Galapagos Islands

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We flew to the islands from Quito, a quaint colonial city with an abundance of churches, each with more gold than the previous one. It was a pity we only had one day in our luxury hotel, but as always there was an ‘incident’. This time it was John falling down the stairs of our two storey hotel room. Suzanne knew not to giggle when she saw the colour and size of his ankle. Bravely he soldiered on!

Our home for the next week along with 16 other tourists, was a small boat called ‘The Letty’. We soon got into the routine of breakfast at 07.30, first tour of the day (mostly a wet landing, from a dinghy called a ‘Panga’), followed by a dousing with a hosepipe from Claudia to prevent cross-contamination between islands. We were always rewarded with a snack and drink on our return. This would be followed by snorkeling or swimming (fortunately John’s ankle was too bad to do either!), lunch, siesta and another outing followed by dinner. One evening we dined with the captain - Suzanne found him very easy on the eye but sadly for her he found John's flu work far more interesting having had his boat quarantined during the swine flu pandemic.

We visited four islands, each with very different vegetation and animals. The guides were very strict that we should stick to the trails and take no food onto the islands. It was amazing that the animals were unafraid and allowed us to get very close, not because they were tame but more that humans didn’t interact with or threaten them. An abundance of sealions, iguanas and boobies took John into his third camera memory card.

This brings us to the end of our blog, what an experience and thanks for sharing it with us. We have loved your comments. We know you will ask us what the highlight was and by the time we return home we may have worked it out.

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Photos

Giant Tortoise
This one was only 25 years old- just reaching sexual maturity.

One of the many finches
We can see why Darwin had trouble identifying them

Lava lizard
These varied in size from a few cm to half a metre

Marine Iguana
Strangely they spend very little time in the sea.

Red-footed Booby on her nest
They are quite rare on San Cristobel

Red-footed Booby
Check out the feet!

Frigate Bird
This is a male trying to attract a female. The bigger he can make his red pouch, the more attractive he is.

Sally Lightfoot Crab
One version of the name is that the researcher who found it named it after his girl friend.

Kicker rock
We circled this in a panga and it was home to hundreds of birds.

Christmas Iguana
Much bigger than the black ones. No prizes for guessing why it has this name.

Comments

[Emma]

That red-footed booby is a seriously stylish bird! So happy you made it to the Galapagos at last, I am particularly jealous of this leg of your trip. Suzanne, maybe if you'd worn your yellow skirt you would have had more luck catching the captain's eye...

[woodsinsa]

Boobys and yellow skirt
Emma: I don't think even a yellow skirt would have detracted from swine flu!!