7th November – Galapagos – here we come......

Had another horrible early start – pickup from the hotel at 5.45am!  Were ushered through the airport formalities and eventually found ourselves landing on the island of Baltra – one of the islands that make up the Galapagos.  My 1^st impression was how dry and barren the land looked which was only reinforced during the walk from the plane to the terminal building.  We had a slight hiccup with the customs guy trying to charge us again for the $100 park entry fee when we’d paid it upfront already, but that was soon smoothed out, and we found ourselves sitting on an old coach with our fellow companions for the next week.....well, that is except for 2 who had got on the wrong bus and were heading off to the wrong boat.

La Pinta

Eventually, we got going and after a short ride we arrived at a jetty where pangas (or ribs as I know them) were waiting to transfer us to La Pinta, our floating hotel for the next week. Just waiting to get on the panga, we saw a brown pelican and blue footed boobies diving into the water plus some sea lions sunning themselves on a conveniently empty boat close to shore.

Once on La Pinta, the next hour or so disappeared in a blur of presentations as we were told all the “Do’s” and “Do Nots” in the park, various rules of the boat, a general introduction to our itinerary, a guide to the boat layout etc. etc.  After a while, I just couldn’t take anymore in and when we were told all about our cabins, I just switched off as we hadn’t even seen them at that point.  Eventually, the information bombardment stopped and we were allowed into our cabins very briefly – just to get our life jackets as then we were forced into a life jacket drill.  We then had to put our life jackets back in the cabins and have lunch before starting out on our 1^st trip onto dry land.

Parkinsonia flowers being pollinated by a carpenter bee

After a delicious lunch, we assembled in the main reception area and put on life jackets before getting into the pangas to be transferred to North Seymour Island – a dry landing.  There were about 12 of us in our panga plus a guide.  North Seymour is a very dry and low laying island with lots of lava boulders that meant you had to watch where you were walking.  The low scrubby white barked trees were without leaves at this time of the year (Palo Santo trees), and there was one other green stemmed tree with a few leathery long strap-like leaves with lovely yellow flowers (Parkinsonia).  There were also a few prickly pear cacti which the land iguanas love eating and a low scrubby succulent endemic to the Galapagos which is the food of last resort.

Magnificent Frigatebird

Land iguana eating prickly pear cactus

As we landed, huge frigate birds were flying over head seemingly unbothered by our presence.  They really are a magnificent sight.  Our next wildlife encounter was with a land iguana eating a prickly pear cactus – we all went berserk, of course, and cameras were clicking madly.  Then we moved on to colonies of frigate birds nesting and saw fluffy babies, adolescents, and adults including males displaying with their huge red throat sacs blown up to preposterous sizes.   As we continued our very slow amble, we spotted loads more land iguanas and also lava lizards.  As our circular walk moved back to the edge of the island, we came across blue footed booby nests and their gorgeous fluffy chicks plus lots of Galapagos sealions including a lot of babies – some suckling as well.  When we came across wildlife on our paths, we had to give way to them and divert out of their way, as the animals are the top priority here.

Blue booby chick

I was quite simply blown away by our 1^st close wildlife encounters.  I’d heard that the animals were tame and you could get close to them, but until you’ve actually experienced it for yourself it doesn’t mean anything.

Once we got back to the ship, we actually had some time to unpack and get familiar with the cabin – perfectly adequate and comfortable before being summoned for a briefing about the following day activities.  I get the impression that we follow a routine as below:

-          Wake up call at 6.45am

-          Breakfast at 7.30am

-          1^st activity at 8.30am

-          Optional 2^nd activity at 10.30am

-          Lunch at 12.30pm

-          Optional Talk at 2pm

-          Afternoon activity at 3.30pm

-          Briefing about next day at 7pm

-          Dinner at 7.30pm

-Optional talk at 9.30pm
         

You could be very busy pretty much all of the day if you want – I suspect we’ll opt out of some things as want time to chill out as well.

So Cute!

Had a great dinner – the food here is very plentiful and good and then we all went straight to bed as were very tired after our long day.

Wow - that's a big one!!