Hotel Solymar Puerto Ayora

... zelf 9 katten en een hond en heeft vorig jaar een hond gered en deze naar New York over laten vliegen, in de hoop daar een nieuw baasje te vinden. Ik heb haar foto“s van de katten laten zien in de hoop dat zij misschien meer contacten had en een plek wist om ze onder te brengen.
Vervolgens kwam ik de volgende dag tijdens het werk in gesprek met een andere vrouw, wat de oprichtster van CIMEI scheen te zijn, dus dat was ook erg leuk en interessant. Ik dacht als ik ...

... reach 5 years of age, they are then released back into the wild since at that time they have no predators due to their size of 20+ lbs. We also saw the famous Longsome George tortoise from Pinto Island where he is only surviving male of the sub-species of turtle. He is 150 years old and has no female mates thus his demise would mean extinction for his species. Next we visited an encaged area where other species of hooded tortoises are located ...

... in a completely new place. I am hanging out in Puerto Ayora now for the evening and leaving on the 2:00 ferry tomorrow for Isabela!

On the bus ride across Santa Cruz (from the airport to the port) there was a movie playing advertising the Galapagos and documenting short segments of some of th emost popular islands. I enjoyed looking out the window more than watching the film but it had this very mellow background music that was like the soundtrack to my life if it were ...

... The babies they repatriate only once they are 5 years old and are too big to be eaten by introduced black rats that are also trying to be erradicated, and the big tortoises they continue to use for breeding. You can actually go into the adult pens, and sit on the ground while these enormous, beautiful animals walk right past you, eyeing you up. We were the only people at the station when we went, and the experience was one we“ll ...

... and Sebastian were in a heated race with Gabe right behind Sebastian the whole way, Sebastian claiming he could feel Gabe breathing down his neck, when suddenly Gabe made a break for it, crested a hill a moment later and almost immediately braked hard for a little turtle in the road. The turtle saved them as they were both exhausted and luckily for Gabe the race went to him. When we got to the ...

... All in all it was an expensive but a once in a life time experience that lived up to and exceeded expectations. Now at this point we usually say something about pictures. It must be explained that even Matts IT man was not easily able to upload pictures to the net as the Internet here is simply too slow. With that in mind we will not attempt to upload pictures until we get to Alaska where we are sure things will be better. Once again please be patient. Now its off to Colombia!

... led to his discovery. The Galapagos Islands consist of about 6 major islands and many more minor islets. It is famous (and expensive) mainly for its unique animal history, whereby the animal inhabitants of the Galapagos have migrated and evolved as fully unique species, which (for a proportion of them) cannot be found anywhere else (being endemic) on Earth. The islands are also famed for these animals' lack of fear of humans, as they have not experienced humans ...

... at our hotel. Although they told us not to drink the water prior to coming to Galapagos, we often did not have a choice at the places that we went and all of them claimed that there water is purified in the restaurants, but sinks and showers are not. With an early morning dive, we both intende to get an early start on being localized and planned to take a siesta, but woke up a 2AM in the morning and just went back to bed.

... Marine Iguanas, Blue Footed Boobies, and Tropical Penguins. We attempted to snorkel, but the conditions were poor. In our tour group was an Aussie couple that were just starting their 3rd around the world trip. We spent the night attempting to go beer for beer with the Aussies (bad idea) and playing pool at a beach-side bar with dirt floors and stumps for chairs. My kinda place. The next day we went to a research station for the Giant Tortoises. These things are the ...

... the coolest sight I had ever seen, a school of about 15 of them just about 5 or 6 meters away. THe biggest must have been bout 4 or 5m long, just the way they glided throught the water and that bloody fin u see in so many films CLASS. On day we were on the boat waitin for new passengers when we saw a shaddow under the boat we went for a closer look and it turned out to be a Galapagos shark. The crew threw some fish into the water and within 5mins there were ...