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Published: September 5th 2007
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the Flamingo boat
it really is very small I´m not really sure what I expected to find in Galapgos, except for one thing - I expected it to be green, and it wasn´t.
Our journey began with a lot of travelling: A flight Quito - Quayaquil - Baltra island, a bus to the canal between Baltra and Santa Cruz, a ferry on the canal, another bus to Puerto Ayora´s harbour, and eventually a small boat that took us to our own boat, the ¨Flamingo¨, which was very small for itself. We were 10 tourists + 5 crew + guide on board. Just getting on board, feeling the way the it moves and seeing our ¨rooms¨made me immediately seasick. I´m adding the pictures so you can judge for yourself. I seriously considered cancelling my trip, and anyway I was sure I can´t sleep in that cabin, no way.
In the meantime I had no choice but to have lunch with the others, and get back to shore to see some giant tortoise walking free. They were indeed HUGE. When we got back to the boat I felt much better, so I became a bit more optimistic. We had some free time on the shore in the evening, this
is when I wrote the previous entry. Apparently they have internet in Galapagos, but it was so slow that the pages hardly came up. That night I was sure I can´t sleep in the cabin, so I took my sleeping bag and slept on a bench in the common room. I suppose the crew members were a bit surprised to find me there when they got on board, but I was more or less asleep. We sailed for about 4 or 5 hours that night through rough sea (navigation in choppy sea, as our guide used to say), and in the morning got to our next island - Rabida.
From that point on, we started to have some kind of routine, and even I got used to this life bit by bit. The days were composed of short walks on the different islands with our guide who showed us the animals and explained about their life and habits (usually one or two walks every day), navigations between islands (usually longer ones after dinner and during the night, and shorter ones at noon), some snorkelling around the islands (I only did it twice and had enough), three good meals every
day and some ¨snack time¨in between, getting some sun on the top deck (in the few days that we had sun) and playing cards or watching movies in the common room in the evenings. Getting from the boat to the shore every time was with a small boat that took us quite close, and then some of the time we jumped from it to the shallow water (¨wet landing¨) and some other times there were stairs (¨dry landing¨). We taught the others to play ¨Yaniv¨ and had some very international games (the maximum was when we played 9 people from 5 different countries, including 2 Ecuadorian crew members who only speak spanish). We also played some other games that other people brought.
As for me, on the second night I started sleeping in the cabin after all, and on the third day I even took a shower (cold) in our tiny bathroom, during navigation. It was quite amusing as you can probably imagine - me in a very very small room that contains also the toilet and sink, standing with the ¨tush¨in my hand trying to take a shower with the scarce cold water that came out of there
Giant Tortoise
In Santa Cruz island. Isn´t he cute? while not wetting the toilet and sink, and with the boat sailing through quite choppy water all that time. Taking a shower in Yonatan´s car is nothing compared to that. I got quite seasick by the end of that shower, but at least I was clean. I learned that sitting, relaxing and listening to music was very helpful against seasickness, so this is what I did during the navigations and whenever I felt bad. It´s good that I had so much music there, because I spent hours listening to it.
And now for the people: As I wrote we were 10 tourists on board - Erez, Dina and me from Israel, Petra and Daniel (a very nice couple, I really liked them) from Germany, Sarah and Jillian from the U.S., Sara from Portugal, Hans from Holland and Bjorn from Belgium. With some I spoke more and with some less, but all in all we were quite a cheerfull group, and even developed some common phrases, like ¨sharks, turtles, rays, snails this big...¨which is what our guide always promised in every snorkelling site but they never saw it, only on the last day.
As for the title of this
entry - I have to admit that the main animals experience was taking photos of them (and smelling the sea lions´stinky leavings), rather than just looking at them. Whenever we saw an animal, everyone would take out their cameras and try to take the best pictures from the shortest distance possible (and that was quite close, most of the animals are really not afraid of us). I was no exception, so I think I took 300-400 pictures that week. I´m only going to upload the best of them, 2 or 3 of every animal, and the rest you can see when I get back.
The plans for the future days are basically to head south toward Peru, and get there in about 10 days. I´ll keep writing when we´ll have internet available (which is probably most of the time).
Love,
Efrat.
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Great photos
Great photos! Seems really beautiful! Nice Iguanas.. and toirtoise. I could'nt see the blue foot of the "Blue footed booboos" or whatever. can you take a closer picture next time?We here demand proof!