Today we are off to the Galapagos islands, which straddle the equator about 1,000 km due east of Ecuador. After a quick breakfast, we finish packing our stuff, drop off the bags we will not be using in storage and then begin the many waiting periods of the day. The taxi is supposed to arrive in five minutes and takes about 20 minutes. While we are late to the airport, we are able to check in and we board our flight.
We are flying the local airline, TAME, and we depart on time and have a short flight to Guayaquil, where we transit. We have a hard time finding the transit lounge, and once there, we have a long wait. We are delayed and take off about 30 minutes late. It is a 1.5 hour flight to Galapagos, where we land at the airport on Isla Baltra. Then more waits in several lines as we disinfect our shoes, have our bags checked for foodstuff, and pay the US$100 park entrance fee. Then we have to wait and take turns collecting our bags.
We are met by a representative of the boat, the Tip Top III, that we will be joining. More waits for the bus, which takes us for a short drive to a ferry that crosses a short stretch of blue water that is an infinitive shades of blue. We all climb off the bus, load our bags onto the ferry and then cross over to the other side to Isla Santa Cruz (Indefatigable) where we have to load up on some other buses (now I know why they tell you not to bring more than 10kgs). Then the last stretch, a 45 km drive over the highlands of Santa Cruz to Puerto Ayora on the other side. This is where we join our boat - the Tip Top III.
We have one hour on the boat, and then we are off on our first tour of Galapagos. Back on the panga (the small dinghy) to get to the pier and back on the bus. We drive back up into the highlands. Our first stop are to check out two pit craters (or sink holes). The Galapagos Islands are formed by volcanic activity, and these sink holes form when the surface collapses onto tunnels or other caverns below that were formed during the eruptions. One is over 50 meters deep and the other is over 70 meters deep. They apparently have these form all the time and they keep finding more of them over the years (but you have to be careful you do not fall in one - the vegetation is heavy around them). We also have our first animal encounter - a Galapagos dove. It lets us get very close - no real fear.
They to the highlight of the afternoon - we go visit one of the farms where they have some of the giant Galapagos tortoises living. We just wander around the fields and look for them (it is not as hard as tracking the mountain gorillas in Uganda on our Trans-Africa). They are huge and they just sit there doing what ever they are doing very slowly. They can weight over 350 kg and are totally passive. In the old days, the seafarers would stop off in Galapagos and pick up a few of them and throw them into the hold - they can live for over a year without food and water!
We found them eating, drinking (they will drink about 10-20 liters and one go and that lasts them for months), sleeping, resting, digging a hole (it will fill with water and they can wash off parasites) and wandering around. They would lift their huge bodies off the ground, waddle forward a few paces and then drop their bodies back down to the ground. We could get as close as we wanted to (but we are not allowed to touch). If we got to close, they would pull their heads back into and under their shell.
After wandering around for over an hour, we headed back to the mini-bus to take us to our next stop - one of the larger lava tunnels. It is right next to the road (in fact, the road runs right over it). We can peer down into the darkness from a hole that has formed over one part of the tunnel. A hundred meters further on, we can wander down into the tunnel, which has evidence that lava has flown through it on numerous occasions.
The tours today are just a warm up for the rest of the trip as we shall see. Once back on the boat, we sort out our stuff and have a quick shower and proceed down to dinner. Dinner is buffet style and the food is filling and good. We are off to bed early as we had an early start and we are supposed to go for a dive at 6AM the following morning. In addition, the boat will sail through the night and the seas are expected to be rough, so we want to get as much sleep as possible.