We returned home last night after just over a week in Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. What an amazing trip. They call the Galapagos Islas Encantadas, or the Enchanted Islands, and I can't think of a better word to describe them: enchanting.
Most people visit the Galapagos via boat. They eat and sleep on the boat and come ashore for day excursions. Most people don't even know that land-based Galapagos tours exist. Our good friends at Adventure Life offered a multi-sport land-based trip that was very intriguing to us. 97% of the Galapagos is national parkland. Only 3% is populated by humans, most of whom emigrated from mainland Ecuador, locally known as "The Continent". This 3% of land (on four islands: San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, Isabela, and Floreana) comprises farmland as well as small towns whose main income comes from tourism. the problem is that people who stay on boats don't inject much money into the local economy. They don't stay in hotels or eat at restaurants, and the ships even have souvenir shops, so many of these cruisers never spend a dime on the islands. Money that could help the locals instead goes to foreign investors who own the boats. When we saw all of this first-hand, we were very glad that we chose the land-based option. We would recommend it to anyone. We saw a lot of the cruise passengers on our flights, and they all seemed to have been seasick, gotten stomach ailments, and/or had bad coughs. We have no regrets about our decision.
We started the trip with a free day in Quito. It's a gorgeous city that is a blend between modern urban architecture (in New Town) and quaint colonial vestiges (in Old Town). Old Town features cobblestone streets and colorful colonial buildings. Like many Latin American countries, some if its most gorgeous buildings are its churches.
The Basilica sits atop a hill overlooking Old Town, and is topped by Gothic buttresses and gargoyles. It has amazing stained glass windows, and looks like it would be more at home in Europe than south America. In contrast, La Compania de Jesus is rather modest-looking from outside, but once you enter, you are inside what is arguably the most beautiful church in Latin America. Practically all surfaces are plated in gold, and the altar is bedecked with gold statues. It took our breath away. We were in Quito on a Sunday, so lots of local families were out and about and we got a chance to view a bit of the local culture.
The next day, we met our guide Sebastian at the Quito airport, and flew 600 miles offshore to the Galapagos Islands. We liked Sebastian right away. In his hat and sunglasses we joked that Che Guevara was our tour leader. We landed in San Cristobal, the first of the islands on which Charles Darwin set foot, and the island where he spent the majority of his land excursions during his 5 week stay in the archipelago. San Cristobal immediately reminded us of Easter Island, and its main town Puerto Baquerizo Moreno reminded us of Hanga Roa.
The sleepy fishing village is situated on the coast, and has a small coastal road (named after Darwin) which contains a few small hotels, restaurants, and shops. There is a beach that is covered with sea lions, night and day. We spent a lot of time watching them from a very close distance. At night, pups would look for their mother in order to nurse. They would go to each female and let out a sound reminiscent of a lamb ("Maaaap!") If it was not the pup's mother, she would bark and him and he would go on to the next female. Some of the pups were absolutely tiny. As we watched, some of the sea lions would climb up from the beach onto the sidewalk. Two approached us and came close enough to sniff my feet and tickle me with their whiskers.
In addition to sea lions, San Cristobal also has a large population of birds, including frigatebirds. The males of this species have a bright crimson
throat pouch which they proudly inflate when courting.
This island also has a large population of blue footed boobies. These birds, with bright blue beaks and tails, are very clumsy on land (hence the name "boobies") but are very adept at flying and diving for fish from extreme heights.
We did some kayaking on San Cristobal, and then took a boat to Isla Lobo, a breeding ground for sea lions. Sebastian had told us that we would get to snorkel with sea lion pups, but we never could have imagined the experience that we got. We hopped into the water and immediately countless sea lion pups dove in from the rocks where they had been laying.
Watch a 15 second video (with sound) of sea lions playing with a seashell while we snorkeled with them
They were curious about us and swam right up to us. They were incredibly adept in the water, twisting and turning, playing with shells and urchins, chasing each other and us. They would come right up to our faces, peering at us with their magnified, limpid, Gollum-like eyes and showing their surprisingly large sharp teeth. They were not aggressive at all, but we were still aware of our bodies. They nipped at each other in play, and our skin isn't nearly as thick as theirs, so...we didn't want them to try to do the same to us. It was an invigorating experience, the only time I have ever experienced such harmony with a wild creature before was in Rwanda with the mountain gorillas. Our new underwater camera worked wonderfully to capture stills and videos of this incredible experience.
After frolicking with the sea lions, we took our boat to the sheer cliffs of Kicker Rock (aka Leon Dormido), a large rock formation off the coast. We snorkeled between its two cliff faces, seeing many fish. Our naturalist guide Pedro pointed out a group of around 7 Galapagos reef sharks swimming below us. Sebastian said that the Galapagos is the only place in the world where someone yells "Shark!" and people jump INTO the water. Due to the abundance of food, they don't pay much attention to humans. At one point, two Pacific sea turtles swam right by a shark...we felt like we were in the
midst of a Jacques Cousteau special. Unfortunately, during all of this, the new underwater camera decided not to function at all.
We also visited a giant tortoise breeding center in San Cristobal. Almost all of the giant tortoises on the island reside here. Babies are vulnerable to an array of predators until they are 5 years old, at which point their shells have hardened. Baby tortoises have been bred at this particular center since 2005. Only one tortoise from their original batch of eggs survived, and it is named Genesis. We saw it, as well as many other babies which have been born in the intervening three years. They are really cute, because they look just like a fully developed giant tortoise, only on a much smaller scale. Their shells are comprised of separate plates which have concentric rings in each one. These plates grow and eventually fuse together, like the fontanelle on a human's head. You can tell that a tortoise is a juvenile if rings are still discernible on its shell. There were also older tortoises wandering the grounds, and we got a good look at several of these dinosaur-like creatures.
I will post about our time in Santa Cruz and Isabela soon. We would like to thank Sebastian, who has become a very good friend. He was an excellent, knowledgable, smart, funny, friendly, genuinely kind guide and we were really lucky to be his clients!
