Still I feel like I just woke up from a dream. Yesterday I got back to Quito. The flight I was on was origin from the island of Baltra, Galapagos (!). and Galapagos is therefore the subject of this blog.
It was already two weeks ago, when I was sitting in an internet café. There I decided to go to the islands. I went to the office of the flight company in quito, called TAME. The reason I had to think it all over so many times before (and I even dropped the thought once) was the high price of the trip. The turning point was a chat with my mother and an investigation that made it clear that you actually can do Galapagos on your own. A fact I didn’t know before. I thought it was obligatory to go on a cruzship. But I repeat myself: it is not obligatory and Galapagos is free for everybody! I bought the ticket for the next day. I didn’t know at that point if the decision was right but I had a big smile on my face as I left the office. What would it be like there? Would the Australian I recently talked to be right and Galapagos would just be “watching seals with pensionists”? forget it! I told myself. I will not expect anything and just go with the flow.
24 hours later I had already escaped the cold and the rain of the equatorial sierra and had just landed on the airport of Baltra, Galapagos islands. The sun was warming me and I could smell the sea. I didn’t know how much I had missed this smell until I finally could inhale it again. Outside the airport everything was just like it is in other airports of the world: cap drivers try to take you to a hotel, tour operators try to get you on ine of their tours, etc. the only difference to other airports was the baggage claim: you have to completely leave the airport and go to one side of the building where you have to wait for a truckload of bags and suitcases. If you can identify that you came with this flight, you are allowed to enter and grab your bag. Another difference was maybe, that the person at the reception desk was more interested in the 100 dollar park entrance fee than in my passport.
An hour later I was looking for accommodation, comparing rates. But in this hour I had already seen more animals than in many daytrips one can do at home. Worth mentioning the pelicans and frigate-birds. Furthermore the trees and bushes like the mangrove, cactus and other fauna I wouldn’t know the name of.
I quickly changed clothes – I got rid of the bloody socks and the long-sleeve and went to explore the little town. Puerto ayora is small and cosy. The nice big beach is a fair walk off but well worth it. To describe the sand I can only compare it with flour: white and fine. Shortly after I saw the first iguanas that are almost invisible when they lie on the black lava rocks on the beach. After a long time in the water these animals need to head up their blood again. They are very easy going and let you come quite close. On a circuit way to the right of the beach one must pay attention not to step on them. As if they were angry they spit out thru the nostrils. But this is nothing personal they just try to get rid of the salt they ate when they fed on the algae. They would rest on upon the other with a permanent smile on their faces (due to their shape of the mouth).
Besides animals, Galapagos is famous for its flora. Most important is the mangrove which just makes this huge biodiversity possible. The particular thing about the islands is that they have got very different ages. For example san cristobal and española have already 6-8 million years of age. Meanwhile Isabela is the youngest with only 700 000 years. Therefore in isabela there is still a lot of volcanic activity. The last bigger eruption dates from 2005 and up to this day you can see smoke coming out of different craters and smell sulphur. The difference in age is the reason for the formation of endemic plants and animals in each of the islands. Due to the little differences even within the same species the finches were the initiation of Charles Darwin´s evolution theory. I don’t know if they on sunny morning landed on his hand when he was eating a bred roll. But I myself had that experience. Every animal I met in Galapagos was a lot less shy than the animals at home. They do back out, of course, but therefore you have to get really close up. The best experience I had concerning wild animals was to swim with a seal. It was in the surface interval between two dives. We rested closet o a seals colony and the divemaster told us we could go snorkeling with them. I jumped in immediately. After 5 minutes one of them was around. It came swimming close up and turned off just before bouncing in my mask. In the very last instant before backing out the seal sort of barked at me. It was like she said “BUH!”. She moved so elegant and smooth I was absolutely fascinated. I could have spent the whole day here but the crew and the divemaster called me and the other two guys back on board. He later told us that seals are considered more dangerous to humans than sharks. The explanation I have for that is, that we easily loose respect for a funny creature like a seal, thing you would probably never do with a shark. This was an interesting information at that point of the day because the next divespot was one where hammerhed sharks are likely to be seen. The first I saw from the boat when we got our gear on. Later under water I saw a school of eagle-rays (?) passing by, turtles, barracudas and other marine live I wouldn’t know the name of. They say we also swam with hammer heads but I couldn’t see any due to the visibility. And to the young dive master who probably chased them of when he –all excited- swam towards them.
I visited 2 of the islands: santa cruz and Isabela. In this last one I could see the giant tortoise that gave this archipel its name. the name derives from the form of the shell which looks like a saddle the Spaniards used to use: the “Galapago”.
What I did not see were the northernmost penguins. They are just not there anymore. Due to changes in the sea and the dying of algae they disappeared. Hopefully they will come back one day. But global warming and climatic changes are felt hardest in fragile ecosystems like Galapagos. The penguins feel these changes as one of the first.
I changed the date of my flight back to quito. I just didn’t want to leave this place! It is maybe the last bit of paradise that this planet once had been. I definitely want to come back. Hopefully by then something in the administration of the islands has changed. Hopefully the people not living from tourism have found sustainable ways to earn their life. So they don’t have to cut the fins if the sharks (for the asian markets) and they don’t have to collect the sea cucumber from the sea (and sell them to the same hungry market). the problem is in the people of political power and the ones who profit from the cruzships. The foundations dominate the politics and the agencies have the money. Then happens what is happening in the rest of the world: political power and money form an alliance.
I believe that can change. I want to believe in this because one cannot build a positive future with negative thoughts in mind. At the end it is somehow like my driving school teacher said (referring to motorbikes): “you will go exactly where you are looking at.”
In this sense: be positive and till next time!
MIKE
24 hours later I had already escaped the cold and the rain of the equatorial sierra and had just landed on the airport of Baltra, Galapagos islands. The sun was warming me and I could smell the sea. I didn’t know how much I had missed this smell until I finally could inhale it again. Outside the airport everything was just like it is in other airports of the world: cap drivers try to take you to a hotel, tour operators try to get you on ine of their tours, etc. the only difference to other airports was the baggage claim: you have to completely leave the airport and go to one side of the building where you have to wait for a truckload of bags and suitcases. If you can identify that you came with this flight, you are allowed to enter and grab your bag. Another difference was maybe, that the person at the reception desk was more interested in the 100 dollar park entrance fee than in my passport.
An hour later I was looking for accommodation, comparing rates. But in this hour I had already seen more animals than in many daytrips one can do at home. Worth mentioning the pelicans and frigate-birds. Furthermore the trees and bushes like the mangrove, cactus and other fauna I wouldn’t know the name of.
I quickly changed clothes – I got rid of the bloody socks and the long-sleeve and went to explore the little town. Puerto ayora is small and cosy. The nice big beach is a fair walk off but well worth it. To describe the sand I can only compare it with flour: white and fine. Shortly after I saw the first iguanas that are almost invisible when they lie on the black lava rocks on the beach. After a long time in the water these animals need to head up their blood again. They are very easy going and let you come quite close. On a circuit way to the right of the beach one must pay attention not to step on them. As if they were angry they spit out thru the nostrils. But this is nothing personal they just try to get rid of the salt they ate when they fed on the algae. They would rest on upon the other with a permanent smile on their faces (due to their shape of the mouth).
Besides animals, Galapagos is famous for its flora. Most important is the mangrove which just makes this huge biodiversity possible. The particular thing about the islands is that they have got very different ages. For example san cristobal and española have already 6-8 million years of age. Meanwhile Isabela is the youngest with only 700 000 years. Therefore in isabela there is still a lot of volcanic activity. The last bigger eruption dates from 2005 and up to this day you can see smoke coming out of different craters and smell sulphur. The difference in age is the reason for the formation of endemic plants and animals in each of the islands. Due to the little differences even within the same species the finches were the initiation of Charles Darwin´s evolution theory. I don’t know if they on sunny morning landed on his hand when he was eating a bred roll. But I myself had that experience. Every animal I met in Galapagos was a lot less shy than the animals at home. They do back out, of course, but therefore you have to get really close up. The best experience I had concerning wild animals was to swim with a seal. It was in the surface interval between two dives. We rested closet o a seals colony and the divemaster told us we could go snorkeling with them. I jumped in immediately. After 5 minutes one of them was around. It came swimming close up and turned off just before bouncing in my mask. In the very last instant before backing out the seal sort of barked at me. It was like she said “BUH!”. She moved so elegant and smooth I was absolutely fascinated. I could have spent the whole day here but the crew and the divemaster called me and the other two guys back on board. He later told us that seals are considered more dangerous to humans than sharks. The explanation I have for that is, that we easily loose respect for a funny creature like a seal, thing you would probably never do with a shark. This was an interesting information at that point of the day because the next divespot was one where hammerhed sharks are likely to be seen. The first I saw from the boat when we got our gear on. Later under water I saw a school of eagle-rays (?) passing by, turtles, barracudas and other marine live I wouldn’t know the name of. They say we also swam with hammer heads but I couldn’t see any due to the visibility. And to the young dive master who probably chased them of when he –all excited- swam towards them.
I visited 2 of the islands: santa cruz and Isabela. In this last one I could see the giant tortoise that gave this archipel its name. the name derives from the form of the shell which looks like a saddle the Spaniards used to use: the “Galapago”.
What I did not see were the northernmost penguins. They are just not there anymore. Due to changes in the sea and the dying of algae they disappeared. Hopefully they will come back one day. But global warming and climatic changes are felt hardest in fragile ecosystems like Galapagos. The penguins feel these changes as one of the first.
I changed the date of my flight back to quito. I just didn’t want to leave this place! It is maybe the last bit of paradise that this planet once had been. I definitely want to come back. Hopefully by then something in the administration of the islands has changed. Hopefully the people not living from tourism have found sustainable ways to earn their life. So they don’t have to cut the fins if the sharks (for the asian markets) and they don’t have to collect the sea cucumber from the sea (and sell them to the same hungry market). the problem is in the people of political power and the ones who profit from the cruzships. The foundations dominate the politics and the agencies have the money. Then happens what is happening in the rest of the world: political power and money form an alliance.
I believe that can change. I want to believe in this because one cannot build a positive future with negative thoughts in mind. At the end it is somehow like my driving school teacher said (referring to motorbikes): “you will go exactly where you are looking at.”
In this sense: be positive and till next time!
MIKE
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