The Galapagos Islands

big bear and big crater
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We flew into the Galapagos during Australia´s spirited defeat to Brazil, which was a shame. The plane took us to Baltra Airport, which is a small, barren island off the north coast of Santa Cruz. The bus journey to the ferry  was through similarly empty and hostile terrain which refused to show us any signs of giant tortoises, iguanas, or anything other than rocks and cacti. Had we made a mistake?

Had we bollocks. Our stay was amazing. We did have some problems getting on a boat for our last minute five day cruise as the doris in the tour company over booked the tour by three people, but we volunteered to wait until the next cruise as long as we had our board, lodging and some extra trips paid for. Excellent - two weeks for the price of one. And all fitting in nicely with the World Cup.

giant tortoise and big bear
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During the week we went sea kayaking, swimming with sharks, horse riding up a volcano (with the world´s second largest caldera at 10km wide) and saw England beat Ecuador in a bar filled with hyped Ecuadorians (flags, shirts, songs, Mexican waves, etc.). After the game Charlie was interviewed on Galapagos TV (Channel 9 - Scorchio). Lovely.

When we finally boarded our yacht, The Free Enterprise, we had a marvelous five days. The Free Enterprise is 110 feet long, with 11 crew and 20 passengers. The crew and food were excellent, and the majority of the passengers were a great laugh when they weren´t being sea sick. Charlie only suffered when the boat was moving. The strangest of them were a tall Norwegian, his Peruvian mail order wife, her much younger sister and the couple´s one year old daughter. A cruise in a nature reserve is no place for a toddler, or a bored toddler´s mother with little grasp of English. Charlie was thrilled to learn that the child had apparently refused her mother´s breast because they were too salty. Mmm... Pag would have liked it.

beaky
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Over the next five days we swam with sealions, fish, sea snakes, sharks, manta rays, sting rays, a big turtle and some more sealions. The turtle was incredible. Beautiful and completely nonplussed about us swimming so close to him (well, everyone else swimming and Chesta thrashing). The sealions were also amazing, they would swim right up to us and play, blowing bubbles back at us and doing underwater acrobatics - as playful as dogs. Charlie also swam with a hairy merman but Chesta didn´t see him.

blue footed boobies
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We also landed on some of the southern islands, where you can see albatross nesting colonies, marine and land iguana communities, lots of sealions (they stink of fish when they´re out of the water), big red crabs, loads of birds, cacti and dramatic scenery. The only downpoint of the whole trip (and it was a big downpoint) was on the last day when we watched England crash out to a dirty, cheating Portuguese side. Great islands though.

Sammy would have liked the turtles, and Chalky would have liked the boobies.