Paradise Found

I just returned yesterday from an amazing 9 days on the Galapagos Islands. Maybe I'm just in the afterglow but I really feel that this is the most extraordinary place I have ever been. It is gorgeous, tranquil, eye-opening - just amazing. This may sound extreme but I literally had numerous moments of wanting to cry because it was so beautiful and peaceful. I feel very lucky to have visited these islands and really encourage anyone and everyone to go - soon! They are looking at controlling tourist numbers even further by raising prices even higher.

I booked a last-minute tour two days before I left. I got a good deal on an 8-day first class cruise. I spent more than I had planned but everyone says you get what you pay for and thet the cruise is not the place to scrimp.

This is the boat - The Sea Man. It is a catamaran with room for 16 passengers. I was on the boat for eight days but the tour is split up into two halves, only myself and one other person (Tobias from Switzerland) stayed for the full eight days. Neither half was full. I believe we had 13 people on the first half and 11 the second. This is the end of high season so boats are not full.

This was my cabin. I had the room to myself for the week. Private bathroom too. Very nice. The tourist management is handled pretty well. No more than 16 people per naturaulist guide. They don't let groups over-run the islands. Often we were the only group at a particular sight at any given time. It made you feel like you were in the middle of nowhere. I chose this tour because it was the only one I saw that also visited the West (and newest) islands. There were a couple days where we never even saw another ship. Perfection.

Day 1
I arrived on San Cristobal Island around 12:30pm from Quito. We went onto our boat and were given lunch. Then we went for a drive to, and around, Kicker Island (above). It is also know as Leon Dormido, or Sleeping Lion Island. We saw dolphins on our journey there - about 3 swam with the boat for a good 10 minutes. At Kicker Rock we saw a group of golden rays and a bunch of birds.
After Kicker Rock we went to Isla Lobos and went snorkeling. The water was cold! About 68 degrees. I rented a partial wetsuit and was still cold through most of our snorkel trips. The snorkeling trips are a little blended together in my head, but I´m sure I saw some cool shit.

I watched the sunset from the bow of the boat. I love being on the water!

Day 2
During the night we drove to Gardner Bay, Isla Espanola and first thing in the morning got into the panchas to Sea Lion Beach.

Sea Lion Beach has maybe 75 to 100 sea lions. And they are all sleeping. Seriously lazy creatures. Each beach has a "Beach Master". A large male Sea Lion who gaurds the beach and gets all the ladies. Other males challenge him, they fight, and the winner remains, or is the new beach master. I guess 3 weeks is a typical reign.

They have very little fear of humans. You can get very close but are asked to stay 5 or 6 feet away from the animals. I have seen pictures of sea lions cuddling with people and nibbling on toes. They are pretty darn cute.

We hung out for awhile and then went snorkeling at a nearby sight. There were a number of young sea lions and they were very playful! When you dived down they´d swim spirals around you. They loved the bubbles from your snorkel and blew bubbles in return. One sea lion loved one of the other passengers and kept biting his flippers and tried to steal his mask when he took it off for a moment. I had a staring contest with one for a good five minutes - only a few feet away. So much fun! We also saw a huge sea turtle eating his salad. He just went about his lunch as we all swam above him.

After lunch we went to another spot on Isla Espanola and were greeted by our first Marine Iguanas. These guys swim by waving their tails like a snake. There were tons of them. The spit to clear their system of salt water - at first I thought it was agressive behavior but they were just cleansing.

This is our guide, Enrique. Sideways - sorry. Enrique was awesome, and apparently only a substitute guide on our boat. He is only 19 but has more maturity and knowledge and is more grounded than any other 19 year old I have ever known. He grew up up on Isla San Cristobal and will be headed to mainland Ecuador next year for University. Very smart guy.

Close-up of marine iguana. They are red and green because of the kelp that they eat.

We also saw many birds on Isla Espanola. These are albatros and they are most prevelant here. This is a baby and it´s parent. Can´t tell if it´s mom or dad as they take turns caring for the baby. The baby is the crazy hairy one. Mom/Dad was regurjitating (sp?) food for babe. Pretty cool.

These are Blue-Footed Boobies! One of the stars of the Galapagos. There are Blue-footed, Red-footed, and Nazca Boobies. Nazca have brown feet. We saw tons of them and the blue-footed ones. No reds. They are very rare to see.

Day 3
During the night we drove to Isla Floreana - I forget the nam of the area we visited first. But here we saw Flamingos!

I loved the landscape on Floreana. Very dry and desolate looking, but I found it very beautiful. Most of the islands are arid and rugged looking as they are all volcanic, but there is actually quite a difference in their landscapes which is amazing.
We also visited a beach with a sea turtle nesting sight.

Next we drove the ship to another area on Isla Floreana - Post Office Bay.

For years and years this has been the sight of a mail system. Sailors who came through would grab the mail and deliver it. Now it is mostly for tourists. We looked through all the cards and if you find one from near your hometown you are to hand-deliver it! There were none from Seattle, or Washington at all. I hope someone picks mine up.

More pretty landscape on Isla Floreana. We then visited a lava tunnel. Climbed on in and experienced the dark and some people had a swim in a freshwater pool that exists down there.

That afternoon we snorkeled again but I skipped out since the current was very strong.

Day 4
The next morning we bid farwell to the first group. Enrique took Tobias and I to a Tortoise Reserve in the highlands of Isla Santa Cruz. As we drove uphill the landscape transformed from volcanic rock and sandy beaches to lush greenry.

The tortoise reserve is on a large piece of land and you wander around amongst their habitat. It was a bit early in the morning so there was not a lot of activity. These guys are huge though. It was mostly the males as the females had headed to the lowlands to lay eggs.

Enrique made me do it.

In the afternoon we went to the Darwin Research Station. They had a bunch of exhibits about Darwin´s work and about the current work. Mostly to increase the tortoise population. They also had some animals in captivity such as tortoises, land iguanas, and a famous tortoise, Lonely George, named so as he is the only left of his kind. He was hiding behind some shrubbery so I did not get a good pic of him.

At the Darwin center there is also a tortoise nursery! Too cute. We then went back to the boat and greeted the new passengers.

Day 5/6
During the night we had a long bumby boat ride to Isla Isabela - The biggest of the islands. We began our morning with a pancha ride to Punto Moreno.

We saw more marine iguanas and our first penguin swimming in the water! Of course we also saw sea turtles and sea lions. We also saw two iguanas fighting - head butting and pushing each other around. Pretty Cool.

We got off and took a walk among the lava fields. Very beautiful. I mentioned before that Isla Isabela is one of the younger islands so not as much plant life has grown yet beyond cactus, lichen, mangroves, and some other hardy greenery.

We visited a few lagoons, two had flamingos (you can see 2 little blobs in the above picture). Flamingos enjoy the quite so are only found in places such as this.

We then took a short boat drive to Elizabeth Bay, Isabela.

Here there are lots of penguins!I love penguins! These guys are pretty tiny and apparently camera shy.

We went snorkeling here as well as there were some playful sea lions that the passengers who were not on the first half of the trip wanted to swim with. It was a good swim - sea turtles, sea lions, lots of fish, star fish. The sun was out so the colors were super vibrant.

These are just some cool trees around our snorkel site.

After snorkeling we took a pancha ride through the mangroves.

It was so quiet and peacful. The motors were turned off and the panchas were paddled around. We stayed for quite a while and saw both the sunset and the moon rise - pretty much simultaneously.

Hmm...I´m a little confused about order here. I didn´t keep my daily journal while on the boat and it´s all blending together a liitle. At some point we went to Urbina Bay on Isabela. It was either day 5 or 6. Here there had been a huge uplifting - 15´in an instant causing what was under water to no longer be so. Here there were many land iguanas and the Galapagos Hawk - the island´s fiercest predator.

The above is coral that remains from the uplifting. There are no fish fossils or remnants because fishermen came to the island and took all the dying fish.

On day 6 we headed to Isla Fernandina. It is a small island West of Isabela and is the newest of the Galapagos. It was absolutely gorgeous. All these little sandy beach coves amongst the volcanic rock with crystal clear waters. Just gorgeous. And not a soul there but us.

Here there were tons of marine iguana - therefore named Iguana City.

Apparently the crabs (here are Red Sally Lightfoot crabs) eat the dead skin off the iguanas, aiding them in their transition to new skin.

Here we saw a sea turtle on land, kickin´it with some sea lions.

We left Fernadina and began our long sail over the north of Isla Isabela. Around 6pm we crossed the equator line. We all piled into the bridge, had a glass of wine, and watched the latitude reading on the boat reach 0.00.000 degrees. We counted down like New Year´s. It was pretty silly but also pretty awesome. Then we watched another killer Galapagos sunset.

Day 7
The next day we arrived at Isla Bartolome. Here is the very famous landscape called Pinnacle Rock, which I had never heard of.

Pinnacle Rock is on the right. We hiked up 365 stairs to a great viewpoint.

Above is the group from this portion of the trip. Afterwards we went snorkelimg around the Pinnacle Rock. Here I saw the most colorful fish yet - and in large schools. One of our group saw a white-tip shark. I had really wanted to see a shark so was bummed, but did see one from the beach later in the day.

We headed back to the boat, refueled at Barta, and then went to Isla Plaza Sur. This was a beautiful little island covered in red groundcover, cacti, marine and land iguanas, tons of birds, and a sea lion bachelor area - where the males rest up before going out to challenge a beach master. Sadly we saw an injured sea lion there. His tail had been cut very deep by a pancha motor. It was very sad and a few of the passengers had a hard time understanding why we could not do anything for him.

The bird with the red rim around it´s eye is a Swallow-tail Gull. It´s hard to see but in the second picture there is a baby one! The red rim helps them see at night because they are nocturnal fishers.

One our way back this guy was blocking our path. We went around him and at the landing area we saw a sea lion who was making a lot of noise and moving around strangely. We soon realized she was giving birth! We stayed on the island and saw the whole thing. Just amazing. Sorry if these are a little graphic...

Day 8
That was a great end to my final full day on the boat. The next morning we arrived back to San Cristobal. We visited a great Interpretation Center, with much information on the islands. Then we said good-bye. Myself and Jule and Greta were staying on San Cristobal for one more day.

I will write about that later as I have to go catch a bus. Quito is a bit depressing after being on the Galapagos so it is time to move on. I am headed to Otavalo today. Will be in touch soon...