Galapagos

I am sure that nearly everyone who goes to the Galapagos these days writes a blog about it.  I guess I'll do it too.  So, here is my Galapagos blog.

My first thought upon seeing the Galapagos (the island of Santa Cruz, to be exact) from the airplane brought to mind images such as barren, desolate, dry, harsh, and any other word surely used to describe the surface of Mars.  The passenger near me, a guy from Atlanta who splurged on a weekend trip for his Ecuadorian girlfriend, summed it up well when he said, " S#*@, I should have spent less money for a trip to Cancun!"  Silly man.  Because I knew better.  And I knew that I was entering into a geologist's paradise.

My second thought came as I got off my first bus from the airplane, and boarded the ferry to my second bus of the trip to town.  It was "whoa! the colors!"  The sight of the aquamarine water we were riding in and the vivid, limey green of the moss on the black rocks protruding from it, combined with the rich greenery sprawling the shoreline, all topped off by an intensely blue sky was sending my brain into shock.  My brain continued trying to process this drastic and ever-changing environment as I rode the last bus of the trip to my final destination.  One minute the passing landscape would be arid, with scraggly tough vegetation, and then tall flowering green trees the next.  Then I arrived in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz was a nice tourist port.  Can't say much more about it, since at 6am the next morning we were eastward bound on a violently hurtling speedboat toward the island of San Cristobal to meet our cruise ship.  In that two and a half hour journey, it is certainly an understatement to say that 70% of the boat had found the proper use for that little black bag handed out to us by the captain prior to departure.

Upon arriving to San Cristobal, we had found benches and were currently sprawled out in an effort to regain a feeling of health and balance when something caught our attention.  At 9am on a Sunday there appeared to be an active boy band hard at work on their latest reggaeton music video.  On the pier, the lead singer could be seen wildly gesticulating at the camera.  The band was Cocoa Roots and yes we were asked to be in their music video.  Which, for those of you who are familiar with me in front of a camera rather than behind it, was clearly an immensely awkward moment.  (I'll share it if it happens, against my better judgement).

From there we met our great cruise-mates, guides and got settled aboard our ship - The Monserrat.  The next four days were an incredible blur of island-hopping to exotic locales inhabited by animals, to include:  Christmas lizards, lava lizards, land tortoises, sea turtles, blue-foot boobies, red-foot boobies, frigate birds, sea lions, crabs, sharks!, sting rays!, masked boobies.  Not to leave out: olivine sands, calderas galore, parasitic volcano cones, extinct shield volcano forms, highly eroded tuff cones, lava formations..  I was drooling a lot.  I also couldn't have asked for a better group of cruise-ers (but I COULD have asked for the fates to keep my friend healthy!!).

One big thing happened to me during my cruise experience.  I can now proudly say I am a SNORKELER!  As in a capable, comfortable, enjoying snorkeler.  Coming from someone who previously swore off breathing through the tube, and vehemently swore off scuba diving, this is a huge accomplishment. You just cannot go to the Galapagos and not enjoy snorkeling.  Especially if you are on a cruise that goes snorkeling twice a day.  Minimum.  You learn to LOVE it.  And I did.  Good thing too because I experienced the underwater world of gurgling waves hitting rocky shores, playful sea lions, graceful sea turtles, stealthy schools of sharks, sneaky sting rays, practically-phytoplankton-jellyfish, cascades of colorful fish, chocolate chip starfish, and much more.

After the cruise was over, I opted to spend four blissful days on the island of Isabela.  Isabela came recommended to me as a tranquil getaway, where roads are still made only of dirt, and the roads are crossed frequently by roped "iguana crossings."  These days were spent exploring the island by bike, enjoying happy hours on the beach with new friends, and going for lots of walks.  One of these walks consisted of a trail to the local land tortoise reserve.  It was on this walk that I realized that just maybe I have been in Quito too long, when I mistook a friendly (yet intense!) local soccer game for what surely had been an alarming altercation between some men in the woods.  Another of these walks was the incredible path through one of the world's largest calderas, of the volcano Sierra Negra, and the impressive crater of Volcan Chico.  I finally got to take that look down into the crater of a volcano, and see for myself lava tubes and Pele's hair and a landscape spattered in picturesque parasitic cones.

Back on Santa Cruz for my last night (this time around!) I got to share in an amazing spread of seafood, to include cazuela (delciously chunky soup) and pescado encocado (fish cooked in a coconut sauce).

Back in Quito the next day, I was riding the ecovia back to my apartment and helping a disoriented traveler from Greece find his way.  I simultaneously sensed his excitement, and his overwhelming nervous energy, barely concealed by an overall twitchiness, as he fought heart and soul to push himself out of his comfort zone to experience a 5 day "vacation" in this land of Ecuador that other Greeks avoid with great paranoia...   and I remembered how important it is to do just that.  Get out there, do something new, and get inspired!!