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So here goes - time flies when you are having fun but apart from that its very problematic trying to get photos off dvd´s and onto the web - I´m thinking of just writing the text and getting my brother to load up some photos once he´s received the discs in the post. Lord knows he has very little to be doing with just 3 kids a job and a wife to keep in line 😊 (Hi all - love ye lots, except Lenan... only a mother could love the little antichrist 😉 Anyhoo as I have pictures from the land expedition side of the Galapagos trip I thought I´d get the blog for it underway. This is about half of the trip - I´m sure I´m going to have to do a land expedition part 2 at some stage but that can probably wait until I get home
It all began as I got off the liveaboard from the previous week off diving. Being me I got on the wrong yacht but the captian said no problem, the same cabin is available on this one (same company) so I had lunch but then was booted off it to
the right one as the ex-president of colombian was using that cabin from mid-voyage or something 😉 but not before I met Peter Hughes briefly (the guy who runs these yachts and more all over the world methinks). So I left what was a child filled yacht to another where i may have brought the average age down slightly. The were a good bunch of people with a load of interesting lives but it wasn´t exactly party central which was unfortunate as Paddys day was in the middle of the trip - I should have planned for the diving to be the second week as there was a free bar on the dive boat but my mother probably thinks it was just as well I wasn´t diving under the influence with the hammerheads. This trip involved alighting on several of the islands and touring about seeing how the birds and animals evolved differently on each island, some becoming a distinct subspecies from those on neighbouring islands. The marijuanas ( how we called them but more likely Iguanas de Mer, sea iguanas) were typical of this having different colourations and sizes depending on which island you were on. My favourite was
the christmas tree one who has red and green tints when it´s ready to mate. The least favourite one was the one who was the same colour as the lava- hard to see those buggers so a few of them nearly bought it. Can´t rememer whether it was the previous week where we´d seen one who´d managed to get seaweed stuck on his head stumbling around the rock pools like yours truly after a night on the wine in Torres del Paine, his legs searching for purchase on rocks that weren´t there and falling back into the sea. Poor critter probably died. They have a gland near the face from which they expel salt as they drink seawater and it looks like they sneeze when the do it - lovely! The highlights of the land week though for me was the snorkelling - typical eh. I got to see some things which I hadn´t seen diving including penguins fishing, seals up close and when they were the large males you got the feeling, dangerous. I found a cave full of reef sharks a few metres under the water and it was cool to swim down and look into to see
this mass of grey bodies and huge eyes looking back out at you. While following a reef shark it was joined by what I think was a Galapagos shark which was about three times bigger ... so i left. I also spent an age beside two large grazing turtles within arms reach and eventually had to give into the urge to touch one of their shells - he didn´t make any sign of being bothered but that´s no excuse -bad alan!
Another land expedition was to see the giant tortoises - these guys are huge and slow and very boring 😉) but one nearly ran me over as I managed to be in the path of where he wanted to go and the idea is you are not supposed to move so as not to startle them so I can affirm they smell and breathe very slow. They are that big that some of the tourists had a go at sliding into their shells, of the dead ones that is.
The problem with these trips is that there is so much going on you could further bore the pants off readers for ages. The boobies mating dance was bizzare
- a bit like the slow walk of the state guards in Lima. It was also impressive to see the frigates trying to fly while their big red gullet was still inflated but by far the biggest impression the islands made on you was the lack of fear of animals and birds of humans. They generally got on with things as long as you didn´t block their path to where they wanted to go. This was fully brought home when a type of yellow warbler fluttered in front of my face for a while before landing on the brim of my cap.
Needless to say I can´t do the experience justice with my scribbling but I´m sure that when I am an old fart and I look back at the pictures of this trip it will bring back memories of having visited one of the most unique parts of the world and I hope I´m well aware of how priviledged I was.
ps I figured out whats wrong with the underwater photos - they are all in Canon raw format ...so I have them...except that I can´t see them - need to sort out a driver.
Hope
I haven´t bored the pants off you again (Ken). In la Paz at the moment and heading south before turning back towards Columbia. Only 3.5 months left!!!
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lennan
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Libel
Listen you useless absentee uncle, if you are going to libel me please spell my name right. Yours, waiting for revenge in your old age, Damien aka Belzebub aka lucifer, lou to my friends