Wow. What a week. The Galápagos Islands were absolutely fantastic. I'll start from the beginning.
We arrived on Baltra island, the island with the airport and nothing else on it, with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Some people may call this stupid, but it ended up saving us a lot of money and giving us 6 days of near perfection. Almost immediately upon our arrival at the airport, whilst waiting to board a bus to the boat dock, we were approached by an Ecuadorian man (whom we would later know to be Paddy) trying to sell us something in broken English. Aya and I understood that he was offering us a 6 day cruise for 680 dollars, surely too good to be true? It was. What he was in fact offering was luxurious(ish) hotel rooms on various islands with day tours and 3 meals a day included. After getting a boat to the main island and a 45 minute (free- courtesy of paddy) taxi ride to puerto ayora and weighing up our options we decided to go for the first deal.
The 6 day itinerary was basically ours to select and we managed to bag ourselves a 'discover scuba dive' on the second day as part of the deal. Pretty handy as this probably would have cost about 100 dollars if done independently. The dive was amazing. We took a boat out to Bartolome, a small island north of Santa Cruz. Along with about 8 Israelis who were diving with us we were prepped, equipped, instructed and finally pushed backwards off the boat into the ocean. I absolutely loved the whole experience. Despite not seeing a large range of animals, I found that just swimming deep underwater with hundreds of beautiful, colourful schools of fish was fascinating. My first dive, but definitely not my last!
The following days were filled with visits to Islands to see the infamous 'blue footed boobies', numerous sea lions, penguins, and finally the tunnels tour from Isla Isabela. This was the highlight of the trip, and an experience that words will not suffice to describe, but I will do my best.
So the tunnels were created by an eruption from one of volcanoes on the island. And they are now submerged in water and are home to a diverse array of sea life. The tunnels tour was both land based and sea based. From the boat on the drive to the tunnels I spotted a killer whale diving out of the ocean. It was so out of the blue and no-one else caught it but I have ingrained it in my memory as it was such a phenomenal sight. The highlight of the day though, was the snorkelling. We swam in a large group (about 14 of us) around, underneath and over the tunnels, looking for different animals. First we saw a sea horse, which was nice but marginally underwhelming, especially as we knew what was to follow. With the help of a couple of guides we discovered the main area in which the galapagos 'white finned' sharks slept. And in some cases, were not asleep but instead swam the waters both beneath and beside us. It surprised me how 'un-scary' this was, as the sharks swam so gracefully and it all felt very tranquil. At points they were both face to face with me (when the guide insisted I swim down and peer into a tunnel in which about 10 sharks were napping), and within touching distance swimming past me. Amazing! Next we were to try to find the giant sea turtles - fortunately, this was not a difficult task due to their size. I must have spent about half an hour swimming with different turtles and just marvelling at their sheer size and grace. Move over dolphins, I have a new favourite animal! Finally we swam with more playful sea lions and penguins and eventually got back on the boat for the bumpy ride back. One for the bucket list, people!
Now I am in a small town in Ecuador called Baños, having returned from the Galapagos to Guayaquil and then got an overnight bus here for a couple of nights. We went to the 'end of the world swing', the Sunday market (which was huuuuge) and the hot thermal springs today. Tomorrow morning we are off white water rafting before getting a bus back to Guayaquil in preparation for the long journey to Lima (30 hours) in a couple of days. It's non-stop, this travelling malarky, but I'm loving every second of it. Even the buses. Everything is a new experience and I feel so fortunate to be able to be here. Ciao for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment