Jen and Rebecca Say Goodbye to Their Cachalote Family (1/6/10)

Morning came early on Wednesday. Our excursion today consisted entirely of a panga ride thru Black Turtle Cove. The water in the cove was incredibly smooth, so we could see down into the water for several feet. The cove is known for being a nursery for many sharks and rays. It’s also a mating site for sea turtles. Sadly, we didn’t see any sharks, but several rays swam under our pangas.

Based on the level of activity that we witnessed, we were obviously visiting during turtle mating season. How many people can boast that they’ve seen a turtle-three-way?

(This is just one turtle, not the three-way. The turtles shouldn't have to be like Paris Hilton exposing their private time on the web!)

Our ride thru the Cove was a perfect end to our eight days on the islands.

After we finished our panga ride, we headed back to the Cachalote one last time to sail the short distance to the airport on Baltra. We said good bye to Juan, Maria Flora, and her daughter at the airport. Oddly, we were a little jealous of Juan’s new passengers. It was almost like he was cheating on us! The airport itself was barely a building – it was more of an open-air shelter with a tin roof – but what more do you need on the equator?

Once we arrived back in Quito we said goodbye to the rest of our group and then headed back to the Hotel San Francisco for our last two nights in Ecuador. When we checked in, the clerk was going to give us room number 4 (the same room we had before we went to the islands). Somehow, thru our limited Spanish, he realized what we were saying and switched us to a bigger, more awesome room at the other end of the hotel.

We spent the rest of our day wandering aimlessly about Quito and exploring the markets. We were both suffering through odd bouts of dizziness, so neither of us felt like being too active and we cut the night relatively short. But not before we did some fun market shopping and a very friendly man bought us some cafe con leche and chatted us up for an hour or two! Ecuadorians are friendly. Or at least this one was. I think he wanted to practice his English on pretty American girls...

Jen and Rebecca Walk on the Moon(scape) (1/5/10)

R: Pancakes for breakfast! While the food has generally been pretty good on board (that is when sea sickness doesn’t get in the way of enjoying food) I found myself particularly excited about pancakes. And they didn’t disappoint. This morning we headed off in the pangas to James Island (and we were well-stocked with Kleenex for the duration. Jen and I both thought we’d brought excessive amounts of Kleenex on this trip, but turns out we may actually run out…) This is one of the islands Darwin spent a lot of time, Juan told us. So it was only appropriate that he be photographed here, with more marine iguanas.

J: We also got to see some fur seals up close this morning. Although, it turns out that fur seals really aren’t seals, just another species of sea lion. Who knew? They’re still pretty cute though. In addition, we saw some cool lava formations, the American flycatcher (a bird with a red beak and yellow feet), and several wimbrels (yet another bird). Then it was time for another snorkeling adventure. We set off from the beach again - still not that easy to put fins on while sitting on the sand. Most of the fish were the same as we’d seen before, but Juan became very excited by the school of barracudas. And, rumor has it, a shark was nearby. So, naturally, we went on a shark hunt with Daniel (our bartender/waiter), but came up empty.

Not barracudas.

R: It’s probably good we didn’t find the shark, or get too close to the barracudas. But it would have made for a better story if we had? After lunch, we had some napping time out on deck before arriving at our afternoon hike to Pinnacle Rock (one of the most famous Galapagos sites).

Once we got passed the sea lion guarding the boat dock, it was a fairly easy climb up several hundred steps to the top of the island. The landscape itself was dramatic – almost like being on the moon. Juan called parts of the island a moonscape, and part a Mars-scape, but I’m not versed enough with the planets to tell you what the difference is. Everyone wandered aimlessly about at the top for awhile, glorying in the fact that we’d actually made it to the top, and enjoying the scenery before we all gathered together for one last group shot.

(oops. Couldn't find the one where you could see Jen and Rebecca!)

J: Tonight was our last night onboard the Cachalote. To commemorate the occasion, the chef prepared another fabulous meal and Daniel once again mixed an original cocktail. Juan and the crew also joined us in the dining room so that we could thank all of them for everything they had done for us the past week.

After much talking, laughing and exchanging of emails, we all split off to our cabins to pack our bags and prepare for our early morning wake-up call. The only thing that disappointed me about our time onboard was that we never had salsa night. Since on any given night, half the boat was either sea-sick or sick-sick, everyone was in bed by 8:30 every night.

R: Hm, salsa dancing would have been fun, but the partner options may have left a little something to be desired!

Jen and Rebecca See an Orgy... of Iguanas (1-4-10)

R: We made our last landing on Isabela Island this morning on a beach in Urvina Bay. We saw some swimming flightless cormorants and penguins from a distance, and several hermit crabs greeted us on the beach.

J: Juan told us a story about the feral goats that had previously inhabited Isabela Island. Because the goats were an introduced species, the park service wanted to rid the islands of them. To accomplish this goal, they released a “Judas Goat” (particularly cruel to the male goats as it was a female in heat) into the wild to track down the various herds of goats. Once they were located, the rangers would eliminate them and relocate the Judas Goat so that it could track down another herd. The mission was successful as Isabela Island is now free of feral goats.

Scary tree-goat.

R: We saw a few remaining goat skulls as well as telltale patches of ground with absolutely zero vegetation to show that the goats were once there. This area of the island was also different because an earthquake in the ‘50s elevated the beach, so we saw an inland beach complete with some sand dollar pieces further inland along our walk. We also saw some more land iguanas, but as this island is less visited and more remote, they were much more skittish than those we first saw on South Plazas. Boy can skittish land iguanas move fast.

Next, more snorkeling! Though today’s left a little to be desired as the water was pretty murky. The highlight was before we even got in the water, we saw a California tiger eel swim by the panga, and on the way back to the boat, we saw swimming, mating sea turtles.

This is the eel, not the mating turtles.

J: After lunch, we headed of to Fernandina Island to see the promised orgy of iguanas. And, it was true. There were more marine iguanas than we could count. We even had to watch where we were walking to avoid accidentally stepping on one. I went a little nuts with the photos. I’m not sure I really needed 30 iguana pictures, but that’s the beauty of digital. We also got to see a mink whale skeleton, some living flightless cormorants (those would be birds with tiny useless wings), sally lightfoot crabs and the ever present sea lions. Back on the boat, we began another long sail (11 hours again). Once more, we were promised whales and dolphins. But this time we weren’t disappointed as we got to see some spinner dolphins playing a few hundred yards in front of our boat. Another exciting event of the evening is that we crossed the equator! We’re back the northern hemisphere - at least for a few hours - we cross it again some time in the middle of the night.

R: I actually remembered to take Dramamine an hour before the boat departed and while I was still on dry land, which apparently cured the sea sickness finally. It did provoke a nap on deck, but I was fully awake by the time the dolphins made their appearance as well as to get our free cold cocktail to celebrate crossing the equator. Everyone even made it through dinner, which fortunately took place before the journey got too rough. And since we’re all now getting colds, most of us are heading off for a nice Benedryl-induced nighttime coma. Ah, the power of drugs.

Jen and Rebecca Walk on Lava (1/3/10)

R: Around 2:00 am the boat calmed down as we anchored off of Isabela Island at Pta. Moreno. sabela is the largest of the islands of the Galapagos archipelago and has 5 active volcanoes on it. In the morning, we had a dry landing on a hardened lava flow between the two southern most volcanoes and much of the day’s hike was across lava. I got a little carried away with the cactus photos, I think, because there wasn’t a lot of other wildlife to look at.

A mangrove tree grows in the lava rock.

J: I wasn’t as inspired by the cactus as Rebecca, but I think I got a couple of good photos. The lava made for an interesting walk though. It almost felt as though we were on another planet. The path was a bit precarious in places, but yet still oddly beautiful. There were several lagoons scattered about our walk. The first one had some duck-like birds-morehens- the second had flamingos and the 3^rd was filled with sea life. We perched ourselves several feet above the lagoon for a bird’s eye view of the underwater action. We spied several porcupine puffer fish, a sea turtle and a shark. It almost made up for missing the whales the night before, but not quite.

Morehen butts.

Darwin amongst the desolate lava rock.

R: More snorkeling ensued after the morning’s hike. We saw a sting ray and a huge school of really small fish being picked off by the larger fish. Plus we got to swim with at least one (possibly more) sea turtles again and Jen swam with a diamond ray.

Tiny fishies.

R, continued: During and after lunch, the boat moved up the west coast of Isabela Island to Elizabeth Bay. We had plenty of time for a siesta (I took mine on the deck in a shady patch) before loading the pangas again at 4:00. This time we didn’t land on the island, just turned off the motors and were paddled through inlets in the bay. It was very peaceful, but we didn’t see quite as many animals as we’d hoped, despite Juan’s best efforts to make the Galapagos penguin mating call to round them up. We did see some sea turtles swimming, a blue heron, and a sea lion asleep in a red mangrove tree, though.

Heron

Juan leads the charge.

Jen and Rebecca Swim with Sea Lions, Sea Turtles, and Sharks--Oh My! (1-2-10)

R: Even though we went to sleep at about 8:30 last night, I again had an erratic night of sleep. The boat rocked severely on rough seas until we finally reached Floreana Island at around 1:00 in the morning, after which I think I must have slept better. We made our wet landing at 8:00 and headed out to get a look at the flamingos. We saw a whole herd of them (or I guess maybe you’d call it a flock?) We took a lot of photos from far away that will probably just look like specks, but later in the morning we managed to see them a bit closer up, including a hurried attempt of two of them mating. We also saw an abandoned flamingo egg. Did you know that flamingoes build a little hill to lay their eggs on? Or that they are pink because of all the shrimp they eat?

R (cont’d): We also continued along to a beach on the other side of the island where some sea turtles were sunning themselves on the beach. You could see a bunch of them a little further out in the clear water on their way into shore. The beach is a nesting area, so we also saw some turtle tracks up to dry sand where there were likely eggs. In addition to the mating flamingoes, we also saw two turtles mating. Must have been a good day for animal love…

Sea turtles on the beach (not mating in the photo, obviously)

J: We spent the rest of the morning snorkeling, which made me very happy. Our first bit of snorkeling was off of the beach at Punta Cormorant. I attempted to improve upon my underwater photography skills and think I succeeded, but to be honest, I got a little distracted by everything swimming around me to remember to take many pictures. I do remember a sea turtle, some Technicolor fish and really cool green ones that blended into the moss (and made it exceptionally hard to capture on camera). Once we were done at the beach, we headed off to Devil’s Crown - a swim not meant for the weak of heart or leg-a few of our group stayed behind as a result. The currents were pretty strong, so the first half of the swim was easy, but required a little extra muscle to make it around the corner. But once again, it was worth it as I saw many more brightly colored creatures - and a shark! Don’t worry, mom, it was several feet away and well out of camera range.

R: I was bummed to miss the shark. I was behind the group a little way, admiring the starfish--I may have even taken a decent picture of it, the starfish, that is, not the shark. Then I was a little panicked to be so far behind that I swum to catch up without looking around too much. But I was eventually rewarded with more and different starfish to admire as we went through the middle of the crown. My swimming skills were definitely tested and while I saw some neat fish, I can’t say I was too sad to get back on the pangas for the ride back to the boat. Although the snorkeling excursion did have the added bonus of getting us near some rocks with some adult blue-footed boobies which meant they actually had blue feet.

Juan called this the Mexican Chocolate Chip Starfish.

J: After lunch, we headed into Post Office Bay. it’s a working post office that started in the 1700s as a way for sailors to send letters home (the theory being that sailors would deliver each others’ letters), but is still in operation today. Upon arrival, we searched the mailbox (it kind of looked like an overgrown birdhouse to me) for any letters from our hometowns that we could deliver either by hand or US Postal Service. Alas, there were none addressed to Denver, but Rebecca found a couple headed to the Twin Cities area. Wonder if she’ll hand deliver them…. [R: as of 2/27, I've made no deliveries!]

R: I intend to. But Eden Prairie IS awfully far from Woodbury. We also posted a few of our own postcards, so if you’re one of the lucky recipients, let us know when you get them so we can see how long it took. We concluded our Floreana visit by watching our crew and the two college-aged guy passengers playing soccer. It was way too hot for me to be playing a sport, but they all seemed to be enjoying it. Then Juan told us the story of the German lady and her sex slaves who one populated the island. But then another German lady murdered them. The island has a bit of a sordid past and I think there’s a book about it that I intend to read when we return. I like reading about sordid history, after all. Back on the boat, we began an 11-hour trip to our next port by sitting on deck whale-watching. Well, that is if it’s still considered whale-watching if you don’t see any whales. More like whale-waiting and being disappointed.

J: It wasn’t for lack of trying, we had several eyes on the water, but the pesky whales did not want to cooperate. The first 3 hours of the trip weren’t too bad - definitely rocky - but with lots of distractions, so no one really got too sick. Once the sun went down and we came inside, the story changed. At least 4 of the passengers (Rebecca included) ate dinner at the crew table outside because their seasickness prevented them from being able to eat inside. Plus, a couple more just passed on dinner. In total, 11 of 15 passengers were not feeling well that night. But, Juan did his best to distract folks from their misery by telling funny stories from his 21 year guiding career. Plus, since I was one of the lucky 4, I got a free beer!

R: Hooray for a place where going to bed at 8:00 is acceptable, is all I’ve got to say.

Jen and Rebecca Swim with the Fishes (1/1/10)

R: Happy New Year! For once drinking too much was not the reason I didn’t sleep well on a New Year’s night. Instead it was because the ship rocked and rolled all night long and the sleeping pill did NOT knock me out! Oh well. I must have gotten at least catnaps in between boat movements. We arrived at our next port at Espanola Island (also known as Hood Island) around 5:30, well before breakfast at 7:00. We had our first wet-landing in Gardner Bay, but it was on a smooth sandy beach, so we didn’t even need to wear sandals. We had a few hours to lie down with the many sea lions and wander the beach, and swim. We saw a hawk perched on the rocks, many un-shy mockingbirds, the bazillions of napping sea lions, as well as a number of tourists on the beach.


J: The sea lions were quite used to tourists and actually posed for several of our photos. After about an hour of floating in the water and taking endless shots of the sea creatures, we headed back to the ship to prepare for our first snorkeling adventure. We brought our own snorkels and masks (which Rebecca bought the week before the trip), but thought it wise to rent wet suits so that we could stay warmer in the water. We put on our snorkel gear and rode the pangas out to a rocky little island and jumped overboard. I saw an endless number of brightly colored fish, a diamond ray, and some coral (sadly, no sharks yet). Unfortunately, my underwater photography skills leave a lot to be desired, so I didn’t get very many good pictures to actually prove I was there.


R: But it was fun trying. I somehow managed to get my finger in several of my photos. Need to work on that for next time, I guess. I also saw a sea lion swimming right next to me which was pretty cool. After our lunch break (and my siesta) back on the boat, we returned to shore after moving to Punta Suarez on the other side of the island. This hike was another bird and iguana paradise. We saw only one blue-footed booby upon landing that actually had the blue feet. The others we saw were all juveniles whose feet had yet to turn blue. But to make up for that, we saw a whole lot of Nasca boobies, one sitting on its egg, then another hovering over its tiny chick, and yet another sitting on TWO eggs. Plus we saw a marine iguana in full mating-ready color showing off for some lady marine iguanas, plus a bunch of baby iguanas.

Nasca booby

Preening male iguana with the ladies in the background

J: Rebecca neglected to mention my awesome bird photography. I got a beautiful picture of a frigate bird as it was passing overhead. Some may call it luck, but I prefer to say that I’m immensely talented. Juan had warned us earlier that we may not see any albatrosses today, but we actually saw quite a few, including a couple of juveniles. My favorite part of the day was when we sat on a cliff near the ocean and watched water shoot up thru a blow-hole. I’m guessing there were some animals playing nearby too….

Jen's frigate bird photo

R: Yeah, we saw a Galapagos hawk swooping through and perching on a rock here. Plus we could admire three young albatrosses here. December is apparently the end of their season on Espanola Island, so seeing 9 was really pretty lucky. Back aboard the boat, we had dinner (complete with wine brought from the mainland by some of our shipmates) before the boat took off for another overnight sea voyage adventure. Early to bed again, mostly because it’s impossible to do much of anything else while the boat is moving over rough waters without at least half of us feeling ill…

Jen and Rebecca Gain a New Appreciation for Birds 12/31/09

R: We went to bed last night already anchored in the Puerto Ayora bay. Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos, with about 30,000 people and also the home of the Charles Darwin Research Station where we started our day. We of course got distracted on our walk to the Station, though, by the many birds and other finches along the road. Plus we stopped at a fish market to watch a variety of birds and seals try to steal the fishmongers’ goods.

A brown pelican wins some fish parts after a tug-of-war with another bird.

J: Once we finally made it inside the research station, we stopped to view some more birds. Our group gets exceptionally excited by the sightings of tiny little brown birds. And there are several varieties of them! After each of the little creatures was properly identified and photographed, we were off to see the giant tortoises. Each island has its own species of tortoise so we could see the differences up close here in captivity.

A ground finch. I think maybe it's a medium ground finch. We saw lots and lots of finches.

R: We also got to see Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise from Pinta Island. They’ve been looking for a mate for George so that the particular type of tortoise doesn’t go extinct, but so far, no luck. George isn’t interested in any of the fine lady tortoises thrown his way. Much to the amusement of my shipmates, I pulled out Emma’s knit turtle that I’d brought along to try to photograph with real turtles/tortoises. One of the tortoises really seemed to like him, probably because the bright green color made him think it was lettuce. We also got to see lots of little baby tortoises that live at the station until they are old enough not to get eaten by predators before being returned to their home islands.

Tortoise eyeing my knit turtle suspiciously

Tortoise agitated by the knit turtle

J: After we finished up at the Research Center, we had some time to wander about town and do some shopping. Sadly, we didn’t find much to buy. I guess that will help keep me under my 20kg weight limit for the flight back to Quito. For lunch, we had some yummy beef and potatoes and then spent the rest of the time before out next adventure relaxing on the boat with the other passengers. The tour operators are smarter than the tourists who sign up for these cruises and they realize that we cannot spend all day in the equatorial sun and survive, so we generally have a 2-3 hour break between our morning and afternoon activities to relax on the boat. The first day it seemed quite long but I’ve grown to appreciate the break.

R: After our break, we loaded the pangas (the motorized rafts that take us to shore) again and headed back to Puerto Ayora. This time we loaded a bus that took us up into the highlands of the center of the island where we walked through was is essentially a rustic tortoise farm, though also a wildlife sanctuary. On the way we were stopped in the road by some men who were dressed as women, we think in celebration of the new year. They let us pass after giving them some change.

J: As soon as we started our walk thru the park, we spotted the elusive vermillion flycatcher. It’s a bright red bird that one of our travel-mates had been wanting to spot. Unfortunately, the little guy didn’t want to sit still long enough for Rebecca or I to get a good picture of him. Onward down the trail, we spotted many tortoises, several more finches and a barn owl hiding in a lava tube (a giant tunnel left behind after a volcanic eruption). The tortoises proved to be the most photogenic, perhaps because they didn’t move that quickly and they weren’t hiding in the dark, so we have close to 20 tortoise shots.

Barn owl

Tortoise in the wild

R: We also saw a variety of plants including a grapefruit tree, a coffee tree, Spanish Cyprus, blackberry bushes (and we each ate one without any ill effects) as well as Galapagos mistletoe. At the end of the trail, we ended up back at the farm house where we were able to have some tea and coffee (with optional complimentary shots of rum) and listened to Juan sing some traditional songs. After the bus ride back to town, we returned to the boat again for dinner (a full turkey in honor of the New Year--plus champagne) Then we headed back to the mainland for some New Year’s fun. Granted, most of the town’s fun wasn’t scheduled to begin until midnight and we had to be back on the boat by 10:00, but we did have some big beers, danced in the courtyard, and saw the various effigies set to be burned at midnight to usher in a good new year. Back on the boat, I loaded up some Juan-endorsed sleeping pills to get through a rollicking night of sailing to our next destination.