Giant tortoises need love too...
Hola amigos! (and thus I have used up all of my Spanish skills...)
Back on dry land in Quito after a week on a boat in the Galapagos Islands and the world is still swaying a little - is there such a thing as land sickness? I dont think any amount of gushing and hyperbole will do the wonders of the Galapagos justice, but for you lucky people I will give it my best shot.
15 of us boarded the Estrella del Mar in San Cristobal, and is wasn´t until that point that I really thought about the enforced sociability that a week at sea would entail. Luckily it was a very interesting and diverse group of people, not a gang of bird-spotting pensioners. Plus, the added bonus that our Naturalist and Guide Juan Carlos was totally dreamy (call me JC!)... The day finished on a fantastic high note, swimming with some playful young sea-lions. I am at one with nature.
Some edited highlights of the trip: sealions, watching Waved Albatrosses land (it´s harder than you´d think), a Blue Footed Boobie family complete with 10 day old insanely fluffy chick, sealions, marine iguanas having a group hug, watching sealions hunting flying fish with white tip sharks lurking ominously beneath them, swimming with Galapoagos penguins, chilling out with turtles, sealions, having a pelican dive underwater for a fish 3 feet in front of me while snorkelling, witnessing a colony of giant tortoises get the collective horn ( the males don´t always manage to mount the right end, but they seem to enjoy it anyway), sealions, and watching a perfectly spherical American lady get boosted over the top of a horse and hitting the deck with some impressive commando rolls (yes, I know I´m a bad person, but i laughed myself sick at that one).
An observation about the Galapagos Islands: whenever you run into another boat group it seems to be the rule that there has to be an old bloke with a white beard and an enormous telephoto lens camera straggling at the back. And the Thomson equation remains true:
Socks + Sandals = Beard.
OK then, must go and pick up my laundry. I´m sitting here in my best dress as everything else was filthy and smelled like sealions (look cute, smell like ass). Off to Riobamba later today to ride the Devil´s Nose train on the roof. Sincerely hope it stops effing raining.
x
Back on dry land in Quito after a week on a boat in the Galapagos Islands and the world is still swaying a little - is there such a thing as land sickness? I dont think any amount of gushing and hyperbole will do the wonders of the Galapagos justice, but for you lucky people I will give it my best shot.
15 of us boarded the Estrella del Mar in San Cristobal, and is wasn´t until that point that I really thought about the enforced sociability that a week at sea would entail. Luckily it was a very interesting and diverse group of people, not a gang of bird-spotting pensioners. Plus, the added bonus that our Naturalist and Guide Juan Carlos was totally dreamy (call me JC!)... The day finished on a fantastic high note, swimming with some playful young sea-lions. I am at one with nature.
Some edited highlights of the trip: sealions, watching Waved Albatrosses land (it´s harder than you´d think), a Blue Footed Boobie family complete with 10 day old insanely fluffy chick, sealions, marine iguanas having a group hug, watching sealions hunting flying fish with white tip sharks lurking ominously beneath them, swimming with Galapoagos penguins, chilling out with turtles, sealions, having a pelican dive underwater for a fish 3 feet in front of me while snorkelling, witnessing a colony of giant tortoises get the collective horn ( the males don´t always manage to mount the right end, but they seem to enjoy it anyway), sealions, and watching a perfectly spherical American lady get boosted over the top of a horse and hitting the deck with some impressive commando rolls (yes, I know I´m a bad person, but i laughed myself sick at that one).
An observation about the Galapagos Islands: whenever you run into another boat group it seems to be the rule that there has to be an old bloke with a white beard and an enormous telephoto lens camera straggling at the back. And the Thomson equation remains true:
Socks + Sandals = Beard.
OK then, must go and pick up my laundry. I´m sitting here in my best dress as everything else was filthy and smelled like sealions (look cute, smell like ass). Off to Riobamba later today to ride the Devil´s Nose train on the roof. Sincerely hope it stops effing raining.
x
posted by stef at
11:07 AM
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