The Galapa-WOW! Islands
Karen and I have just returned from the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and they are just simply amazing! Definitely one of the highlights of our 8 month trip. There's only one word to describe the Galapagos: amazing, fantastic, incredible, awesome, stunning, beautiful, surprising, unique, breathtaking, inspiring ... Oh wait, is that more than one? OK, just choose any of the above words to describe them.
We won't post any pictures just yet, as we're in New York City right now and it's difficult to find internet cafes here (everyone has their own computers) and the connection fee is expensive. So we might just wait until next week when we're in Chicago crashing with my brother and I can take over his computer for hours at a time. Although we got some great pictures, it is really difficult to truly capture the essence of the Galapagos. Plus, a lot of the cool stuff we saw was under the water and we don't have a waterproof camera.
The weather for the week was fantastic (although the water temp was slightly chilly at times). The boat and crew and our fellow passengers (only 13 on the boat) were all great and our guide, Juan, was extremely enthusiastic, knowledgeable and excited for everything, despite guiding almost every week.
The amount of animals we saw and got close to was impressive. Plus many of them are found nowhere else on the planet. Gigantic land tortoises, sea turtles, land and marine iguanas (iguanas that swim with their tails - unique to the Galapagos), dolphins, reef sharks, tons of birds (blue-footed and Nazca boobies, albatross, cormorants, finches, etc.), lava lizards, sea lions, etc. etc. etc.
Overall, Galapagos and Antarctica were equally amazing experiences, but in Galapagos we could do what we could never do in Antarctica - swim with the penguins!!! Yes, those birds can't fly - in the air, but underwater, there's no other word for what they do but to use the word "fly". And we were swimming right next to them, along with sea lions, sea turtles, flightless cormorants, sharks! and tons of fish. As the Australians on our boat said, usually when someone yells "shark!" when swimming, everybody panics and swims the other way. But in the Galapagos, that was a call for everyone to come to you to check out the harmless sharks.
Although we saw them just a few kilometers south of the equator, the Galapagos penguin is the only northern hemisphere penguin, as they can be found just slightly north of the equator as well.
We also got quite an education about the basics of life. That is, we saw sea lions, boobies, iguanas, tortoises, hawks and a couple of other animals in the act of, um, copulation. I think it's the heat that makes them all so frisky!
On board the ship we watched a great BBC documentary on the Galapagos. You can purchase it here:
http://www.bbcamericashop.com/default.asp?cpa=product&id=4080&ctl=81&cc=21249&tt=
They have some absolutely fantastic footage.
We'll try to upload some pictures from the Galapagos next week when we have better access to the internet.
We would highly recommend a trip to the Galapagos, but go sooner rather than later, as the UN and the Ecuadorian government are getting worried about the massive influx of tourists and permanent new locals moving to the islands to support them, so they might eventually have to start putting tighter restrictions on the islands. The easy money to be had now is very tempting for poor countries like Ecuador, but they also don't want to kill their golden goose either.
We won't post any pictures just yet, as we're in New York City right now and it's difficult to find internet cafes here (everyone has their own computers) and the connection fee is expensive. So we might just wait until next week when we're in Chicago crashing with my brother and I can take over his computer for hours at a time. Although we got some great pictures, it is really difficult to truly capture the essence of the Galapagos. Plus, a lot of the cool stuff we saw was under the water and we don't have a waterproof camera.
The weather for the week was fantastic (although the water temp was slightly chilly at times). The boat and crew and our fellow passengers (only 13 on the boat) were all great and our guide, Juan, was extremely enthusiastic, knowledgeable and excited for everything, despite guiding almost every week.
The amount of animals we saw and got close to was impressive. Plus many of them are found nowhere else on the planet. Gigantic land tortoises, sea turtles, land and marine iguanas (iguanas that swim with their tails - unique to the Galapagos), dolphins, reef sharks, tons of birds (blue-footed and Nazca boobies, albatross, cormorants, finches, etc.), lava lizards, sea lions, etc. etc. etc.
Overall, Galapagos and Antarctica were equally amazing experiences, but in Galapagos we could do what we could never do in Antarctica - swim with the penguins!!! Yes, those birds can't fly - in the air, but underwater, there's no other word for what they do but to use the word "fly". And we were swimming right next to them, along with sea lions, sea turtles, flightless cormorants, sharks! and tons of fish. As the Australians on our boat said, usually when someone yells "shark!" when swimming, everybody panics and swims the other way. But in the Galapagos, that was a call for everyone to come to you to check out the harmless sharks.
Although we saw them just a few kilometers south of the equator, the Galapagos penguin is the only northern hemisphere penguin, as they can be found just slightly north of the equator as well.
We also got quite an education about the basics of life. That is, we saw sea lions, boobies, iguanas, tortoises, hawks and a couple of other animals in the act of, um, copulation. I think it's the heat that makes them all so frisky!
On board the ship we watched a great BBC documentary on the Galapagos. You can purchase it here:
http://www.bbcamericashop.com/default.asp?cpa=product&id=4080&ctl=81&cc=21249&tt=
They have some absolutely fantastic footage.
We'll try to upload some pictures from the Galapagos next week when we have better access to the internet.
We would highly recommend a trip to the Galapagos, but go sooner rather than later, as the UN and the Ecuadorian government are getting worried about the massive influx of tourists and permanent new locals moving to the islands to support them, so they might eventually have to start putting tighter restrictions on the islands. The easy money to be had now is very tempting for poor countries like Ecuador, but they also don't want to kill their golden goose either.
posted by Kevin at 6/28/2007 09:09:00 PM
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