Ephemerica

Everybody we talked to and everything we read before we decided to go to the Galapagos Islands told us the same thing: you will spend an obscene amount of money and it will be worth every penny. It was truly an amazing experience for the both of us. Originally, our plan had been to meet up with my parents for the cruise, but unfortunately those plans didn’t work out, so we decided to soldier on without them We arrived in Quito in time for us to pick up our travel packet on Friday from the travel agency we booked with. Then we flew out to the islands on Sunday the 9th of Sept for an 8-day cruise. One small issue I have is that the last “day” of the cruise wasn’t really a full day—we made a small landing on North Seymour Island for an hour and were at the airport by 8:30 AM or so.

Anyway, when we arrived at the dock in Baltra, there were several sea lions lounging there waiting for us, totally oblivious to the passengers coming and going around them. And the week would continue for the most part to be like this—the wildlife going about their business with nothing but the slightest concern for the people snapping pictures nearby. We took a dinghy out to our boat, the Aida Maria, and were impressed by the accomodations. We were in a two-person cabin with bunk beds; it was somewhat cramped, but we were on the main deck of the boat, so we had nice big windows. The food was really outstanding for most of the week. We had to make sure we went out on all the snorkeling trips possible to try to keep pace with the amount of yummy food we were putting away.

The snorkeling was both the highlight and lowlight of the trip for me. I have never been snorkeling before, and was a little trepidacious about the whole thing (I have a pretty big swimming/water phobia), but the opportunity to see tropical fish and other critters was able to outweigh my fear in the end. After having seen sea turtles waddling on the beach in Costa Rica, I was really excited to see them in their element. And of course, the chance to swim with sea lions couldn’t be passed on either. We bought a couple of waterproof cameras in Quito hoping to snap a few good pics while we were swimming. Our days usually consisted of a landing in the morning with a walk, return to the boat for lunch and siesta and/or cruise to another location, and then another landing in the afternoon that consisted of a walk and a snorkel for those who were interested. The first snorkel opportunity was as a bit of a dud as overcast skies and murky waters limited visibility. And at this time of year, the water is quite cold…if I were to do it again, I’d definitely hire a wetsuit before going on the cruise. That actually was the lowlight of the snorkeling, as after we got out of the water, I would spend the next hour or so shivering and trying to recover the feeling in my hands. The highlights, of course, were swimming with turtles and sea lions, which we eventually saw on our subsequent snorkel trips. The photos with the disposable cameras don’t really do the whole thing justice, as the colors didn’t really come through well on the film. We were lucky that we ran into a couple of teenage sea lions that came by to check us out—at another landing someone from another boat tried to get close to a mama sea lion and her pup frolicking in the surf and got a nip on the hand for it…a gentle reminder that no matter how close you can get to them, they are still wild animals

I’m not usually a bird person, but the sea birds on the Galapagos were fascinating to watch as well. I now have a favorite bird—the blue-footed booby! Their calls and mating antics on land were entertaining enough, but watching them feed on the coast by diving for fish (often in synchronized groups of 3-4) was a treat as well. And on our last day we got to see the courtship behavior of frigatebirds, where the male puffs up a large red throat sac to impress his partner. Although this time of year isn’t the best weather-wise (the mornings were overcast and often misty), it is breeding season for several Galapagos animals. We saw several very recently born sea lion pups, including one so young that the mom hadn’t completely finished delivering the placenta yet.

In the end, we were sad to go and leave the beauty and communing with nature behind, but on the other hand, we were both getting pretty sick of feeling queasy on the boat (no actual puking ocurred, but the seasick pills didn’t eliminate everything). We got the impression that Ecuador is working very hard to both preserve the natural beauty of the islands while ensuring that visitors can continue to visit and bring their tourism dollars. One unfortunate aspect of the park though seems to be a bit of antagonism between the scientists who come to study there and the locals. Our guide (a 3rd or 4th generation native of the islands) related that apparently it is really difficult for Ecuadorians to do research at the Darwin Research Center on Santa Cruz. This is a sentiment that was echoed by the people living in Parismina, Costa Rica about the people there studying the sea turtles. I’m not sure if this is just a reflection of the relative lack of advanced education in Latin American countries, but one would hope that the foreigner scientists in these places would welcome the opportunity to encourage scientific careers among the people in whose countries they study.

We’ve posted some pictures in the photo gallery and some videos on our YouTube page of the trip for your viewing pleasure. We are hanging out in Quito this week, getting re-acclimated to the altitude and getting a new pannier built for Cindy before we head south to tackle the Ecuadorian Andes.

Posted by Matthew on September 19th, 2007 | Filed under: Movies, Ecuador