JAB Post 30

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 20: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbartucz/20100720?feat=directlink

While we were eating breakfast, an announcement came over the loudspeakers that we should head to the bow of the boat. We all rushed out to see what it could be. As we looked down, 4 dolphins were jumping in the water swimming back and forth between the hulls of our catamaran. I asked the captain how fast we were going and he said about 15 knots.

We landed on Islas Lobos (Sea Lion Island) and went for a hike. The highlight of this trip was certainly the blue-footed boobie nests, which were literally under foot. The birds were so non-chalant that one could have picked up the chicks and carried them around.






After chugging along for a couple of hours, we stopped at the Island of San Cristobal. We took a 30-minute bus ride across to a Tortoise breeding farm. Every year, they take about 10-20 eggs, put them in an incubator and breed them to maturity before releasing them back to the wild.

The goal is to attain proficiency at breeding in captivity in case anything drastic should happen to the wild tortoise population. Michelle spotted about 10 of the 30 captive tortoises and we all got some good pictures.


After San Cristobal, we visited the town of Puetro Baquerizo Moreno, the political capital of the Galapagos. We all bought souvenirs and wandered up and down the main street along the shore. About 5,000 people live in the town, but it seemed completely deserted.

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 19: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbartucz/20100719?feat=directlink

On Monday, we had breakfast with Doug and Mandy. Doug is in the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center and Mandy teaches biology on the base as a civilian. They live in Kaiserslautern, just outside the base and they decided to travel all the way to the Galapagos for their honeymoon. We ended up eating most of our meals sitting between them and the Swiss couple, Daniel and Cassienne. I suppose it was the “young couples” group.





After breakfast, we were dropped off on the beach of James Bay and went for a really nice hike. We saw our first finches, night herons and even a great blue heron. Of course, the requisite mockingbirds, crabs, iguanas, sea turtles and sea lions were also present.






We spent quite a bit of time near a small inlet/large tide-pool with a natural bridge over the entrance. It was entrancing to watch the sea lions playing together, twirling around and jumping out of the water.





After the hike, we snorkeled around the beach of the same island and we saw a couple more sea turtles and even a manta ray in the sand. Snorkeling in the Galapgos is a different experience every day. The water at this time of year is usually reasonably clear and cold. Javier said that the advantage to the cold water is that there is more oxygen available and therefore more nutrients for the fish (and the rest of the food chain) which makes for a better experience.





We went for one more hike on Tuesday, this time on Rabida Island. The highlight of the hike was supposed to be a nesting ground of flamingos, but none of them were home that day. It was literally the _only_ time we went to an island to see a specific animal and they did not appear. I don’t know if it was typical of the Galapagos, but we seemed to have led a charmed tour.

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 18.

On Sunday we woke up at 6:45 to pan-flute Lionel Ritchie musak on an overcast day with a light drizzle. Not to be deterred, after breakfast we had a quick safety meeting and then we all jumped in the 2 pangas for a cruise around the mouth of “Sea Lion island”, Isabela. Despite the cloudy sky, we saw dozens of Blue-Footed Boobies, Noddy Terns, Frigate Birds, iguanas and crabs above the water, and sea-turtles, fur-seals and fish swimming below us.



After the panga cruise, we immediately changed back into our wetsuits to see what else we could find below the waves. The visibility was not quite as good as the day before, but we still managed to see all kinds of fish, sea turtles, a few small jelly-fish, one shark and a very playful family of seals.



After about 30 minutes of snorkeling we were all pretty cold, so we got out of the water and into the Pangas. On the way back to the Athala, the drivers chased around a Galapagos sun-fish (mola mola) which has no tail, but a large dorsal fin that sticks above the water and a ventral fin underneath. Because of the strange anatomy, the fish sways and rolls from side-to-side to propel itself forward.



We were really cold after that, so we took a long, hot shower and had lunch. This time it was chicken and beef tacos. The meals were all served at a single large table with all the guests seated together. The first portion of the cruise was attended by a family from New York, a family from California, a couple who were friends of the Californians, a couple from Switzerland and an American couple living in Germany who were on their honeymoon. The group naturally separated into three – the Californians who all knew each other from before, the NY family of five, including their three 20-something daughters and then the three couples: Swiss, American and us.



We were given almost 30 minutes to relax before our next outing, this time for a hike on Fernandina island. This is the first time we really got close to the animals on land. There were dozens of boobies dive-bombing for fish off the edge of the island. They truly are graceful in the air, despite their awkward clown-walk on land. Once we alighted, we saw hundreds upon hundreds of iguanas, lizards and crabs.

The iguanas had just finished their lunch as well and many were swimming in a line through the lagoon towards the shore. On the shore itself were several sea lions basking in the sun as well as a male and female pair of terns at their nest. Some previous guides had also collected the bones of a sperm whale which had beached across the island and laid them out in bright contrast to the black lava rock.



As we sailed to and from Fernandina, we crossed the equator each time. This trip was the first time I had ever crossed the equator by any means. In addition, while we were enjoying some time to read and relax on the upper deck, the captain made an announcement that whales were spouting ahead of us. True enough, about a kilometer ahead of us we could see the spray shooting up into the air every few minutes. Another first for me.

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 17: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbartucz/20100717?feat=directlink

We woke up at 6:45 to get ready for our trip to the Galapagos. I felt some minor some gastro issues (uh oh, was it the shrimp?). We tried to go downstairs for breakfast, but a German tour group had just arrived in front of us. There were almost no supplies left and the poor waiter looked like he was about to quit. After that surreal experience, we went back up to our room to finishing getting ready and got a ride to the airport from an INSANE hotel porter. I mean, I lived in New York for 5 years and never had a worse cab ride.

The trip itinerary we were given told us to wait at the ticket desk to meet a representative from the tour company. After waiting around for 20 minutes, we tried calling both emergency numbers to no avail. Starting to panic, we went to check in ourselves and ran into our cruise representative. At this point, I started to feel quite a bit worse and wished that I had not checked the Pepto-Bismol in with the luggage.

Once we were on the plane, we took off towards the Galapagos, stopping briefly in Guayaquil. When one arrives in the Galapagos, one is supposed to pay the $100 / person National Park entry fee. Ours was pre-paid by our tour company, but since we neither had $200 nor knew how to say “pre-paid” in Spanish, there were a few more moments of panic. They take their security very seriously.

Once that was all sorted out, we met our guide and some of the other cruise passengers and took a bus and “Panga” to the ship. The “Panga” is a large inflatable raft similar to a Zodiac which seats about 10 people and is what we would be using to visit all of the islands. The ship Athala is an eight-bedroom catamaran with a 10-person crew: our naturalist “Javier”, the captain, first and second mates, cabin boy, chef, assistant chef, engineer, and two cruise representatives, who took on various duties.

We immediately set out for our first adventure. After sailing for about 20 minutes, we stopped to snorkel around Bartholome Island. Everyone was wearing wetsuits as the water is about 50 degrees. We were very lucky on this first day as we saw starfish, several eagle rays and other types of rays, a couple of sharks, sea turtles and a sea-lion. The water was quite clear, so I decided to try the video-camera on the next snorkle.

After coming back on board and warming up with some hot-chocolate, we had 3 minutes to change for a sunset hike up one of the highest walking paths on the Galapagos Islands. We took many pictures as we climbed up to the lighthouse and Javier gave us some introductory information about the formation of the islands.

We returned to the Athala just in time to change and get ready for dinner. I was still not feeling 100%, so I didn’t eat much, but the food was excellent none-the-less.

Click here to view the full album of photos from July 16: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbartucz/20100716?feat=directlink

We left Cuzco at 10 am on a flight to Lima, which was unfortunate as we had to pick up our luggage and re-check it and also pay departure taxes at both Cuzco and Lima before making it to Quito. These airport departure taxes are quite annoying. But I digress….

We arrived at our hotel, Le Parc, right around 4 pm. The hotel is very modern and stylish, but the service leaves something to be desired. In any case, we checked in to the hotel and immediately set out for the downtown market before everything closed for the evening. It was inside a building with about 15 corridors of little shops nestled side-by-side, selling pretty much the same stuff over and over again.

The Mercado Central had more leather goods than the Peruvian equivalents that we saw and Michelle ended up getting a couple nice scarves for a small price, but it didn’t take us long to get through the whole thing. The stalls that kept our attention were a few nice artistic shops (painting and woodcarving). Interestingly, the market seemed to cater to at least 50% locals and not just to tourists.

It had started raining by this time, so we quickly headed over to the Plaza Foch, which is Ecuadorian for “Tourist Central”. We found an interesting-looking restaurant called “La Boca Del Lobo” and decided to eat dinner there. The plates were slightly larger than tapas, so we ordered 4 or 5 of them and had a big meal. When the shrimp came, Michelle mentioned that they tasted a bit off. My response was “bah! they’re fine!” and I ate the rest of them. Sigh.

After dinner, it was straight back to the hotel as it was raining and we had an early morning ahead of us.