Ga-Lapa-Went-Us
What a trip! We returned from our Ecuador / Galapagos vacay
yesterday.
Here’s a synopsis:
- Sunday, 12/19 :: Depart for Quito, Ecuador - We flew
with Pardis and Nick from SFO to Houston, then on to Quito,
lugging carry-on bags up a flight of stairs, we all realized that
9,300 feet is REALLY high.
Arti and I met up with very friendly person
from Metropolitan
Touring in baggage claim who took us to our
Pardis and Nick who made arrangements in a different hotel. - Monday, 12/20 :: Arrival in the Galapagos - We got up
early, eat breakfast in the room, and headed out to the Quito
airport to fly to the Galapagos with a friendly representative of
Metropolitan Touring. After 40 minutes in the air, the plane made
a stop Simon
Bolivar airport in Guyaquil — the largest city in Ecuador
(population 3 million, elevation 50 feet) then continued on for
the 90 minute flight to Baltra Island (a decomissioned US Air
Force base) in the Galapagos. We deplaned, met up with another
friendly reprasentative of Metropolitan Touring, then took a 30
minute bus ride to the other end of Baltra Island. We hopped on a ferry
for the 5 minute ride to Santa Cruz Island, then got on another
bus to take us on the 1 hour journey to Puerto Ayora, on the
other side of the island.This bus ride was very interesting — the road goes straight
across the island from the north to the south end. The boat dock
where we got on the bus was dry and arid — the only vegetation
were cactii and a leafless tree called Palo Santo. As we proceed
across the island, the elevation increases (the Galapagos were
formed by volcanic activity, so they are in essence a series of
volcanos), and things get greener and wetter. Near the halfway
point, it was raining, and the vegetation resembeled a jungle.
This was after only 20 minutes of driving. After crossing the
halfway point, we started descending back to sea level, and things
got drier again.We got off the bus in Puerto Ayora near a dock, where a small
boat was waiting to take us and our stuff across a little harbor
to the path that led to our hotel. There aren’t any roads near
the Finch Bay Hotel, so the water taxi is the only means of
getting to and from town.Along the path to the hotel, we were given quite a suprise when we
saw a large male Marine Iguana, four or so smaller females, and
several juvinile iguanas sunning themselves on a stone wall. This
is the only species of iguana in the world that lives in and
around the water. The male is quite colorful, and can be 3-4 feet
from nose to tail. The females are smaller and colored black.
Spotting marine iguanas became commonplace during our trip.Arriving at the hotel, we were greeted warmly, and offered an
excursion to the Charles Darwin Research Station, located on the
other side of the town. We were both tired from the travelling,
so we decided to pass on the trip, and instead take a short rest
and explore our hotel.The Finch Bay Hotel was a fantastic place! It’s in a pretty
secluded location, and with no car traffic, it’s a very quiet
place. There’s a semi-private beach/lagoon, a pool adjacent to
the beach, and a bar adjacent to the pool. The dining area is
next to the bar, and is essentially an open-air experience, albeit
with a roof.After a little rest, we took a water-taxi back to town to meet up
with Nick and Pardis, who were on a later flight to the islands
from Quito.We walked around town a bit, then went back to our hotel for
dinner. The meals (included) were delicious and featured local
seafood, meat, and vegetarian dishes. - Tuesday, 12/21 :: North Seymour Island - We woke up early, took the water taxi
into town, and hopped on the bus to take us back to the dock on
the north side of the island (where we came from the airport).
There were about 20 people in this group going to North Seymour
Island — a small (1-2 miles in diameter), arid place that serves
as a nesting ground for Blue Footed Boobies (insert obligatory
boob joke here), frigatebirds, land and marine iguanas, and
several other animals. We all got on a boat, and rode for an hour
or so before we dropped anchor off the rocky coast of the island.
Groups of 8 or so people filled the Zodiac the boat was towing in
order to get to the island. Getting on the Zodiac was pretty
straightforward, getting off was tricky! The driver (captain?)
would pull the Zodiac right up to the rocks on the cliff. We had
to time the step from the zodiac to the rocks just right, as the
boat was pitching and rolling in the surf. Everyone made it
without incident.We were immediately greeted by sea lions (males, females, and
pups), iguanas, and shore birds. Here is one very important
fact about the wildlife on the Galapagos — since there are no
natural predators of the animals here, they do not have a fear of
people. You can walk right up to any of these animals and they
don’t run or fly away. This is AMAZING and makes for a very
memorable experience.Led by our naturalist guide (island expeditions without guides are
illegal here), we saw some fantastic stuff. Blue footed boobies
doing their mating dance, male frigatebirds with their red gullet
sack inflated to attract mates, baby sea lions nursing and
playing, male sea lions protecting their territory (interesting
tangent — male sea lions here don’t go “bark bark” like those in
San Francisco; instead they make the sound of RobBob puking –
“bllllleeeeeeeeaaaa blllllleeeeaaaaa”).After 90 minutes or so, we had made a circuit of the trail on the
island, and filed back into the boat for lunch as we motored back
to Santa Cruz Island.The second part of the day was spent at a beach on the north end
of Santa Cruz Island. Sometimes, there are flamingoes just beyond
the beach, but there were none when we were there. This was a
lovely beach for swimming. The water was too cloudy for any kind
of snorkeling though.After a couple of hours of relaxing, we were back on the boat for
the short ride back to the dock, and the awiting bus to take us
back to Puerto Ayora.That evening, we all enjoyed dinner at our hotel.
- Wednesday, 12/22 :: Highlands Tour and Glass-Bottomed Boat
Tour - Again, up early,
breakfast, and a water-taxi ride into town. We met up with Nick
and Pardis and got on a little tour bus to go see some giant
tortoises (the word “galapagos” is Spanish for “giant tortoises”)
and other features of the Santa Cruz inland. There was an
American family living in Bolivia with us, along with a Brazilian
family.Our first stop was at a giant sinkhole — about 200 yards across,
and a couple of hundred feet deep. It was rainging lightly, and
we hadn’t thought to bring our raincoats. Luckily, after 30
minutes or so, the rain subsided. This was a pretty amazing hole
in the ground. The echo here was very clear and distinct –
“HELLO …………… hello” was pretty fun. Lots of neat plants
and things along the path to the sinkhole.Back on the bus, we drove for a bit, then dropped up the Americans
at a horse ranch where they were going to do some riding. A short
drive, and we arrived at a place where the Giant Tortoises can
roam free. These animals used to dominate the island, but once
pirates and traders began frequenting the Galapagos in the 1800s,
their numbers diminished rapidly. The sailors discovered that
they could stack the tortoises one on top of another, lying on
their backs on their ships, and the animals
would live for a year or more. Fresh turtle meat was a delicasy
for these guys.Anyhow, these animals are huge. We could get within 5 feet of
them, and they would not get scared. Any closer, and they would
pull their heads into their shell with a mighty exhale.After an hour or so of hanging out with the tortoises, we headed
back to the bus. Our next stop was a lava tube.Down a bunch of steps, we approached the entrance to this tube.
Well, it wasn’t really the entrance — it was a place where the
tube collapsed and was then exposed to the surface. There are
many of these tubes underground in these volcanic islands — this
was was huge — about 20 feet in diameter where we entered. Our
guide told us that this one extended for miles underground, and
tapered to a point at the end. These were channels that lava
would flow through underground.Back to the bus, and back to the town. We stayed in town and hung
with Pardis and Nick — got some food and did some exploring. We
all then went back to the hotel to hang out by the poolAt 2pm, we went back to the dock by the hotel and met up with Juan
Carlos, our guide on a glass-bottomed boat tour. We motored out
for about 30 minutes to a tiny island just off the coast of Puerto
Ayora that houses a small research station. We got to some
shallow water, and Juan Carlos opened the covers on the glass
bottom. It was pretty neat, but the waves were pretty strong
here, so looking down through the windows on the bottom of the
boat made most of us queasy, since the boat was rockin’ and
rollin’.There were lots of sea lions hanging out on the rocks here. Juan
Carlos offered to let us snorkel here. We weren’t really into it,
the combination of feeling queasy, the waves, and the jagged rocks
under the water didn’t make snorkeling seem like a fun thing.
Juan Carlos insisted, and told us he’d go with us. Well, it’s a
good thing we went along with him!We put on or masks and flippers and got in the water. It was
beautiful under there — not Kauai or Belize beautiful, but lovely
nonetheless. We saw parrot fish, sea urchins, and other creatures
down there — including sea lions!This was one of the highlights of the trip — after 10 minutes or
so in the water, some of the smaller sea lions on the rocks got up
the courage to check us out. It was a bit startling at first to
have person-sized creatures swimming around us, but it got really
fun really quick! I’d dive down under the water and swim around
one of them, and it would follow suit. It was amazing to be under
the water staring eye-to-eye with a sea lion. Tons of fun.After half an hour of this, it was time to get back in the boat.
We motored back to Santa Cruz Island, but not to our normal dock.
We arrived at a different dock, and prepared for a little hike to
a place where we could swim. After 15 minutes or so over the lava
rocks, past a super salty pond where locals collect sea salt, and
down some steps, we arrived at a water-filled crevass.This is a place where the volcanic activity of long ago split the
ground in half. Sea water can flow in and out of this fissure
with the tides. Lava rocks extended 40 feet up on either side of
this calm pool, and the water was about 20 feet deep in places.It was fun swimming here — lots of fish and still water. Juan
Carlos climed up to the top of the rocks and dove in — none of us
had the cajones to follow suit.After a while of frolicking here, we hiked back out to the
awaiting boat. It was a short, calm, sunset ride back “around
the horn” to get back to our hotel’s dock.We again had dinner at our hotel — Nick wasn’t feeling so hot, so
him and Pardis went back to their hotel in town to rest and get
some food. - Thursday, 12/23 :: Downtime - The original plan was to
take a 3 hour boat ride from the hotel’s dock to Santa Fe island.
This much boat time didn’t appeal to any of us after our queasy
experienc from the previous day, so we decided to do our own thing
on Thursday.We got up around 9:30 then caught the water-taxi into
town to meet up with Nick and Pardis. We had a good breakfast at
“Hernan Cafe”. We managed to raise Nick on our Talkabout radio
(Nick thoughtfully brought a pair of these radios so we could stay
in touch). We brought some laundry to drop off in town ($0.75 per
pound), then headed off to visit the Charles Darwin Research
Station at then end of town. We got there at around 11:30, just
as most of the places there were closing for lunch — almost
everyone takes 2 hours starting at noon for lunch. We wandered
around here and looked at some tortoises — from hatchlings all
the way up to full grown ones. There were some yellos land-iguanas
here too. We then headed to the water, where there were a series
of little beaches separated by spits of lava rocks. There were
hermit crabs (one trying to pry another out of its shell with its
claws) and marine iguanas everywhere here.After a while, we were getting hungry, so we went back into town
for lunch — again at The Hernan Cafe! Arti and Pardis were
hungry for pizza, and this was the only place in town that served
it. Nick was feeling crummy, so he went back to rest in hotel
after lunch. The three of us then embarked on an excursion to
Tortuga Bay — allegedly a very nice beach to swim at. It was a
45 minute walk from downtown — through a residential area on the
outskirts of town, then 2.5Kms along a very nice path through an
undeveloped area covered with cactii, thorny bushes, and Palo
Santo trees. Arti and Pardis hadn’t finished their pizza, so
they took turns carrying it in the box we got from the restaurant.When we finally arrived at the beach — it was breathtaking.
White sand, as fine as corn starch, extended for a mile.
It was a wide beach, and bordered with iceplant and mangrove
trees. The waves were fairly strong here — and heeding the
warning of some local folks, we continued to a more secluded
lagoon to go swimming. Along the way, we saw many birds, and
dozens of blue jellyfish that had washed ashore.The lagoon was a peaceful place — much smaller than the first
beach, and zero waves. There was a woman swimming about 50 yards
out when we arrived. I was looking at the water around her, and
thought I saw a dorsal fin surface nearby. I kept looking at the
water, and sure enough the fin appeared several more times. I
asked the swimming woman’s friend who was also on the beach
watching if there were dolphins out there. I think she hadn’t
seen the fin, because she was suprised that I asked this — and
gave me the impression that there weren’t any dolphins here.The fin surfaced several more times, and once very close to the
swimming woman. She saw this one — and quickly made her way back
to shallow waters. Later on, we asked some locals around the
hotel about this, and they laughed — they said this was likely a
reef shark, and they were very common in this area! The sharks
here haven’t attacked people before, so there was really no cause
for alarm.Just as we were leaving, Nick’s voice came through the radio I had
in my pocket. He was feeling better, and had just walked the 45
minutes to the beach we were at.We walked back to town together, and went to our hotel. We spent
some time swimming in the hotel pool, had some drinks, then
cleaned up for dinner. We went to the Angermeyer Restaurant — a
very nice place that was a few minutes walk from the hotel.We had a great dinner, then called it a night.
- Friday, 12/24 :: Relaxing Part II - We went into town
for breakfast at a place called “Chocolate”. It was pretty good,
but not quite as good as what we would have at the hotel. Our
plan was to go back to the Charles Darwin Research Station to pick
up some souveniers, since the souveneir shop was closed when we
were there on Thursday. We took a cab up there, since none of us
really felt like walking — due to some stomach issues, blisters
from all the walking on Thursday, and general laziness. The
taxi waited for us, and brought us back to the dock.We took the water-taxi back to our hotel, and spent the rest of
the day relaxing at the beach and pool. In the afternoon, I took
my camera gear out for a little walk around the area of the hotel.
The light was really nice, and I managed to get some good
camera-time in. I walked almost to the crevass we had swam in,
but stopped short because I was really thirsty. The hot equatorial
sun really takes it out of you.I returned to the hotel, and spent some time snacking with
everyone else. I told them about my walk, and we decided to all
go back to the crevass to do some swimming. We hiked out, spent
some time in the water, then returned just as it got dark.We went into town that night for dinner eating again at Hernan –
it was the only place open.It was Christmas Eve, and there were lots of people outside
downtown. There was an elephant-truck pulling a train of
animal-cars filled with screaming elated children tearing through
town playing loud festive music. The beer-tap outside the
supermarket was flowing Pilsener (the local brew) into giant cups,
and there were a half dozen kids on mini-ATVs buzzing around the
town basketball court. The town was alive with energy.This was our last evening in the Galapagos — from here it was
back to Quito. - Saturday, 12/25 :: Return to Quito - We got up early
early and checked out of the hotel. We had a morning flight back
to Quito. So after breakfast, we did the now-familiar routine of
walking to the dock, catching a water-taxi to the town dock, then
getting in a bus for the hour-long trip across the island. We
took the ferry back to Baltra Island, then the bus to the airport.
We arrived in Quito that afternoon, and met up with Pardis and
Nick in their
in downtown Quito. This was a fantastic place, which used to be
Quito’s French Cultural Center. We hung out with them, and
had a lovely dinner in their hotel. - Sunday, 12/26 :: Quito Tour - The following day, we
arranged for a tour of Quito. We were in the tour van at 9am, and
saw much of this interesting city with a couple from Costa Rica.
We stopped at several churches and markets. We sampled some local
sweets, and had a traditional corn-based beer. It was really
interesting to see all of the French and Italian influenced
architecture in this city.After a stop for some water and a coffee (cafe con leche, por
favor), we drove for a half hour to the northeast part of the
city to see El Mitad del Mundo. This is a monument that is
on the equator, and has a small cultural museum. The dramatic
mountains around Quito added a really interesting element to this
part of the trip.After the tour, we hung out for a bit, then retired to our hotel
rooms for the evening. We had an early day Monday… - Monday, 12/27 :: Return Home - We woke up at 4:15 AM so
that we could pack and catch our 5AM ride to the airport for our
return flight. Ouch! As usual, someone from Metropolitan Touring
was waiting for us in the hotel lobby to ensure we got to where we
needed to go. They really delivered great service.Quito to Houston to San Francisco, a pick-up from Tara, and we
were home.
Quite a time!