Advertisement
Published: March 21st 2010
Edit Blog Post
Land Iguana, Dragon Hill
He was just sitting there on the path, waiting for us to admire him! Sorry we are a bit behind with our blog. Would you believe it's actualy hard to find a spare half hour to write it up? We are either out exploring or looking for accomodation or food. We are currently on board the M/V "Santa Cruz", a larger cruise ship (90 passenger capacity, although only 59 at the moment) which actually has satellite internet access! Right now, I am writing from ther channel betwwen Islas Fernandida and Isabela. The schedules are so busy on the boats, but we have a break between our wakl this morning and a big snorket this afternoon. But more on that later!
So, back to Day 3 of our first cruise. We landed at a place called Dragon Hill, which is actually on Sant Scruz, the main island, somewhere on the north-east coast I think. We took a walk up to the hill (not that high, saw more iguanas, birdlife and enjoyed the general greenness of everything. It has rained a lot, more than usual this wet season, although not much at all while we have been here. Apparently this cruise two weeks ago saw a lot of mud here, and got quite messy. Today is
Carpenter Bee, Dragon Hill
Galapagos only bee, the females are black and also collect pollen. Quite large (about 2.5 cms). sunny and warm, no mud so walking is easy and enjoyable. In the dry season it is quite dull and brown, so we are seeing it at its best.
We walked over to a lagoon where we had hoped to see flamingoes, but because of the rain the water is less salty than usual so no shrimp and therefore no flamingoes. Very disappointing. But many large land iguana sunning themselves on the walking path.
Back on board, and the boat made it's way to Bartolome. The ship's cook prepared dinner for tonight, tuna, and the scraps are being thrown to the frigate birds off the upper deck. They fight over the easy food, making quite a spectacle, flying so close to the boat you can actually touch them. these birds are huge - much larger than you realise, probably two feet or more from beak to tail. The pelicans follow behind but they are not as aggressive as the frigates, and pick up what they can. Lots of photos, we'll need to sort them out when we get back.
We reach Bartolome after lunch, and have a snorkel under the famous Pinnacle Rock. Although it looks very
Blue-footed Booby, Dragon Hill
The famnous blue-footed booby! barren under the water (not lush with lots of colourful coral like the Barrier Reef) but nonethless plenty of fish. A shark actually swam past me about 2 mtrs away and I just managed to get a pic,m the little Panasonic underwater camera has been working brilliantly, both on land and in the water. Fish, stingrays, even a penguin swam though the middle of the group.
After the snorkel we climbed the peak on Bartolome that overlooks the isthmus and bays, over to Santiago (where we didn't land). This is an old volcano, still very barren with amazing lava flows all over. The scenery is quite like a moonscape, but with odd lava cacti growing here and these on the seemingly barren rock. There is a board walk all the way from the pier (where two marine iguanas greeted us) up to the peak, to preserve the natural terrain. At the top, where there seemed like about a thousand people (there were two other boats in the area) and took the obligatory postcard shot of Pinnacle Rock below - every book on the Galapagos has this view, but it is quite spectacular.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 15; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0332s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb