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Published: September 30th 2008
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3 hour flight to
San Cristóbal Island, via Guayaquil. We bundled into a minibus with just 5 others - lucky to have lovely group including an Irish couple, Dutch guy and a Canadian couple. Next day sporty couple Sven and Sabine joined us (Sabine spent her free time playing underwater rugby at 3m depth - impressive!). Later on we were joined by an Israeli and Californian guy; all in all 8 days of good chats and socializing and once again, we are not finding the travelers here young at all as expected, but often quite a bit older than us.
Nearly freaked when we saw the cabin - minuscule with just room to turn around, but we soon got used to that especially when we saw some others didn’t actually have room to turn around…The boat,
Galapagos Vision, was small and a bit ragged around the edges but basically a comfortable catamaran; we felt blessed when we saw some of the huge luxury ferries with tour groups of 100 upwards - not optimum for wildlife spotting!
Nevertheless, it would be very difficult not to see incredible wildlife close up both within the Galapagos National Park and the Marine reserve.
When we arrived we were tripping over sea lions and red crabs to get into the dingy for the boat, but after a few days only really stopped to look at the cutest pups or porpoising sea lions - they are so common and there is so much else to look at all the time. Our first day we were walking amongst giant tortoises, lizards, pelicans, frigatebirds and birds including herons, mockingbirds and warblers. We were surprised the weather seemed calm and warm as apparently this time of year - dry season, can be iffy.
However, all was not calm on the first night sailing to Espagnola Island, Sea was rough Martha vomited approximately every 2 minutes from 11pm despite taking motion-sickness tables. Oh dear. Only respite was sitting out on deck but as the crew seemed to basically kip on the banquettes, I felt I was stealing their valuable sleep-space and also getting wet and cold. So returned to the cabin where the upper window had not been fastened properly, resulting in “refreshing” soaking of Laurent, the bed, the mattress and the bedclothes in the middle of the night. Not a restful night. Began to entertain thoughts of
quitting before another night of constant vomiting set in.
However, day 1 (which followed the usual formula of a couple of hours easy hike and couple of hours snorkelling) was so amazing, we forgot our woes. We were up close and personal with marine iguanas, oyster-catchers, hundreds of crabs, blue footed boobies performing their courtship dance just for us, tropic birds, albatrosses, doves, vermillion flycatchers and much more. Snorkelling - apparently one of the most diverse sites in the world - was an hour of following the guide through a show of iridescent fish, stingray, white reef sharks (up to 6ft but veggie!), trumpet fish, and of course, an obligatory swim with a sea lion on a white sand beach to finish off. You aren’t allowed to touch the animals but baby sea lions ignored the rule and came right up and nibbled our toes then followed us along the beach.
That’s really the special thing about the Galapagos - the animals are birds are so unafraid thanks to a lack of predators and relatively little human interference. Attempts at colonization were pretty unsuccessful until WW2 (when the US used the islands as a strategic base as close
to the panama canal), so although the wildlife has been affected by various destructive human activities (like extracting oil from turtles) and introduced species, settlement has been limited since the Spanish stumbled on the Islands during the 16th century. And hopefully now the Galapagos are a money-spinner for the Ecuadorian government, it will continue to be limited.
There are 13 islands and many islets and only 16,000 inhabitants so that animals have plenty of space and their natural habitat is now protected - only about 3% of the islands’ surface is inhabited. A cruise is the best to visit the areas which are visitable - basically the National Park (which extends over 16,000 km2), as distances are huge and all the islands are different with their own endemic flora and fauna. You probably know this was the place that prompted Darwin to come up with his Origin of Species and natural selection theories, and you understand why when you see the diversity and different life forms on each island. Our guide, Lenin (Comrade as he was “fondly” known), was a bit bored most of the time but basically OK (apparently there is now a policy of only employing Ecuadorian
Young turtle
As part as an on-going breeding program, this turtle grows to a few years in protection before being released in the wild guides which will probably impact on level of expertise for a few years as their training improves) and he explained how different reptiles and plants have adapted to their environment on each Islands, varying from cloudforest to grassy wet pampas and coastal deserts full of cactii.
The Islands are volcanic in origin and are some of the most actively volcanic in the world, with resulting white, red and black sand beaches and lava tunnels. On day 2 (on Floreana) we visited a lava tunnel, and were told to leave all our stuff outside and to wear sandals. At first it was a little like basic potholing - not good for claustrophobes but quite exciting! Bit of a surprise though when we started wading through water which got deeper and deeper until you could swim in a 3m deep pool! Various people had various things in their pockets so would have been good to have an inkling but it was a funny surprise!
Later on day 2 snorkelling around “Devils Crown” was the ultimate - sharks, rays, swimming alongside giant sea turtles, loads of star fish and urchins, hieroglyphic hawkfish my all time favourite - weird new-rave style patterned
fish! Currents were strong (apparently about 3 or 4 knots) but the variety of fish made it totally worth the work. And thanks to super-strong anti nausea pills (we are told normally used for chemotherapy patients), M is not sick any more and fully able - yay! The day ended with a hike on a stunning beach where flamingoes and herons nest, and a gorgeous sunset. We like it here!
Santa Fe Island on Day 3 - a dry and inhospitable territory for land iguanas which spend lots of time scraping thorns off the fruit of the Opuntia Cactus trees which grow here. Today snorkeling with very playful sea-lions tugging on our flippers and snorting in our faces! Lots of giant tortoises in the afternoon, including famous Lonesome George who has now been paired with some genetically similar females, and many roaming the fields in the misty and wet highlands. The locals found us much more interesting and made us pose for a photo - specimen Gringo Blanco - an introduced species! Random evening on the boat - captain sodded off to town to drink and the crew invited some chicas on for dinner so we all went to
bed and left them to it!
Day 4 was on Santiago black sand beach and cliffs, covered in marine iguanas, hawks and doves alongside one another! Cute fur-seals - like a more canine sea-lion. Day 5 on Bartholome Island and swimming with mini penguins - only 30cm high. They are fast little buggers but we managed to stay with them and watched them fishing. Sailed to North Seymour for the afternoon and finally saw the Great and Magnificent frigatebirds with their massive red pouches out - go guys!
Our guide had saved the piece de resistance til last (Laurent thought for tips, M thought for geographical necessity!) - 5am snorkeling at “Kikker Rock” on our final day. We swam through these 2 tall, imposing rocks though fairly rough sea - felt intrepid. Especially when greeted by a flock of eagle rays, some massive, then lots of giant turtles, then Galapagos sharks, then about 7 hammerhead sharks - the Comrade wilded out - whooping in macho styley! But they are so huge odd looking - it was amazing. To be honest, when they began circling the group M distanced herself from everyone flailing their flippers in their faces and
was relieved to get back on the boat. These sharks are no it vegetarian!
Goodbye coffee on San Cristobal with our lovely ship-mates (some of whom we will probably see again) then off to the airport to fly back to Guayaquil. Decided not to linger their - big, hot city after the Galapagos felt wrong so we went straight from the airport to the bus station and got on a coach for Cuenca - Spanish colonial city in the Southern Sierra. Next installment coming soon!
PS: We haven't processed our under-water photos yet...
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How amazing, it's beautiful! Just for the info, the small guitar (yukulele like) is called a charango. Bisous.