Galapagos Islands, 8th April
Trip Start
Feb 22, 2005
1
8
20
Trip End
Jun 22, 2005
Santa Cruz Island, Galalpagos,
Ecuador
Monday, April 4, 2005
After another splendid breakfast with our monkey friends at the Dreamkatcher Hostel in Guayaquil, we headed off to the airport on another terrifying taxi ride.
Our destination was the Galapagos Island, 1000km west of the Ecuadorian mainland in the middle of the Pacific. On arrival we were offered the earlier flight to Baltra, so realising the potential of bagging the best cabin on the boat, we took it. On arrival we paid our compulsory $100 park tax. The couple in front of had not read their guide so carefully and had their passport confiscated until they could return with the cash.
We hopped on the shuttle bus to the harbor to meet our boat. We were greeted by a welcoming comity of sealions, lazing in the shade of the bus stop.
When we got onto the boat we realised that it was a long way short of the luxury we had enjoyed on Clare the boat we were on in the Carribean
Alex on the beach with the sea lions
. A tour of the boat was not forthcoming and we were given a pokey double cabin at the rear of the boat next to the galley. After a couple of hours we were joined by 3 Germans, 2 Brits, 1 Dutch girl and alarmingly no guide.We set of immediately for a neighboring island where we were adopted by another group's guide for the afternoon. He told us that our guide was ill and would be joining us the following day. He took us to a small salt lake with flamingos and told how they lived to be 60 years old and mate for life. Probably a better life expectancy than the average Ecuadorian. We also saw some amazing red crabs and some of the unique sea iguanas, with their flat tails for swimming.
The first of our daily 3 course lunch and dinners was a marvel to behold, cooked in a tiny kitchen by Nesto our cook. This was a vast improvement on some of the meals we had in the Carribean,(chefs names remain anonymous). My 11 year old gcse in German was proving entertaining for the Germans and the rest of the guests. However I was determined it would all come back (it didn't). We anchored that night in a channel and admired the amazing stars. The Milky Way was clearly visible but the familiar constellations appeared upside down to dwellers from the Northern Hemisphere.
Blue footed boobie
Tuesday 5th. When we awoke our replacement guide, Juan Carlos, had arrived. We motored to Plazas island and Juan Carlos had to coax the sealions off the jetty so we could land. The sealions, like most of the wildlife on the islands, have no fear of humans, although we were told to be careful around the bull sealions. On our walk around the island we saw big land iguanas, sea iguanas, lots of sea birds including chicks nesting on the cliffs just feet away. In the afternoon we moored at Santa Fe island, Graham and I were first in the water for a bit of snorkeling. We ignored the amazing fish and headed straight over to see if the sealions would come and play with us. We watched a sealion pup balancing a pebble on its nose as it swam to the surface where it would then chase it as it fell back to the bottom, before it landed it would catch it and take it up again. The mother then came over to investigate us and seemed to enjoy it when you dived down and tried to copy what she was doing. Later on we hopped on the tender, known as a panga, and on the way to the shore saw a turtle, 2 rays and 3 white tip sharks...wow. Fortunately, that night we were so exhausted from the days activities that the engine noise coming from directly below our heads did not bother us too much on the night sail to Espanola island.
Wednesday 6th. In the morning we had a relaxing morning on a pristine white beach with the sealions and went for another snorkel. Graham being the jellyfish magnet that he is, managed to find a swarm of micro jellyfish to swim through, stinging him on his arms and face, good job we weren´t skinny dipping. I offered to piss on him (the best antidote) but he declined. That afternoon Graham was really looking forward to the promise of boobie spotting. His hopes sank as Juan Carlos explained we were visiting the larges breeding ground for Galapagos blue footed boobies
Graham with a giant tortoise
. Apart from the boobies, Juan Carlos showed us the Galapagos mocking bird, a cheeky little bird that has learnt to beg for water whenever it sees anyone drinking from a bottle. He also showed us how the adolescent boobies love to mimic, he spun a stick through the air and caught it a few times, when he threw the stick to a bird, it caught it in it's beak and did the same trick. Amazing! A huge black hawk landed in a bush right next to us, totally unconcerned as we clicked away with our cameras. On the night sail after a few rums we had an international singing competition, the other nationalities were somewhat unimpressed by the British rendition of, One man went to mow a meadow. Thursday 7th. Up at 5.30 we visited Post Office Bay on Floreana island. There is a ramshackle wooden barrel in which people put mail and post cards, the idea is to look through the mail and if there's anything for near where to live you take it and hand deliver it. The people of Bolton have obviously yet to discover Galapagos, so we came away empty handed. We carried on to a lava tube, a underground cave created by cooling lava, and had a look inside. On the trip there were two types of landings, dry landings, on rocks and jetties, and wet landings, on the beach both reached in the panga. That afternoon turned out to be a very wet landing. After visiting some flamingos we awaited panga boy (or Roger the Cabin Boy as we had christened him) to collect us from the shore
Red rock crab
. As he struggled to hold the dinghy we all to scramble in, unfortunately as he fumbled to get the out board engine down a tsunami size wave crashed over the bow, soaking us all and filling the boat. this was shortly followed by a second, I emptied the water from the boots I was carrying and Graham began to bail out furiously, as we got going there was a cry of U-Boat from zee German and we looked up in horror to see the nose of the dinghy disappearing into the water. Panga boy eased off on the engine and by a minor miracle we didn't sink. Very Funny. That afternoon we all went out snorkeling to Devils Crown, an off shore volcanic crator under the sea. The crator was surrounded by amazing fish, the highlight for us was seeing the White Tipped Sharks swimming below. As we sailed to Puerto Ayora our final destination Nesto the cook unwittingly punctured the panga with the spare anchor. The captain had just about had all he could take for one day and on arrival disappeared to get drunk. That night we a got hammered in town and the strange love triangle that had developed between our guide and two of the girls came to a head.Friday 8th. A sheepish Juan Carlos arrived at our boat and took us to see the giant tortoise breeding program at the Charles Darwen Research Centre. We met Lonesome George the last remain tortoise of his kind and dozens of other tortoises from other islands. On some islands they have managed to increase the numbers from as low as 18 to 4000 animals, all amazing stuff. Apparently they can live to be 300 years old and can go for a year without food or water. Bonkers!!!!
Our trip was over and we headed back to the airport by pick-up truck, bus, boat then bus. Peru here we come.
