked our way across this hostile terrain, led by our guide, until we stood on the side of a smaller volcano called
Volcan Chico.
From here we had a truly stunning view which encompassed the entire length of the island from north to south, and several patterns of lava showing where previous pyroclastic flows had poured down the mountainside.
The return journey took the same path and was equally tranquil, save for the initial 10 minutes, during which the guy in charge of the horses clearly thought we were all now fully fledged equestrians (not the case at all, despite some bravado creeping into proceedings) which prompted him to gee the horses up a bit with a
whip - understatement. Cue Bronia. After a heated exchange in Español he didn't make another sound for the whole 2 hours back. We don't know what she said and we don't want to. It worked and that's all that matters.
For our second big excursion the following day, we boarded a boat, sore bottoms and all, from the harbour. We were bound for
Los Tuneles. This is an enormous collection of lava tunnels that extend into the sea and create a maze of gully's and channels between the rocks.
As well as the amazing geology on view, there exists here some of the best opportunities to see marine wildlife close up. Our first snorkeling sojourn was unfortunately in an area with limited visibility as the water seemed to be dark green in colour. We were promised however that this meant an increased chance of spotting some of the rarer creatures here.
We all hit the water and separated with Bronia and I drifting off together, straining to see a few metres through the murk. It was Bronia who saw him first .... a massive dark shape floating underneath us and to our left, A SEA TURTLE !!!!
Sunset at the beach bar
Isla Isabella, GalapagosHe had, of course, seen us coming long ago, but he or she seemed curious about us. After he'd circled us once or twice, much to our delight, he figured out that we weren't edible and drifted downwards and out of sight. Brilliant stuff.
After that we saw some giant fish in the depths of one of the lagoons but little else. That is until we had made our way, via the boat, onto some lava rocks that overlooked the lava channels. Our captain kindly explained that in these shallow rock furrows you could often see turtles coming back and forth from the ocean. No sooner had he finished speaking than a lovely big familiar shape glided into view (see pic).
Apparently the mating ground for these fabulous creatures is amongst the lava channels so it is common to see them drifting through the water from the high rocks. In the 30 minutes we spent here we must have seen about 7 or 8 separate animals, mostly
Pacific Green Turtles, but we also saw one huge brown
Hawksbill Turtle. We couldn't quite believe what we were seeing.
Our captain then took us to snorkel in a different,
much clearer spot which didn't provide any more turtles, but we still managed to spot a stingray and also saw an incredibly rich diversity of fish. On the way back to the harbour we were lucky enough to encounter a large
Galapagos Shark right at the surface, close to the boat, presumably feeding or basking.
Still on a high from our brilliant weekend, we started back into our working routine with the
Tortoise Breeding Centre, enjoying the afternoons as free time.
One free afternoon we booked yet another excursion to see the tiny volcanic islands that formed off the main coastline called
Las Tintoreras. While there were some interesting geological features to be seen, the star attraction yet again here was the wildlife.
After a brief stint of snorkeling around
Las Tintoreras, we stepped ashore and let our guide point out some more of the staggering natural beauty that was surrounding us. The first new thing we spotted was a mass of tiny baby
Marine Iguanas nestled together in one of the rock crevices. There must have been several hundred.
As we continued down a man-made trail through the lava we noticed that a channel into
the sea had been created. As we peered down into the water we were astonished to sea a
Spotted Eagle Ray drifting past, along with a huge
Puffer Fish who was picking shellfish from the rocks. Surely this must be the one of the richest concentrations of marine life on the planet, and as we had discovered, not all of it requires one to enter the water.
Once more flushed with excitement at our spotting success we continued down the track until we came to a small sandy cove. At first this seemed to be one of the few places in the islands barren of life, until some movement amongst the rocks caught our attention. There at the edge of the tide were three baby
Sea Lions, trying without much success to remain motionless and camouflaged whilst their mothers were out at sea.
After we had snapped away at these cute little chaps who were rolling around in the sand, the guide led us to the main sea lion colony. Most of the females remain hidden from sight in amongst the mangroves, but the big bull sea lion was standing guard on the shoreline for all to see.
He spotted us immediately and began a display of bravado and strength that had us a little concerned about how much we had upset him. Whilst we remained at a reasonable distance he didn't pose a threat, so we stayed a while and watched him show off. We really were getting our moneys worth from these organised trips.
Our next and most stunning encounter with these magnificent creatures was toward the end of our stay. Close to the only harbour on the island there is a natural lagoon called
Concha de Perla, at which has been constructed a platform for snorkelers. Having visited most of the other sites of interest nearby with Richard and Jenny we all thought we would give this one a try, so we waited for a nice clear sunlit afternoon before we wandered down there with our towels and snorkelling kit for a dip.
When we arrived the tide was way out which allowed us access to some of the otherwise hidden rocks and sandbanks. After 30 minutes or so of watching the various brightly coloured fishes dart around all four of us were all startled by a large, dark and very fast slender
shape close to us all. It actually frightened me enough so that I felt the need to stand up on the sharp rocks, thus cutting open my foot - just as well it wasn't a shark !!
It turned out to be a juvenile sea lion that had decided to come and play with us. He frolicked in the shallow bay with us for at least 45 minutes. First he would play chicken with us, speeding toward us in a headlong charge before swerving away at the last minute, then he would jump out of the water and roll around us until we joined in.
He had taken a special shine to Bronia and she stayed in the water longest. It was a lovely sight to see him so close at hand. Eventually he tired of us and moved away into the outer lagoons, but once more we had been incredibly lucky with our experiences. Perhaps that enhanced our feeling that this tiny archipelago was totally magical.
For the remaining time here we filled our afternoons with some strolls down the enormous beach on our doorstep, the
Playa Grande, some hikes out to the beauty spots we'd
missed (on the way to the
Wall of Tears as mentioned earlier) and the odd dip in the ocean. Each day was a mix of work, rest and the discovery of new wildlife.
We filled our evenings in good company (thanks to Richard & Jenny) with good food, laughter and the odd beer thrown in, followed mostly by very early nights. We'd lazily flop into bed buzzing with excitement and fatigue from the days activities, just content to know that undoubtedly we'd have another adventure in store the next day.
It would seem frivolous and cliched to describe these islands as paradise, but we both truly believe that we have been to somewhere very, very special indeed. Hopefully the conservation plans that have been started will go towards saving and preserving these islands diversity for many years to come. If they don't they risk the fate that the famous "Lonesome George" on
Isla Santa Cruz now has.
Lonesome George is in the
Darwin Research and Breeding Centre which we visited on our last day on our way back to the airport. He is a male land tortoise, 120-150yrs in age, and the only one left of his
species. They have hunted for a female but to no avail and should scientists be unable to find a mate his death will mean the loss of a fourth tortoise species forever.
The
Darwin Research and Breeding Centre is partnered with the centre that we worked at on
Isabela Island and helps breed other endangered species for release back into the wild. It was here that we also got a glimpse of the extremely different looking
Land Iguana (see pic).
As we left the Galapagos, we all agreed that it had been the most enjoyable two weeks we'd spent in a long time, not least because of the fantastic company that we'd enjoyed with Richard and Jenny in one of the most incredibly unique environments on the planet.
We leave you here, please enjoy the pictures, next stop Paddington Bear territory - in
"deepest darkest Peru".
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David Baker
non-member comment
wow!
That's some journey - well done David and Davina Attenborough