Galapagosing

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To sum up the galapagos it was, how you say....WORTH EVERY CENT (and there were a lot of them, believe us). Now that we are done with the summary, we'll get into some of the specifics, but as a warning this is gonna be real long, so get some coffee or go to the next entry.

So after a 2 hour AeroGal flight we arrived to the Galapagos (students dont forget to show your student cards before buying the flights for a major discount), found our tour group, and got on a bus to the docks.  Everyone on the bus felt the same: apprehensive about whether or not the trip will actually be worth how much we all paid..but within the first 5 seconds after we got to the dock and saw sea lions swimming around in clear blue water and jumping on and off the different boats docked there, we all knew that this was going to be an amazing experience and worth it all.

Snorkelling for the blind

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The wildlife at the Galapagos was amazing.  There were tons of different animals: sea lions, sea turtles, albatrosses, friggits, boobies, penguins, dolphins, flamingos, etc. and you get to see them from really close...which was a lot different from our jungle experiences of binoculars and looking for hiding animals. The first day we went to sea lion island, though there are so many sea lions on every island they could all be called that.  Seriously, every island just had tons of sea lions chilling on the beach, each one sleeping on the sand or the rocks and taking turns burping and coughing.  When they would get tired of one spot they would get up and waddle to a different spot until they ran out of energy and would just plop there whole body on the ground.  Throughout the whole trip we also got a chance to snorkel with them.  This was great for Gilad since usually it is hard for him to snorkel, since to see fish without the glasses can be really tough, but you have to be really blind to not see a huge sea lion swimming right towards your face.  They were really amazing and playful creatures, sometimes too playful trying to pull off peoples flippers with there mouths.

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We snorkelled almost everyday on the beautiful beaches and were also able to see some sharks, rays, and chase after some sea turtles that were trying to rest.  The one animal we weren't able to snorkel with was the dolphins but we did have a pack of about 100 of them swimming with our small boat one day which was awesome.

The birds at the Galapagos were also very cool and you could really see them all from up close.  Our favorite was the albatross which is a huge bird that the only way it can fly is to jump off of a cliff and then flap its wings.  The truth is Gilad was a little dissapointed when seeing them since he heard about how huge they are before coming to the Galapagos and pictured them all being the size of a 747 when they are really the size of..well, huge birds.  But it was really cool to see them to fly when they get close to the edge of the cliff, open up there wings, get cold feet and close them again, and then jump and fly off.  They also had this cool mating dance when they would kind of sword fight with there beaks.

We also saw friggits, otherwise knowns as friggin friggits, that were beautiful black birds, especially the males that had this red turkey looking thing hanging under its neck that it would blow up to make look like a big watermelon or strawberry in order to attract the ladies...and attract the ladies it did.

The last bird worth mentioning was the mockingbirds. They werent really that great to look at, but they were crazy smart.  They only drink fresh water, and were warned by our guide not to keep bottles of water out since they recognize the bottles and will come over and beg for water like a cat or dog.  We thought he was exaggerating but this one guy from another tour didn't put his bottle of water away, and after a few minutes he was really surrounded by like 4 or 5 birds.  Even though this guy wasn't on our boat, we saw him on like every island and every island he did something else wrong, like try to push an albatross off a cliff and trying to hunt a sea lion...ok the last one was a little bit of an exaggeration but he was nuts.

Oh yeah, almost forgot about the huge tortoises we got a chance to see.  Well they were huge and they were tortoises and it was really cool to see them walking around and eating.  Gilad wanted to do a handstand on one, but that was prohibited for whatever reason.

Now of course there were some painful moments (or body parts) such as horseback riding.  It was fun for the first few minutes but after 2 hours, we werent sure if we would every be able to sit normally again.  Gilad especially had it bad since the guy behind him wanted his own horse to go fast and kept yelling "Vamanos!Vamanos!" but for whatever reason instead of his own horse listening to him, Gilad's horse would listen to him and just went in a crazy gallop almost throwing him off.  He was holding the sadlle so tight, that his hands were frozen in that position for the next few hours.

Oh yeah, and no Galapagos entry is complete without mentioning "The Bell."  It called us to breakfast, called us for activities, and told us when to relax and when to stop relaxing.  To minimize impact on the environment and having too many tourists in the same area, every boat has a very strict itinerary that can't be changed...so all though there is no other way to do it, 8 days of "The Bell" can be quite annoying and we blame it for our sea/food sickness on the last day (especially Gilad).  We did succeed in stopping it for like 5 seconds one day by taping the bell part to the other bell part, but those Level 3 guides are pretty smart.

Anyway, go to the Galapagos, you wont regret it!