Day 1 (Monday 23^rd September)

 

An early and cold Quito morning awoke us up at 6am, as you know we are not morning people, which means it was not easy for us to get going. We got ready and ate some breakfast. The taxi arrived a few minutes early. We jumped in after our small breakfast. The taxi was a Jeep and it appeared to be another friend of the hotel staff. We drove the hour trip to the airport in silence as not much conversation was to be had at this early hour. We arrived just after 8am with 2 hours or so to get prepared for the flight.

 

In the airport we had to ensure we not only checked in but prior to checking in all foreigners need to have paid a Galapagos fee and had a security check of all baggage to ensure no soil or any organic matter is brought. After the Galapagos admin we checked and proceed with the usual airport security measures. We hung around the airport and eventually boarded. The flight consisted of a stop over in Quayaquil. The total flight was around 3 hours, and eventually landed in San Cristobal (one of the islands in Galapagos) at 12pm.

The airport wasn’t much more than a runaway and a building but we were excited to finally be in the famous Galapagos Islands. Upon arrival all passports are checked and a $100 fee is demanded, in cash only. A small certificate is issued with a unique number, this number is used by the tour agencies to track who’s who. So after paying some more, receiving a cool Galapagos Island passport stamp and waiting for our luggage we were greeted by an energetic tour guide who informed us that we be eating some food, not particularly what we wanted to start with as we had eaten on the plane and that we were excited to get started on the tour. She also informed us to ensure we have some walking shoes as we will be climbing a little hill and that we will be getting wet. This was a bit annoying, as we had been told a slightly different itinerary at the agency.

On a side note: that is just how it goes in South America. Izaskun and I call it the 90% principle where things are mostly done correctly but the last 10% (or less is not done for example each day in the hotel they will make up the room but they will always leave out one thing, such as the water or soap, etc…).

Anyways, after having to unpack our backpacks, to get out our climbing boots, and repack them again we we were off. We had our small meal, which was ok.

After the meal we explored the town, there we sea lions relaxing on the docks, benches, streets, actually anywhere they felt like it. They seemed to be the locals of the town. They were having their afternoon siestas along with the rest of the town.

 

After exploring he town a bit we drove up a small mountain where it was foggy, the ranger informed us that on the one side of the road were Guava Trees which was not indigenous to the islands and an aggressive plant killing the local plant. In particular the indigenous plant that grows on the island was a relative to Cocoa. It is only found on that island and is critical for the nesting of a particular type of bird, also only found on that island.

After a short walk up the misty hill we arrived to the top which we are told was actually a “cone” which means it was a secondary explosion from a volcano which erupted many years ago. Inside the cone there is only fresh water on the island which is of course critical for locals as well as a variety of animals. It was hard to see it at first but after a couple of minutes the fog and mist lifted long enough to see a couple of birds frolicking in the water.

On the way back we noticed that some Guava leaves were poking out of the foliage. The ranger proceeded to try to remove it but it proved pretty hard as we were not able to take out the roots. I was allowed to keep the leaves (a Galapagos souvenir) but I did not as I figured I would get into trouble when I tried to leave, as I assumed there would be some form of inspection. Izaskun was annoyed, thinking with her Forestry Engineering qualifications, with the idea that we actually have not solved anything as the plant will simply grow back. A more permanent solution would require the root and that would need some professionals to come and dig them up and dispose of properly.

After the mini hike we traveled to boat where along the way we saw more of our cheeky sea lion friends but this time they were sleeping on the empty fisherman boats, which were anchored in the bay. Upon arrival of the boat called “Majesticâ”, we were introduced to our rooms, our room was on the upper story, which had better windows. We were pretty lucky with our rooms as apparently the ones lower were slightly smaller and noisier. After 30 minutes to relax we were summoned to the deck for our safety instructions and to meet the crew. We proceeded to eat dinner and discuss the plan for the next day, we were to travel to Floreana – a small island south west of San Cristobal. We were to start our next day at 6 am so there was not much mood for socialising on the first night.

After dinner we proceeded to bed, where we managed to sleep for a couple of hours. In the middle of the night, which I am guessing was about 2am there was a horrendous roar which woke us both up. Followed after the roar was the rocking motion of the cabin, which made all our items fly around. Of course, made me to wake up and sort it out but I was not able to identify what items would fall or which would not especially being half asleep and being flown around the room. Therefore I had to wake up a couple of times in the night.

 

Day 2 (Tuesday 24^th September)

 

The next morning we woke up and ate breakfast. Afterwards we proceeded to land on the volcanic island, Floreana. Our first item of the day was to proceed to an area called “Post Office Bay” which was apparently used as a messaging point for pirates and sailors in the 17^th and 18^th century. The idea is simple; you place a message in the barrel. Anyone who arrives to island who is heading to the location of the message is obligated to take the message with them and deliver it to the message’s address. We all took a look but we did not find any messages addressed for London.

After Post Office Bay we were to go snorkeling around the shallow waters. Izaskun and I were looking forward to this, Izaskun had recently discovered the new skill of snorkeling from Tulum, but unfortunately this was not to be. The masks that were provided by the ship were too big for her face which meant that the water would simply seep through. Despite this set back we were able to see a couple of underwater creatures such as Sea Lions, crabs, many types of fish and the highlight was Green Pacific Sea Turtles.

After the snorkelling we were transported to another part of the island, called Española. We arrived to the beach but a short walk away was a lagoon, which housed a wide variety of birds including Flamingos.  For the rest of the day we walked around the small island sight seeing until the sunset where we ensured to capitalise on the perfect photo opportunity. Along the way we also managed to see Blue Footed Boobies which turn out to be pretty common across all islands.

At dinner that night we managed to talk to some of our fellow “sailors”, in total there were 14 people, including us. At dinner we were divided into two tables, at our table there were only 6 while the other had 8. We had a German couple and a American father and son. It was an interesting situation as the Germans were very quiet and required a lot of effort to get them talking, however Izaskun managed to break the ice and discovered that they had such spent a week climbing the Ecuadorian mountains. To put it mildly they were the “real deal”.The Americans were from Miami, Florida. The father was a bit of a know it all and seemed to enjoy providing advice and knowledge which we can see annoyed his son, who was very quiet. The father apparently only ate once a day and only drank coke which I am was impressed how healthy he looked, I am not sure if that part of true but he didn’t eat much nor drink any water as far as I saw.

 

This night we managed to socialise a bit more and we got know a few more of our fellow “sailors”. Overall we had people from all corners of the world including: Australia, Russia, USA and Germany. Ironically there was an American who lives and works in London, even more strange was that he lives near Barbican (which only a couple minutes from our house).

 

Day 3 (Wednesday 25^th September)

Wednesday was essentially our last full day at the Galapagos Islands, we woke up early again after having slept slightly better than the previous night. During the night we were transported to another island called Española. It was another volcanic island, even more than volcanic than Floreana. It is considered one of the oldest islands in the Galapagos of about 4 million years old.

We landed on a rocky shore shared with red crabs, lazy Marine Iguanas and Sea Lions. The Sea Lions were lazy-ing around too with their cubs who didn’t even bother to move out the way for the mass of tourists running around. The Iguanas simply looked at the people as if they were the strange creatures invading their island.

 

We walk along the shore trying not to step on the Iguanas who were everywhere, despite their large size they blend into the volcanic rock very well. We were informed that this island not only had these interesting swimming Iguanas but also it is the nesting place for the Waved Albatross, which spends most of its life at sea. Apparently it only settles on this island to raise its chicks, who need to be ready to fly in 3 or 4 months or they simply fall off the cliffs. As we walked through the shrubbery we noticed a Galapagos Hawk flying through. A minute or two down the path we managed to see the fluffy grey Albatross chicks that were impressively large for its age. After the chicks was a clearing where we were lucky enough to see the dancing of several albatrosses who do a strange combination of beak bashing and ‘strutting their stuff’. We discovered that there were many more albatrosses in the area, essentially every couple of metres or so we could see a nest or chick roaming around along with Marine Iguanas who were still just chilling on the rocks.

At the other end of the island were the cliffs where the chicks need to learn or fly or die on the rocks below. There were great views of the island and the sea but there was also an impressive natural fountain when the sea tide came in a small hole in the rocks would create a huge sprout that would spray the whole cliff and island. On the way back we crossed the island again with a different route where we saw the same old creatures as well as a “Masked” Boobie, as well as the more common Blue Foot Boobie.

The rest of the day we spent on the sea through snorkeling but Izaskun and I were particularly lucky (or unlucky) to be allowed to use the kayak that the boat had only used once. We found out pretty quickly why it was only used once, it was pretty unstable and definitely not to be used for the rough seas, however we ended up pretty proud of ourselves as we managed to fall into the water which apparently the only other time it was used it resulted in mass capsizing.

The final installment of the day was to relax on what appeared to be ‘Seal Island’, well actually it should be more appropriately called ‘Sea Lion Island’. As the name would suggest it was busy with Sea Lions, all sorts were simply lying about paying no attention to the various tourist all looking to get their next Facebook profile picture with a Sea Lion. We walked around the long beach and were fortunate enough to see a group of Sea Turtles poking their heads out of the crashing waves. I was also even lucky enough to get a big Sea Lion to grunt at me very disapprovingly as to say leave it allow. Yes, we were living wild.

We headed back to the boat which unfortunately didn’t turn out to be a spectacular sunset as the previous day but it was still nice to be able to feel the fresh sea air as the darkness crept in around us. The rest of the night were managed to speak a bit more with our fellow sailors but we turned in early, for us, due to a long day that we have planned for the next day.

 

Day 4 (Thursday 26^th September)

 

Our last day turned out to be a sad, as we were leaving the lovely islands. It also turned out to be a very long day too! Despite what we had been told the previous evening it seemed that the plan wasn’t quite clear, as far as I remember it was to wake up and have breakfast and head over to the boat for 6:45am where we will be transported to the main island, Santa Cruz. We were to drive across the island but along the way we were to look at the tortoises and an older volcano with its own habitat surrounding it. However 7am passed, eventually we left at 7:30am as we were waiting for the Russian couple who were also leaving, but silly me I assumed he wouldn’t be flying out too early (we were flying at 1pm). As it turned out they were playing at 10am and they were going to be late already.

 

This meant we had to get on the bus where we could only see the volcano, definitely the more boring sight to see on the island when compared to tortoises. So we rushed to see the volcano. We were introduced to another tour guide, who was so boring. She didn’t seem to care about her job much and did the bare minimum but no smiles or commentary. The bus ride was pretty long considering the island didn’t appear to be big. The island actually has one road so in theory no one should ever get lost. We arrived at the Volcano, it was impressive how quickly the weather changed from just a few minutes on the road. It was cloudy and cooler than just 5 minutes ago. Immediately too you can notice the foliage was denser and green, where down below it was dry and more barren.

We walked around the volcano sites, there were two. We were actually corrected that these were not volcano sites or “cones” but no one actually knows hoe they were formed but a theory that it was created via a gas bubbles from a volcano. The foliage along the edge and inside the supposedly not volcano was unique too, as mentioned it was denser but there also grew a distant relative to a coffee plant (unfortunately we cannot make coffee from it thou). After a short walk we continued on our journey, which turned out to be a bit of a journey.

We had to drive for about another hour before having to board a small ferry which could hold maybe 30 people maximum. The ferry ride was not long but it did add time to the Russian’s stress. After the ferry we arrived at a port with a massive crowd of people waiting for a bus, even if the bus did arrive now we wouldn’t fit. In the end we had to wait 30 minutes for the small bus to arrive. We luckily managed to squeeze through the back door which turned out to be very good as the bus was packed. After the bus we arrived at the airport very early, the Russians had to rush as they were boarding already but we had to wait for a several hours. The tour guide wanted us to check in so she could leave us (having said she has done her job), however the airline agent said we were too early, so the tour guide left anyways and we were left to roam the airport.

We duly waited for at the airport for a few hours, we bought some Galapagos souvenirs (such as some coffee) but I would rather wait until our next post to fill you in what happened for the rest of the day.