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Published: November 4th 2005
Arriving at the Galapagos Islands in the airport. The next thing to do is pay out $100 as a national park entry fee, supposedly to go towards conserving the islands, but i'm not so sure about that. Rather expensive beginning for my South American trip, but this place is changing so fast that it will likely be much more expensive and touristed in 20 years time, better to see it now.
Because the airport near Santa Cruz was closed for tarmac repair, we had landed on San Cristobal, with a small town that wasn't geared up for tourism like Puerto Ayora. We were met by our boat tour guide (Jorge) and shunted off to the dock to load us onto the boat (The Guantanamera). Once there we quickly settled in and then went to the top deck to find out what was going on.
Which was: our itinerary was going to be completely different to what we had bought, we had a couple of divers in the group expecting to dive but there was no plan for this and the captain would have to be consulted, our first day we would wander around the island we were currently docked
in and lucky for us the itinerary would include wandering around the same island in the last day. From what we had read there was not a lot to do on this island, so our 5 day tour seemed to shrink to a 3 day tour quickly and involved spending the first half of the next day refueling and travelling to our first destination, supposedly all the long distance travel was meant to happen during the night.
I think most of the passengers had expected this kind of itinerary slide and we were having our no/low expectations met or exceeded, so there was not much rumbling at this stage, just some worried looks about how much more slide could occur...
The other passengers seemed like a good bunch with a mix from many different countries. Sadly no female Swedish swim team members in need of a relaxing (and stimulating :o) massage after a hard 6 month training session, that Matt and myself had been expecting.
Once everyone had settled in we returned to the island for the beginning of our tour. This was in the large information booth located just outside of the town. We entered and
read all about the construction of the islands due to a hotspot under the earth's mantle. This hotspot remains relatively stationary while the tectonic plates above move over it, thus creating archipeligoes when the hotspot bursts through the earths crust. Our guide was able to add some extra information, but was basically saying what we were able to read, but saying it more elaborately.
Eventually moving on to the next exhibit we had a similar lecture but this time the subjects started straying (political and other local issues - interesting but not in context) and some feet were being shuffled from standing for so long in one place. I think it took us almost all of an hour to finish 3 exhibits, then we were let go free to peruse the rest of the exhibits ourselves.
Got a Galapagos stamp in my passport as we left the information center and then walked back to town and began our mission of finding mixing supplies (limes, tonics and sodas) for our bottles of liquor (Gin, Rum and Vodka) that we had brought for the boat tour. One of the most difficult missions ever, the last shop we tried had some
limes after searching 15-20 shops.
After dinner and finishing off all the gin and tonics and most people had went to bed, the boat began the first leg at midnight of driving to the refueling area, an old military naval base just north of the Santa Cruz island. 7am next morning with a slight hangover Matt drags me out of bed to go dive off the top of the boat at 5m high, a good method of waking and relieving some of the hangover! Not sure whether the other passengers appreciated our woohoos as we jumped, but we figured they would get used to it after a few days..
Went on land for a walk after arriving at our proper destination finally. Amazing how close you can get to the animals there, and a great chance to use my new zoom lens, except sometimes i would have to step back to get the subject to fit into the view. Some of the animals we saw were boobies, frigates, sealions, iguanas and other lizards. Though like before, Jorge our guide had us stand around for long lectures with unrelated subjects for extended periods at the beginning of the tour
and then had us rush through the rest, this was getting annoying.
Went snorkelling after lunch. Never before have i swam such as this! Sealions would come up and curiously look at you then shoot away and come darting back very playfully, occassionally brushing up against us. They were all different sizes, and a few times we saw a massive male swim by below us. As we moved in the current around the island, less sealions would play and we saw more turtles grazing on the vegetation that grew here, some would come close, i think checking us to see if we were food and then losing interest quickly.
Next day we both dived off the top of the boat at 6am, later went walking around another island to see more boobies, albatross and hawks. The albatross and boobies are fun to watch. The albatrosses use a runway to takeoff and land and will sometimes crash during a landing, we didn't see a landing, but the resulting messes with feathers scattered were evident. Albotrosses also sit on the ground doing this beak click-clacking ritual. Male boobies do this little dance where they waggle their feet about showing the
females flying above how blue their feet are.
Jorge is definitely annoying now with his long lectures and then rush-rush, he has been guiding for 16+ years, i think one too many tours at this point as he is sharing a lot of political/opinionated baggage. More snorkelling in the afternoon.
During the walk the next morning we see pink flamingos in a lagoon, a beautiful rainbow above the lagoon and some sting rays in the sand on the beach. Jorge was at his most annoying level ever, choosing to stop us for long lectures in various locations, one where we were being eaten by mosquitos, the next where we couldn't see anything interesting. One of the older German guys was pretty much steaming and very sarcastic at this point, venting pretty much what we were all thinking. And then when we are on the beach where it would be nice to just sit and enjoy the beautiful morning view he chastised us for taking too long to leave. We discovered why later...
After lunch went snorkelling around a feature called Devil's Crown, an old volcano which was just poking above the water line. The current here was
very strong and we went around the outside initially and then in through the middle once on the other side. Inside the crown we found an area where there were white tipped sharks sleeping under a ridge ledge. We were able to swim reasonably close and photograph them. But Jorge, after all his talk about not disturbing the animals, thought it would be better for our photos if he went much closer and disturbed them to get them swimming around! We also saw a group of 20+ rays on the bottom in the sand and several other groups swimming about.
The boat then took us to Santa Cruz island and Jorge rushed off without saying a word, he was to go and meet with his girlfriend! That's why he had been rushing us all this day in particular, she lived here.
After dinner and a bottle of red wine we said our goodbyes (most said they would miss our 6am woohoos as we dived off the boat) and left for the island since this was our closest dropoff point for getting to Isabela Island and we were not interested in the final day being back on our first
island. Back on land after being on the boat for so long it felt like the land was rocking. That night i got drunk drinking double black russians with Matt, Samantha and Lars... the land was rocking more now. Then later i imagined my spanish was perfect (since alcohol does that) and played pool with the locals until i couldn't see straight.
The next day we take a taxi boat to the small town of Villamil on Isabela Island. It left later than the first boat that we were worried about trying to get on, but we passed the first boat before we got halfway across. If you're travelling around the Galapagos by taxi boat, i highly recommend making sure you get in a boat with dual 150HP if you have the choice.
Villamil is one of those really relaxing coastal towns where there is hardly anything going on. Mainland "Ecuadorian Time" is prompt compared to here. Its just beginning to grow fast, currently around 2000 people, but a lot of new construction going on. Not many tourists and friendly locals, perfect! That first afternoon we found a tiny beach bar with techno blaring, the only customers were
4 navy crew and their captain. The captain was drunk and amicable to say the least!
The next morning we headed up the volcano in a van with some other tourists that we had met the day before. Some would be riding horses, but Matt, myself and 3 Israeli guys would be hiking up the main walking trail. Matt and myself would be the only people camping there.
The trail was muddy, misty and up for 2 hours. The mist and vegetation cleared a little on our left side, we could see a fuzzy patchy landscape, it appeared to slide away from your vision the more you stared. Mist was forming below and rising toward and past us into the clouds above. Further along the trail flattened, the mist cleared and we could tell that the volcano crater was to our left. This crater is around 10km across, the second largest in the world, we could also see another large crater to the north and 2 more on 2 other islands in the hazy distance, and nearby and below here a smaller newer volcano with jagged edges but no definite caldera. Absolutely beautiful!!
Arrived at one of
the big trees on the side of the Volcan Negra, there weren't many big trees and we would camp under this one later today. Here the others on horses were waiting, we all had lunch then went on a guided tour of the smaller Volcan Chico. Quite dangerous, there were deep holes in the ground with gravel edges, if there was a tremor there would be collapses.
After the tour the others all left and we setup camp, climbed the tree and went and looked at the volcanoes and sunset. The mist and clouds had cleared completely and we could now see right across the 10kms of the volcano. Woke up for a dawn hike with the clouds below us. Packed camp and then felt a half second tremor before we left. We were a little worried since we were camped between 2 volcanoes less than 2 kms apart with many others scattered about this and other islands.
Hiked out the same way we came in, passed another tour group on horses, and rested near the beginning of the trail in the mist which cooled us nicely. During our 2 hour rest while we awaited the return of
the tour group we felt another tremor. This tremor lasted more than 2 seconds and we could easily see the ground and shrubs moving. When we saw the tour group they described being in the Volcan Chico area near one of the chasms that collapsed during the tremor.
Back to Villamil for a shower and sleep. Taxiboat ride back to Santa Cruz. Exquisite Italian food with the Israelis. Matt decides to stay a few more days. The Israelis and myself back to San Cristobal and a flight back to Quito for me.
Note: We later got some more information from others on the tour about the last day. Matt and myself had left smallish tips and critical comments mostly regarding Jorge's big-lectures-then-rush-rush method of guiding. The final day he walked everybody up Frigate Bird Hill and chastised them all for not leaving enough tips in a roundabout but non-subtle way, and when some people attempted to explain why, he then stated he'd had 16+ years of experience and that we didn't know anything about guiding and on with similar drivel. For other tourist's sake i hope he retires soon.
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hugh
non-member comment
hey cool blog
pictures are great drew!