The Galápagos Islands - Enchanted Isles

The Galápagos - just the name evokes a sense of magic and wonder. From the start of our trip, this was one of the things we'd been looking forward to most, and somewhere we'd both wanted to visit for years. So we were pretty excited as we boarded our plane from Guayaquil, 1000 km and a 2 hour flight away from our destination.

At the cliffs at Floreana island

The Galápagos islands were first officially discovered in 1535 by a Spanish ship that was blown off course en route to Peru from Panama. Later the islands were used as a stop off point by pirates, as well as visited by whalers and fur seal hunters. In 1832, Ecuador took possession of the islands, and made several attempts to establish prison colonies there during the 19th and 20th centuries, most of which were unsuccessful. Famously, HMS Beagle, with the young naturalist Charles Darwin on board, spent several days surveying the Galápagos in 1835. Darwin visited four different islands and noted how the species of certain animals varied between the islands - one of the key observations that later led him to develop his theory of evolution by natural selection.

The famous view of the Galápagos (shame about the weather!), from Bartolomé island.
 Pinnacle rock is on the right.

Nowadays, the Galápagos islands are mostly inhabited by Ecuadoreans and the descendants of European settlers that moved out there in the 1920s and 1930s. Tourism is a key industry, but fishing and agriculture are also important components of the economy. Four of the islands are inhabited - Santa Cruz (the most populous), San Cristóbal, Isabela (the largest) and Floreana. The main settlement is Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz, which seems much like any other town in Ecuador - the Galápagos islands aren't quite so untouched by humans as you might think.

Blue footed boobies - perhaps the most iconic birds of the Galápagos

Our plane landed at Baltra, a small island very close to Santa Cruz. During WW2 the US air force used Baltra as a base to protect the Panama canal; when the war ended it was returned to the Ecuadorean government and nowadays it is solely used as an airport for tourists and locals. We were met at the airport by our guide for the next few days, Mari, and we also met all our fellow cruise passengers (13 of them!)

Flamingoes, at Floreana island

There are various ways of travelling round the Galápagos. Whatever you choose, it is going to be expensive! We did consider doing the whole thing independently, staying on one or two of the inhabited islands and doing day trips out, but in the end decided a cruise was really going to make the most sense in order to see as much as possible - several of the more remote islands can only be accessed as part of a cruise. Most cruises are 4 - 8 days, and as we'd read that the first and last days usually consist of very little, we wanted to go for an 8 day one. We booked fairly last minute, about 2 weeks beforehand, and were lucky to find an excellent deal on the Galaxy boat, with an itinerary that perfectly fitted what we wanted to do.

The Galaxy, our home for a week

We didn't really know what to expect when we first boarded the ship, but within minutes we knew we'd made a good decision. The boat was large, extremely comfortable and far nicer than most of the others we saw in the port. Our cabin was roomy, had a double bed, air conditioning and was cleaned every day! We discovered later that the Galaxy is usually contracted out to an American tour company, but they had cancelled this time at short notice. Hence most of our fellow passengers had found a great last minute deal like us, and we ended up on an amazing boat, with plenty of like-minded tourists of our own age. Lucky us!

Sea lions chilling out at beautiful Mosquera

The first days of the cruise took us to the tiny sand bar islet of Mosquera, and then onto the strikingly harsh and volcanic islands of Santiago and Bartolomé. Getting off the boat for the first time at Mosquera, we were greeted by a stunning white sand beach, sea lions everywhere (including tiny pups always noisily demanding food), black lava rocks covered in huge red Sally Lightfoot crabs and marine iguanas, and even the skeleton of a whale. Sights like this became familiar over the next few days - particularly the sea lions and marine iguanas, which are abundant on nearly all of the islands. As well as the spectacular wildlife on land, there was also equally, if not more, impressive marine life. We snorkelled around the lava rocks at the edge of Santiago and Bartolomé islands on day 2, among schools of brightly coloured tropical fish, plus the odd sea lion, penguin, or shark.

Rocks covered in Sally Lightfoot crabs, at Mosquera

Something that became apparent to us as we cruised through the islands was just how volcanic they are. The archipelago was formed by the eruptions of massive submarine volcanoes, and most of the islands are only around 2 or 3 million years old. This makes it all the more remarkable how life has flourished and adapted perfectly to the conditions here.  On day 2, at Santiago island, we walked across an incredible plain of solidified lava flows. The smooth black surface had amazing contortions, rope like patterns and large bubbles of lava. This lava flow only dates back 200 years, yet already the colonisation by life has begun - lava cacti grow here and there, locusts and lava lizards hide in the rocks and crabs live at the water's edge. It's amazing to think that this harsh, barren landscape was how the other islands, now so full of life, also looked to start with.

Lava flows at Santiago island

Our schedule tended to follow a pattern - a walk on an island in the morning, followed by snorkelling nearby; then after lunch the same thing on a different part of the island. The long crossings between islands were mostly at night, so we could make the most of all the time during the day. On the morning of day 3, after a very choppy 7 hour trip during the night (I was glad I'd brought seasickness pills!), we arrived at the island of Genovesa. This is one of the more northern islands, and was one of the reasons we liked this itinerary - lots of boats don't bother going out this far.

Nazca boobies doing their mating dance

Genovesa is a birdwatcher's paradise and our first experience of some of the most unique birds of the Galápagos. We'd seen blue footed boobies on day 2, but here red footed boobies nested in the trees and Nazca boobies (which have green feet!) were everywhere. We saw two Nazca boobies doing a mating dance - they present gifts like twigs and small stones to each other, and click beaks - and learnt that the males whistle, while the females honk. As well as the boobies, there were frigate birds, which look a little like large vultures perching in the trees. The males have a massive red throat pouch, which they inflate to impress females during mating season. We were lucky enough to see some inflated despte it being the wrong season - it looks absolutely insane! Frigate birds have the largest wingspan of any birds in the Galápagos, up to 2.5m, and are the pirates of the skies - they don't hunt, just steal food from other birds.  Also on Genovesa, perhaps coolest of all, we saw a short eared owl, which is a rare sight in the daylight. There are only 3 predators on the islands - owls, hawks, and snakes.

Male frigate bird with inflated pouch, and baby frigate

Red footed booby in a tree

Short eared owl

Not all of our fellow passengers were 8 day travellers like us. On day 4 we docked at San Cristobál island and spent a lot of the day waiting for a change around. 9 people left, and later were replaced by 10 new people, so we were up to the boat's full capacity of 16 passengers. We therefore had a quiet morning, but in the afternoon went over to nearby Lobos Island. 'Lobos Marino' is the word for sea lion in Spanish and, sure enough, there were tons here - we even had to try and sidle past an aggressive female with a pup, sitting right in our path. The highlight of the day was snorkelling later at a site called Kicker Rock, which is famous in the Galápagos. Bobbing up and down in some pretty big waves, we spotted sea turtles, tons of fish, and quite a few reef sharks.

Albatrosses at Española island

Days 5 and 6 of the cruise went to the southern islands of Española and Floreana. Española was one of the islands I'd most been looking forward to and it did not disappoint. It's the only island where you can see the waved albatross, and we saw plenty of these huge birds nesting on the ground as well as flying around the steep cliffs of the island. There was also a large nesting colony of Nazca boobies, some of the biggest marine iguanas we've seen, and a couple of Galápagos hawks. We've noticed that a lot of species here have names that start either 'Galápagos' or 'lava', e.g. lava lizards, lava herons, Galápagos hawks, Galápagos sharks - inventive, huh?

Galápagos hawks

Blue footed booby and baby

Floreana island was also fascinating. This island has perhaps the most intriguing (and tragic) human history of any of the islands here: it involves murder and intrigue between two families of German settlers, plus the mysterious 'Baroness' and her two lovers. If you're interested, look up a documentary called 'The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden' - it's well worth a watch. The island has been continuously inhabited for the longest time of any of the Galápagos islands and still has its own postal system - a barrel in which passers by (tourists, these days!) can leave post. The next people check the post barrel and pick up any post addressed to someone living in their own country, to deliver on their return home - so we picked up a couple of UK postcards! The recipients will have to wait until June when we return to receive them... The wildlife on Floreana included flamingoes, and best of all a sea turtle nesting site. There were 3 turtles half buried in the shallows and lots of others swimming around nearby. They just dig a hole, lay the eggs, bury them and leave them to hatch - that's as far as turtle parenting goes!

Turtle buried in the sand, at the nesting site, Floreana

Mari, our guide, at the post box in Post Office Bay, Floreana

Near to Floreana is a sort of rough circle of rocks known as Devil's Crown, which is another famous snorkelling site. We spent an hour here and it was the highlight of all the snorkelling of the cruise: first, the biggest school of fish I've ever seen - the water was absolutely black with millions of tiny fish; second, a penguin swam right past us; and third, we saw around 30 or 40 reef sharks about 2m long all together at once, coming in and out of caves deeper down where they live. Wow doesn't cover it!

View of the Devil's Crown snorkelling site, at sunset

On day 7, the last proper day of the cruise, we visited the small islands of Santa Fe and South Plaza, both fairly near the main island of Santa Cruz. This was a day all about the iguanas: we'd seen lots of marine ones (they swim using their tails, amazing!) but now saw lots of land iguanas. Santa Fe has its own unique species that are more greenish colour than the typical red and yellow ones at South Plaza. As well as the iguanas, we saw a lot of nesting birds in the cliffs at South Plaza, particularly tropic birds and swallow tailed gulls. These gulls are interesting in that they are nocturnal - sometimes we'd see them flying alongside the boat at night.

Iguana at South Plaza

Swallow tailed (nocturnal) gulls in the cliffs at South Plaza

The cruise ended at Santa Cruz island and here a few of us took a taxi to go and see some giant tortoises at a private ranch. This was awesome - wandering around in wellies in the rain, spotting giant tortoises everywhere. If you get too close they hiss and withdraw their head into their shell! One of the major problems for the Galápagos is introduced, non-native species that compete with the local animals and plants for resources, or act as direct predators. When people first settled here, they brought with them dogs, cats, donkeys, cattle - all of which thrived and threatened local species. The giant tortoises were hunted nearly to extinction by humans for their meat (supposed to be some of the tastiest in the world), while dogs and cats liked to eat their eggs. Thus most tortoise eggs now hatch in breeding shelters, the only safe place for them really. Most people think that there are giant tortoises everywhere in the Galápagos, but there are only a few places where they survive in the wild and many of them are not accessible. Today there are strict regulations on what enters and leave the Galápagos, but the damage has been done and it is doubtful that we will ever see the islands as full of life again as they were before humans arrived.

With a giant tortoise at Manzanilla Ranch, Santa Cruz island

We hadn't had enough of the Galápagos after the cruise, so spent another four days staying in an Air B&B on one of the other islands, Isabela. As it happened, two of our friends from the cruise, Sabina and Lucas, had had exactly the same idea as us and we enjoyed hanging out with them around Isabela. We had even booked the exact same flight as them back to the mainland! Isabela is the largest island of the archipelago and the most significant that the cruise hadn't visited. The main town, Puerto Villamil, is nothing like Puerto Ayora (the big town on Santa Cruz island) - it has a very relaxed and sleepy feeling to it, with dirt roads, friendly locals, coconuts for sale, and more motorbikes and bicycles than cars. With the humidity and palm trees and buildings in various stages of construction it felt the most like south east Asia of anywhere we've been on our trip. We liked it a lot.

The beautiful, Galápagos themed church in Puerto Villamil. The walls have waves and
the windows are stained with pictures of animals from the islands!

Most of the wildlife on Isabela we had seen before, but we still enjoyed seeing a few giant tortoises in the wild, plus a breeding centre with very very small baby tortoises. They start off about 10 cm long but can reach 1.3m and 150+ years old! We also did a snorkelling trip where we saw sea horses for the first time - very cool. And we hired bikes and cycled out to the 'Wall of Tears' - a wall that prisoners at a penal colony here between 1946-59 were forced to build in horrible conditions. The only bad thing about staying on Isabela was the 2 hr speedboat ride there and back from Santa Cruz, which I hated. Those who know me well know how I love boat rides (not) and this was a crazy bumpy ride from hell, across very rough seas especially on the return to Santa Cruz. I was once again glad of the seasickness pills! (Kev was fine - must be in the genes!)

Giant tortoise in the wild (a rarity)

We ended our time in the Galápagos with one night in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island, where we ate freshly caught lobster at a fraction of the price you'd pay in the UK. Yum. We wished we had more time, but alas, the next day we had to fly back to Guayaquil. Farewell Galápagos, it was great! From here we will be continuing our travelling back in mainland Ecuador, beginning with Riobamba.

'Baby' giant tortoises trying to escape from a breeding centre - these are actually about 15 years old!