Galapalaps in the Galapagos

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Well we just worked out the more you write the more photos you can fit in the main body of the text and since we took about 50,000 photos in the Galapagos you might want to settle in for a long one.

Flew into the Galapagos Islands with no accommodation and no cruise booked but with heaps of the great Aussie she'll be right attitude.  Unfortunately the she'll be right attitude never encountered the Galapagos in peak season.  First stop was to get accommodation..ended up paying 3 times what we were paying in Quito for a room at the top of 6 flights of cranium cracking stairs built for midgets, and no hot water.

Next the all important cruise as most of the islands are only accessible by cruise boat with a guide.  First three agencies we approached basically said there were no cruises and one was nice enough to offer us a last minute 8 day cruise on a luxury liner for US $2800 each, we regretfully declined.

Finally we found an agency with a guy by the name of Johnny who excitedly informed us they had just had two people cancel from an 8 day cruise leaving in a couple of days, we thought about it for 5 minutes then said we'd take it, unfortunately we thought for 5 minutes too long and a couple in quito booked the last 4 days so we ended up only getting the first 4 days of the tour.

To fill in time until the cruise left we booked a two day trip to Isabella Island which involved getting a speed boat for 2 hours through choppy seas from the main island Santa Cruz....fortunately no one was sick on the way over although Jo wasn't as fortunate on the way back!

We arrived at Isabella to discover that the Miss Galapagos title was being held over the next two days and nearly all the accommodation on the island was fully booked, Jo and to a lesser extent myself where shattered to hear this.  Fortunately our tour company managed to find us some accommodation in new hotel...so new infact they had not yet put the windows in, there was no railing on the second floor balcony and the power points were still just a series of cables sticking out of the wall.....only in Ecuador and possibly the rest of South America.

First port of call was the Tortoise Hatchery or what we liked to call the Tortoise Factory.  There a several types of land Tortoises each unique to their own island and most were hunted close to extinction so the locals are busily rebuilding up the stocks and releasing them back into the wilds of their respective islands.  Was good to get our first glimpse of the massive Tortoises although seeing them later in the wild was better.

Next stop was a lagoon which is home to Flamingos, we were expecting a big flock like you see on the doco's, so the two were saw were a little bit disappointing, although the guide assured us these ones are pinker than the ones you encounter elsewhere.

Back to the hostel for dinner, a few beers and a surprisingly good night sleep in our well ventilated room.  Next day we were driven to the foot of one of the many volcanoes on Isabella called Sierra Negra.  Can't really remember all the details but I believe it's last significant activity was in the 80's and it smoked a bit in the late 90's before quitting.  The climb to the top is a bit of a hike and half the way is a mud quagmire before you get to the top which is bone dry...something about micro climates. 

I opted to ride a horse up whilst Jo decided to walk as she thought the horses looked a bit skinny, after the initial confusion because the guides assumed for some reason I would walk with my girlfriend, I was allocated the last horse in the stables...I started to get a bit concerned when I noticed he had been tethered about 50m away from the other horses and was down right worried when there was a heated discussion in spanish before they finally brought him over to me.  In the end he turned out to be a good horse albeit a clumsy one, in fact he managed to hit every exposed root and rock on the way up and was down on his knees a couple of times in the mud but still managed to come a gallant fourth on the way up (although I'm not sure every one else realized it was a race). 

A big fat German guy got bucked out of the saddle about 5 minutes into it, after hanging on grimly to his bucking bronco for about 20m he got thrown a few meters in the air and landed flat on his back in the mud...possibly crushing all his camera equipment....it was kind of bad but at the same time hilarious, funniest home video material.  Amazingly the German did the incomprehensible and got back on the same horse (i think it's name was El Diablo) and surprise, surprise the same thing happened again directly in front me 10 minutes later, I couldn't help but laugh as me and Slippery Sam skidded past.

Jo on the other hand was slogging it out through similar terrain on foot and from all reports somewhat ambitiously tried to get a run up and storm through one of the mud pits and failed miserably losing a shoe in the process.  We met up at the top me somewhat groin sore and Jo covered in mud especially one shoe which she eventually managed to recover.  The view from the top was worth the effort though with the crater itself being the second biggest in the world and the views to the remainder of the island also spectacular. 

For those interested in the remainder of the race (because of course the actual race was up and back again) Myself and Sam started last and ended up getting back first, 5 minutes ahead of the next rider.  Sam was a horse possessed he was picking gaps though horses I didn't even realize were there and every time he was challenged he would get up into a bit of trot and fight them off.  Except for a couple of times where he tried to run me into a barb wire fence the rest of the race was incident free resulting in a smashing victory similar to Sunline's 2000 Cox Plate demolition job (except this was on the side of a volcano).  It also helped that my nearest competitor a 40 year old Uruguayan man got dumped into the bush when his horse took a tumble and opted to walk the rest of the way down.

That afternoon we both had our first taste of snorkeling and it was great!  Swam with Sea Lions, White Tipped Reef Sharks and a myriad of fish.  That night was the judging for Miss Galapagos which had the whole island excited apparently more of talent quest than a true beauty pageant so had appeal for both sexes and we could see the stadium from our balcony and it appeared that the entire population of the Galapagos was there....but rather than watch it we had a couple of beers and went to bed...pathetic I know but had a 6am boat to catch. the next morning.  As hinted at previoulsy Jo and a few others were sick on the boat trip back to Santa Cruz...just in the interest of accurate reporting. 

Next was the 4 day cruise to the north islands on our boat The Free Enterprise, not the prettiest boat in the harbor but still nice enough and did the job.

Fist day was spent exploring Santa Cruz including taking a look at the semi wild Land Tortoise population the first two we saw were massive and sitting directly on the road like two huge speed bumps, apparently your not allowed to drive over them though so we had to wait for them to move which on the plus side provided many photo opportunities.   Following that we crawled through a lava tube about a km long then back to the boat gorging ourselves on wild passion fruit on the way back.

That night sailed to Rabida Island and next morning disembarked on the red beaches to take a look at the wild life which included Sea Lions, some ducks, Galapagos hawks, a Galapagos Snake etc.  Not entirely sure how qualified our guide was as every time you asked for the name of an animal he would somewhat tentatively just repeat the common name of the animal with Galapagos in front of it eg "Galapagos Lizard".  When we came across the snake I had to point it out to him as he had tramped straight past it.  He identified it as...... you guessed it.....a Galapagos Snake and when we asked him if it was venomous he assured us it wasn't, but I later caught him flicking through the snake section of his animal book trying to find it.....probably wouldn't have gone in for that super close up if I had of been aware of his uncertainty.

The rest of the morning was spent snorkeling off the beach, myself and Jo looking pretty snazzy in our rented wetsuits, Jo going with a lairish bright purple suit and black fins whilst I went for the more subdued bright blue suit with fluoro yellow fins and matching snorkel..at least we weren't going to be mistaken for seals by a hungry shark.  Won't go into detail about the snorkeling because it is by far and away the best part of the cruise and words will not do it justice, suffice to say we saw heaps of fish, sea turtles, sea lions..again, penguins, rays and small sharks over the course of several snorkeling sessions.  After snorkeling Jo had a minor altercation with the big daddy of the local sea lion colony when washing the sand off her wetsuit but it was all sorted out over a couple of beers.

That afternoon was spent sailing to our next snorkeling destination called China Mans Hat.  I spent that time on the top deck on a sun lounge with my arms up covering my eyes from the sun, which unfortunately resulted in the most painful sunburn known to man...armpit burn, who would have thought the sun would be so hot near the equator?  More snorkeling that afternoon and a reasonably quiet evening on the boat whose other passengers consisted of about 6 recently graduated German Doctors, a similar number of Israelis, two or three Brits and a token Canadian.

Day three of the cruise was to Bartholomew Island which has great views and it's claim to fame is parts of the film Master and Commander were filmed there.  But now it has a new claim to fame,it is the site of the most spectacular entry into a landing  dingy..I am sure you can guess the person involved.  The whole incident is somewhat blurry in my mind as it happened so fast it was like all the previous fall free days of the trip were just Jo saving up for the big one.  The boat had only two people in it, me and the skipper with rest lining up behind Jo waiting to board, Jo stepped down on to the seat which had some sort of mat on it which was obviously not non slip because it gave way like a banana peel and ultimately ended with Jo bouncing off the seat and landing sprawled on the deck with the skipper just catching her head before she knocked herself out on the seat..fortunately only sustaining minor bruising to her leg and her dignity.

Afternoon was spent having a look around Sullivan Island which was formed  entirely by volcanic eruptions the last being 120 years ago.  Due to the relatively recent volcanic activity the island is completely black and devoid of plant life, you could still see the ripples in the rock from where the lava had cooled.  Sounds boring but was actually a great spot with the contrast of the jet black island, the aqua green sea and blue skies...and the snorkeling as always was fantastic. 

Final day was to Seymour Island which had big yellow land iguanas, frigate birds and scores of boobies...Blue footed boobies that is.  After that we were booted off at the airport to make way for the next lot of tourists...this was the scene off Jo's second stack of the trip, exiting the bus upon arrival at the ferry dock people where crowded around the bus doors waiting to get on, after I got off I heard a gasp from the crowd and a thud, looked around and Jo had taken a spill down the stairs fortunately landing unharmed on her massive pack which she was carrying in front of her.

Once back on the main island we had to waste four more days in the main town, Puerto Ayora.  Most of the time was spent doing lazy laps of the small town looking for anything remotely exciting to do....hence Jo coined the phrase "Doing Galapalaps"...which she thought was the funniest thing ever invented.  Other than that did a daily walk to a nearby and idyllic beach called Tortuga Bay, the 40 minute walk each way proving the perfect foil to the copious amounts of soft serve ice cream we were consuming daily.

The only place of note we visited was the Charles Darwin Center which has a load of tortoises and some land iguanas, the most famous resident being Lonesome George who is last remaining Tortoise of his species from one of the islands.  They have put him in with a couple of females who they deemed are the closest match genetically, but he wont have a bar of them, they are probably ugly as sin or Georgie might be a homosexual.

Well that's about it, ended up moving flights forward by a few days and now back to Quito to work out where to go next, Baños was on the list but there is a stupid volcano erupting near it so may have to re-evaluate.

Oh and congrats to Karl and Jay on the birth of little Olivia...now that was a surprise!  Hope all is going well.