Galapagos

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The end of the line, for now. I’m back under the grey skies of England, far, far away from the warmth of the equator. I have had a marvellous time on the whole trip and I have some fantastic memories of the places I have seen and the people I have shared some time with. The last part of the trip was the part I had been looking forward to all the way round the Southern hemisphere; the Galapagos Islands. I had carried the “Diary of the Beagle” all the way and kept dipping in to the Galapagos pages everywhere I have been.

I was supposed to have been on a four week project at the Giant tortoise breeding project on Isabella island, but the powers that be had cancelled the project and so I went as a tourist for just five days instead. It was well worth it.

I had met up with three young ladies in Quito, when I asked piteously if I could join them at dinner and they were soft hearted enough to let me. The following morning we flew together the thousand kilometres to Baltra airport, just off Santa Cruz island. The excitement started within the hour when our taxi had to stop to allow a giant tortoise to carry on it’s slow motion amble down the middle of the road. We took the opportunity to take some snaps. It amused me that the tortoise behaved in exactly the way that Darwin described. As I overtook it, the huge animal sat down with an audible thump and tucked in its head and legs into its shell. After we went back to the taxi, it decided to walk nearer the side of the road and so we squeezed past to our next stop, which was a local farm which was home to more of the free “running” reptiles. We stayed for about twenty minutes as we watched them eating the grass and trying to ignore the cameras in their faces. I suppose they were thinking that these papparazi are the price of fame. We then carried on to our hostel to have lunch.

After lunch, Becky, Sarah, Harpreet and I went to explore Puerto Aroya. Our first port of call was to the hole in the wall machine to draw out some cash. There are only two on the islands and both of them are in this town, so waiting until we got to Isabella was not an option. We then carried on to the Charles Darwin Research centre to see the breeding programme and Lonesome George. He is the only known individual of his species of tortoise and spends his time eating, sleeping and being indifferent to the two females of a closely related species that are in his enclosure. I wonder if his lack of drive in that department is the reason why he is the last of his tribe? Anyway, all is not lost, one of the guides was claiming that a young tortoise had been found that shared 90% of Georges genes, which, apparently makes him almost Georges nephew. The search is now on for whichever one of it’s parents shares even more of Georges genetic make up. Hopefully it will be a lady tortoise, maybe even a youngster of only 100 years old, so she would be a perfect match for George. (I must say that George has not aged well, there is a definite sign of chicken neck when he looks up.)

The following morning we walked the couple of miles to Turtle bay. We had to sign in at the guard post and then carry on along the boardwalk, through the dune system until after twenty minutes we could hear the roar of the surf getting close. The beach, itself is wonderful; white coral that stretches into the far distance with the blue Pacific Ocean rolling gently under the equatorial sky, but the most amazing things to see are the marine iguanas sunbathing on the warm sands, the blue footed boobies plunging into the waves for their lunch and the frigate birds lazily cruising overhead. We walked, barefoot along the beach until we came to a little path that led to a lagoon, protected from the ocean by the long spit of beach that we were walking on. The waters inside were mill pond calm, warm and inviting so we put on the swimming togs and dived in. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.

After a nice lunch, we were set up for the speedboat trip across to the biggest, but less developed island, Isabella. I had thought that maybe speedboat was a figure of speech for the regular ferry that runs daily between the two main islands and I was expecting to see something like the large catamarans that run to the Greek and Italian islands. What I saw was a thirty foot long bathtub, fitted with rudimentary seats prominently displaying orange life vests with two enormous outboard engines at the back. After edging gingerly through the reefs in the harbour, the engines were opened up and the fun began. I had sat at the back of the boat, where the sides of the roof, with their dirty windows, did not extend, hoping to take some snaps of dolphins, whales etc. What I didn’t take account of was the impossibility of taking snaps while hanging on for dear life and the deluge of sea water that washed over the roof and fell on my head within three seconds of reaching top speed. Luckily for me, Becky noticed my plight and she and Sarah hutched up on their more sheltered seats so I could sit somewhere dry. After two and a half hours of bone crunching and very scary bangs and crashes we were pulling into the harbour at Isabella island.

After a nice, warm shower, I went to the next door restaurant that was providing my dinner included in the cost of the hotel. The place was dark and locked up, so I knocked on the door. The lady who answered spoke no English, so I tried my VERY limited Spanish and sign language with the response, “manana”. Defeated, I left to find somewhere else to eat and chose a small restaurant with a party of Americans sat at one of the tables. I should have guessed from their expressions that all was not well. I ordered vegetarian lasagne from the menu. Twenty minutes later I enquired how long my meal would be, to be told that they had no lasagne, so I ordered spaghetti, to be told “No Italian”. Instead of giving up, I ordered a salad and a plate of chips. The chips arrived without the salad. By this time I had learned not to take anything on trust, so I enquired about the salad to be met with a blank look, so I repeated the order and settled back to munch on my not very good chips. Another party arrived and I thought about warning them, but kept quiet while the y checked the menu out and then ordered. My salad arrived at last, a small plate of chopped cucumber and tomato covered in a vinegar dressing. I ate quietly while listening with amusement as one after the other, the ordered meals were reported as being not available, while the increasingly exasperated customers became more desperate to find something on the menu that they could actually eat. I asked for the bill, and was stunned when I found that it was the most expensive meal I had eaten in Ecuador. I paid and waited for my change, which when it came was the change for the Americans at the next table. Luckily, we were both determined to leave no tip, so as we checked the money, we both realised that our change had been swapped. Basil Fawlty would have been proud of the chaos, even though the waiter received no clouts on the back of the head from an irate proprietor.

I woke early on Thursday morning to meet my guide for the boat trip around the small islands in the harbour. I was surprised to see that I was the only customer on the trip. We set sail in his little boat, and it was wonderful, with close up looks at the boobies, penguins and sea lions swimming alongside, or lolling on the other small boats moored in the shallow water. We got off on Shark Island for a tour of the little volcanic outcrop, seeing lots of the marine iguanas, lava lizards and resting white tipped reef sharks in the narrow channel that runs up the centre of the island. Back to the boat to don my wetsuit and snorkel and off I went into the wild, blue yonder checking out the reefs, fishes and corals. I kept lifting my head to check where the boat was to see my guide waving directions to me. As I swam back from more open water towards the wall of the outer reef I found myself surrounded by a herd(?) of big turtles, munching on the vegetation growing on the reef. They were not bothered by my presence, and I just hung in the water, drifting with the slight current and goggled in amazement. If I drifted a bit too close for their comfort, they swam a couple of metres away in a very lazy fashion and then resumed feeding. After a while, I left them to it and lifted my head to check out the boat. My guide pointed into the harbour, over the shallow reef that encircles the sheltered water and indicated that he was driving round to the entrance and would meet me on the other side and with that he gunned his engine and disappeared. As I swam to the reef I started to get a bit scared, as the swell alternately lifted and dropped me towards the sharp looking rocks, within touching distance of my stomach. As it got shallower, I started to pull myself along instead of swimming, as I sort of reckoned that I could hold myself away from the rocks if the swell should drop me too close. Scary stuff!

As I got into the sheltered water, my guide was waiting for me and waved me into various channels around the islands and I found myself in a narrow channel with the walls of the island rising up two or three feet above the water. At one point, I looked up to see a blue footed booby staring down at me and a marine iguana on the other side fidgeting around as it pondered whether I was dangerous or not. The next gully got narrower and narrower, until I was again pushing with my hands instead of swimming. I came round a bend to see a two metre long shark below me. I looked at it and it looked at me, before turning round and swimming off to join it’s mates a little further on. I realised that I was in the area forbidden to swimmers where the sharks rested during the day, so I turned round and went back the way I came. My guide had been a bit naughty in directing me down that channel, but by the time I had climbed up the little ladder into the boat with all the agility of an obese hippo, I forgot to mention this to him. We got back to the harbour just in time to see a sort of three wheeled taxi pull up. It was the front end of a moped with a bench seat at the back. A sort of big umbrella provided the protection from the sun. My guide was always keen on getting me to pay for taxis, even though the harbour was only a five minute walk from the centre of town and so we put putted gently towards my digs and lunch.

Soon, I met up with the girls for lunch and they told me of their first day, teaching English at the local junior school and I regaled them with only slightly exaggerated tales of my encounters with the sharks and turtles. We decided that relaxing on the beach was the thing and found a nice area of sand in a small bay. I started to feel a bit of rawness on the back of my lower legs and realised that I was sunburnt where the shortie wetsuit had left my legs exposed to the sun as I snorkelled. I don’t know how they claim that sunscreen is water resistant, as I had only snorkelled for less than one hour and I had lathered myself in the stuff before I jumped into the water. Anyway, we soon got fed up of lying in the sun and went for a swim. We were all in the shallow water inside a small reef when we were joined by a curious young sea lion that swam around us while we stood , gawping at it, until it had satisfied it’s curiosity and swam off to catch it’s lunch.

In the evening, we got as dressed up as backpackers can, i.e. clean(ish) jeans and went off to the Sea Lion bar. This little place is on the end of a kind of jetty, almost as though it is on a pier. The driving beat of the music eventually got to me and I started doing a Baloo the bear, with my shoulders jerking in time with the beat and I just had to stand up and dance. Very soon the place was rocking and very soon after that I was puffed out. About eleven o’clock we left, as I had to be up at five the next morning to catch the speedboat back to Santa Cruz. As they were all well brought up young ladies, they walked me to my front door before we said our farewells. We had only known each other for five days, but they had been wonderful companions for the last part of my journey.

Back at the Darwin hotel on Santa Cruz, I checked in, had an early lunch and then went back to see Lonesome George, buy some souvenirs and have a walk round the town. About four o’clock, I took myself off to Turtle beach for the last time and took some snaps as the light started to fade. Tomorrow, the flight to Quito and then, next day, the long journey back home, by way of Madrid and London .

I reflected on my journey as I lay in bed in my Quito hostel. I had seen some wonderful scenery, photographed marvellous animals, (before I broke my arm and it became too weak to properly control my giant telephoto zoom) and had some exciting and scary experiences. Just as much a highlight as those things was the amazing people I had met along the way. Although I was thirty or forty years older than most of the people I was with, no one ever made me feel as though I wasn’t part of things. I couldn’t help remembering that I was twenty seven before I ventured outside of Britain, but these adventurous young people, sometimes as young as eighteen or nineteen were already seasoned travellers. As for me, well I have definitely acquired the taste for travelling and adventure. As soon as finances allow, I will be off again. There is an awful lot of world out there that I haven’t seen yet.

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Photos

Road block
Welcome to the Galapagos. A marvellous moment

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside
Becky on the pier at Pourto Aroya. I think that's the name

Iguanas
having a little rest on the rocks

Having a laugh
Living on the Galapagos gives you plenty to be happy about

Blue footed booby
hovering above the surf, before plunging at high speed to catch a fish

Flamingo in flamingo pool
It was nice for this one to hang around by itself for the tourists, even if it did stand out of focus

Frigate bird
Constantly patrolling the skies.

Cactus
Much of Santa Cruz is covered with this kind of scrub

Galapagos duck
Endemic

Galapagos penguin
The most northerly penguins in the world. They are only just south of the equator

Give us a kiss
A warm welcome home after a hard day's fishing

Isabella harbour
six thirty in the morning

Isabella harbour 2
six thirty five(ish)

I'm in the mood for dancing
What a mover

Sunbathing iguana
It must be a hard life, sunbathing, eating, sunbathing....

Hitching a lift
Lava lizard, deciding that iguanas are more comfortable than rock

Comments

[Becky Smith]

Ken you rock!
Ken! this blog is so great, and the photos are amazing! I am so glad you had a good time in Galapagos and it's just a shame you couldn't stay longer, we all missed you when you left. I'm so glad I met you and got to spend at least some time with you and your anglo-saxon dancing hips :) xx