Galapagos gorgeousness

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Where to start on what I have just seen.....just came back late last night from Galapagos Islands and it really was more incredible than I imagined.

Rude shock though, going from living alone in Brissy to a dodgy boat of 14 Aussie women and two old men! I thought there was only going to be 7 of us. Quite a big adjustment for me, and considering how mellow and isolated Galapagos is I needed to get away from the group, somewhere, anywhere, any small sun spot on the boat by myself just to soak all the nature in. I've had serious jet lag on top of that, waking at 1am local time every day so I've been seeing some incredible sunrises over the water. It's all good though and that's gonna be it for the whining. But imagine 14 women together, sharing really small cramped cabins. I was fortunate enough to get the naturalist expert of the group in my cabin and she has chronic diahorrea, lovely at all hours of the night in a confined space! Michelle the naturalist expert is joining me on the rest of my trip too. She says things like WOW, look at that group of birds. She also corrects the guide! Needless to say she wasn't very popular, but I'm sure she has some redeeming qualities and I've got 35 days with her to work out what they are.

I scored the top bunk and it took me a couple of days to work out that I couldn't sit up on my bed without causing a mild concussion. Bit slow. Bumped my head on everything going. So the last night I slept in the beautiful open air on the top deck on a banana lounge in my sleeping bag. The starry sky was incredible and I was in the perfect possy for my final sunrise.

First day was really warm, about 26 degrees so I was little unprepared and had to buy some attractive fluroscent green high heel thongs. We visited the giant turtles first up, so mellow and soulful and motionless. One beautiful old girl seemed a little confused/attracted or repulsed by my fluro thongs and moved pretty swiftly to nearly bite off one of my toes. That, or turtles have a strange foot fetish. You can sit right beside them and just hang out. Unreal.

That night we crusied away from the main island all night to arrive at one of the outer islands by sunrise. Waking up to a black volcanic island with red soil, cactus forests, beach covered in sea lions, huge amount of fish in turqouise water below and giant birds soaring overhead was very humbling and inspiring. My retreat from the group pretty much started there. I find nature so overwhelming some times that I just don't want to talk. So pretty much that's how it was. Combined with losing my voice from snorkelling in the freezing water it was easy to get introspective.

For a few days it went something like this, huge breakfast, new island to explore snorkelling with sea lions, iguanas and sharks. Not to mention hundreds of beautifully coloured tropical fish. Even with wetsuits on though you couldn't stay in the water too long. Then a massive lunch back on the boat, siesta and a new place to snorkel and explore after that. Massive dinner, veg food was excellent, sunset on the deck and chilling out. No partying going on as everyone was pretty crusiy from each day. One lady kept finding me in my quiet space and wanting to whine about how shit everything was, she couldn't believe the crew didn't speak English. Shock Horror, funny that. Or she just wanted to just fill up every quiet moment with comparisons about how everything is better in Australia. Why do these people even travel. The rest of the travellers where pretty cool though and I met some inspiring people who have a similar outlook on experiencing things, so it was great.

Anyway, I have a new love of birds, sea lions have stolen my heart and I've realised that the more time I spend in natural places the happier and more content I am within myself. I can't really describe any more how surreal the whole Galapagos environment is, will just have to explain it with the way too many photos I took on my return....

Kris
xxx

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