Sunshine!

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Despite the roosters, it turned out to be a nice day; even the sun had come out! We had to take a water taxi to the boat as the tide was out, then northeastward, through almost unbroken sunshine to Santa Cruz. After jumping off the boat and frying in the heat we jumped into another minibus, up to another tortoise sanctuary; they were a little bit bigger here, but it started to rain again! Nevermind, the next activity was walking down a mostly huge lava tube. I say mostly because there was one point where we had to crawl through the mud as the roof was only 40 centimetres high!
The afternoon's activity was a walk to Tortuga (arrr!) bay, a beautiful sandy beach hiding an equally beautiful lagoon. We hopped into a few kayaks, and headed off for a tour, on the left handside we didn't see much at all, apart from mangroves, but as soon as we crossed over there were turtles everywhere, then Zambo spotted a couple of dolphins, so we followed them for a bit, and when I headed for the shore I saw something else sunbathing on the top of the water. Could have been a ray, but Zambo thinks he saw a shark! A long walk back followed by fish for tea.
Next morning was sunny again! We headed over to the Charles Darwin research centre, and met George, the last tortoise of his kind; still not as big as the first one we saw though, then wandered on to the land iguana enclosures; wanted to bring one of these guys home! Not sure it'd have been all that comfortable in my backpack, though.
Back to the boat, and an hour and a half crossing, in the sunshine to Santa Fe, but when we arrived the swell was washing over the reef and the sand made it difficult to see very far in the water; we were passed by a male sealion, easily the biggest thing we'd actually swam with, but other than that the only thing that caught my eye was a very camera-shy angelfish. Back on to the boat and another hour and a half to San Cristobal, with the clouds slowly gathering. Sure enough, once we arrived it rained! Out for our last galapagos dinner; we arrived and the floor under our table was wet; not a good sign, but it wasn't raining then so we sat down.. But then halfway through the maincourse the heavens opened and the sunshade above our heads was about as much use as sieve... a quick change of tables required and it (get ready for a bad pun) really put a dampener on the evening!
Next day dawned raining again, and (next pun) turned out to be a bit of a damp squib as we were flying back to Quito at midday, so we just pottered around for the whole morning - I went for a quick run, and even though the sun wasn´t shining, I couldn´t believe how hot it was. The flight back seemed to take a lot longer than the one out, but at least we could see the tops of the volcanoes above the clouds as we approached Quito. A vietnamese dinner.... was slightly underwhelmed as it didn´t really taste of anything.... distinct lack of spices, and I suppose that is a feature of Ecuadorian cooking... not as spicy as Peru!

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Photos

even the iguanas pose for the camera
beautiful beach, too

Zambo and the egg
even half tonne tortoises start small

land iguana
looking happy with the tucker

see no evil
blue footed boobies

Comments

[Matt]

Don't think you can go to the Galapagos and not meet George, I think its in their charter.