The Galapagos Islands

I arrived into Guayaquil on Thursday morning and spent the day walking along the Malecon 2000. A project along the foreshore of Guayaquil’s main river, and something i think Perth should be getting onto. A brilliant 3km long foreshore in sections; museums, restaurants, tropical garden, playground, lookouts, shopping and markets. Every couple of hundred metres the area changed; the look and the design. So i spent a few hours walking up and down and was very impressed. From there i went to Galasam travel agent and got the deal of a lifetime for 8 days on board a luxury catamaran on the Galapagos islands but i had to go the next morning. So at 6pm at night i booked in and then left the following day via plane to the Galapagos where i spent the best week ive had in South America. The way it worked was that the boat was previously booked out with Europeans, but when the volcano in Iceland erupted, so many people cancelled their trips, so the company was desperate to fill the boat, and conveniently the boat filled with backpackers who all got a great deal!

Day 1- Baltra, Santa Cruz highlands
Wow, what an amazing place. I already know that the money i spent is worthwhile. This place and this boat is absolutely amazing!! After booking my trip at 6pm the night before, i saved a lot of money, $2000 to be exact. So i am cruising on a luxury class boat, no backpacker for me, and loving it! I have my own private cabin with double bed, table, fridge, tv/dvd and bathroom with hot shower!! Already loving it.

So today we arrived into Baltra and took a ferry and a bus into the main town, Puerto Ayora where the dingy met us and headed out to our luxury liner. There are 16 people in total, 10 new today and 6 have been here 5 days. They have 3 more then we pick up some more passengers. Its a rotating schedule, with arrivals every mon and fri, but you never see the same place twice, its brilliant, as there are 2 pick-up islands.

So today since we arrived and got onto the boat about 1pm, we had lunch and headed back to the mainland of Santa Cruz and did some day touring. It was great. We went to a turtle sanctuary, where we got to see land tortoises living in the bush. They don’t ever go to the water though, but they are massive. They are about 100 years old and weigh around 200kg! They were great. Then we headed to some lava tunnels. The island of Santa Cruz is actually a volcano and so this lava tunnel was actually created by lava, and we walked through it, and at one point we had to go on our hands and knees in some mud and crawl through!

It was a short day activity wise, but a long day for me since i had been on the go since 6.30am, so looking forward to hearing about the activities for tomorrow and getting a good nights sleep! Apparently the snorkelling is amazing and we get to do it everyday at least twice a day!!

Day 2- North Seymour, Bartolome
Located slightly to the north of the airport island of Baltra, North Seymour is a low, flat island, formed as a result of the uplift caused by magma build up below. It is covered with low, bushy vegetation and contains the largest colony of Magnificent frigate birds in the Galapagos. We sailed through the night to get there and spent the morning looking at the frigate birds, as well as the blue footed boobies (my favourite birds) and land iguanas. There was also a small colony of sea lions on the island. After our visit, we snorkelled around this island and I saw heaps of starfish, 3 sharks (Galapagos sharks) and a stingray. Not super clear visibility, but still fantastic.

We then headed off on the boat to Bartolome island. Bartolome Island is famous for it’s ‘Pinnacle Rock’ - probably the most photographed volcanic formation in the islands. We snorkelled here after lunch and got to swim with penguins which was so great! They were the highlight of this snorkelling plus the hundreds of thousands of starfish on the bottom, the literally covered the sea floor, amazing! After our snorkelling we headed onto the island where we walked up 362 steps to the ‘mirador’ or lookout on the volcanic island. We could see views to nearly all the central islands in the archipelago. And apart from the view, the island itself is a volcano which made it black in colour from ash and was just very surreal. At the top of the island, we radioed the captain back on the boat to see if we could have hot chocolate and when we arrived back on board, he had organised it for us! Very sweet.

Day 3- Santa Cruz- Bachas, Plazas

Las Bachas was my favourite beach on the entire trip, it was amazing. Its located on the northwest part of Santa Cruz island. Picture this; white organic sand, black volcanic rock and aqua blue ocean. 3 amazing colours contrasting each other, plus the fact that we were the only boat at the island made it incredible. So we snorkelled here and the fish were amazing! We didn’t see any major amounts of animals, a turtle and stingray but it was still beautiful and it was warm as well, so no need for wetsuits which is always nicer. We also saw a pink flamingo at the islands little lagoon, and it was pink! I have never seen one in real life and it was so cool, standing on one leg, eating fish out of the lagoon and it was bright pink. Pretty cool.

We then sailed onto Plazas, where we did some more snorkelling and then went onto the island. Plazas is located on the east coast of Santa Cruz island. It was a pretty cool island, filled with sea lions and land iguanas. I got some amazing pictures of the baby sea lions who were just waiting for us to arrive on the jetty! We walked up to the other end of the island, which was amazing because it was sheer cliff faces, but the opposite side was at sea level, so it was sort of tilted, which was cool. We got some great photos of the island and the animals and then headed off back to the boat.

It was Julie, my English friends, last night on board, so we got stuck into the bar and polished off a few bottles of wine between us and some cocktails with the crew. The crew on board the ship were fantastic, most of them pretty young as well, so they were always up for a chat or cards or to sit and watch Julie and I get plastered. It also happened to be a really rough night sailing, so it was pretty funny all round actually, but we had a great night.

Day 4- San Cristobal, Loberia

San Cristóbal is the easternmost island in Galapagos; on its southwestern side is the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the providence of Galapagos. On Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is the Interpretation Center, opened by the Galapagos National park in 1998. I wasn’t too impressed with this museam, it was really dry and just heaps of writing on walls in terrible green and yellow colours which made it very hard to read. This was also a sad day cos it meant the end of the trip for many of our friends on board. There are 8 day tours, and you can leave Monday or Friday, so my English friends Emily and Julie, plus Adrian and Sarah headed off and we were a bit worried we might be getting old American couples with bumbags on to replace them. But luckily we got a really good crew again. We ended up having 8 Germans on board (2 swiss), but they were all lovely too. So hopefully will see Emily and Julie in August in Argentina and Adrian and Sarah in Colombia! After we got the new guys on board, we caught a bus to the other side of the island to see a volcanic crater that has a fresh water lake inside it. We had a walk around and then headed to Loberia beach, which houses a massive sea lion colony which was pretty cool, so we sat on the beach and watched the mothers teaching the pups to play in the waves!

Day 5- San Cristobal- Cerro Brujo, Leon Dormido and Isla Lobos
Still on San Cristobal island, but at another part, we arrived at Cerro Brujo for snorkelling and walking around the island. These were the same shores that Darwin walked on back in September, 1835, as this was the first island he stepped foot on in the Galapagos! Mocking birds and Lava lizards, are both species endemic to the island and not seen anywhere else in the archipelago, and the mocking birds are so friendly and curious! The snorkelling was good, lots of fish and coral to look at, but not major sightings here.

After Cerro Brujo, we headed to Kicker Rock also known as the “Sleeping Lion/ Leon Dormido” because of its resemblance. Kicker Rock, rising almost 500 feet from the ocean, is a volcanic tuff cone eroded by thousands of years of sea and wind forces. Waves have carved this volcanic structure, formed by two rocks side by side with vertical walls and a small channel in between. It was amazing to just look at, and when we jumped in for a snorkel we realised the below the water was amazing wildlife. We swam from one end of the channel to other and then around the small section. We saw a beautiful eagle ray which was so magnificent gliding through the water, especially since its such a deep snorkel, about 50m. We continued through, and i was up front with the captain, who loved coming on our snorkelling expeditions, and he pointed shark up ahead....As i got closer, i looked around and there was roughly 100 sharks in front of me and below me. I must admit, it got my heart racing!! It took my breath away as i looked at these amazing black tip reef sharks surrounding me, and i snapped away on my underwater camera. I was so close to some of them and unfortunately it was so deep i couldn’t get a photo that would show the amount of sharks i could see. Absolutely amazing, it was such an adrenaline rush, i loved it.

We then headed to Isla Lobos, which means seal island, and it certainly was! This was my first time snorkelling with the sea lions, although i had seen so many, it was the first to swim and play with them. And they were amazing. They came unbelievably close, like in your face looking into your snorkel! And they would swim next to you and bite your fins and just generally play with us. And they loved it when we would dive down and roll around under the water, they would copy us and do the same! Overall, it was an amazing day, just amazing!

Day 6- Espanola- Gardner bay, Suarez Point
Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. Gardener bay was a beautiful stretch of white sand, covered in sea lions and marine iguanas. The snorkelling was on one main rock about 150m from the beach, and we got to see 2 big white tip sharks hiding under a rocky crevice, a turtle and a massive lobster! It was the biggest one ive ever seen, if only i had gloves with me, i would’ve taken him back for lunch! Later we did some more snorkelling which again was fantastic!

At Suarez point we walked a trail that lead through a Blue-footed Booby nesting colony and the only known nesting site of the enormous Waved Albatross. The trail lead toward the cliffs where we watched albatross and other seabirds soaring high above the cliffs and we saw a massive Galapagos hawk eating a bird! We also stopped for a look at the famous blowhole, a fissure in the lava where water spurts high into the air like a geyser. It was really cool to watch the waves come in and then see the water blow high into the air!

Day 7- Floreana- Post office bay, Cormorant point
I think day 7 was my favourite day, along with day 5. Both fantastic and eventful days! First up we visited the famous Post Office, which has been in operation since 1793 when Captain James Colnett installed an empty rum barrel to serve as a post box. Sailors and pirates would leave letters in the barrel, where they would be picked up by the next sailing crew who could take them to their destination. So we searched through the postcards to find one to take home with us, and i found one for Swanbourne, WA, so i took it and will deliver it personally next year when i get home! Unfortunately i didn’t have a spare postcard so i couldn’t write one and leave it there for someone to deliver! Bit disappointing because its so much cheaper than the $3 postage fee for sending a postcard to Australia!! After checking the post office out, we went up to another lava tunnel, similar to the one we went down on Santa Cruz, but this one was filled with icy cold fresh water! We walked all the way to the end and were absolutely saturated by the time we got out, as we had to swim through sections, but it was very cool inside the tunnel, it was like we were on a treasure hunt, and when we switched off our torches we were in complete pitch black darkness! We snorkelled here and what we got to see was amazing. We saw about 10 different turtles feeding on the seaweed! And these were not your average turtle, they were massive! Biggest turtles (beside the land tortoises) that i have ever seen, and they were undeterred by us and just kept eating away at the sea weed.

We then headed off to an edge of Floreana for a quick snorkel and then onto Devil’s Crown in the middle of the ocean. Devil´s Crown is a half-submerged volcanic cinder cone, considered to be one of the most outstanding snorkelling sites of the Galapagos Islands with sea lions, white tips sharks, turtles and an array of reef fish. It really was an amazing snorkel spot and we even got to swim through a cave by holding our breath and diving through, but as i was swimming through i got my leg caught on something and cut it up a little bit, but it was ok, i was more worried about the blood attracting sharks than the pain! We were just cruising along, checking out the fish and sharks and sea lions when the crew on board the dingy’s yelled out at us to get back on the dingy. Scrambling on, thinking there was a massive shark or something, they told us there were dolphins out further in the deep ocean, so we sped out there quickly! When we got out there we quickly jumped in and the dingys began to circle us. The dolphins loved this and began to jump over us and swim so close to us that we could touch them if we wanted. And having our head under water we could hear the amazing noise they make, it was like a song! So we spent about 30minutes with them in the middle of the ocean, no where near our boat, and they were the biggest dolphins i have ever seen. They were so big, when they were swimming past us they looked so much like big sharks! It was incredible, absolutely incredible to have them so close, and jumping over us and next to us. Unbelievable!

What a day it was turning out to be, just incredible. Plus we got icecream for dessert for lunch, which just topped things off! We then landed at cormorant point and walked along the beach, where we spotted so many small stingrays in the shallows it was amazing, there must of been hundreds. But we were not allowed to snorkel there, it is a national park rule, but it was cool to stand in the shallows and watch them swim around our legs and feet! We then proceeded to watch nature and survival of the fittest in action...we saw a frigate bird raid a turtle nest and they ate about 4 of the baby turtles. We were so close we could see the tiny baby turtle struggle in his beak, and on his 5th attempt for another turtle, he grabbed it but dropped him on the sand. We all ran around to look and the turtle had survived, it was ok! So we surrounded it from the birds- we weren’t intereferring with nature, just observing, and watched the turtle make it down the beach and into the ocean. We were so pleased that he made it! But as we were watching him swim away, we saw a frigate bird take a dive down and just when we thought he was safe, the bird snatched the turtle in his beak and ate him! So all our cheers and support for the turtle was wasted, he got eaten in the end!! But it was a great example of nature at its best and the circle of life.

It was our last night on board the ship so we were given chocolate cake (my day just kept getting better) and the crew got dressed in the whites and gave us a farewell cocktail party which was so lovely. The crew were absolutely amazing on our boat, they really made the trip wonderful. The food was exceptional, the service and hospitality we received was too. From the captain to the chef to the boat drivers, the crew were wonderful. Plus being a single white female, they were always more than happy to do anything and everything for me!! So i was very lucky, because i also got my own room! I had a double bed for 4 days then moved into a twin room by myself for the other 4. Very lucky i didn’t have to share!! And the cabins were extraordinary. We had so much room, and it was luxurious to the max, and in fact my shower was the best shower i have ever had in the whole of South America! Unfortunately my trip was coming to an end, and i’d be back living in backpacker standard accommodation and not in luxury which i was loving!

Our guide, Miguel- who is old, showed an unnatural interest in me, and often (every day) asked if he could join me with a bottle of wine in my room- to which i declined every time!! Haha, they aren’t forward at all in Ecuador are they! So needless to say, i got a lot of attention on board! But in general, Miguel was a great guide, he was very sarcastic and often pulled the piss out of people, and most of them- especially the Isreali’s never clicked on. So it was definitely entertaining having a fun and humorous guide!

Day 8- Santa Cruz- Darwin Interpretation Centre and Flight
We visited the Charles Darwin Research Station in the morning before our flight, where we learnt about the land iguana captive breeding programs and about the efforts to protect the islands’ rare population of giant tortoises, including the island’s most famous resident, a 70-year-old tortoise known as “Lonesome George,” thought to be the last surviving member of a subspecies from Pinta Island. Also we saw the tiny new born tortoises from all the different islands! And ended off with a walk through the prickly pear cactus forest. It was a very well run and informative station, it was just a shame we couldn’t spend longer there, but we had to head off for our flight. I was devastated to have to leave, i had such an amazing time. Definately the highlight of my adventure so far in South America. I wouldve loved to have stayed longer, or even done a scuba dive somewhere but time and money were calling me back to reality! It was another sad goodbye to the friends i made, Amy and Raj- who i spent all 8 days with who are amazing people, Neils and Iris- my new german friends who hopefully i will meet on my way to Colombia and many more!

xoxo millie