Orca San Cristobal

... br>This energy (or lack thereof) really rubbed off on me during my first few weeks and I lost motivation too. I wasn't exercising, painting, writing, reading, nothing. I went from hugely active stimulus at UNC to almost nil. And yet, I had way too much time on my hands with no motivation to figure out how to fill it. I only taught from 6:30 to 8:30 at night and an hour or two before of planning. However, things are not so dismal anymore. entries to come on how i now fill my time.<br>

... a Sea Lion overlooking a beautiful bay, we then went to Isla Lobos. This island, separated by a small estuary from the main San Cristobal island, was home to many Sea Lions. We stopped in the estuary for a snorkel where we encountered several medium sized turtles and a playful sea lion. <br><br>We followed the coast spotting several of the male red-breasted frigate birds and masked boobies, we then headed for Leon Dormido, or otherwise known as ...

... br>We got our swimmers on, packed our day bags and went back to the shop only to find that the guide had gone off with someone else. The tour shop tried to organise a replacement without success, and instead, after some discussion we decided to delay our return to Santa Cruz until Wednesday, and take the same tour tomorrow morning. It took some time before the tour shop finally agreed to the same price, $150 for the four of us. <br><br>Now that we were all packed we ...

... are statues of sea creatures and nicely designed wooden signs with information. It will look pretty classy when it's finished.<br><br>We strolled along to the beach, most shops were closed and there seemed to be ************e about. There were hoards of sea lions, at least thirty I could count, some tiny babies surely only a few months old. Unfortunately Jody and Niamh found a recently dead sea lion, but there was no evidence of how it had died. It looked like it was sleeping ...

This morning we had our first sleep in for days. Well it was kind of a sleep in, I was up at 8am to try and catch up on diary and photos, the rest of the mob slept until just after 9am.<br><br>There was nothing much to do today except pack our bags and move on to San Cristobal on the 2pm launch. We have been discussing the possibility of staying in San Cristobal for several more weeks, in not months. We are really enjoying ourselves and it isn't really as expensive as we first thought it ...

... was to a place called the wall of tears which was about a twentyminute ride out of town. On the way we passed some wonderful sandy beaches that wouldn&#8217;t look out of place back in Queensland. The wall of tears was an unsuccessful attempt to build a prison colony here on Isabella in the 1940&#8217;s. The prisoners were made to build this huge wall out of the jagged lava rocks that are everywhere on these islands, many died in the process until they staged a rebellion and ...

... 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!

... thinking it was 7) to catch a taxi to a farm in the highlands. There we rode a horse (my first time) around the rim of a volcano that helped give birth to the Galapagos. It´s Africa hot here, and the lunch under a shade tree on the volcano rim was badly needed. Jon´s horse must have been the alpha male, because anytime my horse tried to pass his, it would bite or kick my little guy. Almost tossing me to the ground, rodeo clown style. The afternoon was spent on a boat seeing ...

Photo´s here<br><br>Major apologies for this very tardy blog entry.... I'll just dive in rather than attempt to justify its lateness.....<br><br>So much to tell you and the sun is still shining so I'll be as brief as poss in an attempt to cover just the highlights...... problem is there were many!!<br><br>Anyway, starting from where I left off......<br><br>I headed for Guayaquil from Santiago, via Panama, on my most expensive flight to date and ...