Galapagos

After a brief stop in Quito, during which we didn't get up to much other than acclimatising to the altitude and a short wander around the northern part of Quito, which was decidedly unremarkable, we flew to the Galapagos Islands.

Our visit to the Galapagos was one of the things we had been looking forward to the most on our trip and as such we had high expectations. We had a short delay escaping Quito and a rather comical baggage check for potential contaminents (think the customs checks on arrival in New Zealand but with no-one actually paying any attention to the scanning machine) but arrived in the Galapagos raring to go. On disembarking the plane, we almost made a small fortune as the man in front of us left lying on the floor under his seat an envelope bulging with cash - we gave it back, to his immense relief ... and his wife's (who gave him a dirty 'how could you forget that' look).

We were met off the plane by David, our naturalist guide for our time in the Galapagos, and the rest of our ship mates for the week. The group was a much broader mix than we had expected, with a few couples our age, two Swiss friends, three recently retired Australian ladies and a Danish couple. Having collected our baggage, we headed by bus to the dock where the Beluga (our floating home for the next week) was waiting.

The Beluga is an older boat but had recently been completely revamped and was in top condition. It has a crew of seven and capacity for 16 tourists. We had deliberately chosen a smaller boat as we didn't want to share once in a lifetime nature encounters with a hundred other people. We had a cabin on the main deck which provided stunning views out the windows and was complete with a small ensuite. As the Beluga pulled up anchor and the cruise began we were all very excited.

Without breaking into a day by day itinerary, the general format was that we rose at around 6:45am for breakfast - an amazing spread of fruit, cereals, yoghurt, bread, cheeses, eggs, tea, coffee and juice - then went for a morning walk on whichever island we had docked at overnight. Most days, the morning walk was followed by snorkelling before breaking for lunch - invariably another sumptuous meal with at least two-three courses - including a soup course, the soup being so good that the chef was nicknamed 'Sopa' (we later found out that this was a play on words with 'Sopa" also being slang for gay - Crystal just realised this now). An afternoon nap was followed another island visit and sometimes more snorkelling before and early dinner, a briefing regarding the next day and bed at around 9:00pm - by which time we were all thoroughly shattered.

It is hard to convey just how amazing the whole experience was, with each day seeming to eclipse the previous in terms of wildlife encounters.

Marine Iguanas were the first of the Galapagos creatures we came across. Blacker and smaller than their Land Iguana counterparts but in such density of numbers and proximity that it blew us away. Little did we know that they were comparatively far away compared to later sightings. Next came the Sally Lightfoot Crabs, the most spectacularly coloured crabs I have ever seen with deep orange-red upper shells and bright blue underbellies. True to their name, the hard to spot Ghost Crabs on the beach escaped before we could see them close up, but the next creature we came across, the Santa Cruz Land Iguana certainly played the game. The Santa Cruz Land Iguana has a yellow colouring and after an hour of less than satisfactory spottings amongst dense shrubery one was found resting right on the track. At one stage we were no more than half a metre away as we edged past trying not to disturb him. Truely amazing creatures and remarkably unconcerned by human presence. Brilliant!

Approaching beautiful white sand beaches (which we had not expected), what first appeared to be hundreds of rocks lining the shore line soon proved to be large sea lions colonies. The sea lion pups playfully posed for photographs as the adults lay about grunting and occasionally arguing with each other, again completely oblivious to our presence. We were however advised to keep our distance as their bite would near take off an arm if they wanted to. We heeded David's advice but sometimes it was impossible to avoid them due to the sheer numbers of them.

As well as wildlife, David was brilliant at introducing us to the different flora that flourished on the Galapagos and explaining why they had developed in the way they had. One particularly fascinating cactus had grown as large as a tree in order to try and outstretch the reach of land iguanas.

The airbourne wildlife certainly rivalled the land dwelling however as a multitude of different birds caught our attention. We would certainly not consider ourselves bird people but it was impossible not to be intregued by the birds of the Galapagos. The male Frigatebirds were amazing with their large red pouches under their necks which they inflate to catch the eye of passing females. The Blue Footed Boobies were comical both in name and when doing their absurd but fascinating mating dance. The Red Footed Boobies were not quite so cool, purely because we did not see them doing their mating ritual. We were treated to seeing a Short Eared Owl swooping on and catching a Petrel then carrying it to within three metres of us to devour it (something we had seen on a BBC documentary the day before but never thought we would see live). We were in season to see the Waved Albatrosses nesting and doing their mating rituals on Espanola. This doesn't even take into account the Galapagos hawk we saw perched only metres away, the multitude of Darwin finches, the speedy Red Billed Tropic Bird, impossible to capture in a photo, the bright Yellow Warbler, a handful of penguins and many many more. The only bird which we disappointingly missed on this trip was the Flightless Comorant - we will just have to return ...

The highlight however was certainly the underwater world of the Galapagos. Whilst on our first snorkel we did not see much more than fish - albeit still in numbers and a variety of colours we had never seen before, our strike rate on amazing sea creatures soon rapidly increased. As well as ducking and diving whilst swimming with a sea lion pup, we were treated to numerous sea turtles - one swam directly beneath Crystal and I, graceful and exceptionally quick when it wanted to be. We spotted an Eagle Ray sailing by and another resting on the ocean floor. A couple of baby white tip reef sharks and a couple of not so baby white tip reef sharks (although still only about a metre in length) came to visit. An unexpected bonus came when a pod of dolphins decided to race our boat as we navigated to another island. The clear winnner though was the 3 metre long Hammerhead that came to within about 2 metres of Crystal and I (Crystal being closer, so I felt very safe).

Finally, we can't forget the tortoises. Whilst we only caught a small glimpse of the famous Lonesome George, we were treated to several close encounters in the highlands of Santa Cruz with a couple of Giant Tortoises. Giant doesn't quite cover just how massive they are. They were awesome in every sense of the word, actually, so was our entire Galapagos experience. We cannot recommend it highly enough. We were fortunate to have a fantastic guide, boat and group of people to experience the Galapagos with (and April/May is pretty much the best time to go), but we can't imagine any way in which the Galapagos could do anything other than amaze and inspire. Go there!