The Galapagos Islands

What brought us to Ecuador in the first place was my years-long desire to see the Galapagos Islands. After extensive reading and consulting with friends who recently traveled there, we settled on a four-night, five-day cruise to the Southern Islands. We chose to go on the biggest boat possible, the Galapagos Legend, both because we hoped it would reduce the chance of sea sickness (it did!), and because we thought it might offer more activities for the kids (did that, too :-)).

Despite thinking I knew what to expect, the surprises started coming while we were still on the plane from Quito to San Cristobal:

The first unexpected occurrence was an announcement by the crew that they will spray us with disinfectant. This is part of an attempt to protect the islands from invasive pathogens. In the end, they sprayed only the overhead compartments, but it still felt a bit weird. I don’t recall ever being disinfected on a plane before!

When we started landing, all I could see from the window was the blue of the ocean, getting closer, and closer, and closer yet… Right when I felt the first pang of panic the wheels touched down on land. The plane managed to stop shortly before the runway ended, a very short distance from where the ocean started again…

We deplaned on San Cristobal, which--after a ten-hour trip from San Francisco to Quito, followed by an additional four-hour flight from Quito--felt like the end of the world. Yet, when we arrived at the airport my son was thrilled to find … Pokemons (!!) on the Islands. WHAT THE?????? They were all over the place, it later turned out, to his great joy and my annoyance…

On the short bus-ride from the airport to the pier I imagined myself walking leisurely onto the boat, only to find ... a rubber zodiac waiting with a big pile of life vests.

A few exciting minutes of holding tight passed before the mothership came to view. But then I wondered if I would have to climb up the flimsy-looking rope-ladder…

I didn’t have to. The other side of the boat revealed a real door :-):

By the end of the trip I was a pro at getting on and off zodiacs, and doing both dry and wet shore landings (the later of which called for getting off the boat into shallow water).

On our tour of San Cristobal I wondered what happened to the trees, and why they were all dead:

Turned out they weren’t. They were very much alive, just conserving water while waiting for the rains. In a couple of weeks, we were promised, they will be all green.

San Cristobal was where we saw our first sea lion:

And first crabs:

We then sailed to uninhabited Espanola, where we started to feel the real magic of the Galapagos. There is the magic of life itself, in the form of both flora and fauna, clinging desperately to a harsh, inhospitable environment. It was truly amazing to see how much life a flat, infertile volcanic island could support.

There were hundreds of sea lions of all ages sprawled everywhere, the representatives of the mammal family:

Lizards were represented by small Lava Lizards:

By the much bigger Marine iguanas:

And, in the ocean, by sea turtles:

The majority of Galapagos inhabitants are of the bird family, however. We saw seabirds:

A beautiful hawk:

Nazca Boobies, some with chicks:

Albatrosses, a few of which were engaged in their courting dance:

A fly catcher:

And a beautiful Finch:

There is also powerful magic that comes from being very close to wildlife that is not afraid of humans. We were supposed to stay a couple of meters away from the animals, but the animals, it turned out, were not aware of that rule. They seemed just as curious about us as we were about them. Perhaps they have never seen anything like my Galapagos hairdue:

Then there is, of course, the magic of life adaptability, which struck Darwin when he first visited the islands almost two hundred years ago, leading him to come up with his evolution theory. This becomes more apparent after visiting more than one island.

The last kind of magic, to me, came in the form of death that is very much a part of life. There were carcasses all over, and they were all integrated back into the environment by the weather, other animals and by decomposition:

The next day, on Floreana, we learned about the history of the first crazy German settlers and the mystery surrounding them, and were super excited to see our first Blue-footed Boobie:

We also saw a few flamingos from afar:

Before we left we made sure to deposit letters in the local “post office.” Time will tell if they will ever arrive:

On Santa Cruz Island, the least-wild of them all, we saw the famed giant Galapagos land tortoises (actually, each island used to have its own unique kind, but some were extinct after being collected for food by early Western sailors):

We visited the Darwin Center, where we saw our only land iguana:

We left the Galapagos with a heavy heart. We felt like we could have stayed much longer, and wished we could have seen the reminder of the islands. A reason to come back, perhaps?