Day 55: Spanish lessons on Floreana Island

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Ok, so it may appear that we are getting a little behind on our blogs but its only because we've been isolated deep in the amazon rainforest, lucky to have running water let alone wi-fi! So I'm writing this blog in our private transport on our way to Shell on the iPhone.We wandered down and met our tour agent at 7.45am who took us down to the dock to catch our boat down to Floreana Island. While waiting for our boat, we noticed a sea-lion getting some early morning suntanning in, resting on the little floating dock. Unfortunately it was quite overcast and cold this morning so he wasn't catching to many rays.We caught the water taxi out to our waiting speed boat and set off south, for the 2 hour cruise. It was a relatively uneventful cruise, the wind was blowing quite hard and Rach thought it'd be a good opportunity to catchup on some sleep.I made out the formation of Floreana Island about half way as Santa Cruz disappeared in the cloud and mist. Floreana is an interesting place; one of the first human settlements in all of Galapagos. It was used predominately by whalers in the early days, as well as a hide out for pirates, but more on that later.We cruised along the north west shorelines of the island, and got really excited when a manta ray jumped up out of the water not 15m from the edge of the boat! Rach had the camera at the time and we frantically tried to capture it on its 2nd jump however we weren't quick enough. We arrived into the small village of Puerto Velasco Ibarra which is the only settlement on the island. It is tiny, with only about 150 people calling it home. We anchored and got taxied into shore, with the dock been used as a sunning spot for more sea-lions, 2 brown pelicans and a marine iguana.Our guide told us to follow him; Rach and I, 2 German blokes and a Spanish couple. We jumped onto the back of a converted truck / bus that had wooden seats installed on the back of the tray. We drove up into the hills, passing Floreana's extinct volcano which now sits dormant and covered in thick green foliage.We got to our destination after 15 mins and our guide asked us if we spoke any Spanish. Rach confidently replied "pequeno". Errr, by a small amount of Spanish she means hardly any. Our guide then informed us that he spoke very little English!!! Well, this is going to be fun. The guide spent about 10mins explaining something that we had no idea what he was on about. Next thing we know we are off and walking up along the path and that was our introduction to the area!As we walked along the path, we came across some giant tortoises roaming about the place. We managed to get from the guide that unfortunately, these are introduced species from Santa Cruz, Isabella and San Cristobal islands as the native Floreana tortoises were made extinct when the whalers settled in the area in the 1800s. The tortoises were captured for meat, oil and their shells. Apparently at one point, a couple of whalers decided to play a prank and light a fire however the fire quickly burned out of control and it is said that the majority of the island was destroyed by the bushfire.Anyway, sorry, got sidetracked. We walked around this little area where there were giant tortoises everywhere you looked. We tried to get as close as we could for photos however had to be careful; you get too close they hiss and growl at you and then their head and neck retract to the safety of their shells! We followed one big guy who was on a mission, clambering over rocks and logs in a slow-motion but eager stampede. We found out why, he had cornered this little female tortoise and proceeded to mount her in an awkward clash of hard shells and rubbery limbs. I thought about putting on some Barry White to set the mood but our Spanish tour was moving on. So we left the 2 tortoises at it and wandered on to these little caves carved out in the side of the mountain. At the front was a carved head known as the Inca Face. Unfortunately this was found not to be the remains of some ancient Inca civilisation however carved by a boy in the 1930s. (I only found this out after our tour guide moved on and an English tour group full of Americans came in behind us. Rach and I hung around so we got to English version of the story instead of the Spanish!)We moved on took a look a the caves which had been carved. They were used by pirates who used to settle here temporarily, waiting for unsuspecting merchant ships to sail on by. Unfortunately I didn't find any hidden treasure and we had to move on. Our last stop was a natural spring that supplies the village with running water all year round. Not overly exciting and I got this info from the information board out the front, not from our 'bilingual' guide.We went back to the bus for a spot of lunch and then had some free time on Black Beach. As the name suggests, the beach is covered in black sand! It was still cloudy and quite cold so no sun baking for us. Instead we walked the length of the beach, watching these tiny jet black crabs run up and down the rocks. They were camouflage little buggers so we had to be careful to not step on them. We found a little sea lion cub hiding away amongst the rocks. Rach got a little too close and upset him, but I got a decent photo of him barking at her.We returned to the dock, watched the pelicans dive for fish while waiting for our water taxi back to the speed boat. Once back on board, we cruised down just past Black Beach for some snorkelling. It was freezing cold however with the prospect of good visibility underwater we had to go in. And yep, it was freezing!! After the initial shock and swimming around it got a little better but not much. We swam around for a bit and we both saw this large, circular shape appear infront of us....turtle!!! A giant green sea turtle glided on past us swimming close to the sea bed. We took off after it, watching it swim and them nibble at some seaweed on the ocean floor. It was so cool. The current was quite strong as before we knew it, we had drifted quite far from the boat. We left our turtle to it and swam back closer to shore. Just as we got to about 15m from the little beach, we found a group of about 7 turtles just lounging about on the sea bed!! They were everywhere! We dived down holding out breath to get a closer look and used up the last of our underwater camera shots to hopefully get a cool pic.By this point we'd been in the water for about 40mins and we were getting a bit chilly so we left the turtles to their business and swam back to the boat to dry off. Rach was really happy and excited that she got to see sea turtles swimming around as she didn't really get to see too many the other day at Santiago.<br style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" />The trip back to Santa Cruz didn't seem to take too long. Rach had another nap (they are becoming quite common these days!) and I started my new book. We got back to Santa Cruz and was met by a heavy shower of rain! After getting ready for dinner, we headed to the Rock restaurant which was only ok - quite expensive 'gringo' restaurant. Rach's fish came out a bit raw and mine my pesto fettuccine with fish fillet was quite dry. We spotted some Americans who were on our Plaza tour yesterday eating at the same restaurant. They went to Seymour Island today so we gave them greasy looks and hoped that it poured with rain all day that kept the frigate birds away!Tomorrow will be a nice relaxing day at Tortuga Bay - our last day in Galapagos :-(.

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