Galapagos

We flew out of Quito on schedule on Monday, with a brief stop over in Guayaguil, Ecuador's largest city on the Pacific coast. From the air we really got to see what the rain that we have had a remarkable talent for missing on this trip had done - there was very extensive flooding of low lying areas.

We landed at Baltra, a small island that was the site of a US Air Force base in WWII that is just north of Santa Cruz Island. We then had an hour bus trip that crossed Santa Cruz from north to south and brought us to Port Ayora where we connected with Yata Fragata (Yacht Frigate) our home for the rest of the week. We were in a group of 15, hailing from Sweden, USA, Netherlands, Australia, UK, South Africa and Israel.

That afternoon we walked through the town to the Charles Darwin Research Station, home of research into Galapagos wildlife and breeding programs aimed at repatriating endangered species, particularly the giant tortoises that are a cluster of subspecies, each unique to one island. The site also has lots of wild small birds and lava lizards, colourful little lizards that declare territory by furiously doing push ups.

We spent the night in Puerto Ayora's harbour, watching sea lions and small sharks check out the boat or the small fish attracted by its lights. In the afternoon we sailed to nearby Santa Fe island for some snorkelling and walk among the sea lions.

The following day was off to Espanola, for more birds, including blue footed and Nazca boobies, seal lions, and iguanas. We had a couple of hours on a free beach which is where I shot this video. I suggest you bale out when you start to hear talking - the video on the camera did not turn off on schedule and I don't have a video editing program!

The next day we moved on to Floreana, where we saw flamingoes, more iguanas, herons and turtles, rays and sharks cruising off a turtle nesting beach. Another great snorkelling session followed. In the afternoon, we walked into an underground lava tube, with a lot fewer flashlights and people (the one thing I forgot to pack). Kudos to Olympus - it is amazing what you can see using the autofocus ranging flash on the E-Volt 500 camera! The crews of the various boats have a small soccer field set in open beach area and Thursday afternoon soccer is a tradition!

We were up before dawn the following final morning for a sunrise walk on North Seymour Island, very near the airport on Baltra, where we saw the famous mating dance of the blue footed booby and the unbelievable red pouches of the male frigate birds in breeding season. We then headed back to the airport to be greeted with the good news that our flight had changed to an earlier departure going directly to Quito, giving us more time to get organized for leaving our hotel at 3.30 a.m. CST this morning.

In all a great time, in large part due to Priscilla, our guide and the boat crew.

Now, we have 8 hours in George W Bush Airport in Houston after a nearly 6 bour trip from Quito (groan) and then Vancouver by midnight and home tomorrow.