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Published: October 29th 2010
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This fella was waiting for fishes to become available from the fishermen
All of this takes place in the centre of Puerto Ayora town....you don't have far to go to see wildlife in the Galapagos Don´t think just do! Yes there are arguments about the impact that tourism has on the Galapagos. Yes there are arguments that the Ecuadorian Government simply pockets the USD 100 entry fee and does little to assist the Galapagos population. Yes there are arguments that the islands natural beauty is being spoilt. Disregard the arguments and go. The Galapagos aren´t called the enchanted islands for nothing and they rival Antarctica as one of the most amazing places we´ve been in the last 6 months! The variety of wildlife both and land and in the water is astounding and amazingly most of it is indifferent to humans, allowing you to get up very close.
Our trip was for 10 days. We spent the first couple in Purta Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. We dove for one day and then went to Tortuga beach for the second. The diving was great mainly for the variety of marine animals that we saw......including a huge Spotted Eagle Ray and numerous turtles. There were also sitings of Hammerhead Sharks and Galapagos Sharks, but visibility was poor so we didnt manage to see these guys........bummer!
The rest of the time we spent on board our
cruising boat the Golondrina. Even budget boats are pretty good in the Galapagos and there were no complaints about the facilities, food and service on baord. Our itinerary was;
Day 1 - Board the boat and the Darwin Research Centre on Santa Cruz Island - giant tortoises including Lonesome George.
Day 2 - Visit to Gemelos....to sunken craters on Santa Cruz and a visit to Santa Fe Island (we swam with sea lions and turles here) where there were boobies of the blue footed kind everywhere!
Day 3 - Cruise to Espanola island.....again more swimming with sea lions, turtles and a white tip reef shark....as well as the obigatory boobies
Day 4 - Cruise to Floreana where we spotted sting rays from the shore, snokled in the devils crown and saw more sea lions and some flamingos
Day 5 - changeover day for the people on a 5 day cruise......we docked at Baltra and whilst there the boat was circled repeatedly by a 2m Galapagos Shark!
Day 6 - Tower Island - Northernmost island we visited.....again more white tip sharks, spotted eagle rays, turtles and on land frigate birds!
Day 7 - Bartholomew Island and the magnificent views of
Pelican with his catch
The fella stole fish which the fisherman had been selling pinacle rock, before a long snorkle where we saw many white tip reef sharks, in the afternoon we spent the day watching turtles in Black Turtle Cove
Day 8 - final day was an early morning walk on the Plaza Islands.......sea lions, iguanas and time to saw bye bye to the crew of the Golondrina and our guide...
It was amazing and hopefully the thousand or so pictures we took do it some justice! Its a place which shouldnt just be for rich people or scientists......there is little point in preserving something like the Galapagos just so a few privileged people can visit it. Anyway....its about the only place in the world a guy can legitimately yell "boobies" and not get slapped!
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