Jonathan Tullett

A very early start today – 0530 wake up for me, getting to the island of Santa Fe for 8am. Due to the island having little shade, Mauricio was keen to have this trip complete before the sun got too high (and thus hot) in the sky. The slightly burned back of my legs thanked him profusely.

After a wet landing, the beach was covered in sleeping or dozing sea lions. lines and lines of them, sometimes one on its own, sometimes five or six laying on each other. They look so cuddly, but the idea of giving them a hug is quickly dispelled after one growls, barks, or snots at you. My god are they snotty; and when they sneeze, it goes a long way!

We saw our second Galapagos Hawk, initially sitting near the path, and later on, flying around with a lot of other birds. The hawk is considered the king of the islands; the pinnacle of the feed chain. There are only 300 of them throughout all the islands. Unlike other hawks I’ve seen, they only kill on the ground – no swooping on other flying birds and killing them midflight. Good to see there’s still room for improvement ;)

The island is also home to land iguanas. These differ from marine iguanas in the shape of their heads, the tails and also colouring. Being sand coloured, spotting them amongst lots of sand can be hard. A couple had obviously been informed of our impending arrival and positioned themselves in the middle of our path. As they don’t need to propel through the water, their tails, rather than being a triangular shape, like their marine buddies, they’ve evolved round ones.

Cactuses here have also evolved differently to the others we’ve seen. The land iguanas used to like chewing on the them, so they’ve developed more like trees – thick bark around the trunk with the green segments much higher up, out of reach. One cactus had broken, allowing us to see the inside, which was formed like a car’s filter, enabling it to store enough water to survive dry periods.

The beach of the collection also happened to be a resting area of white tip reef sharks. These grow up to around 1.5 metres, and while their usual food of choice is sea lions, as it wasn’t dinner time (they’re nocturnal feeders) we saw a number of sealions frolicking in the waters around them. The waters were too murky to get any pictures unfortunately.

We returned to the boat to commence the trip to the afternoon’s destination. Lunch was great, and I ate lots of jelly. Yum.

Unfortunately, right at the time we were about to depart to the island, my stomach played silly buggers, and I had to stay on the ship. I used the opportunity to start writing up my diary of the trip, the fruits of which you’re reading now.

During dinner, Mauricio said our last day would be a very early start: 0530, and we’d be on the last island for 6am. Ouch.

After dinner we watched another ‘recommended’ film. After an hour of hearing how Jesus is the saviour and how believing in him can cure aids, stop cancer in its tracks, and also save what are clearly screwed up marriages, I returned to the cabin to sleep.

The overnight journey was a nightmare! The seas were alive, tossing and turning the boat everywhere. Despite a very broken night of sleep, the 630am wake up call wasn’t too bad.

The first trip of the morning was to wander around the island. It was a dry landing onto a crab, sea lion and excrement covered dock. A large (nursing) female was blocking our way, so Mauricio did the honours and waved his bag until she moved onto the rocks.

Espanola has one of the largest varieties of wildlife of any of the islands, and is home to huge colonies of red/black marina iguanas. In order to feed on plankton in the ocean, these iguanas sunbathe on rocks until their internal body temperature is double that of humans (~74c). Once hot enough, they plunge into the ocean, for up to an hour, to feed. While in the water, they lose 80% of their heat (dropping to ~15c).

Blocking the path on numerous occasions were blue footed boobies (hence my Facebook status of ‘I love boobies’, you bunch of perves!). They’re sizable birds, standing around 40cm high, with a 4ft wingspan. They (unsurprisingly) get their name from their bright blue feet. The male and females look similar, though you can tell by the call (females make a whistling sound) and by the size of the pupils which is which.

Espanola is also the only island in the world where albatross touch land – they return every two years to nest. The rest of the time they’re flying the world, keeping ships company for long distances and resting on natural rafts in the ocean. In a single year, there’s normally around 20,000 birds on the island. Some quick math means there’s only around 40k left worldwide. Modern fishing methods have had quite an impact on the numbers. Luckily, while passing a next, one of them displayed their huge wingspan – 3 meters!

Continuing wandering around the cliffs we came to an area where the albatross use to take off. When there’s not enough space, or thermals for them to take off from land, they walk over to the cliff and jump off. As if on command, two sauntered over and leaped. Awesome!

On the other side of the island to where we landed, there’s a natural blow-hole. A blow-hole is a natural fissure in the rock where water is pushed at very high pressure. This results in an explosion of water, in this case up to 35 metres high.

Having finished on the island, we had another snorkeling trip. While not as exciting as our first, I caught a glimpse of a huge eagle ray in front of me, also spotted a couple of smaller rays (not sure which type) burying themselves in the sand.

We returned to the boat for lunch, and the afternoon was spent navigating over to Santa Fe. The navigating took the entire afternoon, so the sun was enjoyed, books were read, and people slept. I also had some caffeine; I didn’t sleep. Mid afternoon there was a shout from the bridge – a school of dolphins had come to play. I ran to the front of the boat to be treated to the sight of five or six dolphins playing around. Some were jumping in and out of the water, others were swimming what seemed like only centimetres from the front of the boat. Reagan got some great pictures! At this point I decided to keep my camera with me at all times – I don’t want to miss another opportunity like that.

It seems they’ve finally got the idea (despite writing it explicitly on the forms) that I can’t eat dairy. And I’ve finally got the ideal that I do like fish. Win.

After dinner, we watched a Dolf Lundgren film – Direct Contact. It was so bad it was funny. How on earth did he ever become an actor?

Bed called shortly after. I find it amusing that everyone seems to be on my usual sleep schedule – early starts, and in bed by 9pm.

The crossing to Santa Maria was choppy. I woke a few times during the night to find the cabin rolling with the waves. Getting down from the top bunk for a drink was an adventure, and thankfully I wasn’t crippled in the process.

We had a 7am start (so much for lay-ins!), but breakfast was plentiful and tasty, so no complaints there.

Our first activity of the day was a ‘wet landing’ at Santa Maria and to see some of the island wildlife. Mauricio explained how over the years, the sea has been eroding the beach and that’s why some of the mangrove trees are on the beach, rather than 20-30 meters inland where they’d usually be found.

An area of the beach had ‘ghost crabs’ on it. In some locations (other islands) they’re transparent, hence the name, but on this beach they were a fetching pink colour. When approached they darted into holes in the sand where they stayed until sure we’d gone. I tried staying very still near one of the holes for a few minutes, but the crab popped out, took one look at me and ran down again.

A short distance from the beach was a lagoon where 5 flamingos were eating krill. The colour of the birds gave away their relative ages: it takes around 2 years of eating krill to get their pink colouring. One of those present was still a grey colour, so was a juvenile.

We continued walking over the dunes until we a beach on the other side of the island. This beach is a breeding ground for turtles, and also the bay where mantas and sharks leave their young.

Unfortunately we didn’t see any sharks or turtles, but did spot a couple of small mantas, and a lot of crabs. One surprising visitor was a Portuguese man-o-war. It was tiny, but venomous. You wouldn’t want one wrapped around your leg. Reagan got stung by one; he was very manly about it. We had the ‘manta walk’ explained, where you shuffle your feet in the water rather than taking usual steps; this stops you from treading on a hidden manta, and their painful spikes.

Returning to the first beach to head back to the boat, we saw our first group of sea lions – one small one, and two bigger ones. They are soooo cute. Lots of pictures were taken. Some stupid Americans tried getting too close and were barked at; amusing.

We returned to the boat for our first snorkeling excursion. After being kitted out with fins, goggles and the all important breathing tube, we were loaded onto the dingy and taken towards the rocks to where the most sea life was.

Within ten minutes of going into the water, we were surrounded by sea lions. Sea lions! There were around 20 of them or so, swimming around, coming up to us, flipping away, dancing and playing in the water. As a group we chased them (in a playful way!), twisted in the water so they could follow our bubbles, and loved every moment of it. The pinnacle of the morning was having one swim right up to me, face to face, and blow bubbles at me. It was awesome!

After an hour or so we came back to the boat for lunch, where we had vegetables, potatoes and yellow fin tuna. It was lovely. Tasted like chicken.

We travelled a short way by boat to ‘Bahia De Los Correos’ aka ‘Post Office Bay’. Since 1796, post office bay has been serving as a post office for the islands and around the world but it is unique in that you have no idea when your item will be delivered. Here’s how it works: You write a letter/postcard to someone, and put their address on it. You then add that letter to the barrel in the bay. When someone else goes to the bay (another tour boat being the most likely), they’ll pick up any postcards which are to be delivered near where they live, and deliver them. Apparently it’s quicker doing it this way than via conventional post. Letters put into the barrel average a 1 week delivery time, compared to 2-3 weeks via the traditional postal system. Both Reagan and myself have some letters to deliver.

Before landing we were primed to bring a torch if we wanted to visit a cave which was inhabited for 3 years by an Irishman called Patrick Watkins. Mauricio warned that people have broken their legs getting to this cave as the ground is very slippery, and it’s in complete darkness. With a reputation as reckless adventurers, there was no option but to explore!

Six of us started the trip. After going down the stairs, two dropped out. After the first descent two others bottled it and went back to the sunshine, leaving Reagan and yours truly to explore the darkness.

The journey was tretcherous; we nearly lost our footing on a couple of occasions, but managed to cling on to our lives. After what seemed like hours, we arrived. My first thought was that it would make an excellent nightclub venue. The roof was high, the acoustics sounded great, and where the sea crept into the back of the cave would make for an awesome natural beer chiller. Pictures were taken and then we started the ascent. I have never been so grateful to see daylight before…

On route back to the beach, as we came over the sand dune, we saw another group of tourists checking out the post office. Quite what they thought of seeing two young guys in sandals and dodgy hats coming from what’s a clearly secluded area of the island I don’t know :)

We swiftly followed the others into the water for another couple of hours of snorkeling, the highlights of which were swimming with a few turtles and glimpsing an eagle-ray before it swam into the darkness.

Sea turtles are big, but very graceful animals. Pixar got it right in Finding Nemo: they are definitely the surfer dudes of the ocean – very chilled. Swimming within 2 feet of several and watching them eat was a privilege. I regret not purchasing the underwater case for my camera :(.

After coming back to the boat, everyone showered and dozed for an hour or so before dinner. Which was more fish, also yummy. Not long after dinner everyone declared defeat and headed to bed.

Over night we cruised to Espanola.

This morning we had to wake early in order to catch our flight over to the Galapagos Islands. The flight went via Guayaquil, with a short lay over.

Before leaving the hotel, we met up with a few other intreped explorers, a number of whom informed us on route to the airport that they suffer badly from travel sickness; one apparently filled 5 bags on route to Quito. Cue a _huge_ sigh of relief when we found out they were on another boat!

There turned out to be one guy in our bus who would be spending the week with us: Dorn, from San Diego.

The plane journey was uneventful, and we landed in the Galapagos Islands a little over two hours later, handed over the ‘national park tax’ ($100 for every visitor – to help maintain the islands/fill the airport staff’s beer fund), and commenced the trip to the boat (via two buses and a small boat. This trip took us from Isla Baltra (airport) via (small) boat to Santa Cruz and then via bus across Santa Cruz down to the harbour of Punta Tamayo.

The boat is a 30 metre long motor powered cruiser, staffed by 6 – the captain, engineer, backup captain, chef, our guide and Jonathan, who looked after our quarters, and us during dinner times. Able to host 18 guests, there are just 7 on tour: Greg and Marion, from the south east of France, Rob, from Germany, Dorn, from San Diego, Waens, from Switzerland, Reagan and myself. Our ages range from early 20s to early 40s; it’s a good, compatible group; everyone’s up for a laugh, able to speak fantastic English (puts me to shame!) and game for an adventure.

The guide, Mauricio, came across as grumpy; we’ll be spending a lot of time with him over the next 5 days, so we hope he cheers up.

Our first excursion was supposed to be a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Centre, where we’d be able to see giant tortoises and land iguanas in captivity. An alternative trip was suggested where we head to the highlands and see giant tortoises in the wild. Everyone voted the latter.

Some back story: When the Ecuadorian government was handing out land so people could live on the Galapagos Islands, the land was free. The only restrictions were that only 10% of the land could be used for farming and inhabitation; the rest must be left natural so the wildlife can thrive.

Recently, one of the islanders opened his land to tourists. He’s based in the highlands (green area) and over his land the giant tortoises migrate to the lowlands to breed. Within the first five minutes of arriving, a grazing tortoise crossed our path. ‘Giant’ is indeed the right word to describe these animals. The one in the pictures weighs ~350kg.

As these tortoises have only been studied properly since 1972, not much is known about their life-cycle. No-one knows exactly how long they live, when or even if they stop growing, or how many offspring they can have in their life time. It is known they’re not fertile until their early 20s, and it takes 2 years for their shells to harden enough to deter predators.

Over two hundred years, around half a million tortoises have been killed here. There are now only thirty thousand left. On Santa Cruz, there are 3000 tortoises born in the wild each year. Of these, 0% make it to two years of age. 0%! If it were not for the activity of the research centre (which breeds them), they would die out. It is unknown at this stage how many tortoises need to be born in the wild for the population to become self supporting.

After the sobering tortoise lesson, we walked through a lava tunnel. A lava tunnel is a naturally formed tunnel in the earth made by lava forcing its way through and leaving a self-supporting structure in its wake. The small section we traveled through was part of a 40 mile tube which runs the length of the island. The land owner had run some cables through and provided lighting so we could see our way. It was extraordinary! We then head back to the boat.

Our regular dinner time on this trip is 7pm, so we eat and then depart, en mass to the shore for one last night in a pub. Despite valiant efforts from us all, by 9pm we wanted bed so all jumped on the dingy back to the mothership. When saying good night to people a while later, a pelican was spotted sitting on our dingy.

While we sleep, el capitan will navigate for four hours to the island of Santa Maria.

We’ve been in Quito for four days, and we’ve barely stopped!

After our 18 hour sleeping marathon, we woke and went on a crazy bus ride to Mitad del Mundo. I use the word ‘crazy’, because they don’t seem to have the same standards of safety as in the UK. After 30 minutes, jam packed on the crazy bus (with about 400 other people – pictures to be uploaded soon), we arrived at the middle of the world – the equator.

Actually, there are two equator lines. There’s the huge tourist attraction: loads of restaurants, a monument, a museum of sorts centered around a stage which had displays of regional music and dancing. The second one actually sits on 0′0′0, and is host to some fun experiments which ‘prove’ that you’re on the equator. After balancing an egg on the head of a nail, we left for a less crazy journey home.

Yesterday we’d booked on the Cotopaxi tour – a trip up to one of the active volcanoes, walks in the surrounding area, and finally a trek up to 4800 metres.

Carlos (not his real name) drove us for a couple of hours to Cotopaxi, giving the tour guide spiel on route – it’s a fascinating country – stopping to allow us to enjoy quiet walks off the beaten track in the stunning scenery. We arrived at 4500 metres, where the snow had settled, to start the ascent to 4800m.

I can honestly say that the 300 metres up (900m traveled) was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. The air is so thin, the terrain rough, steep too (1:3). We stopped a few times, but finally made it to 4800m (picture to be uploaded)! We took the opportunity to have a hot, sweet cup of tea and some food before descending ahead of the oncoming thunderstorm. I slept on the journey home.

Today was another early start. This time Carlos (still not his real name) was taking us on a trip he does with another tour company (ie, isn’t part of the usual available tours with GAP) down to 1800m and the home of Mindo, in the ‘cloud forest’.

The first activity was the ‘Mindo Canopy Adventure’, which involved traveling a total of 3500m on ziplines across the forest at heights of up to 200m. Saying it was fucking amazing barely does it justice; it was literally one of the best things I’ve done, ever. One of the lines (there were 15 total) we went with one of the guides, allowing us to film it (to be uploaded…).

After the ziplines we visited the bufferfly house and saw 25 different types of butterflies in cocoons and also flying around. Very pretty. And one landed on me. But in the picture, I look pregnant, so won’t be uploading :)

After eating, we headed back to the hotel. I slept on route.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Galapagos. We’ve been told that beers will be $3-4/each on the boat, vs < $1 each here, so we’re heading out to enjoy cheap beers before our 4 days of sobriety :(

We arrived in Quito after a very straight forward 3 plane journey which took us via Madrid and Guayquail. The agent from GAP Adventures was there to meet us at the airport and the hotel was only a 20 minute journey from there.

We’re up on the 9th floor with great views over the city, and have plumped for the $7/day internet charge. For that, we’re getting approximately 3k/s. Awesome. The room itself is lovely, two large single beds, walk-in wardrobes and floor to ceiling windows. It comes with a safe which is large enough to house everything including the netbook! Result!

After a much needed shower, we headed into town to look for something to eat.

I’m shocked at the number of children there are working on the streets – doing everything from shoe shining to selling cigarettes (really, I had a 4y/o asking if I wanted to buy some cigarettes!). The shops here are all the same, selling either clothes, electrical items, or motorbikes.

Trying to find some good places to eat has proven tricky. There are loads of food places, mostly selling Chinese food or some variation of chicken and chips. Eventually we settled on an Italian place. After some assistance from some English people we met, food was ordered and drink was drunk.

With full stomachs we wandered back to the hotel for a little nap.

We woke 18 hours later, and it was day 2. And we started on the beer at 8am.