Galapagos Islands & Banos

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G'day everyone... as some of you are aware we are actually back home in Aus now, but forget that, I am going to wind you back to about one month ago when we were just starting our adventures in Equador...

We are sitting here at Guayaquil airport… and we have 6 hours to kill.. Sarah booked us on a 6.45am flight out of Quito for our connection to Santiago which doesn’t leave until 2pm.. And the flight here took just 30 minutes. There were flights available every 30 minutes and I did try to reason with her but she is a little overcautious - in a mild understatement! But at least she is at ease and with a good night sleep behind her. Luckily we found a café with free Wi Fi so I should refrain from chewing my fingers off! And we do have this blog to write so it’s not all bad.

So, we have had an awesome time here in Ecuador. We came here especially for the Galapagos Islands and have not had much more time for exploring the rest of the country, but what we have seen has really impressed us.. another place to come back to and spend more time we have realised. The Galapagos is a cluster of volcanically formed islands situated a few thousand km’s off the coast of Ecuador.. Famous for it’s fearless, abundant and unique wildlife… you may have seen a discover channel documentary about this natural wonderland!

We arrived in the Galapagos and spent the first few days on Santa Cruz which is the main island, about 22000 people live here. There is plenty to do from here but the best way to see the Galapagos is to book a boat cruise which is what most people do. A lot of the better islands to visit are 6-9 hours sailing away making it near impossible for day trips. We arrived without booking a cruise in advance as we were aware of the possibility of getting a last minute deal, so after arriving this is the first thing we did, unfortunately we didn’t really snare a deal in the end as we booked something 5 days in advance so we could do some exploring ourselves first.

We spent a few nights on Santa Cruz to begin with checking out the local sights. There was a beautiful beach called ’Tortuga Bay’ about a 45 minutes walk from the main town Puerto Ayora, which we visited a few times. It is famous for its surf and pure white sand.. And also for the marine iguanas which we saw for the first time lazing around in the sun at the end of the beach! These prehistoric creatures are endemic to the Galapagos and are found almost on every island in large numbers. Mostly they just sit around on the volcanic rocks basking in the sun.. if you are lucky you might see one in the water swimming.

I booked myself on a day trip for a dive from Santa Cruz leaving Sarah to shop and explore, and shop. The two hour trip south was a bit bumpy with some typical ocean slop.. Somehow I made the distance without being sick whilst two other people had already heaved up their breakfast for a brunch fish feed. It was a strange experience as I have always been the first to go, I embraced the experience and took on the role of being the sympathetic one helping with their situation and understanding their trauma! We arrived at the dive site, Floreana, and it took just a few seconds to be taken aback by its beauty.. The volcanic rock is very rough/jagged almost black colour and with a light green covering of vegetation making for a good contrast with the extremely transparent turquoise ocean. The islands also have these cactus trees which I first noticed here, they are like normal cactus plants but with trunks.. Apparently the iguanas used to eat them until evolution took over and the plants grew out of reach of the little dragon like creatures. Then there were the sea lions just lazing around the rocks and swimming around the boat as we anchored! How cool.

We did a check dive in this little alcove which is chance to get used to your equipment if you haven’t dived for some time. We go to the bottom, just 6 meters and go thru a few practice exercises.. Which proved tough as we were all watching the sea lions swimming and playing around us and not paying any attention to our dive instructor.

Our first dive was at the other side of the island.. The idea is to find the sites with the stronger currents as that is where you see the bigger fish. So on the first dive we descended to about 20 meters, swam for about 15 meters to a rock face where we all clung on as tightly as possible as the current coming around the corner was so strong it was absolutely necessary… I now know why they were asking if I’d had experience diving in strong currents! We didn’t move much from that spot, except for a bit of crawling with our hands… the current was just too strong to move any further so we just sat there watching the incredible display of passing sea life, which was the whole point.. sea lions, sharks, turtles, rays and loads of different kinds fish - it was incredible.

For lunch we pulled in to another little alcove, completely sheltered from the sea.. After polishing off a carefully prepared lunch with the sea lions curiously peering at us from the water besides the boat, we decided to jump in with the little furry creatures.. They were very playful and swam all around you, coming up nice and close, brushing by you and even biting on your flipper in a little row of tug a war! It was very cool, I loved every minute of it.

The second dive was at a more sheltered part of the island which enabled a bit more free movement rather than clambering on rocks with our hands. We saw pretty much the same sort of stuff but with some more playful sea lions and a couple of white tipped sharks up close that were resting on a shelf in front of us. But all in all easily the best dive experience that I have had.

The next day Sarah and I took a taxi boat out to a nearby point where there are a few things to see. We had a nice lunch at a very upmarket resort before walking out to this small canyon called ‘las grietas’ where you can swim in near fresh water. Luckily we arrived having the place to ourselves, but just for 5 minutes before a tour group of 15 people crashed our little peaceful paradise. The depth here is up to 50ft with cliffs raising up either side for another 50ft where loads of people climb to dive off.. I was happy just watching tho.

We left Santa Cruz for Isabela Island which is the largest in the Galapagas but with fewer people, just 2000. It was much more relaxed than the hustle n bustle of Santa Cruz and we stayed in a beach house, which was right on the beach, funny that… we literally worked out the front door to step on the sand and we even had a terrace above to watch the sunset, it was very nice.

We took a tour up to Sierra Negra Volcano which is not far from the town and only 1100m above sea level. There are six volcanos on this island, pretty crazy really considering its size. This Volcano had some activity not long ago, but you couldn’t see much as it was all underneath the craters surface.. Which is the second largest in the world.. 10km across. We toured around the edge a bit but didn’t go in.. it was about 1000 degrees that day so no one felt like being out in the sun much.

Other than relaxing and enjoying the more laid back atmosphere we also visited a Tortoise Nursery where they breed several different species of the Tortiose that are only found on the Galapagos. These slow moving gentle giants are pretty cool to watch.. We even caught a bit of Tortoise porn when a male mounted this female …she was having none of it tho. We also did some snorkelling over at these small cluster of islands where was saw plenty of fish, some rays and penguins… but the visibility was not great.

We caught the ferry back to Santa Cruz for the start of our boat trip. We were quite impressed with our ’first class’ tourist level boat which was a tri deck motor cruiser. We had a cosy cabin with a private bathroom and even air conditioning. There was a big dining area, lounge and a huge sun deck up top to laze about on… and it was cool to check out the stars at night too, ohhhhh I know!

We met our group and the first night was spent moored in the main port. The next day we visited the highlands on Santa Cruz where we needed to have our guide. There were a couple of massive holes in the ground caused by volcanic activity below the ground, the earth had just caved in. We did a light walk around the area spotting different species of birds… which was actually kind of boring.. Sarah and I are not bird watching kind of people. After spending a night on board the boat already we just wanted to get moving - go sail the high seas and all that. Anyway, we did do just that after lunch and sailed towards a Santa Fa which was close by, only 3 hours sailing. On arrival we came in to this nice sheltered area, the sun was shinning, water sparkling.. Blah blah blah, it was beautiful… and we were about to get in the water for a long awaited snorkel!

The snorkel was great, it was a great site with loads of fish and Sarah saw her first turtle and swam with her first sea lion. We also came across hundreds of tiny jelly fish that we couldn’t help but just swim thru… luckily they were not of the stinging variety. After our little splash we went ashore for a land visit.. On the beach were loads of sea lions (like most beaches) and hanging out on the rocks were the iguanas… and then there were loads of birds nesting further inland… the land visits just didn’t do it for us tho, it was much more fun to play about in the water!

We stayed for the rest of the afternoon in this little bay and after dinner at about 9 we started sailing south towards Espanola which took about 7 hours. Sarah and I managed to sleep well even with a slight roll from the ocean… you would always wake up tho when you arrived to each spot at about 3am in the morning cos the roll would stop. Actually, we were pretty lucky with the conditions for the whole trip… the seas were pretty calm, we had plenty of sunshine and no rain.

Espanola is just a small island and the oldest on the Galapagos. We started the day with a land visit which was pretty cool actually cos we got to see the Albatross nesting ashore.. They are the only bird that can grow bigger than the Condor, so it was nice to see them up close, they are actually quite pretty in an odd kind of way. Apart from the birds, iguanas and sea lions.. There was a nice bit of swirl rapping around the point where we disembarked.. Anywhere else in the world and there would have been 100 people in the water. But here it is not allowed, so only the sea lions were able to enjoy the waves. After the visit we sailed for 30 minutes to our snorkel site which was along some steep walls and it even had some caves. It was a cool site to dive but there was not a lot to see, only a few sea lions playing with us near the end.

After lunch we moved again to another part of the island, we landed at this beach was about 1.5km long and was busy with sea lions all of the way along it. We just strolled on by them all, occasionally getting in close for a photo.. they are not bothered by you in anyway. We took to the water in search of some sharks, not the typical mind set that you usually have.. We were told that you can sometimes see them in this area… and they were right too cos we saw two little white tipped reef sharks.. Along with loads of turtles, rays and fish in numbers impossible to count.

The next morning we arrived to Floreana (the same island where I came to dive). We firstly had our land visit where we saw some flamingos and loads of sting rays coming to shore in 1inch of water. Afterwards we did visited ‘devils crown’ which is like a crater barely rising out of the water just a few hundred meters off shore.. It ended up being our best snorkel for the trip.. The amount of fish that we saw was incredible.. Lots of big fish too. We snorkelled around the crater until we met the unbearable current that wouldn’t allow us to go any further.. But that was fine as we were swimming above 6 reef sharks resting on the bottom below us with abundant fish and rays all around - too much to take in all at once. Some other people saw hammerhead sharks swimming in schools... They were lucky as it’s quite rare to se your eyes on them.

After sailing for 9 hours back up to the north and to the northern part of Santa Cruz, we had an early land visit where we saw loads of boobies.. Not of the typical variety favoured by men but in the bird variety.. The small, weightless, flying kind of bird. They are really cute actually, like the typical variety, and they have blue feet.. And do this really cool little waddle when they walk. We also saw some Frigett birds… the males blow up this red thing on his neck, kind of like a balloon… which takes them 2 weeks to get fully blown up. They do this for the lady frigets so they can mate and procreate, isn’t nature just so beautiful!

After the visit we sailed to a small port close to the airport.. Unfortunately it was time to go. As we were leaving the boat we had several sharks circling the boats.. Swimming at the top of the water and close by. Not sure what kind but they have a few different species that reach about 12ft.. Which was the size of these, really cool. We then found a sea lion ashore that had a nice bit of flesh missing from his body.. The work of one of those sharks I reckon.

We flew from the Galapagos directly to Quito which is further inland close to the Andes, and at 2,800m above sea level, is the second highest capital in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. We stayed here just one night before catching a bus for 3 hours to Banos. Banos was beautiful…set at 1,800m, at the base of a live volcano and surrounded by the Andes. We were slightly worried as we drove into the town on the bus though…we were just admiring the view and happened to notice that there was black smoke and ash spewing out of the volcano…but as no one else seemed to think it out of the ordinary so we decided to play it cool and not start panicking. In the end we found out that it is quite normal for the volcano to be spewing smoke.. And it is like this most days. We checked into the hostel before we headed off to explore the town and work out what we wanted to do for the next few days…we had 5 nights here in total and we wanted to make the most of it! Not long into our explorations we got accosted by a Dutch lady enticing us to come to her café for food or even just a drink…my gosh, I swear…we ran into this lady everywhere and every time we saw her she would tell us to go to her café, and then make us admit how good her coffee and bread were and generally annoy the crap out of us! Although I do have to say, it was delicious food and every time we went there (which we did a few times as we felt bad), we really enjoyed it.

The next day we hired bikes and took off along the road to Puyo, 60km away…although we ended up only making it about 18km as there was so much to do along the way. It is known as the waterfall drive (I might have just made that up but it was something to do with waterfalls), so all along the way you can stop and view or walk to waterfalls. It was beautiful and a really good day…and to avoid ruining it by having to cycle all the way back to Banos uphill, we hitched a lift on the back of a truck. Perfect. The following day we did a bit of a trek ourselves up to a couple of view points on the mountain overlooking Banos and then in the afternoon we hired bikes again…but this time motorised! I got a quad bike (a four wheel motor bike) and Ben got himself a motorbike. It was so much fun…and I was a bit of a speed demon I have to say!

We had decided that we wanted to try our hands at altitude again so the next day we had booked a trek up Carihuayrazo volcano (now inactive), which is 5,026 metres high. Not that we trekked all of that…we drove to about 4,300m first and walked from there. This was an amazing day…stunning, incredible and difficult as hell!! For starters, we haven’t been in altitude for quite a few months now so we weren’t acclimatised at all (Quito doesn’t count, we were only there for one night), and on top of that, we were climbing up a glacier, which is not easy at the best of times! I was in tears, multiple times, I broke through my “I can’t do this anymore!” barrier about 6 times (for those of you who haven’t realised, it is now Sarah typing, its not Ben who cried multiple times…he may have cried on the inside though). It really was the most difficult thing I have ever done…I felt wretched and dizzy and like I was going to pass out and scared…all of this all rolled into one little ball of fun! I think Ben loved me more than ever…although he was very proud of me that I made it to the top when I had been saying for the last hour that I couldn’t go any further. Yes people, we made it to the top!! It was the most amazing feeling and our guide gave us both a hug and a hearty congratulations when we did! Did I mention that we were accompanied by a 10 year old boy…in gumboots…hmm…that was embarrassing during my breakdowns when he would just stand there quietly and wait for us to start moving again. He did live on the mountain though at about 4,000m…so he was used to the altitude. On the way back down it was hilarious…Ben was feeling the altitude quite a bit as well by this point…we were like two drunks! We actually have film of us, stumbling down the glacier…I’m sure we both giggled a lot too. It didn’t help that I had little gumboot boy Diego, tied to me in front and he was having great fun running and sliding down as fast as he could, falling over and pulling me with him! It was an incredible day (once we had finished and were back at the car obviously), only tainted by our guides crazy driving on the way back to town…to say we were slightly scared is an understatement.

We decided that after all this activity it was time for us to chill out a bit…so the last day we had a bit of a “spa” in out hostel (hilarious, we sat in little wooden boxes with our heads sticking out and they filled up with steam, alternating with a little man splashing ice cold water all over us!), followed by a lovely one hour massage. We also hired a buggy in the afternoon, just to give it a go…but it was not nearly as fun as the quad and motor bikes. We then headed back to Quito for another night before flying to Santiago. All in all, Banos was an excellent way to spend our limited days in Ecuador, it was a beautiful place and there was so much to do!

Well that is it for Ecuador!! We weren’t there for long, but long enough to appreciate what an amazing country it is and, yes you guessed it, long enough to know that we have to come back and see the rest of it.

Love to you all
Sarah and Ben x

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Photos

Galapagos
some fish eyeing off sarahs legs..

Galapagos
playing with the sea lions..

Galapagos
just hanging out

Galapagos
a spotted eagle ray

Galapagos
a turtle

Galapagos
a boobie, iguana, pelican & lighthouse all in one frame

Galapagos
our boat

Galapagos
sharks resting on the sand

Galapagos
boobies..

Banos
chasing volcanos..

Banos
taking a break from the bikes

Banos
some of the sites on our biking trip

Banos
luckily there are no speed limits in these countries

Banos
a tough smile for sarah..

Banos
the hiking gang

Banos
up in the clouds and a view over to 6000m Cotapaxi - the highest active volcano in the world