Galapagos – 2011

Galapagos – Arrival – 01

Galapagos – Arrival – 02

Galapagos – Arrival – 03

Galapagos – Arrival – 04

Galapagos – Arrival – 05

This is our ship, the Monsurat. Needless to say it is way too small to have stabilizers and at anchor it rolled and rolled with each swell.

Galapagos – Arrival – 06

This is our bed, taking up 99% of the room. The anchor made out of the towels was cute though. Each room came with a private bath, small but functional. Showers with fresh water were limited to 2 minutes.

Galapagos – Arrival – 07

At the time this photo was taken I had been on the boat about a half hour. I took double the dose of the anti motion sickness pills and my head still wouldn’t stop swaying. Pete went to have lunch with the rest of the people. I stayed in this position waiting to die.

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 01

Iguana

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 02

These are the people from our group…16 in all.

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 03

Bird grooming himself

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 04

Red/orange crabs on the lava rock

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 05

Charles Darwin Research Center

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 06

The largest opuntia cactus in the world are here, even developing trunks, rather tree-like. The temperature, here just south of the equator is hot and humid…..make that very hot and very humid.

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 07

Some of the older fellows in this pic.

Galapagos – Charles Darwin Research Center – 08

The small tortoises were in pens with netting on top to keep the birds away birds of prey.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 01

Here is a pic of our balcony.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 02

This is the view from our balcony.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 03

This is the front of the hotel.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 04

Beautiful bougainvillea down the block. We always wore long sleeves because of sun and insects. Interesting that the streets were made out of concrete patio stones.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 05

Pete and Charles Darwin

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 06

Exhibit on sea lions, interesting skeleton.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 07

Another of the huge opuntia cactus trees.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 08

Some of the locals.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 09

Tortoises like muddy ponds, mud holes and often blend into the same color as the dirt and you don’t see them at first. Look at the size of the huge elephant-like legs.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 10

A sculpture in the city park at the fishing village. We also stopped at art galleries, fish markets with flocks of obnoxious pelicans, and some tourist shops. Notice I’m not green any more. =)

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 11

Pete, of course, wanted his photo taken by the (Blue-Footed) BOOBIES sign.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 12

Took lots of pelican pics, here is one. The guys at the fish market had to keep waving their machetes over the chunks of fresh fish to keep the pelicans at bay. I swear, if the men took a 5 minute break all the fish chunks would have disappeared into the gullets of the pelicans. The birds were aggressive.

Galapagos – Santa Cruz Island – 13

This is the inside of our room at the Casa Natura. It had air conditioning from 7 am to 10 pm. Had a TV but everything was in Spanish. Would have been nice to have a computer here. There was WiFi.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 01

First stop were two sink holes, impressive, like a lost world down there.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 02

Most animals are tied to the side of the road to graze, no fences like a typical pasture here. Here was a horse tied with a rope around his neck tied to a church.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 03

It impressed me that the animals weren’t nervous or concerned at all about the traffic driving past.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 04

This bull was following his herd of cows down the dirt road and for 15 minutes he refused to move to the side, our bus just followed patiently. We were on our way to a lava tube tunnel.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 05

This is the decent into the lava tube, it was cooler down there, a surprise bit of air conditioning. The walls of the lava tube were made smooth by water at one time. You would swear it was man-made, but it wasn’t. Enormous compared to the lava tubes we’ve been in here is NM.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 06

The lava tube had lights installed, otherwise we could never walk on the uneven surface. We never did see the opening at the other end….or maybe there wasn’t another opening. We walked about a half mile underground.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 07

Echo factors too.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 08

Back on the surface we spent time with a whole bunch of tortoises, the bus stopping whenever they were spotted. We were close enough to watch them eat and chew, poop and pee. Had to watch where we were stepping.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 09

This one was right in the backyard of some farmer.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 10

Occasionally we were lucky enough to see them interacting with each other. I wish I knew more about their social structure. I’d say that 75% were awake and moving, eating, etc. Only 25% were sleeping.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 11

These two seemed to be having a stand off.

Galapagos – Rejoined the tour – 12

Right after this photo was taken one of the tortoises in the middle of the mud pond stood up tall on his legs, stretched his neck high and uttered a loud sound, something like HARRRRRAH. Considering most of the time tortoises are silent animals, it was a very special experience for us to witness this display of vocal yelling. He only did it once and then wandered out of the pond to resume eating grass.

Galapagos – Distillery – 01

Here is a photo of our tour bus, pulling us to a restaurant to have lunch, out in the country.

Galapagos – Distillery – 03

After lunch we went to a farm where the family distills rum from sugar cane, grows a little coffee and from the stories the old guy told, he spends a lot of time plying local officials with alcohol and getting drunk. The donkey goes in circles and the cane is crushed, the liquid saved to ferment. Here you can see the cane and the metal vice-like thing.

Galapagos – Distillery – 04

At the end the donkey seemed interested in eating the cane pulp. Considering the heat, it wasn’t an easy job for the donkey.

Galapagos – Distillery – 05

This is part of the still, rendering vapor that is then cooled into alcohol.

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 01

Bougainvillea

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 02

It is a most beautiful resort

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 03

Including a pool and hot tub.

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 04

Here is our room “name”

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 05

In front of all the rooms are hammocks.

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 06

Nice to rest after a busy day

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 07

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 08

And more bougainvillea

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 09

Dinner this night was meatloaf. Only the fourth time we’ve had beef on the whole trip. The previous three times the beef was as tough as shoe leather. This meatloaf was excellent. Mosquitoes were somewhat bothersome, but not bad enough to ruin a wonderful evening. The next morning we flew back to Guayaquil and Quito.

Galapagos – Altair Hotel – 10

The sky was overcast like this most all of the time in South America, rarely a NM blue sky.