Galapagos IV (by Mitch)

Wednesday - Floreana

I have been instructed to start this blog post with the story of how grandma tilley got her name. It started with the first day of the trip, and both ladys came out of their rooms wearing these hats that looked a bit ridiculous considering it was very cloudy out. The had tight straps on that fastened to their chin the entire time. A conversation came up about their hats and the one lady got into the story of why she bought the hat. One of her friends was wearing the hat and was walking down a beach in an unknown place - i forget the name...Anyways her friend got robbed of everything he had that was in his pockets...but this tilley hat had a special pocket on the inside in which her friend was carrying $3000 in it, no one knows why he had that amount of money on him but we now know why the hat is so important...I wondered the entire trip whether or not grandma tilley kept her life savings in the top of her hat. Anyways both ladys wore the hat for the entire trip no matter where they went. Graham also had a hat exactly like theirs but refused to wear it because he thought that he would look like a 70 year old lady.

This morning was the captains birthday and the way to get everyone to know this is that he jumps off the boat into the water right after breakfast...soon the crew found out that emilys birthday was only a few days before so they made her jump in too. It was a nice start to the day i guess...

Anyways we got to Floreana and saw 8 levels of vegetation in just 400 meters. We started off by going to a Giant Tortise place where they look after tortises that used to be ex-pets. Babys use to ride the tortises for fun, people owned tortises like people own dogs back in the day. In the same area is where the main soure of water for the island is. The bucaneers came in the 1800s and carved water ways into the rock so it would all drip down into one location. I climbed to the top of where it dripped down, it tasted very good...also filled up my water bottle for the walk back. There was also a very cool section where people carved holes and slots in the rocks which they turned into homes...very large rocks and they had spots for doors, a kitchen area, bedrooms etc...There was also a large face carved into the rocks with plants growing out of the top like hair. Awesome from the other side of the rocks. We then came back to the boat for a light lunch of a variety of fruits and cheese balls and fried fish. Two trips then went out, one to la loberia where the tide was strong, and another one to playa negra...the ladys obviously went to playa negra to stare at birds and reptiles. We walked to la loberia which was about 1 km and jumped off rocks into the water to start snorkeling. About 2 minutes into the snorkeling there were massive sea turtles swimming an arms length away...There must have been over 20 throughout the afternoon, the guide said he had never seen this many before so we were very lucky.

Half way through the snorkel i looked over at em and a sea lion was following her..She pointed it out to me and i continued to swim over...then she continued to swim and the sea lion followed her. The sea lion started to blow bubbles under her and she could feel them...then all of a sudden it got behind her and bit down on her flipper..i was watching this entire thing happen, but wasnt sure if the sea lion was playing or was hungry...Anyways once it latched onto emilys flipper she looked back and she said all she saw were these teeth and two eyes looking at her...again she panicked, started screaming, and kicked her way free...she swam all the way over to the guide who looked at her again like she was a retarded snorkeler. Anyways the sea lion swam away peacefully, i think that it just wanted to play but emily had a freak attack...very funny to see from a distance. We then finished the snorkeling and headed to playa negra to join the ladys for an hour or two. It was a very nice black sandy beach but was too tired to continue to swim so just lay there and had a siesta. Emily really didnt want to go to the beach and was trying desperatly to get back to the boat (for internal reasons) but everyone had to leave together so she had to pucker up and sit on the beach (i think the fruit worked her). We then headed back to the boat to shower and played quarante (an ecuadorian card game) with the crew; although they were trying to explain to us how to play in spainish it was very hard to understand...Still dont know if i won or lost. After everyone was ready we went back to land for an amazing BBQ of fish, chicken, and carne. I must of ate about 4 piece of chicken, 2 carne, and 3 fish...with rice and salads..also had birthday cake to celebrate emily and the captains birthday, very good...Emily salsaed with some of the crew members and this was also where we found out that grandma tilley could dance very well...someone asked how she was so good and it was because she was a BELLY DANCER back in her prime time day. You can now picture grandma tilley shaking her ass in shorts while dancing with the crew members..it was a site to see. Pictures and video were taken. We then headed back to the boat and I passed out from all the food and cervezaaaa...very good day.



The turtles chomping away on almuerzo (lunch)
Mitch drinking the fresh water from the rock crevices.

Emily posing with a giant tortise, see later posting for her posing as a tortise.

Mitch holding on to the first class bus we took up the mountain, we then rode on top of it on the way home, causing sore backs, and bruised ass cheeks.