The Galapagos Islands (Part 1)

I finally made it to the Galapagos, a place I had wanted to go for a long time to see all the amazing animals and birds. Glenda Kirk, my Canadian friend and colleague in Chile, and I were on a seven-day cruise following a northern itinerary. We were on a small boat, the Floreana, with 12 others: a German man and his adult daughter, a young Australian couple, a Swiss couple, two young Swiss women, and a family of four from Toronto on a year-long around-the-world journey. The two young teenage children were delightful.  The food was delicious, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and of course fish. For my birthday, a very delicious spice cake was served.

The Galapagos are about 1000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. There are 14 large islands and over 40 small islands with eight settlements on four of the islands, consisting of about 40,000 people; new settlers are not allowed. Charles Darwin arrived there in 1835. Whalers were plentiful in the 1800’s and they would carry away the tortoises for meat. They would store them upside down because the tortoise can survive a year without eating and obviously couldn’t escape.

We visited about seven of the islands, usually traveling at night when the boat would rock and roll so after dinner we often went to bed to avoid getting seasick. We were kept busy snorkeling and hiking twice a day. Our guide, Victor, was extremely knowledgeable about everything on the islands: flora, fauna, geography, volcanoes, and history. We took zodiacs onto the islands or swam off the sides to do the snorkeling. The snorkeling was fantastic, but the water was in the 60’s and cold for me in spite of a wet suit. We swam with sea turtles, watching them dive in slow motion using their flippers to propel themselves. The marine iguanas swam by swaying their tails. The sea lions were very active using their flippers to turn somersaults and do flips, diving deep and playing, what a joy to watch! There were sharks, a sea horse, an octopus, stingrays, and penguins diving at top speed. The fish were big and colorful, much bigger than ones I had seen on previous warm water snorkeling trips. There were big parrotfish, large angelfish, thousands of tiny transparent striped zebra fish, fish with yellow tails, iridescent purples, oranges, blues, and whites with polka dots and stripes. Some were ugly and scary too with big noses and mouths and fins that stuck out.

The underwater shots are thanks to the Canadian, Cam.

The giant tortoises that can live to be over 200 years old were especially impressive. When I was a child, I remember the huge tortoise slowly making his way around the zoo building at Como. Here, the tortoises are free to wander and eat grass.  We watched sea lions caring for their young, lounging on the beach, or playing in the water.  The marine iguanas were plentiful; they were sprawled on top of each other, not moving in the cool mornings, but absorbing the heat of the rocks to raise their body temperature so they could amble into the water and swim down to the bottom to eat algae. On shore, there were lava lizards and Sally lightfoot crabs. The animals have no fear of humans because they know they are safe. 

 We saw all sorts of birds, red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, flightless cormorants, great frigate birds, flamingos, herons, finches, a short-eared owl, a Galapagos hawk, mockingbirds, pelicans, and penguins. Many of these birds and animals are endemic, they exist nowhere else in the world.

 The islands themselves were quite different, all volcanic, but with different landforms and volcanic rock. There were various cacti growing on the islands. It was the dry season so the hillsides were very dry, and the grey Palo Santo trees were without leaves. In another month the rain would come and the islands would be green with vegetation. The four types of mangroves by the shorelines are always green.

We visited one town, Puerto Villamil, on Isla Isabella and went to the research center where the tortoises are cared for. The eggs are collected and all the hatching takes place at this and another research center on Isla Santa Cruz.

After we finished the cruise, Glenda and I stayed on Isla Santa Cruz in Puerto Ayora for two nights. We walked, relaxed, visited the Charles Darwin Research Center, and I swam at a beautiful beach where the water was a lovely temperature. The trip was everything we could have hoped for, we were very impressed.