Welcome to the Galapagos

It does take a long time to get to the Galapagos.  This is not for the faint of heart.  First, an hour and a half flight from Guayaquil.  I sat next to a man with his three year old son.  You are a brave man, I said.  Oh, I'm traveling with my wife, two other children, and the two nannies.  I guess that is not so difficult after all.  In the category of "you meet such interesting and unusual people when you travel" ... he was a native of the Galapagos which makes him unusual right away.  He now owns a hotel on the islands, but met his Israeli wife back when he was a guide.  They talk to each other in English because originally that was their common language.  So their eight year old daughter and twin three year olds speak Spanish, Hebrew, and English.  Coincidentally, those are my three languages, but those three year olds already speak better than me, at least in two of the languages.



We landed on Baltra Island which is that little speck just above Santa Cruz Island in the middle.  The airport was built by the US during WWII.  We are at the end of the dry season, so it has not rained in six months.  Everything is brown, dry, and scraggly.  It just looks like dead brush but our guide keeps reminding us that it will all be lush and green in another month.

From the airport, we took a ten minute bus transfer to the dock and a ferry across the channel to Santa Cruz.  Then a one hour bus across Santa Cruz to our starting port of Puerto Ayora.  So the first thing I learned is that these islands are way bigger than I imagined.  Later I would learn that the distance between islands is also bigger than I expected.  Santa Cruz is a typical volcanic island, so crossing it meant going over the mountain.   Along the way, we saw our first giant tortoises, so we had to stop for our first pictures.

 At Puerto Ayora, we took a zodiak (called a panga here) to the Beagle, finally arriving onboard late in the afternoon.   Since we are in a Spanish speaking country, Beagle is pronounced Bee-glay.

We took the panga back into Puerto Ayora to tour the Charles Darwin Research Center.  It turns out there are two species of giant tortoises in the Galapagos.  One has a dome shaped shell.  The other eats from trees, so its shell is high in the front and it has a very long neck.  It is a very bizarre looking animal.



When the Spanish first arrived here, they thought the shell looked like a saddle, so they called it galapago - the Spanish word for saddle.  Thus ... Galapagos Islands.  Who knew?

More "everything you always wanted to know about tortoises but were afraid to ask" ...  Tortoises are land animals.  The giant tortoises here have legs that look like elephant legs.

Turtles swim in water and have flippers.  And terrapins live in brackish water.  Who knew?

In an unfortunate (for the islands' economy) bit of timing, our time in Puerto Ayora was our only chance to buy souvenirs, but how can you buy anything before you know exactly what you are going to see.  I was hoping to see blue footed boobies - their feet are an amazing bright blue - and frigate birds with their bright red sacs inflated, but would I?  Who knew?  I took a chance on a few post cards and magnets.

Finally, back on board, I got acquainted with my shipmates for the week.  A family from Miami with three sons in their twenties, a Dutch couple with their thirteen year old daughter, a young Chinese couple on their honeymoon, and my roomie - a German woman who has lived in the States for a dozen years and now lives in San Francisco.  And our guide is Rissel, another third generation Galapagos resident.