Jurassic Park - Galapagos

Cormorants
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Next stop, one of my all time ambitions, the Galapagos Islands.  I stupidly thought they were just off the coast of Ecuador so was a little surprised when it took us about 5 hours to fly there.  We arrived and got our luggage and next thing we knew we were on a speed boat to our ocean bound home for 5 days The Encantada.  The boat was pretty small and compact but only holds 12 guests which is great as I didn´t want to be touring around with 50 people!  The cabin was the smallest place I had seen in the world and being on the top bunk was a little scary when the sea was rough but I survived.

Sunset
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So what can I say about Galapagos, well it was completely amazing, better than I would ever had imagined.  All the islands are so different depending on how old they are and what wildlife has ended up there.  Some are full of black volcanic rock and inhabited by huge land iguanas and the world´s only sea iguanas - they make you think that godzilla is going to suddenly appear from the sea!

Other islands are older and home to some plants and cactus leading to an abundance of birds - blue footed, red footed and masked boobies (yes they really are called that), the amazing frigate bird with it´s red pouch, huge pelicans nesting with their babies, the extremely rare Galapagos owl and loads more smaller birds I can´t remember.

Stork
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Moving on to the ocean, we came across schools of massive fish - angel fish, yellow finned sturgeons, yellow snappers, parrot fish and puffer fish.  My absolute highlight was when I achieved my dream of swimming with a huge sea turtle.  We also swam with loads of sea lions who were really playful and friendñu and I also tried to swim with a penguin but he was a little shy!  I was a little shocked when I spotted a 3 foot reef shark although I was informed afterwards that they don´t attack thank god.  There was a really cute baby sea lion who came up to play on the beach and wanted to eat our flippers!

Inquisitive Sea Lion
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Our guide was a strange one - he didn´t seem to be too fond of humans, only the local wildlife and was determined we pay attention at all times and learn by heart everything he told us - his favourite line was "memorise the eyes, the ears, the nose - memorise memorise memorise".  He repeated everything - "boobies, boobies, boobies, frigates, boobies".  It made the tour quite amusing!

We had a fun group on the tour and I still laugh when I picture Markus trying to walk forwards into the sea in his flippers and the blue footed boobies following Angela as her trousers were the same colour as their feet!  The crew really looked after us well and despite the odd bout of sea-sicknesses we all eat like kings.

Sea Lion
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We spent one day on Santa Cruz to check out Lonesome George - the last survivng giant tortoise of his species from Pinta island - they keep trying to get him to reproduce with other tortoises but he isn´t interested.  They told us all about their programme to increase the turtle populations on the islands and what is being done to eradicate non-native species like goats and rats.  We also got to spend an hour in the highlands to see the giant tortoises roaming wild.  The only downside was seeing a group of teenage Americans playing around in the old giant tortoise shells on display - no respect.

The Encantada
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All in all a totally AWESOME experience and one I will never forget.  I hope my photos can do it some justice but I know they will not come close to describing how it really was!