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Published: October 29th 2011
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Frigate
The Frigate bird inflates its pouch to attract females. The pouch only stays inflated for 40minutes. This one had a female land next to it right in front of us, incredible! The Galapagos – WOW! Im not sure if my blog can fully explain how amazing this place is….so if you ever get the chance you must go, it’s AMAZING!!! Ive tried to upload some key pictures, but I have over 400 in total and they are all amazing!
(ps…this I a long one, so I do apologise it may take a while to read!!)
When meeting the group and being given our tickets and boarding instructions in Quito we were kindly informed that our boat had been upgraded as our ‘budget’ boat had unexpectedly been taken into dry docks = Result! We flew from Quito early morning via Guayaquil to land on Baltra in the Galapagos just before midday. First impression on Baltra was that is was very flat and barren, but then it is the dry season so that is to be expected. We were soon ushered onto a bus and driven to the shoreline where we were put on some zodiac’s and driven out to our boat. We then came to realise how much of a result our ‘upgrade’ was……Jacuzzi on the sun deck, 5 course A la carte meals, bags being taken straight from the airport to
Blue Footed Boobie
One of my MANY pictures of these... our cabins for us……awesome!
We soon met the other passengers…..mainly American couples over the age of 60 (which we later discovered were paying more than four times the amount that we were to be there!) but they were all very welcoming to us ‘younsters’ gate crashing their cruise! That afternoon we sailed the short distance to North Seymour and were taken ashore via the zodiacs to see our first glimpse of Galapagos wildlife. Having said that on our journey to North Seymour we had already seen a number of sharks and turtles swimming around our boat! We just did a short 2hour walk around North Seymour and saw numerous wildlife…the highlights being the Frigate’s, Blue Footed Boobies and Sea Lions. It’s amazing how the animals seem completely oblivious to humans, you could get so close to them and they would come so close up to you not fazed at all.
After this we were whizzed back to the boat to have our ‘after outing’ snack and drink and then it was into the Jacuzzi to ‘chillax’ whilst we waited for dinner to be served.
The stars were AMAZING (sorry – I am probably over using that word….) at
Sea Lions
Again I have about 100 pictures of Sea Lions....and the little babies were so cute! night. Most evenings we would sit on the sundeck chatting and star gazing, it was bliss!
Quote of the day
Hannah (my room mate)shouting ‘Boobies’ and pointing at me whilst I was taking my top of to sunbath in my bikini – I started to panic that I was having a wardrobe malfunction when actually she had seen a Blue Footed Boobie fly past right behind me!
American guy Arthur – when being explained the difference between wet and dry landings from the zodiacs Arthur asking ‘if it is a wet landing will it be a wet exit at the same point too?’ Did he think they were suddenly going to build a jetty in the time we were doing our walk?!
Interesting fact – did you know that the Galapagos has a population of 30,000 people!! Before this trip I didn’t think people could live there!
Anyway, that night we then sailed down to Espanola.
After stuffing ourselves silly at breakfast we were back on the zodiacs this time with our snorkeling gear in tow…. After a walk down the beautiful white beach with sea lions snoozing and swimming from I soon donned my wetsuit
and snorkeling gear on a mission to overcome my fish phobia for good…. We started with just shallow snorkeling at the beach front….which was AMAZING! Sea lions and turtles were swimming around you like crazy, words can’t explain! We then had the option to be taken out further to sea and do deep sea snorkeling…..feeling that I couldn’t let the youngsters down, I opted in….and loved it! Out further there were so many different types of tropical fish, stingrays, sea lions, turtles and even sharks which we saw!!! After reluctantly being called back to the ship for out ‘post outing snack’ and then lunch we were then back on land at a different point of Epanola to do another walk to see more wildlife. This time the highlights were Nasca Boobies, Hawks, Albatross, Mocking Birds and Iguana’s along with a blow hole from the sea.
Quote of the day
American lady Marleen, accusing a sunbathing Iguana of being a ‘rock hugger’ when she wanted to seat down.
The next Island on our hit list was Floreana. This is one of the few islands that has fresh water and so you can expect to see other wildlife including Flamingo’s
(unfortunately they were not around for us to see though) and many different types of Fauna. Again we had a nice walk around and stumbled upon another gorgeous beach. This one was partly protected as it is where the turtles lay their eggs and where there are stingrays very shallow that you may stand on them by mistake!
We did some more deep sea snorkeling off this island around a nearby island called Champion. We also spotted dolphins out at sea but when we began pursuit in the zodiac’s we could no longer see them (the national park allows for whales and dolphins to be pursued in zodiacs if you sight them first). Next it was onto Post Office Bay. An old tradition of the Galapagos is a postal service that is entirely ran on a hand deliver service only and NO stamps. The idea is that the letters are left and when people come ashore, if they are going near the destination of a letter there, you take it with you and hand deliver to the addressee. Unfortunately there were none that I could take….but mum and dad I have kindly written you one! So if you ever get
Stingray
Whilst out snorkelling a knock on the door with a postcard from me from the Galapagos I will be very impressed!!
Finally it was onto Santa Cruz, the most populated Island in the Galapagos. Here there are Giant Tortoise’s living wild, So off we went in search of them! Once you spotted one, you spotted hundreds, they were everywhere! And so big! Again they were not fazed by humans, it was incredible.
However this then meant the end of my trip in the Galapagos. Short but AMAZING! Next stop, Peru!
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mum
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post card
I could go to the galapagos islands and pick the post card up