Boobies

  Galápagos Islands, Ecuador
Monday, May 7, 2007

A visit to the Galápagos Islands is, for most, a wildlife experience of a lifetime.  The barren, volcanic islands are the perfect setting for a lesson in natural history.  The entire archipelago was uninhabited when it was discovered by the Spanish in 1535.  Five islands are inhabited today.  The island's most famous visitor, Charles Darwin, came here in 1835 to study the remarkable wildlife.  His observations eventually led him to scribble a few thoughts on evolution.

Not only are many of the species on the island unique in the world....they are literally unafraid of humans.  It's not unusual to walk up to a nesting bird and take a photo from a foot away; walk through a shallow pool and sea lions swim and jump at your feet...splashing salty water on you and your clothes; penguins frolic in the surf around you while you try to wash the sand off your snorkeling gear. 

07 Galapagos

08A Galapagos

45 Galapagos

I was certainly treated to some wonderful sites in the islands, but, honestly, the islands didn't really live up to their reputation.  I'm glad I went, but it's unlikely that I would pay the money to return.  I should start in the beginning...

I shopped around both Guayaquil and Quito for deals before deciding just to purchase a return ticket and push my luck finding something in the islands.  I was glad I did as I ended up paying about $870USD for a 5-day cruise on a first-class boat (the highest rating).  The prices on the mainland were centered at about $1250USD for the same cruise.  I arrived in Puerto Ayora at about noon local time and had selected and paid for my cruise by about 4PM the same day.  Embarkation on The Fragata was at noon the following day.

That same night, I received a phone call at my hostel from the management company that operates The Fragata informing me of a slight change...they had just been informed by the captain that the boat was due for fumigation and that we could not stay on board the last night of the cruise.  They were putting us up in a nice hotel instead.  I checked it out to confirm that it was, indeed, nice.  No biggee - the original itinerary had us sleeping in the harbor of Puerto Ayora anyway.  The change meant that we could go out to a few bars and have a good time.  I was up for it and agreed to the change.

The gang showed up for our nightly briefing on the new last night on the boat and discovered that they we were being dumped off the boat at 1PM.  They had cut an entire afternoon off the trip.  I wasn't happy, but chose not to raise a stink because we weren't really seeing all that much on each excursion anyway.  We were already on repeat mode....seeing things that we had already seen before.  To add to this, Ecuador doesn't enforce nearly as many rules about visiting the islands as are enforced around the antarctic. As a result, we were joined on most of our excursions by hundreds of others...up to ten boats at a single landing site.  Ugh.
 
Even if we had not had the problems with the boat, the cruse would have been just OK.  There were a few "wow's" but nothing like I expected.  The same jitters hit me the morning of the cruise that I had when embarking for the antarctic cruise - will everyone be old!?!  Luckily, I was blessed with a group of young and fun shipmates that made it fun.