I´m in the Galapagos!!

Wow, I´m in the Galapagos Islands! Crazy! Thank you thank you thank you Mutti und Pappi fuer dieses wunderbare Geschenk

It´s our 6th day here and we´ll be flying back to Quito on Wednesday after lunch. I´m not ready to go yet. Although the sun is ridiculously hot since we´re at the equator and we´re running around in our bikinis every day and snorkeling, so it´s a bit uncomfortable, especially with our small sunburns we got the other day. But other than that, it´s been an awesome trip so far.

We arrived last Wednesday after a pretty smooth 3 hour flight from Quito. We spent our first couple of days on San Cristobal Island, which if I remember correctly is the oldest island of them all. It´s fairly large, but the main town itself is pretty sleepy, cute, and extremely safe. And yay, no pollution like in Quito! We first went to the information center and learned a bit about the islands and conservation efforts. Then we went on a little hike behind the center to a beautiful viewpoint and then after we were good and sweaty we hiked down to a small bay where we could jump in the water for a bit. There was a male bull sea lion in one of the coves, however, so I didn´t want to stay in the water too long in case he got angry with us. We then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening hanging out at a nearby beach and relaxing before dinner.

On Thursday we drove up to the highlands and passed through four different areas of vegetation. The people on the islands grow coffee and other crops. We ended up in the pampas area, which is normally a bit cooler and often misty. We went to the breeding center for San Cristobal´s tortoises and got to see a ton of little babies. There are only 12 species of giant tortoises left in the world, and most of them are native to the Galapagos Islands. However, their populations were reduced almost to extinction by sailors who brought them on their ships for meat as well as by many introduced species on the islands that either eat their eggs, eat or destroy the vegetation they feed on, or harm them in some other way. The breeding center raises baby tortoises in cages until they are 5 years old (and at this point, they are hardly bigger than your hand), after which they can let them go into the wild because their shells have hardened enough to protect them from predators like goats, cows, rats, etc. It takes them a good 150 years to become full grown. We got to see some large tortoises at feeding time and they also put on an impromptou mating show for us! They are so enormous, wrinkly, slow, dinosaur-like, and awkward looking. But I love them.

We got to snorkel again later at Los Lobos island and Leon Dormido, both small nearby islands. The first stop involved... get this... snorkeling with sea lions!!!! It was incredible. I was afraid at first because they are so playful and curious and they dart towards your face underwater and then swim away in another direction at the last second. But my god, they are just so cute. Then above water, they are just like dogs, barking and curling up in little balls to sleep, or staring at your with their wide brown eyes. It was so much fun to be able to be so close to them in their natural environment. Our second stop involved snorkeling that was a bit more advanced because it was in very deep water and there were about 100 sharks below us. I believe they were harmless reef sharks of some type, but our guide Jorge assured us that there is such an abundance of food in the Galapagos that they wouldn´t be interested in dining on us anyway I wasn´t quite sure what was going to be beneath me when I first jumped into the water, but as soon as I looked down and saw the sharks, I screamed and made a beeline towards my German friend Flavia... because if I was to be devoured by 100 sharks, I didn´t want to be devoured alone!

On Friday we woke up early and took the Costa boat (our speedy transport between islands) to our next destination, Floreana Island. I love the history of Floreana, because it involves a bunch of crazy German colonists interested in creating a utopian society, a husband and wife who removed all their teeth before arriving and then shared a pair of metal dentures, an Austrian woman who came with her 3 lovers and called herself the Empress of Floreana, stories of murder, disappearances, general craziness, and, of course, pirates.

Floreana only has about 80 people living on it. We landed at the sleepy port and took a billion photos of the marine iguanas lounding around on the black lava rocks near the water. They are black and completely blend in with the rocks, so it´s often hard to spot them at first, and are the only species of iguana that live on land and water. They are vegetarians, feeding on just the algae in the water, and have developed a neat adaptation to help with all the salt water that they consume... they kind of spit water out of their noses ever so often, and this is their way to rid their bodies of the excess salt. We then did a bit more snorkeling, where I saw a sea turtle briefly as it flew through the water. I was also bitten by thousands of tiny, bright blue plankton type things that were floating in the water all around us. Good times.

Anyhoo... time for dinner, but more to come later about the rest of our trip

Kerri