TravelStream™ news feed for member andrewy on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/andrewy en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:49:33 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/andrewy/9/1253501477/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/andrewy/9/1253501477/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/andrewy/9/1253501477/tpod.html Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:49:33 -0400 Tracing Darwin's Epic Journey

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Los Angeles, California, United States

Home sweet home !!!
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Galapagos Islands, Galápagos, Ecuador

Today we arrived at Lobos island, the nursery of sea lions. The sea lions would come to this island to breed their young. The strongest alpha male dominate the crowd and get the chance to mate with all the females. Their are so many sea lions even still borns.

Last night my roommate was coughing all night so I think I caught the cold from her and my throat was quite uncomfortable even to a degree to hoarsness, so I started taking antibiotics and drinking water, which make things better.

This afternoon we snorkeled around the boat but I decided not to do it due to my sore throat. Saw some nice sea turtles swimming around and a school of tropical fish near the reef. Our last tour today is around the cactus forest where we saw the land iguanas of which was hunted by the settlers to near extinction for their meat, but now they are making a comeback. The land iguana has brown color skin and slightly larger then their marine cousins.

Tonight is the farewell night that the crew and capitan toasted us with a cactus drink and a nice cake. We sat around for dinner took photos and chatted loudly, as our group of 12 turned into great friends. We traded e-mail addresses and finished our evaluations prior to heading to bed.
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Galapagos Islands, Galápagos, Ecuador

Today is got to be the best day in terms of wildlife watching. We landed bright and early on Española island, the oldest island geologically inthe Galapagos chain. As soon as we landed at punta Suarez, we were immediately greeted by a large school of marine iguanas. Juan told us that it is low tide right now and the marine iguanas primarily feed on algae which has red and green color thus giving the iguanas the same color. We walked across the island and saw some sea lion with their pups making whole lot of burping noises. Then we arrived at the blue foot booby nesting site and Nazca booby nesting site filled with birds landing and taking off. Juan also took us near a beautiful cliff where we sat and watched the beautiful burst of water through the blowholes as the waves come in. Next we saw the albatross nesting area. Albatross primarily nest here on Española island and they have a wing span of nearly 7 feet long !!! These beautiful birds are building their nests here and making courtship dance as they do it. they lay the egg here and that hatchling is as huge as a young turkey !!! They eventually learned how to fly where they travel as far south as Antarctica. Sadly we saw an abandoned albatross egg which was cooked under the sun after lack of protection for 72 hours. This afternoon we went to Gardner´s beach where we relaxed and snorkeled some more.

Tonight Juan showed us the BBC special on Galapagos island from 2006 the video just blown us away, but their camera crew did waited to film the best images over a 6 year span. I also saw the amazing southern night sky and the bright southern cross. Too bad the constellation southern hemisphere is just too confusing for me to figure out.


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Hacienda Clemencia, Pichincha, Ecuador

marker only

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Seymour, Galápagos, Ecuador

Today is the last day on our boat, we went ot North Seymore island and saw some amazing animals like the frigate bird nesting. The males will blow their throat like a red ballon to attract females to nest, they are opportunistic breeders once a year. After walking around the island for about an hour ans see more sea lions, boobies, doves, iguanas, we packed our bags and say farewell to this incredible joruney.
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Galapagos Islands, Galápagos, Ecuador

This morning we woke up super early to tour South Plazas Island due east of Sant Cruz Island. Juan, our Guide, took us around the small island and we saw some nice wildlife like Galapagos sea gulls, land Iguanas, cactus forest, and of couse More sea lions.

After our brief tour, we are now on our way to Puerto Ayora, the main city here on Galapagos Island. We circumnavigated the island south bound for about 3 hours. This is probably the worst 3 hours ever in our journey. There is some kid of ocean wave activity going on the the boat was rockin back and forth, side to side like wild. At breakfast time, the boat is already rocking like you won´t believe. I felt sick when the crew lay out the breakfast on the table. Feeling extremely sick,I only drank some juice and just sat and watch everyone wolf down the food while the platter shift from one side of the table to another. After breakfast, I took a dramamine pill and fell asleep at our dining room chairs. The waves are just getting worse, the boat shaked uncontrollabely side to side, the water leaked in through the ceiling, the glass shattered, the plates dropped on the floor making lots of clonking noise, the entire table shifted. For a moment, the boat was in a horizontal position !!! Half of the passengers were sitting at the back of the boat on the bench watching the heavy wave hitting the boat the water splashing everywhere. One of the wave was so strong that the back boat´s wood plank was blown into the ocean !!! Now we can´t wash up outside after snorkeling :( A few poor passenger was vomiting the whole time off the boat. The only wasy I survived this ordeal is lying flat and had my eyes closed while imaging that I am in a crib and getting rocked to sleep.

We arrived at Puerto Ayora at the southern part of Santa Cruz Island where water is calm. Thank goodness. We visited the Charles Darwin Reaserch station and saw the breeding area for young land tortoise. Due to introduced species such as feral rats, goats, cats, dogs, the survivial rate for the tortoise in the wild is slim to none, so the National park rangers collected the eggs and places a bunch of tortoise in captivity to allow safe breeding and hatching of the young tortoise. Until the tortoise 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, they each weight 100 to 200 lb a piece !!!! Massive critters, no wonder Darwin was completely shocked when he arrived her in the 1800´s.

In the afternoon, Juan took us to Rancho Mariposa tortoise reserve where the hooded land tortoise roam the land. This area is very lush with trees and lot of small lagoons perfect for the tortoises. We walked around the area and took a bunch of photos before we took a tea break and head back to our boat.


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Galapagos Islands, Galápagos, Ecuador

This morning we head off to Floreana island due south of Galapagos islands. The ocean passage started after midnight, a bit rough but tolerable. I stayed at the top bunk and a couple times I have to brace myself from falling off the the bed due to rocking.

Floreana is one of the older island in terms of geology abotu 3 millions years old, the volcans has since flattened out. We first visted the Post office bay, where the first explorers in the 1700´s first landed. Floreana island was used as the capital for Galapagos and the post office was set up that people would place their mail and postcards int he mail box, the next boat that landed will pickup the mail and hand deliver the mails to its rightful owners. The tradition continues. Unfortunately, after looking through the cards, the closest one to me is in San Jose. next we went cave exploring, a result of erosion by water on the lava tubes.

After lunch and siesta, we head off to Devil´s crown, a group of rocks off the island where lots of fish and infamous hammerhead sharks lurked. It was more like a swimming race, we first swim around the big rock then the dedium rock and finally the small rock. There were soem colorful fishes but no hammerheads.

We finished the day treking to a white sand beach on Point Cormarant where we saw more sea lions resting ont he beach and a nesting area for sea turtles. The crashing ocean waves was just amazingly beautiful. I met this young German girl from my ship who dressed like Jaqueline Kennedy with whom we chatted and had some photos taken.
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Galapagos Islands, Galápagos, Ecuador


Today we travelled to Bartolome Island. This is a much younger Volcanic island were it is only 700,000 years old as oppose to Santa Cruz island were it is 2 million years old. Due to its younger geological age, the plants and animals have not yet settled onto this island, only a few cacti and some weed have barely settled here, But in time, like a few million years, this place should be as lush as the other older islands.

Our activity on this island include hiking up the volcanic crater to see the grand view of the Galapagos island, from there, we descend down to the yellow sand beach for snorkeling. The hike up the crater was not too bad, but the view on the top is absolutely spectacular. We can see the pennisula of Bartolome island with yellow sand beach on either side of the narrow land, There is also this out crop of the land formation that tower from the water. After the hike our floating raft (dingy) took us on a penguin safari, We can see the penguins speeding underwater and resting on the rock. There is also a whole bunch of sea lions resting on the beach making all kinds of noises. We also saw the great blue heron resting on the sandy beach. The snorkeling in this area was plenty of fun where lot of colorful tropical fish play.

In the afternoon, we went on to our next destination of Sombrero Chino, were we once again hiked onthe lava formation. What is special about this area is that the beach is white and there are lots of dried coral laying ont he beach a result of the el nino event 5 to 6 years ago causing the massive coarl boom, but eventually the coral died off fromt he cooling temperature. The snorkeling was interesing too with plenty of coral underwater, fish and sae urchins.

This night we travelled from Sombrero Chino to Santa Cruz Island. The wave was very strong the boat shaking everywhere. Many people got seasick. I took my dramamine but still felt sick. The wave and shaky boat reminds of the Deadliest Catch TV show. Eventually we anchored so we can settle into bed.
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Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Hi Everyone,

Today morning, I left Quito bright the early at 530 am and took the Aerogal airline to Baltra airport on Galapagos Island. The flight actually dont go directly from Quito, we had to make a detour at Guayaquil bofore we arrive at Galapagos.

Galapagos Island is where Charles Darwin made his famous trip back in 1830s and from his observation and collection of animal specimens, he came up with the idea of evolution. The island is primarily volcanic in origin and the theory behind how the wildlife made it here from mainland varies. One theory says some plants and animals travel here by wind, water and logs that float across from the mainland. Since the island has limited predators, the species of animals such as the giant tortois{ population exploded, until the arrive of human.

Upon arrival, we were immdieately transferred to a tourist boat where all the meals, guided sightseeing were included. I was placed in a nice and small group of 12 people. Our first tour was to the Black turtle cove on the North side of Santa cruise island. We saw a hundreds of blue foot Booby flying and catching fish. The entire sky darken with the birds, quite a sight, reminds of the special in National Geographic. We also saw Pelicans diving into water, hunting for fish and a few marine iguanas resting on rocks.

Next day, we head on to Rabida Island on the southwest corner of Santiago Island. The special thing about this place is the red sand beach, a result of volcanic activity. The sea lions are just resting on the beach playing and enjoying the sun. Even if we were to approach them, they simply ignore us. This is another typical traits of the Galapagos wildlife, extremely tame. We hiked up the hill and saw some prickly pear cactus and some dramatic coastal view beofre we returned to the beach for swimming and snorkeling. My Tilos wet suit really comes in handy, don{t even have to put on any sunblocks !!! The fish uner water was very colorful, along with sea urchins, shells, shark and a few sea turtles.

After lunch, we arrived at Santiago Islands westside were we saw black sand beach. There were lots of marine iguanas resting on top of the rock and some bright red Sally light foot crab clinging on. They are so tame that we can walk up to them and take some nice pictures. The black lava formation was just as impressive. We once again snorkeled around the area before we head back to the boat and call it the day.
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Quito, Ecuador

Hi Everyone,

I have just arrive in the city of Quito Ecuador safe and sound. My trip here was interesting but uneventful. I flew from LAX to Panama city, took a red-eye flight and then transfer from Panama city to Quito.

On my way from LAx to Panama city, I met this nice lady from Panama, was was originally from Guangzhou and we had a great conversation. She was coming back from a long trip from China where she flew a total of almost 21 hours. It was funny first I first saw her at the LAX airport, she was blasting her Chinese music from the mini-radio and I figured she speaks Chinese. She told me she has been working int he restaurant business in Panama over 20 years and her Spanish is incredible. She was quite impressed of how young I looked given that I am already a physician and she wanted her son to be just like me. THe whole conversation was conducted in Mandarin which made it even more special.

On arrival to Quito, the city gave me an impression like Cusco where I visited last year, located in a mountainous region. The city is north-south where the airport is north and old town is south. The old town is got some nice 17 century churches and colonial cobble stone streets, walking amonst them is almost like stepping into the past.

The people here are mostly Mestizos while a small percentages are of African descend. The second group are quite roudy whenever I walk by them. they would make the comment of¨"Chino" at me.

I finished the night with some good dinner and fruits. Got to wake up early in the morning for the flight to Galapagos Island.
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