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Published: April 1st 2008
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Land iguana
These guys were amongst my favourites! The amazing Galapagos Islands...
There are not really words to describe how absolutely awesome an experience it is being on the islands surrounded by (and so close to) its special wildlife.
We arrived in Quito late afternoon and headed straight out to investigate last minute Galapagos deals - and we were lucky! We scored a room on a first class boat (the Sea Man II - no jokes about the name people) leaving the next day. Even better, we got about 35% off the normal price.
The trip didn´t start off fantastically - our flight from Quito was delayed and shortly after we arrived in the islands it started to rain. But it definitely didn´t spoil it. That first day we were on Santa Cruz island where we went inland to the highlands to see the giant tortoises. Absolutely incredible. We got within about 2 metres of them watching them eat the grass and just mosey around.
Then we headed to the Charles Darwin Centre to see some exhibitions. We saw Lonesome George, the only surviving member of one of the species of giant tortoise. They have been trying to breed him with females of other breeds, but
Giant galapagos tortoise
Now we know where the inspiration for ET came from! none of them seem to be having it. So Lonesome he remains.
We also saw the baby tortoises - they start off tiny - hard to believe they get so big. We watched them for a while, cruising around their enclosure, climbing all over each other - all with their racing numbers on their backs for identification. And we also had our first sight of the giant iguanas - WOW!
Then we headed to the boat. WOW again. It was luxury. Our private bathroom was bigger than most of the hostel bathrooms we had become accustomed too. On our five days on the boat we got very quickly used to the three course meals and table service. Having pretty much one crew member to each passenger was indeed luxury.
The following days our catamaran travelled far. We went to Isabella Island, Fernandina Island, Bartolome Island, South Playas Island and finished in San Cristobal Island. A lot of our travel was at night because the distances were huge. But we were lucky we had a powerful boat and could go to see the islands further west (Isabella and Fernandina) as they have the most incredible wildlife.
Everything
was amazing. We saw penguins, sea lions, marine iguanas, land iguanas, giant tortoises, sea turtles, blue footed boobys, Darwin finches, flightless cormorants, frigate birds, pink flamingos, bright red crabs and it just goes on and on.
Some of the highlights were:
- Swimming with the sea lions. It was amazing. Evan particularly loved it, diving down into the water to get closer to them - until the big male decided to bite on his flipper!
- Landing on a beach while raining to find the landing covered in hundreds of marine iguanas. We moved past them and they got busy spitting salt at us as they slowly and very unconcernedly, moved out of our way.
- Watching the sea lion colonies. We sat there for hours just watching them get around, climbing over each other, swimming for a while and they just flopping on the sand or the rocks. They are awesome rock climbers. It was particularly cute (but sort of sad) watching a few orphans get up and down the beach trying to find a mother who would let them suckle. Some of the mothers got particularly vicious actually.
- Seeing a sea lion taking a break on
a park bench.
- Watching penguins getting it on in the mangroves.
- Watching the dive bombing pelicans. It was incredible how hard their beaks would hit the water from such a great height, trying to surprise a few fish.
- Getting within about 6 metres of pink flamingos.
The list goes on and on. Everything was amazing and we would love to do it all again. Especially on such a nice boat! Generally, it was just so incredible that all these animals were so accepting of human presence - you could get so close to pretty much anything and it wouldn´t mind. Interesting one original explorer on the island had said "The animals were very stupid because they didn´t bother to flee from humans." Obviously he didn´t realise how incredibly special that actually was. Luckily we do now and the islands are protected. We had such an amazing time, we suggest if you are thinking about it, stop thinking and just go!
On returning to Quito, Ecuador, we headed south to the Quilotoa Loop to see some local country towns and the beautiful Quilotoa Lagoon in an extinct volcano crater. It was a nice trip, just a
shame we got saturated and hailed on during the last 20 minutes hiking out of the crater! After this we headed further south to Banos (the same spanish word used to describe toilets! Think it actually means baths-bathroom). It was a beautiful town in a valley with an active volcano towering over it. We were lucky enough to see the volcano blowing dark grey smoke into the air after having to trek up a mountain with the requisite cross on top of it (there seems to be a cross or religious statue on most hills in south america). After this it was time to head back to Quito.
The bus rides were crazy. People getting on anywhere on the side of the road. Each bus has a bus boy which stands in the open doorway and yells out to people on the street the bus destination, and then he jumps off to help people with their luggage before the bus is moving again. If there´s no luggage the bus barely stops to let the people on! Then there´s the people who get on when passing through a town selling food and drinks. Icecream is very popular in Ecuador! Served
out of eskys, it never seems to melt. Decided not to find out why.
On our third visit to Quito we finally headed to the old town. It is beautiful. We had a free walking tour with our hostel and it was really interesting. The buildings are beautiful and there is a great atmosphere. Loads of churches, with incredible decoration - the Spanairds were incredibly successful in making the locals Catholic followers. It is a beautiful city and it would have been nice to have a bit more time there, but Peru was calling!
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