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Published: November 26th 2008
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In order to get to the Galapagos, we had to take an hour flight to the coastal city of Guayaquil and then another hour flight to the islands. We landed on the second biggest island, Santa Cruz. There we gathered our bags, rented snorkeling equipment and met our tour guide, Alfanso. We also met the rest of our group. There were three couples and one random weird German guy named Hoygar who Amanda had to bunk with since she drew the shortest straw. Unfortunately, the group wasn’t what we had hoped for but everyone was nice. A bus then took us about an hour and a half to the other side of the island to the small town were we would begin our 8 day boat tour. However, our boat was not ready yet, so we drove outside of town to a natural area where we got to watch giant tortoises. They were huge and there were tons of them. I got to pick a papaya off a tree, try some of it myself (delicious) and then feed it to one of the tortoises. After that we got to walk through a lava cave, which was pretty much a tunnel that
ran about a fourth of a mile through lava rock. At the end there was a small restaurant with a giant tortoise shell that we took pictures of ourselves inside. After this first excursion we returned back to town and took a small motor boat out to THE FLAMINGO- our grand 10 person budget boat. The boat had a tiny dining area, kitchen and roof top area for laying out. Rachel and I shared what seemed to be the smallest room on the boat. Lets just say that I had to change in my bed and sit on the toilet to brush my teeth. However, for being the cheapest option of all the tours that are available in the Galapagos, it was about what I expected. After dinner that night and popping some sea sickness pills we all went to bed super early, thankfully falling asleep before we started moving to our first island stop. Most of the nights we traveled between islands and if I didn’t fall asleep before we started moving it was really easy to get very sea sick. Plus the engine was right next to our bunk so it smelled like gas the entire time and
I was just happy to wake up each morning not asphyxiated by the fumes.
The first island we went to the next day was a red sand beach and we got off the boat to find seals just basking in the sun and some were nursing their baby seals. By the end of the trip we got to see this sight a lot. It was kind of sad that by the end of the trip I became somewhat desensitized to some of the incredible natural things that were going on right in front of me. Some of the most significant things that we got to see during our 8 day tour were a blue footed booby protecting her egg, a sea gull egg hatching, friggit birds and a pelican fighting over the placenta of a newly born seal. We also saw tons of iguanas, seals, sea lions, bright red crabs, birds of all kinds, and lizards. My favorite of all the animals though were the flamingos that we saw on the last day. There are only about 8 other places on earth that flamingos live so I felt very lucky be able to see them in their natural habitat.
Another fun fact that I learned is that flamingos get pink from the shrimp that they eat.
We also got to go snorkeling everyday. We swam with some brightly colored, unique fish, sharks, sea turtles and even sea lions. One of the days they took us out in a boat to this giant rock protruding from the water about 100yds off the coast. They threw us in the water with our snorkel gear and the water was very choppy and there was a super strong current. It was a little scary thinking that I had no control over where I was going. I floated along for a while but after not seeing anything great and feeling like I was going to be crashed into a rock I went back to the boat. Other than that all of our snorkeling was great.
Each of the days were traveled to a different unique island but for the most part our days were structured about the same. We would wake up at 7am for breakfast, then take the small boat to shore and walk around with our guide for about 2 hours to observe different animals. Then we returned to the
boat for snack and got to hang out on the deck to sun bathe or read or whatever. Some of the time we would travel to a different location at this time. Then we would have lunch and in the afternoons we would either walk around in a different location or snorkel, or hang out on the beach. The islands were all very different. There were ones with red sand, black sand, perfectly white sand. There was also a part of one of the islands that was completely lava. We were there during the dry season so most of the islands were desert looking, with bare trees and dry shrubbery. Another island was a volcanic mountain that we hiked up to the top of to see beautiful views.
Since we were there for 8 days it would be too much to go into detail about every day so I hope this gives you a little insight into what we did and what we saw in the Galapagos.
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