The Galapogos!!

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Currently in Huarez, Peru (Sept. 12th)

Started Sept.5th: in puerto moreno on san cristobal, preparing to fly to guayaquil tomorrow...

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

We flew into the Island of Santa Cruz (Baltra) on aug. Wed 28th and took the island bus from the ferry to Puerto Ayora (easy transfer). We ended up at the Elizabeth hotel, which is right on the main drag (charles darwin) for $55/night, which is about the lowest of the low end. Wilmer is trying hard to spruce up the place; there was alot of painting going on and new matresses being delivered but our room was very tight and damp. But, we wanted to spend our money on tours rather than on our hotel and for the 3days we spent on Santa Cruz it was adequate. And wilma was very accomodating.

Our idea was to do the Galapagos through day tours rather than cruise tours. We found that the tours are varied, some being more worth the money than others.

We spent our first full day walking over to Tortuga Bay and swimming in the beautiful cove. It's wonderful to be in the island environment and atmosphere! There's lot of marine iguanas everywhere and I saw my first blue-footed Booby on my walk on the nature trail to the left of the cove. Lisa & Rumi went straight to the cove to swim and they eventually rented a kayak and explored the entire cove, seeing lots of white tipped reef sharks and 2 Boobies. Lisa had a "Jaws" moment in the kayak when, all of a sudden, they were surrounded by 6 to 8 sharks (all between 3 to 4 feet long) swimming beneath them!! She said the music started playing and everything!!

The next day, we went on a tour of N. Seymour island ($145 pp), which started as a bus ride back across the island to the ferry dock, then we boarded a nice boat that took us to Seymour. There, we had a guided tour (1-1/2 hours) through the frigate and blue-footed booby colonies there, which was very interesting. We then reboarded the boat and on the way to El Barges beach they fed us a nice meal cooked right on the boat. We then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the beach, where rumi had his first snorkling experience, which he liked very much. When we were getting on the small boat to transfer to the cruiser, all of a sudden we were inundated by thousands of blue-footed boobies in a maniacal flying frenzy!! They would land on the water for a few seconds then do a group take-off, all wings and swirls and booby cries!! It was amazing! The guide stated that he had never seen anything like it before! They would move about 100-200 yards and land and the entire process would start again! Amazing!

But we agreed that the Seymour tour wasnt worth the $$.

We spent our last afternoon on Santa Cruz on a taxi tour of the highlands. We met him down at the pier and arranged a tour of the tortoise sanctuary and the lava cave for $35 for all of us. It was nice to see the giant land tortoises in their natural habitat. We had spent the morning acting on a tip from our guide from the day before and told the taxi to take us to the La Feria, which is a local Saturday morning market where we had a great local breakfast, wandered thru the many stalls & watched a woman make the local specialty bolones.

We then took a speedboat on sunday morning to island Isabella ($30) and spent 3 days at the Coral Blanco ($65 for us 3), which was very clean and nice. We really enjoyed the community of Puerto Villamil, which probably has an average of one vehicle for every 4 blocks of roadway (and most of that was sand)! A very laid-back atmosphere! Later the same day we walked back towards the dock and rumi went snorkling ($5 for snorkling gear rental) at Concha de Perla, a nice cove where they have built a dock in amidst the mangrove trees. Sea lions abound!!

The next day, we went on the Volcano tour ($35 pp) and that was great. First, though, I wanted to say that the Garua White Fog that haunted us in Lima was also very much present in Guayaquil and here in the Galapagos! All 3 major towns have been continually wrapped in the Garua, which makes everything damp and musty! And every once in a while the Garua turns misty and drizzly, though it never truly drizzles, just mists! Yuck, especially for us, sun- loving Arizonians that we are! So, when they picked us up at 7:30am and drove us to the highlands to begin the hike, we all froze in the open air trucks! But then, all of a sudden, we broke thru the Garua into the bright sunshine! It was wonderful to be in the sun again! And the rest of the day was spent in the relentless sun (so remember to bring sunscreen and lots of water! You're going to be drinking a lot!)...The hike to the Sierra Negra caldara was gradual up and very enjoyable in the bright sunshine (thanks to lillian & matt for the sunscreen!). The caldera is the 2nd largest crater in the world and the view is spectacular! The hike then drops down through recent volcanic lava flows to the Volcan Chico, and becomes very moon-like! Very photogenic and interesting! But the hike was a total 10 miles round trip in exposed sun so we were all grateful to reach the truck at the end and its cold drinks for sale!

On our last day, we had a lazy morning, then Lisa & Rumi went to snorkel at Los Tintorares ($35 or 45 each, we can't remember which!), where they had a fantastic tour given by a female tour guide (they can't remember her name!). They also swam with 7 sea turtles and tons of colorful fish!(The guide went snorkling, too!). Ron, in the meantime, rented a mountain bike ($2/hr across the street from the Coral Blanco at the Tienda) and rode out to the Muro de Las Lagrimas, which was a very nice ride (especially coming back!) in the cool sea air! I ran into Kate and Dolly out at the Wall, who convinced me to eat at their hotel by their vivid description of the fish tacos, etc. (See next paragraph). The Wall was impressive, another example of the extent that men can torture other people!! (Great examples of this are found in the exploits of Mr. Pizarro and his friends after they landed in Peru...)

We had 3 nice meals in the evenings that we spent on Isabella. On our first evening (sunday), we walked past the square and church (away from the shore) and found a nice local Ecuadorian restaurant a few blocks from the square grilling their protein outside and had a nice set meal for $7 each for beans, rice and protein. Then, the next night we went to the El Cafetal Cultural (facing the square next to the church) where, for $10, we had a wonderful set menu meal that was fabulously presented gourmet-style muy delicioso (tuna was $10 and the swordfish was $15!). Then, on our last night on Isabella, we went to the Caleta Iguana hotel (down the road west from our hotel) to meet our Toronto friends (Kate, Sabrina & Dolly) and had some nice fish tacos and fish & chips! A nice ending to a nice time on Island Isabella.

We left Isabella on Wednesday early at 6am for the boat ride back to Santa Cruz. It was a rough ride and Lisa & I sat towards the front of the speedboat and the pounding of the boat against the waves pushed me over the edge - it was rough there for a while (my scopolamine patch hadnt kicked in yet!). We took the 2 pm boat over to San Cristobal and i felt much better since the patch had kicked in (it takes 4 hours for the patch to work and then it's effective for 3 days. It has been working fantastically during this entire trip -- unfortunately, i didnt place the patch on Isabella until i awoke that morning to get ready to go -- bad mistake!) and we made sure to sit in the far rear of the boat, which is a lot smoother and more exciting but alot wetter from the ocean spray (I rather be wet than seasick!)!

These crossings took between 2 and 2-1/2 hours and were great fun (when I wasnt sick). We arrived in San Cristobal and found a nice room in the very nice Casa de Laura (for $60 for the three of us) on the western side of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno (PBM). We really enjoyed the day and a half that we spent in PBM--it reminded us more of Puerto Villamil and Isabella's easygoingness rather than Puerto Ayoras and Santa Cruz's busyness.

The next day (thursday - Sept. 5th) was Lisa's birthday!! What a great place to spend a birthday! After breakfast at the Patagonia restaurant (Ecuadorian breakfasts with delicious fried bolones and eggs), we rented snorkling gear and trudged past the Playa Mann to the nice snorkling cove at the foot of the Cerro de las Tijeretas where Rumi & Lisa got in their last snorkling in the Galapagos. Rumi played with an interactive sea lion that was great fun. Both Rumi and the sea lion wanted the other to come home with him!

That evening we went out to the Calypso restaurant to celebrate Lisa's birthday! We were joined by the Toronto gals, who had followed us from Isabella to San Cristobal that day. Thanks for celebrating with us, gals! Lisa always enjoys commiserating with folks about The Walking Dead and Downton Abbey (sorry, Sabrina!)! Lisa received a pair of blue-footed booby earrings that will certainly be a big hit in Flagstaff when we return!

And that was our experience in the Galapogos!

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