Galapagos to Quito

Monday 11th November 2013

Ismael

Leena

Leena’s stuff

View to the road

Trees being invaded by moss

Baltra airport

Blue-footed boobies

Ismael

View of the Basilica

Ismael

Leena

Leena

We arrived in Quito later than expected, there was lots of traffic on the way and once again I got a headache from the fumes, this time so did Ismael. Thankfully it didn’t last too long after we got back to Colonial House. After dumping our bags, we went straight out for food and had a gorgeous meal at Cafe San Blas, a lovely little Italian near the hostel. Quito is so much cheaper than Galapagos, roughly half the price for food and less than half for beer.

Interestingly I’m quite happy to be back in Quito which is a little odd since the last day we spent here was not particularly pleasant. Of the three rooms we’ve had in this hostel, this is definitely the best. The next couple of days we’re going to do the Teleférico and Equator Museums (Mitad del Mundo and Museo Inti-nan) before heading to Baños. We’ll decide which one in the morning.

Our last few days in Puerto Ayora

Saturday 9th November 2013

Dance classes in the street

Some kind of heron

Lava field

Beach

Salt mines

Las Grietas

Steps

Las Grietas

Ismael

Flower

Galapagos Deli

Ismael

Ice-cream and espresso

Bicycle

Charles Darwin Drive

Charles Darwin Drive

Charles Darwin Drive

Charles Darwin Drive

Prickly-pear cactus and moon

Leena

Leena

Originally we had thought we would return to Puerto Ayora and spend a couple of days island hopping, San Cristobal or Floreana perhaps. It turned out that there wasn’t much to see on San Cristobal that we hadn’t seen already anyway and both Islands were 2 hours away by speed boat, the thought of which made me feel sea-sick. Of the options available, the most tempting was to take a boat to North Seymour to see the frigate birds with their inflated pouches, but honestly we weren’t interested. At this point I was much more interested in doing more normal things. Nice food, nice cocktails, wifi and some quiet time and that’s what we did. We enjoyed our spacious room and I had three nights of the most peaceful sleep since leaving home. On the boat, in Quito and in Lisbon my sleep was interrupted every night, filled with strange and disturbing dreams.

On Saturday, we spent the afternoon drinking caipirinhas looking over the port, enjoying the sunny weather, sorting out accommodation, thinking about our plans once we returned to Quito, writing some blog entries and generally reflecting on the trip so far. On the way back to the hotel in the evening, we caught a dance/exercise class going on at the square which got me in the mood for dancing. Later we went to a night out at a club in town where Ismael and I got the opportunity to shake our booties, showing the locals how it’s done 🙂 By the end of it, I was looking forward to doing dance classes with Ismael in Brazil and Argentina!

On the last night we enjoyed a meal at the deli, went for a leisurely walk along Charles Darwin Drive and back. We were ready to leave now but I decided I would miss it in some ways. Our time in Galapagos was relatively extravagant. We would be tightening our budget from here on in. The weather was nice and we felt safe there. I wore my jewellery the whole time and I knew it would have to come off back in Quito. I would miss the cocktails, the deli and the beautiful sea, the slow, quiet and calm of the place.

After a couple of days in Quito, the plan is to head south to Baños which everyone tells us is lovely. We decided we don’t really have time to do the jungle in Ecuador so are researching options for doing it after the Inca Trail, either in Peru or Bolivia. We have a little over two weeks to make it down to Cusco to get acclimatised to the altitude before the Inca Trail. We are looking forward to seeing new places on the way and the challenge of the trail.

Cruise Day Seven: Isla Santa Cruz

Friday 8th November 2013

Las Bachas

Sunrise

View from the panga

White beach

White beach

Ismael

Treasure of Galapagos

Flamingo

Creeping plants

Darwin finch

Flying flamingos

Treasure of Galapagos

Yellow warbler

Darwin finch

Remains of American military base

Marine iguana

Flamingos

Leena

Great blue heron

Blue-footed boobie

Blue-footed boobie

Today was the last day of the cruise. We had the earliest start of the week with a wet landing at 6am on Las Bachas, a beach on the north west coast of Isla Santa Cruz. It’s one of the sea turtles’ favourite nesting beaches and, I have to say, the turtles have excellent taste. The beach had velvety soft white sand like I’ve never felt before. It felt amazing under my feet. We walked along the beach from one lagoon to the next in search of flamingos, the first had none, the second had one. As we were walking to the third, we saw two flamingos flying from the lagoon we were heading to, towards the two we had just left! Still how often does one see flamingos flying? At the third lagoon there were four flamingos. We took our photos and headed back for our last breakfast on the boat.

Both Ismael and I were ready to leave the boat today. It was a great experience, but I was looking forward to having our time back to ourselves. No more itinerary, no more regimental meal times and, while it was fascinating, at this point I felt I had seen enough wild life for a while. The week of wondering through lava fields had not helped my swankle. Sad as it may sound, I was looking forward to having wifi, sat by the pier, sipping on some cheap and strong caipirinhas (unlike those on the boat). I was also looking forward to a good night of sleep back on terra firma.

Puerto Ayora

We had not booked our hotel for the next few nights and just turned up to one Ismael had found with relatively cheap private rooms, hoping for the best. It seemed to work out fine. We paid, went to the room, dumped our bags and I had a shower. I had noticed there were more tiny bugs wondering around the room than I was happy with, but when I mentioned it to Ismael he told me about some place he stayed in Mozambique with a rat running around the thatched roof and said he was not bothered with such small creatures (Ismael has asked me to add that he was bothered by the rat, in anycase that’s a story for another day).

After spending the afternoon out as planned we headed back to the room at which point for some reason I decided to inspect the bed. The bugs were everywhere, on the covers, under the covers, on the walls, on the furniture. At this point I freaked. The room is cheap but come on, surely when they say you get what you pay for, this is not what they mean?!

I went down to reception and tried to explain with hand gestures that there were small bugs crawling all over the room. What is Spanish for bugs and crawling? Michele Thomas hadn’t explained how to say those words. The lady came up to the room to look. On inspection, she said “oh, something didas”, squashed a couple with her fingers and said “I’ll see if we can change the sheets or if we have another room available” at which point I said with a look of dread on my face “another room please”.

I had already decided that I was not staying in that room. If there wasn’t another we would get our money back and go to the place we stayed before the cruise. Sharing a room with other people was preferable to sleeping in that bug-infested hole. Ismael said she must have read the Trip Advisor review written on my face, because when she returned she said she had upgraded us to a suite free of charge and apologised saying she felt really bad.

We took our stuff to the new room which was indeed much nicer. I inspected for bugs, the bed, the walls, the bathroom, the furniture – all clear. I noticed there were bugs crawling all over our things. I killed a few, there were too many. I went down to ask for bug spray for our bags, praying they had not settled inside them. We sprayed our things until we ran out of the stuff and afterwards sat down for 20 minutes trying to recover from the whole experience. Why were we travelling again? Was this normal? What if we had slept there and not noticed, they would have crawled right up into our nose, mouth, ears and… Ismael was laying down on the bed the whole time I was in the shower. Would we return to London with dreadlocks and headlice? What was the point of this trip anyway? What would it be like for me in the jungle?!

We decided to head back out to get some air. We went to the supermarket picked up some things and got an early night.

Cruise Day Two: Isla Santa Cruz

Sunday 3rd November 2013

Ballena Bay (Whale Bay)

Marine iguanas

Great blue heron

Nazca boobies

Great blue heron

Great blue heron

Great blue heron

Blue footed boobie

Brown pelican

Blue footed boobies

Sea lions

After a hearty breakfast at we jumped in the pangas to see what we could find on the coastline around the bay. On the way we saw a sting ray (no pic unfortunately). After seeing shop after shop with t-shirts exclaiming ‘I love boobies!’ above a pair of blue webbed feet we finally caught a glimpse of a few blue-footed boobies.

Later on in the morning we went snorkelling in the bay and saw sea turtles along with a whole host of weird and wonderfully coloured fish.

Cerro Dragon (Dragon Hill)

View from the beach

Lagoon behind the beach

Land iguana

Land iguana

Land iguana

Ismael

Cactus trees

Flowering cactus

View of our cruise boat from the island

Flamingo

Flamingos

Flamingos

Flamingo

Marine iguana

The boat worked it’s way west along the coast to Dragon Hill (named after it’s most prolific resident, the land iguana). After lunch we jumped in the pangas to head to the island for a walk. Here there is no pier, the pangas dropped us on some lava rocks which sit alongside the white beach. Inland the earth was a deep rusty red colour which comes from the oxidised iron in the lava. Here I learned that the trees which looked lifeless on the way to Tortuga Bay were in fact not dead. They are deciduous trees called Palo Santo and appear silver-grey in the dry season and flourish with green leaves in the wet season. They produce a deep red-purple sap which makes them look almost like they are  bleeding and is used to make dye. I could only imagine how different the landscape would look in the wet season. On the way we came a across a lagoon with flamingos.

Galapagos is officially desert as it rains less than 200mm per annum here. There is only one island where fresh water can be reliably found year round, Floreana. Life on the islands has evolved to deal with the harsh environment. Giant tortoises can go for as long as 18 months without food or water, they hydrate themselves by eating the cactus which store water; marine iguanas drink sea water and ‘spit’ the salt from their nostrils.

Cruise Day One: Isla Santa Cruz

Saturday 2nd November 2013

Tortuga Bay

Breakfast at Galapagos Deli

Enjoying my coffee

Cactus forrest

Snake on the path

Mature opuntia (prickly pear) cactus tree

Young opuntia cactus tree

From grey to green

First beach

Marine Iguana

Lots of marine iguanas

Darwin Finch and marine iguana

Tortuga Bay

After a pleasant evening and early night, Ismael and I woke naturally at 5am. We had a gorgeous breakfast at Galapagos Deli in town before heading back to check out. Our meeting with the cruise guide at the pier was not until 2.30pm that day and so we decided to walk to Tortuga Bay – a beautiful beach 45 minutes walk from the pier (the pictures don’t really do it justice).

The beach had silky smooth white sand and almost still blue-green water as it was sheltered in the bay, but to get to it we had to walk for 30 minutes along a path through a cactus forest which was far from beautiful. Between the cactus there were grey trees; the whole area was almost colourless. The vegetation seemed bleached by the equatorial sun and even the cactus seemed to be gasping for moisture. As we approached the first beach, the last hundred meters or so transformed from grey to green, which was a welcomed change of scenery. The sea was rough (too rough to swim in we were told) and we saw some people attempting to surf and failing. At the end of the first beach we came across a group of marine iguanas before arriving at Tortuga Bay. We barely stopped 10 minutes as we had to return for the cruise.

The guide was late meeting us. After having a minor panic about the unlikely event of three thousand dollars in cash being stolen from me in an elaborate con, we were picked up by a couple of crew members in a panga and boarded the ship for lunch – phew!

We realised after boarding the ship and looking in the mirror that were both thoroughly sun burned! I was gob-smacked! It was cloudy for most of the walk, my shoulders were covered and we were only out for a couple of hours, but there were clear strong lines around the neck and arms of my t-shirt. Wtf?! I had noticed that my face had gotten darker in Quito after our day around the Old Town and it was hotter in Puerto Ayora but not enough to expect what we saw. A 16km hike through the Samaria Gorge (Crete) and hike up Table Mountain (Cape Town) from the very bottom through the heat of the afternoon had burned a little on tops of the shoulders, and I knew it at the time but couldn’t avoid the sun. This was crazy – we didn’t even feel it happening, it was so quick. The outline of our t-shirts was thoroughly printed on our bodies – how annoying.

The motion on the boat was a bit of a shock and while eating lunch I started to worry about it. I wasn’t sure this meal would stay down let alone the next seventeen. After lunch we headed back to Puerto Ayora on the pangas for the Charles Darwin Station and while the guide was talking to us the ground was still moving!

On our way back to the boat we wandered through town, it would be the last town we would be in for the next three days (I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a place where there are no shops for three days!). We picked up some anti-sea sickness medication which thankfully worked a treat for the rest of the trip.

Charles Darwin Station

Marine iguanas

Darwin finches

Darwin finch

Darwin finch

Giant tortoises

Giant tortoise

Giant tortoises

RIP Lonesome George

Baby giant tortoises

29.5 is the magic number

Galapagos mocking bird

Darwin finch

There were originally 15 sub-species of giant tortoises of which 10 remain. Giant tortoises can live for 18 months without food and water and so were a useful food supply on ships. Consequently a number of species were hunted to extinction. Their existence on the islands has also been threatened by the introduction of goats to the islands which compete with them for food. There are currently a number of breeding programmes in place to ensure their survival on the islands. One of these is at the Charles Darwin Station.

Darwin’s theory of evolution which was published in 1859 was inspired largely by observations of two species, the Galapagos mocking birds, the beaks of which he curiously found to be different on different islands, and the giant tortoises. He had been told by an inhabitant of the Island that they could tell which Island a tortoise came from just by looking at their shells. In particular he explained that tortoises from Islands Floreana and Española had upturned shells above the neck (this allows the tortoises to reach plants which are higher up).

The Cruise

After dinner, we had our first briefing of the trip where we were explained rough schedules for the week. We would be snorkelling everyday, some days twice and also having two landings a day on the islands, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. We would be briefed daily about the following day’s events, either before of after dinner. Our guide (Harry) was German, as were 10 of the 16 passengers, the other four were Chinese. Harry explained everything, alternating between German and English.