Blogs from Galápagos, Ecuador, South America - page 97

There is just one word to describe the Galápagos Islands which is either AwesomeHasToBeSeenToBeBelievedKindOfPlace or simply wow. Hope you understand that I had to add a million pictures I could simply not decide which to let out. The history of the Islands is the reason why this place is so amazing. The Galapagos Islands are a group of volcanic islands which were created over a couple of million years through a static hotspot in the earths crust. The tectonic plates over the hotspot shift and new Islands are created every now and then even today. Therefore the island the furthest away from the hotspot are the oldest. The last proper volcanic eruption was in 1998. The Islands where never connected to the mainland and the animals and plants migrated at one stage to the Islands ... read more

We checked out several toury agencies in Quito, found one with real cheap fares advertised on hand-printed signs in the window, and altho’ cognisant of the old maxim, “more is better”, went in. Nancy, ah Nancy, odd name for an Ecuadoriana but she was pretty (and) helpful, full of info and this was the only place in town with a vacancy at all. At the airline office they had no seats to Galapagos for a week or more, altho’ I suspect the toury agencies book everything in sight then on-sell!. We settled on an 8 day tour on a 20 person boat, leaving the next morning. Some trepidation as all the other tour boats had glossy photos, ours a gritty old pic…hmmm, but looked OK. The tour….up at 5.30 am for a 6am airport check-in!..still raining ... read more

Espanola Island 3-29-06 Matt and I are going to switch back and forth for these entries, so Sara will be your interpreter for this section of the Galapagos. Our overnight boat ride to Espanola was a bit bumpy but the Bonine was in full effect and we slept well with no nausea. We woke up to our usual fantastic 7 am breakfast (fruit, toast, eggs, cheese, tea/coffee, juice, and meat for the carnivores) and then we headed to Punta Suarez for our early day hike. The landing was dry but the docking point was covered with sea lions and brightly colored pink and green marine igaunas. The sea lions were so prolific that a mama thought I was a bit close to her baby and she chased me back onto the dock. There are 4 species ... read more

Galapagos Islands... read more

Where to start? We´ve just spent five days in paradise. A thousand km from the Ecuadorian coast are the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin famously developed his theory of evolution. After hesitating a long time due to the very high price of the trip, we arrived at Balta airport on Thursday (one of the main islands) and quickly met up with the other passengers of the Cormorant, the boat on which we were to tour the islands. We visited around 7 or 8 destinations in total (over 4 different islands) and we managed to see most of the animal species. We saw hundreds of sea lions (or more exactly sea wolfs), possibly even more iguanas (land and marine) of all different colours. The most peculiar species are found among the birds. The Tropic Birds constantly patrol ... read more