Monthly Archives: February 2013

Today we spent all day in and around the main port on Isabella island, Puerto Villamil. The town is nothing like Puerto Ayora where it seems like there are actually people living, here it is purely a docking area with some nice blue waters and a tempting beach next to it.

A 45min ride in this awesome buggy got us to the base of the Sierra Negra volcano. A brisk 45min hike up some muddy trails got us to the mouth of the massive crater. It is actually the second largest volcano on an island, with the largest being the one in Hawaii. The whole volcano is now dormant because the magma underneath the crust has collapsed under its own weight (not a very scientific term), but back in 2010 there was a small, minor eruption resulting in some newer, blacker lava rock off the one side! It was pretty cool, and the size of it was pretty amazing.

In the afternoon, we visited yet another tortoise sanctuary which helps tortoises on this particular island only! And even within the island, around different volcanoes there are different types of tortoises…. Galapagos is crazy!

And what a day in the Galapagos would be without some snorkeling! We were dropped off on this beautiful white sandy beach lined with palm trees. There weren’t too many tourists, and a local bar served up some of the best coconuts we’ve had so far on the trip. We got ready to jump into the water for snorkeling, but quickly realized despite the deceiving water colour, the visibility was probably the worst we’ve had so far! It also didn’t help the waves were really strong, making it less than pleasant to snorkel. Even the most avid snorkelers called it an early day, and we ended up having fun chatting at the local bar for about 2hrs, sipping on some refreshing coconuts!

The Boat: We had some tourists leave us and some fresh blood join for the rest of the cruise, as the boat is also sold separately as a 4day and 3day package. We had a shortage of snorkels when we started, but we borrowed some from the sister ship. Problem was, somehow when the new people joined the ship, the snorkels were gone and we have even less to go around for everyone! W T F? What kind of business is this?

Docking at Puerto Ayora, the boat dropped off passengers and picked up some new passengers for the rest of the cruise. For us, it was a big waste of time as we spent the day mostly in the mainland of Santa Cruz doing some very uninteresting things we could’ve done ourselves!

We visited the Charles Darwin Station, an animal refuge centre mostly there to protect the baby giant tortoises from each individual island. Since Lonesome George died last year as the sole giant tortoise of this subspecies from the small Pinta Island, the world has lost one more species of animal. The refuge here raises the baby tortoises until they reach 7 years of age, and then are let loose into the wild. Without this, the eggs won’t make it out of the ground before rats, dogs or boars eat them. An unfortunate reality, showing us the consequences of introducing foreign species into ecosystems, and pretty much the byproduct of humans. There are some stories of conservation and how the agencies try to save these animals from extinction. Apparently at one of these islands, only 2 males and 14 females remained and now all the turtles on that island (after the repopulation program) are children of those 2 males!

The rest of the morning was spent lazing around at an ice cream shop before our afternoon excursion of… seeing giant tortoises in a reserve outside of town! It was a great tortoises day, and seeing these guys is really cool just to marvel at their age, their horrible ability to sense danger, and the amazing way these animals live. We found out the reason they make this funny “Uhhhh” sound when they hide into their shell is because they have massive lungs, so when they sense danger they let out the air in their lungs to give their head more space to slide inside!!

Then we walked/crawled through a lava tunnel, a naturally occurring phenomenon due to lava flow cooling at the surface but still flowing freely underneath, resulting in these really cool tunnels. Actually, they’re cool in theory but seeing them is rather unimpressive, and we made the mistake of carrying a backpack + DSLR into one…. guess we expected a dark, wet and damp underground tunnel to have more than just empty space?

The weather was great in the morning, but once we finished our tours it started pouring rain, and we got soaked running around the town trying to find some Pringles. Alan also got electrocuted when trying to open the ice-cream freezer at a convenience store!! Yayyy, shoddy appliances.

Today is also the last day of Carnivale in Puerto Ayora, and the crewmembers all seem very eager to go to shore and join the party. We’re rather content at staying on the boat to avoid the massive water/chalk/canned bubbles fight in the town.

The day’s itinerary isn’t as packed as it has been, and we just had a nice walk in the morning and some lazy beach/snorkel time in the afternoon.

Once again, another docking, another landscape. The animals are also slightly different, and we actually saw some rare fur seals (not to be mistaken for sea lions that are as abundant as tourists). They are slightly smaller, with a shorter nose, but their most discernible trait are their larger eyes which are necessary to fish at night and in deeper waters. They’re still just as cute though!

The afternoon we took a quick stroll through Bucanero Bay, which we assume is probably where all the buccaneers or pirates hung out back in the day when the Galapagos wasn’t a nature reserve but rather a place for pirates to hang out, drink rum and slaughter tortoises for meat. The highlight here is the ‘praying rock’.

Beach time was great though, as snorkeling is fun, and the beach had this cool red sand with some really pretty rock formations all around. The normal characters were around, with the addition of some pelicans who were actually dive-fishing about 3m away from us while we were snorkeling!!! It’s really funny, as once the pelican dives in, a bunch of other birds land on its head and try to steal its catch…. haha, jerks, go catch your own fish!

There never is a dull day in the Galapagos, and if you pay attention, everything is different. The differences may be slight, but realizing the fact that the distances are also at a minimal, and you’re still on the same freakin’ island, you appreciate the miraculous forces of nature much much more.

Docking at Moreno Point, we did a hike up some rugged lava rocks. Looking like a desert of lava rock, it was crazy to stumble across this massive green sinkhole in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, fresh water flows from the mountains through crevasses in the lava rock and fills several ponds and sinkholes, being a hotbed for life. CRAZY. The Galapagos really is strangely inhospitable on land, and those animals that do make it have some very specific traits making them survive the harsh conditions. And strangely enough, there were two flamingos just chilling in the ponds, along with some massive fish. The whole place exerted such an eerie calm, like living in a world of its own.

The mandatory snorkel time came after, and despite the rains and strong currents, we toughed it out as this area is popular for spotting sea horses! We tried to look for the little fellas in the green algae, but our mofo guide forgot one little detail….the seahorses are RED and hide in the red algae! Jerk. Oh wells, there were plenty of tortoises, and swimming face to face with one as the currents pushed and pulled both of us together and observing the graceful ways it moves around in the water was well worth the effort.

Back on board, we ate, did some reading on the deck and quickly fell asleep. Before long, the ringing sounds of the “time to go” bell woke us up, and we went out for a hike. It was raining, but no fear we have our Gore-Tex jacket to save us from being soaked, while the others went out in their jeans and cotton hoodys. Bad idea for them! We also made the stupid idea of bringing our P&S and our DSLR. The DSLR hung uncomfortably around my neck underneath my hardshell, while the P&S was in the pocket. After the hike, I was bone dry inside, but when I unzipped the pockets to reach for my camera, I felt a puddle of water……… SHIT. Pulled out my camera, and you can literally pour water out of it… SO SAD!

We let it dry out, but there really isn’t much I can do. The Goretex was let out to dry in on a hanger in the covered deck. Next morning….. because the boat was going through some rocky waves and windy rains, a second unfortunate event happened as my beloved jacket was GONE! That’s like…. a lot of good gear just broken/lost, and also a good chunk of change as well. We made a little joke out of it though, imagining the jacket had a mind of its own and feeling guilty for soaking our camera, it didn’t want to face us anymore and found a new home with the sea lions…. or so we’d like to think.

Hope the park rangers don’t come back and fine us for littering.

The itineraries for the day seem to follow this trend. Land tour + snorkel/swim session in the morning, then hop onto the boat for lunch while the captain sails to an alternate location, do another land tour + snorkel/swim session in afternoon.

In the morning, we visited Fernandina, one of the youngest islands in the Galapagos at around 100,000 years, formed by a volcanic eruption. The predominant wildlife we saw today was….marine iguanas. They were EVERYWHERE. On the rocks, on the beach, in the sand, and sometimes chilling in the middle of your path. We almost stepped on a few as their camouflage is amazing in the dark volcanic rocks. It was pretty fun just sitting around staring at them, as they’re completely unphased by people’s presence, and they just lie in stacks, and occasionally spitting out some snot. That’s how they get rid of all the salt they ingested when they eat algae underwater, so if you imagine like 80 iguanas just taking turns shooting snot, it was gross but sorta funny.

After a bit of snorkeling in some cold waters with not so great visibility, we were back on the boat for lunch.

Next island, we beached onto a black sand beach which was really cool looking. We took a long walk around and saw quite a bit of wildlife. This time the land iguanas and hermit crabs were the most abundant, and we also saw several giant tortoises and a really cool looking Galapagos hawk!! Land iguanas are not the same as marine iguanas as they can only stay on land (brilliant name!), and they are also yellow and much much fatter! One giant tortoise was walking in our direction on the path, and we just waited there until he got about 1m from the guide and suddenly ‘felt’ us there, made this strange “Uhhhh” sound and retreated into his massive shell. SO FUNNY! These guys are really interesting, and are able to live into time immemorial. We saw one just grazing for some poisonous apples (it helps the tortoise’ digestion, but kills humans) about 3m from the pathway and he just totally went on his business without caring for us at all.

Today is an exciting day! We’re going to board our boat and go on an 8 day cruise around the islands! There are a lot of remote places you can’t reach within a day, and the cruise includes the mandatory Galapagos guide who would (hopefully) educate us a bit on the special animals that live here.

We were told to arrive at the airport by 10:30am to meet our guide. We got there before 10…and ended up waiting until 12:30pm until all 16 of the passengers got together. Arriving on the boat, we had a nice little lunch (everyone was STARVING) and began setting sail for our first destination, the strangely named islet, Chinese Hut.

Our first impression of the guide was rather strange, as somehow he sounded bitter and made some unwelcoming remarks. And our first activity was to snorkel in the bay, but when we got changed and was ready to go, they told us they didn’t have enough snorkels…. W T F? You’re taking us on an 8 day cruise with 8 days of snorkeling/swimming with a set number of passengers, but they somehow didn’t have enough snorkels? Eventually they got us what we needed, but they just didn’t feel like they were trying very hard….

Snorkeling though, was extremely fun! There was such an abundance of fish, really cute and strange looking dolphin fish, and Jiajia even saw some white tip sharks and sting rays! Seems like Alan never has the luck to see everything.

Next, we landed on a beach for a wet landing, meaning you’d be landing on a beach and likely to get yourself wet because of the waves..haha. The tour of the island, strangely named Chinese Hut, was brief but saw the standard sea lions, iguanas and crabs… they’re EVERYWHERE! The sea lions were as cute as always, and the several baby ones just makes you want to take one home… There were also some penguins diving around shallow waters where we landed, doing their thing and catching fish. The sand here was white, and apparently each location has different types of sand, even on the same island! The islands are really amazing!

Signed up for a Bay Tour to get a sense of what the islands were all about before we do some more extensive traveling around the islands aboard of a ship. There were 5 sights for the half day tour, leaving us the other half of the day to visit the beach!

Taking a small boat out to a small islet, we were fitted with snorkels and were told to jump into the water. The snorkels sorta sucked and kept leaking salt water as the currents kept washing us in all different directions. It didn’t matter though, as we snorkeled closer and closer to the islet, it was all good. Sea lions were resting on the islet, but the younger, more curious ones were weaving in and around our group!! They’d swim right up to about a foot away from you, face to face, then take a sharp turn elsewhere. All you needed to do was float in water and watch these amazing creatures at play with you! The guide (all activities on the Galapagos requires a guide) took a rope along, and played tug of war with the sea lions, while others bite on their fin to see what that was. They were so cute! The currents though, were not, as we kept getting pushed in and out of the shallow rocks, making us think what it’d be like tomorrow during the dive!

The next site, we saw some giant tortoises and iguanas swimming about. And finally the last interesting thing was this small chasm about 10m wide with a deeeep drop of water. It was a popular place for a cool swim as it was almost like a swimming pool, but the highlight was climbing up the rocks to dive in. Alan dove in from about 3m high, while exhilarating, was nothing compared to the guide who climbed up to the top and did a perfect dive into the water from about 15m!

We got back, rested and headed to a popular site nearby, Tortuga Bay. It was quite a long ways walk, taking over 45min, but once we got there it was all worth’d. The sand was silky soft, and although the waves were quite strong, the beach was very flat and waves would gently coat the beach with a thin layer of water, casting out a shimmering reflection of the clouds in the sky. It was exactly as you’d imagine a picturesque “beach vacation” pictures, with white sand, blue waters and only the two of us! And the government once again did a fine job, not allowing any vendors onto the beach, and keeping walk paths so you wouldn’t wander out and step on some iguana eggs.

The waters were amazingly clear, and this being the Galapagos, there was wildlife everywhere! Crabs were munching on algae on the rocks while iguanas were all taking a late afternoon stroll along beach. In knee-deep waters, you’d see schools of small fish, and even shrimps! We wandered around but took an amazing nap in the sun. When we woke up, we realized within 2m from us, there were several iguana tracks! They just walked right by us and we didn’t even know it! Ha ha.

Galapagos is awesome!