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Published: March 11th 2008
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I arrived back at the airport far too early to meet my guide and the people I would be spending the next week with and sat watching with horror as the geriatric couples streamed through the arrivals gate. It suddenly dawned on me that in booking a fairly good boat with a good reputation and itinerary instead of a cheap crappy one, I had probably assured that there would be no young backpacker types on board and I may have to spend the week with octogenarian ornithologists! At least, I thought to myself, there's a good chance the guide might be young and cute. That hope was dashed upon meeting Miguel who was about 45 with a mustache and trousers which came up to his chest.
When our group was finally assembled it was a mixed bunch and did include an odd looking long haired sandal wearing guy. I had seen him earlier and jokingly thought, I bet he’s one of mine. However, I immediately hit it off with Sarah, an English girl from London, there with her husband Martin, and we chatted on the bus all the way from the airport to the docks.
The rest of our group was
made up of a couple of twitchers from Alaska called Katya and Allen, an older lady called Nicole, and oddball Swedish guy called Hugo who spoke two words the whole trip. An English guy called Peter and a young American called Adam.
We got ourselves settled on board our ship, Yate Floreana, which was to be home for 8 days. I was sharing with Nicole the older lady who was from Brussels and turned out to be an amusing, slightly nutty, but very perky 67 yr old who had ditched her husband on the mainland when he didn't want to come on the trip.
Our first trip on the itinerary was a visit to the Tortoise reserve on the main island, it pretty much started raining as soon as we hit the highlands which put a dampener on our first days bonding a bit but gave the tortoises shells a lovely shine. We then did a quick circuit of the huge sink holes called Los Gemelos - the twins, before heading back to the boat for a warm shower and a fantastic meal. I had come well prepared with 4 litres of alcohol thinking that the boat prices would be
double, but because everyone else had only just arrived at the airport that day, I was the only one. So over the week I table hopped with my cheap boxes of red wine - a good way to make friends but all in all we were a very boring group, napping in the afternoons and in bed most nights by 10pm. The early starts, hot sun and following a guide around all day really takes it out of you and we’d all paid enough for the trip so we wanted to make the most of it.
We sailed during the night to one of the outlying islands to the north of Santa Cruz called Genovesa where there were great colonies of birds which, having grown up with no predators, were pretty fearless of humans too and we were able to get ridiculously close. I got a little too close to one sea lion though when he had his eyes closed and he turned on me because I was invading his pool of water. I had to defend myself with my umbrella. It was a pretty scary moment and I certainly learned my lesson, its very hard to remember to keep
your distance though when most of the time the animals come up to you inquisitively or are just lying across the path so you have to step over them.
The second day we landed on Isla Santiago, an island landscape of black lava, flowing round old volcanoes to the sea. We all wondered around marveling at the rock folded and bubbled into strange formations before climbing up to the top of the volcano on Isla Bartolome for a birds-eye view.
That evening we sailed again, much to the distress of the few sea sick people on board, there were a few no shows this time at dinner, but after only a short passage we anchored under the huge red cliff face of Isla Rabida. A short walk in the morning along the red sand beach past Darwins finches and pelicans in the bushes brought us to our first close up with blue footed boobies and a very inquisitive fur seal. He had the biggest weirdest glassy eyes, good for hunting at night. Then we had a great snorkel out along the rocks, spotting small White tipped reef sharks and octopus. All our snorkels episodes have blurred into one now and
I cant remember what we saw where, but some were almost as good as diving and we all spent a whole lot of time in the water over the next few days. Me and Adam were both pretty good a spotting stuff and enjoyed diving down and looking in crevices so I stuck with him a lot of the time. We were also beginning to spend a lot of time on land together along with Peter with whom I discovered I had a lot in common, he’s even got the same van as me. In the afternoon we relocated back to Santa Cruz and visited Cerro Dragon to see the land iguanas, passing three flamingos in a lagoon just behind the beach on the way. I got some great photos when I waited till the rest of the group had walked on and the flamingos got confident enough to come back to my side of the lake, and then again when I spotted a land iguana and just sat down for 10 minutes, he almost walked right over me!
After an evening on deck stargazing and talking about politics and religion with Adam (always an essential part of the bonding
process) and a long overnight sail, we spent the following day in Puerto Villamil on Isabella, we had a bus tour to the tortoise breeding centre and later to the Wall of tears built, taken down and rebuilt many times by inmates at the old penal colony, this was the only dull day of the tour really and the sea was too rough for snorkeling so we were all a bit disappointed.
The we made our way round Isabella and through the Bay of Urvina where it should be possible to see whales and dolphins, so in anticipation I slept up on deck with Adam, Sarah and Lucas and told the captain to sound the horn if he spotted anything. Unfortunately we arrived at our anchorage before sunrise which was bad planning, so I wasn’t in the best mood when the anchor chain woke me up at 5am.
The following day we toured Fernandina and saw more sea lions, iguanas and crabs (by this time we were getting a bit over saturated with the animals and our guide Miguel's accent was really starting to grate on me). Then walked to Darwin lake on Isabella with a view over to the
northern part too. This was followed by a fantastic snorkel with feeding turtles and penguins all over the place.
Our last full day was spent back on Santiago but the opposite side this time, with more iguanas, and fur seals all being washed in and out of surging lava holes filled with turquoise water.
We almost had a mutiny on our hands though in the afternoon as Miguel had offered snorkeling as an alternative to the itinerary tour to some old salt mines but then refused to agree to do both, even though we checked with the captain that there was plenty of time. We eventually settled it, more or less, with the captain backing us but I think Miguel might have missed out on some tips following that.
We finally managed a bit of a knees up that evening as it was Katya's birthday and the captain and crew tried to find a way to get rid of Katya and Allen in order to set about decorating the dining room with balloons. In the end we solved the dilemma accidentally by dancing to loud salsa music which drove them down into their cabin. We had a crazy hot and
sticky hour dancing with the captain Freddy and Marjorie while a rainstorm poured down outside before dinner, cocktails and birthday cake.
The next morning we whizzed round the islands of Daphne Major and Minor waving to a scientist couple camped out on the cliff edge who were having their morning cuppa. Then it was back to the airport and on to Santa Cruz where most of the group were planning to stay on for a while with the exception of Hugo.
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