Mixing it with nature on the Galapagos Islands

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Our flight from Guayaquil to Baltra on the Galapagos took around 1.5hrs and was pretty uneventful. On arrival, we met our 13 fellow travellers for the next 8 days aboard MV Letty. Quite an interesting mix of 15 pax - 9 female & 6 male; 8 of our generation (I’m probably the oldest!) and 7 kids around their 20’s; 6 Brits, 6 Americans and 3 Aussies. And most importantly, everyone mixed really well. To service the 15 guests, we had 11 crew, incl the captain & 2 assistants, 2 naturalist guides (Orlando & Harry, both very knowledgable and experienced, with excellent English), 2 engineers, 2 cooks, a barman & a housekeeper, who all looked after us all fantastically well. The company running the cruise was called Ecoventura - you could do far worse than contact them if considering a Galapagos cruise, so we are happy to give them a free plug - website is ‘www.ecoventura.com’.

It is not easy writing up a simple description of events from the nine different islands we visited, as each had its own characteristics and wildlife, although there was a lot of overlap between islands. So I’ll try to summarise the key observations of the islands themselves, then run through the wildlife we saw, although the pictures below will tell a far better story.

The islands were formed around 5 million years ago by underwater volcanoes erupting and rising above the earth’s surface. The region is still volcanically very active, with the most recent eruption (on Isabela) being in 2005, which spewed ash and lava for several days. Thus the surface of virtually all the Galapagos islands is volcanic rock, with varying degrees of vegetation able to grow, and some of the islands (eg Fernandina) are almost completely barren. Any vegetation we did see (ie trees and bushes) was at best in hibernation (most looked dead, but in fact weren’t), awaiting the small amount of rain at the end of each year. Thus, in many cases, you would imagine you were walking across a moonscape, except the lava covered ground was extremely hard and uneven, reflecting its previous flows.

In terms of the wildlife, there were two most notable features. Unlike most jungle and other wildlife tours, the guides didn’t have to hope for a sighting of any species of wildlife. Those that were there in the Galapagos were there in droves, in many cases crawling over each other, and coexisting amazingly well with other species. At times, you actually had to be careful you weren't stepping on animals! The other feature is that virtually all species seemed totally oblivious to visitors, and almost treated the absolute myriad of photographers with disdain. So with few exceptions, you had plenty to choose from to take photos, and they actually stayed relatively still for you, although we were limited on how close we could get, and it was definitely no ‘touchies’.

So what did we see? I’ll try to break it down into categories of wildlife, rather than go through on an island-by-island basis.

BIRDS
Seabirds seen included three species of Boobies - blue-footed, Nazca (masked), and red-footed; frigatebirds; flightless cormorants; Galapagos penguins; waved albatross; brown pelicans; swallow-tailed gulls; red-billed tropicbirds; and storm petrels.
Shore & Wetland Birds seen included three species of heron - lava, yellow crowned night, and blue; and American oystercatchers.
Land Birds seen included mockingbirds; Galapagos hawks; yellow warblers; and Darwin’s finchs.

REPTILES
The key reptiles were the giant tortoises and the sea turtles; while the lizards included marine iguanas and land iguanas, as well as lava lizards.

MARINE LIFE
Marine Mammals seen included sea lions, eagle rays, Sally Lightfoot crabs, manta rays and whales, as well as many tropical fish while snorkelling.

So what were the most frequent seen? Almost every island had masses of sea lions either sunning themselves on beaches, or frolicking in the water close to shore. We also sighted literally thousands of marine iguanas, usually nested all up together to keep each other warm. And at times, the rocks contained so many Sally Lightfoot crabs, you actually thought the rock was covered red! The birds were everywhere, so it is hard to specify particular species that we saw more of.

So what were our favourites? Unless you are massive bird watchers (which we aren’t), I’d have to say our favourites were the giant tortoises, sea lions and sea turtles. An added bonus with the latter two was being able to snorkel right amongst them and have them all but touch you as they moved past. Mind you the water was freezing for snorkelling, despite the fact that we all wore wet suits. Other highlights were being able to get up close and personal with albatrosses, penguins, pelicans etc, and also the very distinctive colour of the feet of the red- and blue-footed boobies (no jokes please!). And yes, I resisted the temptation to purchase the very popular T-shirts with “I love boobies” splattered over the front.

So it was a great week all round, where we were blessed with good weather (no rain, and frequent sunshine, but cold at night and in the wind) and good company with our fellow passengers. I’m not going to name them individually, as they know who they are and some may read this blog, except to say we saw most of Linda & Steve from Minneapolis, and Allyson & Richard from Cambridge, England, and to thank Brits John and Sarah for their ongoing travel hints for the balance of our trip, and the former for his rugby (what a disaster of a weekend on that front!) and other banter. We’ll miss much from Galapagos, although not necessarily the narrow cabin beds and ‘compact’ bathroom, although given we had cabin number 1, we really have no room for complaint. All round a great experience with an excellent boat and crew.

So it's back to Guayaquil for an overnight cleanup, then a flight to Lima the following day, so our next entry will be from Peru.

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Photos

View from the 'Pinnacle Rock' on Bartolome, probably the most often published view of the Galapagos
Note the various shades of brown in the various hills in the distance.

Crab salad, anyone?
Lots of Sally Lightfoot crabs crawling over the rocks.