Las Islas Encantadas // The Enchanted Islands

    Over the past five months, I have had the most incredible opportunities to travel and see some really beautiful parts of Ecuador, and while I was excited for every bit of it, there was nothing that I was more excited for than my trip to the Galapagos Islands. One of the most well protected, biodiverse and bio-unique places in the whole world. My expectations were high, but the reality exceeded anything that I could have ever imagined.

Day 1: Friday, May 18th

    The day started early in Quito with a 3AM wake up call. The airport was about an hour away and we needed  to be there by 5 to sort everything out and meet with the company that we had organized the 5 day cruise with. Like most Galapagos flights from Quito we had a short hop over to Guayaquil and then to the Galapagos, it took just under 3 hours for the whole journey. Our flight landed in the small airport on Baltra Island where you pay a fee to enter the national park. Typically for foreigners, it costs $100 a person but is less for Ecuadorians. With my Ecuadorian student ID I was allowed in on a discount. We got there early, right around 11AM where we were met by one of our two tour guides for the 5 day cruise with the Galaven cruise company. A ferry and a bus ride later, we had moved from the south of Baltra Island, to the south of Santa Cruz. We were greeted on the dock by lazy sea lions basking in the sun (more on the sea lions later). We ate lunch on the boat before heading back to land to check out the giant tortoise reserve on the island. We walked along the paths, keeping our eyes peeled for the gentle giants as the scent of guava filled our noses. Fun fact: guava is not actually a plant that is native to the Galapagos but still turns out to be one of the tortoises’ favorite foods.

   GIANT TORTOISES: They’re called giant tortoises for a reason, but I was still in shock at the sheer size and mass of the prehistoric looking creatures. Basking in the mud or grass, you could almost mistake them for giant boulders if it wasn’t for their slow march across the ground.

    After that was done, we had about an hour to explore the central town in Santa Cruz right on the water, which mostly consisted of restaurants and tourist shops. I got some kiwi/coconut helado de paila (ecuadorian way of making ice cream) and watched a rousing game of Ecuavoley that was taking place next to the docks, complete with bets being exchanged on the edges of the courts by the locals. Our time here quickly came to a close and we headed back to the boat to eat and relax for the night. I was lucky enough to share my tiny quarters below deck with an extremely sweet Australian girl who had quit her job five months earlier to come and travel through South America. I already love to travel but hearing how brave she was to just up and leave to see the world really made me think of how much I would love to travel and experience the world in a similar way. Among the other cruise guests we had a group from Spain, an Australian couple, a mother and daughter from the Italian speaking region of Switzerland and even two women from just up north in Seattle, WA.

Day 2:

    Saturday morning we woke up early, except a lot of us had a hard time sleeping because the ship had sailed to the other side of the island during the night. You could tell that we were all in a bit of a haze as we walked into the sunshine of the day. The next stop for us was Dragon Hill on Santa Cruz. It was appropriately named because the hill near the volcano is crawling with a large population of land iguanas.

   LAND IGUANAS: Huge, stoic reptiles with a mean face and even meaner looking spikes on their backs. They raise up their long, thick tails when they feel threatened and you can definitely see why those things are used as weapons. Dragon is a pretty spot-on descriptor. Bodies of yellow that fade into brown as mating season comes to a close, they looked as magnificent as they did mean.

    The PM stop for the day was Bachas Beach. Also on Santa Cruz, we got to see hundreds of crabs scuttling along the rocks, some flamingoes, and a lava gull (similar to a seagull but with a dark body that ómbres from gray to almost black). The beautiful islands were taking my breath away more and more every day. We finished off the night with dinner, drinks, and cards among friends.

Day 3:

    New day, new island. Our Sunday in Floreana would start off with a visit to Post Office Bay. We got there by dinghy boat, as we did all of our excursions, and as we were approaching the rocks around the islands we saw sea lions everywhere: basking on the rocks, playing in the shallows and diving in to check out their human visitors. As we approached the beach, two more were swimming in the shallows and paying little attention to the people standing only yards away. The really cool part about Post Office Bay is the reason that it got its name. Years ago an explorer came to the bay which was a popular stopping point for travelers. He installed a barrel in which travelers could put their letters so that if someone else passing through was traveling to the destination of the letter, they would take it and hand deliver it to the recipient. Many barrels have been replaced in this spot, but the sentiment remains the same: leave your letter, and the next time that someone passes through with a similar destination, they will hand deliver it for you. The letters in there were from all over the world and some were much older than others. Sadly, none of them had final destinations of Oregon or Washington. Nonetheless, we left our letters in the hopes that they would reach our loved ones someday. We then proceeded to hop into the water for a bit of snorkeling. Despite the murky water we saw some really cool fish and even a green sea turtle. He floated along with us as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

    The plans for the second part of the day was snorkeling around the Devil’s Crown (a rock formation) and seeing Cormorant Point. Unfortunately, the water was a bit rough so Devil’s Crown was not an option, so instead we floated closer to the shore to dive in which ended up being a blessing in disguise. I spent a while floating around and seeing a lot of similar fish and then, all of the sudden I saw something zip past me in the water. I spun around to see a young sea lion swimming around just yards away. This is what I had been waiting for.

    SEA LIONS: In Spanish “lobos marinos” or sea wolves and the name is appropriate not because sea lions are wild or scary (they’re fish hunters not people hunters), but because they are playful like puppies. The little dude put on a show just feet away from us, spinning in circles and flipping around, blowing bubbles and waiting for us to blow them back, which we did happily. My roommate and I probably swam there with it for 5 minutes before realizing everyone else had swam a good distance away from us, so we quickly swam to catch up. It was incredible to say the least. As klutzy as sea lions look on land, they are stunningly graceful in the water. I swear I have found my spirit animal. They enjoy sleeping in the sun and being lazy part time and the other part they are high energy, adventurous and playful creatures.

    We hopped out of the water to explore Cormorant Point where oddly enough we saw no cormorants. However, we saw a massive population of flamingos that represented at least 10% of the entire Galapagos population. We hiked to a beach on another another part of the island where we all had a quite horrifying experience. The white sand beach was home to many green sea turtle nests. Some babies had shifted too much in their nest and were spotted by some friggot birds from above that had then drawn the attention of a blue heron. We watched helplessly as the heron dove his beak in and mercilessly ate 15 baby turtles. Our shrieks of terror didn’t phase him, and he went on feasting like a king. We all returned to the boat feeling sufficiently depressed

 HERONS: not a fan.

Day 4:

    Monday had new adventures in store for us on our second to last island on Española. We woke up early again and headed in towards the island where the beach was covered in sea lions (already a win in my book) and marine iguanas.

    MARINE IGUANAS: Smaller than land iguanas and black with some red coloring. The cool thing about these little guys is that it doesn't seem like they should be able to swim but nonetheless, they crawl into the ocean and eat algae off of the rocks underwater.

    We continued down the path and were encountered by first one, then two, and then hundreds of birds. Blue footed boobies, Nazca boobies, gulls and albatrosses.

    BOOBIES: Very cool birds when considering one species has bright blue feet and another sports a vibrant red. The different boobies live in different places with different habitats. For example, blue footed boobies nest near the ocean so they have plenty of food normally to nourish the two chicks that they usually have. However, Nazca boobies live inland and can’t access food as frequently so they will always choose one chick to live over the other. Their hunting method is also super interesting because they dive into the water by plummeting at about 70 mph so they have to angle their bodies perfectly depending on the depth of the water so that they can enter safely and get the fish. The long and hot hike around Suarez point was definitely worth it, and I have the tan lines to prove it.

    In the PM we did a bit more snorkeling before calling it a day, and on our sail that evening from Española to San Cristobal we were lucky enough to see dolphins swimming along with us and jumping out of the water next to the boat.

    We got to San Cristobal later that night and instead of staying on the boat the “under 30’s club” and I headed onto the island and into town for drinks and maybe dancing with one of our tour guides, one of who was born and raised on the island. We went to a little bar to get drinks before heading to the discoteca. We picked up a bottle of homemade caña (Ecuadorian alcohol made from fermented sugar cane) from a guy on the side of his house and entered the discoteca. We were the only people there. So we danced to some reggaeton, and then some salsa before heading back to the boat at about 1AM. We played some cards but the next thing I knew, I was in my bed fast asleep.  

Day 5:

    The final day of the trip creeped up on us fast. I, myself was certainly not ready to go. We went to the interpretation station in San Cristobal that talked all about the history of the islands and animals before heading into the town for about an hour to check out the souvenirs or grab something to eat. A couple of us went to grab some juices, looked at souvenirs, watched the sea lions sunbathing by the sand, and before we knew it, it was time to go. We headed to the airport and after about an hour, we were off.

    Seeing and visiting the Galapagos Islands was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. It reminds us how the world was before humans came along and destroyed a good chunk of it. Beautiful, biodiverse sanctuaries like the Galapagos are so valuable in this world and humans, as inhabitants of the Earth, need to work harder to protect both natural reserves such as this as well as nature as a whole, even the forests and critters that we see in our own backyards. Off to the next adventure.

Chao por ahora,

Claire