Española

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I was pleasantly surprised this morning when a platter of bacon was added to the usual breakfast buffet. This is the first time I´ve had bacon since September, and it was a very highly appreciated reunion.

Española is the southernmost island in the Galapagos, giving it a very remote location and making it a perfect place for endemic fauna. We took the dinghy boat to Gardener Bay Beach, which is a huge white sandy beach with rolling waves... and lots and lots of stinky sealions! Before the Galapagos National Park developed a stick code of conduct regarding the feeding of animals, people used to give the mockingbirds water out of their waterbottles. In result of that, the mockinbirds are attracted to waterbottles, and if you hold one or put one in the sand they will land right beside it.

I engaged in a deep conversation with one of the passengers, and learned I was on a gay cruise! Well... it was supposed to be a gay cruise, but a large group of gay Greek man cancelled at the last minute, opening up spots for people like me, Joanne, and the family. My fellow passengers who were gay had this cruise booked for a year and a half! Suddenly things were making sense, and I understood why some of the men were wearing speedos even though they weren´t European...

We cruised to the other side of Española to hike Punta Suarez and get a better look at the albatrosses. These birds were designed very different, with their body being almost too heavy to be supported by their legs. To take off they must run off the side of a cliff in order to catch proper wind currents. Watching them land was even funnier - swooping as close as possible to the ground, and then crash landing at the last second!

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