Origin of the species

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Greetings from Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos.

Its amazing here. The animals, birds and reptiles are so immune to humans that you can get really close.

We have seen the land and sea iguanas up close, swum with sealions, watched the amazing mating rituals of the frigate birds, seen red-footed, blue-footed and masked boobies, encountered our 4th species of penguin the Galapagos penguin, been circled by sharks and thousands of fish, watched the golden, spotted eagle and manta rays glide past and almost been sat on by giant tortoises!

We started our visit here with a 4 day cruise taking in Rabida, Bartolme, Genovesa, Plaza islands with both land tours and snorkelling. It is incredibly hot late 30´s by about 9am, so the tours start around 6.30/7am each day. The cruise was good with 9 other people on board - 4 brits, 3 aussies and 2 spanish people. The cabins were tiny - we were obviously spoilt in Antarctica but as we spent most of our time on the back deck or on land didn´t really matter. Have done a little sunbathing but it is sooo hot and the sun is like NZ´s so you burn quickly. Tan is looking good though, if I don´t sweat it all off in the jungle 😊.

We landed in Santa Cruz 2 days ago and are staying at the Lobo de Mar which is a nice hotel (with a pool - life saving in the heat) and close to everything - not that anything is far away here with only a couple of streets. There are iguanas just sitting by the side of the road as you walk along. We visited the Darwin Centre here and saw the baby turtle breeding programme - once they are big enough they transport them back to their island of origin to help keep the population numbers up. We also saw "Lonesome George" the famous giant tortoise that is the last of his species. He lived alone for so long that he had forgotten how to mate! He has been at the Darwin Centre for 38 years and they finally got him to mate with a genetically similar tortoise but the eggs were all dud. Never mind at around 100 yrs old he has about 40yrs more to go and they are going to continue to try and breed or else his species will be extinct. We only saw his rear end as he hides away a lot of the time!

Did 3 dives yesterday. Was great although still wear 7ml suits! Most of the time the water was around 26 degrees but we did drop through some thermoclines where it got down to 20 degrees so were grateful for the thicker suits then! Is amazingly rich in marine life - thousands of fishes swimming around, saw 5-15 sharks on every dive, rays etc although visibility isn´t that great. Good vis means less life around here. We both have upset stomachs today so are not diving but will go again tomorrow to try and see the Hammerhead Sharks. That is our last day here before heading back to Quito and then onto the amazon for 5 days.

After which it is time for me to come home. I am leaving Marty at Iquitos on the 6th (about 8 days away) to find his way by boat and returning for a night of luxury in a 5* hotel before flying home from Lima to Santiago then Akl and Wn.

Well time to load some pictures - lots of which are on my film SLR so won´t get till get home. Plus we did take my digital u/w camera down but as you can´t adjust any settings or see what you´ve taken and the vis isn´t great, has not been terribly successful. The dive guide yesterday took some photos also and is going to put them on a disk for me so that´ll be good.

Adios for now.
Till the Amazon......

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Comments

[sand]

wow
hi guys, wow what an amazing adventure. Your blog is great Julz and you two are an inspiration! I feel like I don't even need to go to all those places now! Hope your travels continue to be awesome. Sand x