Los Galapagos Part I

Hola!

Well, Mitch and I have survived the 7 day Galapagos cruise, and are now halfway through our 3 day stay on the island of Santa Cruz. It is time for a recap of our Galapagos adventure so far, starting 8 days ago, on a Sunday. This will have to be written in installements, because there is just too much to say!

Sunday - Baltra and Santa Cruz Islands

Sunday morning we flew from Guayaquil to Baltra Island. Baltra used to be a US military base during WWII, and today there is pretty much nothing there for tourists to see. It is a small island, and just used as an airport today. When we arrived at the airport, there were guides from all of the boats and hotels meeting the passengers. We couldn´t find ours anywhere. All the other passengers left on buses, and it was just us. Mitch got a calling card and started calling the contact numbers we were given, but couldn´t get through to anyone! Half an hour later he tried again, and this time was successful. Turns out the boat thought we were coming in on a later flight than we did. Our guide was already there but wasn´t expecting us. It all worked out in the end, of course, we just had to wait an hour or so, and then we met the rest of the people on our boat and were off on the bus. We took the bus to the edge of Baltra, then a short ferry ride, then another bus down to Puerto Ayora, the largest city in the Galapagos, and the Port in which our boat was anchored.

The other passengers on our boat are very important for the upcoming stories about our trip. There was a family from the Yukon (what are the chances????) consisting of the father, Grahm, the mother, Lauren, and two kids, Emily (fantastic, just what I wanted, another Emily on a small boat) aged 14, and Jessica, aged 11. There were two older women, sisters, from the US...so many stories about them...their names are not important, the crew referred to them as The Ladies, and Mitch and I called them Grandma Dukes (I don´t know where he came up with that name) and Grandma Tilly. They were about 60 years old. We were supposed to also have 2 other people, their friends, who were even older, but thank goodness they cancelled, and we got a couple in their late 20s from Holland, Heike and Joris.

We took a small dingy out to our boat, the Valkeria, a small but really nice catamaran. Our cabin was very very small, but the bed was really big, which was the most important part. The bathroom was small but functional. We found out days later that 2 of the other cabins didn´t even have showers...the tap in the sink pulled out and you had to shower basically on top of the toilet! Thank goodness we didn´t get that one!

I should also tell you about the crew...our guide was Dario, who was young, only 25, which was good because we saw a lot of older and less energetic guides with other groups. His favourite expressions were ¨Oh My God¨ ¨It is only 200 m¨ (when in fact it was a couple km), ¨Take a picture!¨. There was also the Captian, the First Mate, the Chef (who was AMAZING), the mechanic, and the bartender-waiter. All of them seemed to do everything though, including driving the dingy, driving the boat, and cleaning.

As soon as we got on the boat we had lunch and then it was time for our first activity. Kayaking! We didn´t even know this was on the itenary. We quickly changed into our bathing suits, and hopped into the kayaks. Watching the grandmas get in was pretty entertaining. This was no easy kayak. The port was pretty choppy, and it took pretty much all of Mitch and mine´s strength (we were in the same kayak) to get out there in a relatively straight line. Needless to say, the grandmas turned back pretty quickly. The rest of us kayaked to a really pretty place, a long little cover between 2 tall rock banks. Here we saw:
- Blue Footed Booby (has these amazing blue feet)
- More than 3 kinds of crabs including the Galapagos crab
- Many black marine iguanas
- the Galapagos Sea Lion
- Friggat Birds
- White Tip Sharks
- Pelicanos
- the Noddy Bird
- the Night Heron
- A couple different Darwin Finches (there are 30 or so of them)

We then paddled to another place and got out for a hike. Dario said to wear shoes, but he wasn´t wearing any, and so I asked if we needed them and he pointed to some big rocks and said the path was like that. So I told Mitch we didn´t need any. Well, turns out the path was all small pebbles and sharp rocks. And cactus prickles. And lava lizards. And we needed shoes but didn´t have them and it was the most painful thing either of us had felt. He didn´t say a word to me the whole walk he was so pissed off. It was definately the worst 45 minutes of the entire trip. We survived. Barely.

On the way back, Mitch and I fell out of the kayak. This is about as funny as it sounds. Very. He of course blamed me, and we had to switch positions. It was a nice little dip. But we were freezing. Luckily the crew greeted us on the ship with hot chocolate.

It was soon time for dinner, but I felt super sea sick even though we hadn´t started to move. I was really tired and the harbour was pretty choppy. I ate as much as I could as fast as I could and went to lie down.

Mitch came soon after, also not feeling well. This quickly turned into a hysterical laughing fit, discussing the days activities, and the fact that we were on a boat for 7 days and not feeling well. I am typing this all up from notes I made on the boat, and Mitch added in here that an important quote from me is ¨It hasn´t even been 7 hours and we have 7 days here. What the fuck are we doing here, let´s go home.¨

The boat started up and set sail...It was a very rocky night. Our door was rattling, the camera charger fell out of the wall, glasses fell to the floor in the kitchen. Not too fun. Mitch told me to just pretend it was a gentle rocking...I told him it was a %$%&#$ rollercoaster. The girls in the cabin beside us left their window open, and a massive wave came in a flooded their bed. I had wanted to leave ours open too because it was hotter than anything, but Mitch luckily won that arguement. We arrived dry but a bit tired in San Cristobal, the first island we were visiting.

To be continued...