Travels to the Galápagos

Travels to the Galápagos

Saturday, February 9, 2002

Guayaquil / Baltra / Santa Cruz

The Hotel Hilton Colón was very nice - indistinguishable from many of the better U.S. hotels. In fact, it was nicer than the New Orleans Airport Hilton the night before.

We caught glimpses of Guayaquil from the hotel and during our bus ride to the airport in the morning. It seems to have an intimate mix of wealth and poverty - the contrast between rich and poor is even more striking than in New York City. Gleaming hotels, banks, office buildings, and malls interspersed with hovels, shacks, and derelict buildings. We saw a couple of (probably) feral dogs loping through an alley, looking for food.

It's mostly cloudy this morning, but the sun was very bright when it peeked through the clouds around 7:00 a.m.

At 2° South, Guayaquil is the furthest south we will go on this journey, and the farthest south any of us has been to date.

The local topography is vaguely reminiscent of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles. An elegant cathedral was visible on a hill from the sixth floor of the hotel. (I later learned, much to my surprise, that it was not a Catholic cathedral as one would expect in South America. Rather, it is a Mormon church.)

We caught an early TAME flight, in transit from Quito, to Baltra airport. (Baltra is a small island just north of Santa Cruz).

The kids are engaged in their usual petty sibling spats as we sit in the waiting room in the Guayaquil airport. For example, my son was taking a drink from a 500 ml bottle of agua purificada when his sister "accidentally" bumped the bottom of the bottle, causing much agua to spill all over him. He promptly threatened to toss her overboard to the sharks. There is another twelve-year-old boy on this trip, from Florida. We'll see if they make friends. So far, they're acting wary of one another.

We chose the left side of the TAME 727, based on my guess (a correct guess, as things turned out) that the left side would give us a better view of Las Islas Encantadas.

As we left Guayaquil heading west, we saw outdoor stadiums, neighborhoods of low-rent housing, a river, rice fields, and orchards of some sort. The highways had remarkably light traffic for a city of 3,000,000 - whether due to the economics of auto ownership, or because it was Saturday, I could not say. (Traffic would not be bad on the city streets during our brief bus tour of Guayaquil the following Saturday afternoon, either.)

A layer of cumulus clouds ended right at the coast as we crossed a peninsula to head out over the Pacific. After a while, clouds reappeared beneath us. Then the clouds thinned a bit.

At one point I thought I saw an island ahead - but it was too early, and its shape was all wrong. Then I realized the "island" was a low, gray cloud. "Encantadas," indeed.

Now there are spotty, patchy, white clouds as we draw closer - but I'm not sure just how close or far. Then some thick, impenetrable shelves of white cloud below. After all, this is the rainy season, so one should expect clouds. Finally we spotted San Cristóbal, the first island where the Beagle landed, an island that we would only see from the air, and on the horizon from Española. We couldn't see Santa Fe. Descending, we skirted the shore of Santa Cruz, which was also partly covered in cloud. It looked brown and dry from the air. Some small islets in the turquoise water off Santa Cruz. Sharp escarpments, apparently, on the north.

Baltra, the airstrip, some boats in the harbor, North Seymour. A sandbar between Baltra and North Seymour. Daphne major to the west. North Seymour appears quite flat. Baltra is flat too.

Black beach on North Seymour. Abandoned military buildings on the north side of Baltra. Landing on the airstrip in the middle of Baltra. Brown vegetation. Cactus "trees" (candelabra cactus). Volcanoes of Santa Cruz visible across the strait, Daphne Major across another strait. Santiago behind Daphne, harder to see. Multiple peaks in an apparent ridge on Santa Cruz across the water. Many cactus "trees" by the airstrip. The small Baltra airport.

Baltra

We left the plane. Aeropuerto Isla Baltra Galápagos. Heat. Bright, late morning, equatorial sun. Bienvenidos a Galápagos.

The airport has a roof, and partial walls that are open at the top to allow a cooling breeze to move through. Another line, but this one moves faster than last night's, and is for a worthy purpose - inspection of carry-on bags for seeds, insects, and other things detrimental to native biota. Again, I'm not sure how effective these cursory searches are, but if they help impress on visitors the importance of keeping out exotics, they serve a purpose. We walk over a spongy mat impregnated with something intended to decontaminate. Again, I guess it's better than nothing, even if it doesn't get shoes inside luggage. The $100 per person entrance fee for the National Park was included in what we've already paid Lindblad, so unlike some others, we don't have to cough it up now.

While awaiting the bus in the intense sun, the family bought postcards from small stalls operated by local vendors just outside the airport. The postcards are to send from Post Office Bay on Floreana in two days. Then a short bus ride to the panga that will take us to our ship, the M.S. Polaris.

Clearing up. Great views of the two Daphne Islands and of Santiago. Turquoise water in the small bay where Polaris is at anchor.

On the dock, as if to greet us, were an unafraid sea lion and some pelicans. Frigate birds circled overhead as the panga carried us to the Polaris.

On board were orientation, lifeboat drills, lunch, etc.. The ship is very nice, but in this journal I think I'll concentrate more on our adventures than on the ship itself.

Santa Cruz / Venecia

We've left Baltra, and are sailing counterclockwise around Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz has low-lying clouds, but the coast is visible. Great views of Daphnes Major and Minor as we sail by.

I e-mailed my sister to inquire about our five-year-old Golden Retriever. She had a stomach/intestine bug earlier in the week, and I'm still a little worried about her.

A small little peak right on the shore of Santa Cruz. Shearwaters (or something like that) skimming the waves.

It looks like rain inland on Santa Cruz. There may be a small bit of rain on Santiago, but not as much. We passed small islets to the west, the Guy Fawkes rocks, and a somewhat larger island, Rabida.

Mangroves appeared on the western shore of Santa Cruz. Later we saw Pinzón, and one of the northern volcanoes of Isabela.

In the late afternoon we had a real treat - a Zodiac excursion to the islet of Venecia at Cerro Dragon. Today was quite hot. Just about the time the excursion to Venecia was scheduled, it started to rain, delaying our departure about fifteen minutes. Then it was mostly overcast, and much cooler - delightful conditions. Venecia is an islet, or more accurately a series of small islets, made of lava rocks, off the northwest coast of Santa Cruz. Channels or canals between the islets are reminiscent of Venice - hence the name. The channels are ideal for navigation by the five Zodiacs carried by the Polaris.

Carlos, our naturalist on this trip, was both knowledgeable and enthusiastic. And did we see some wildlife! Venecia is one of the few places in the islands that is free of exotics - even though it is so close to the island of Santa Cruz, which is overrun by several exotic species. Mangroves thicketed the shorelines, and candelabra cactus and at least two other species of cactus grew just a few feet upland and inland of the shore. A couple of brief, misty rains were no bother at all, and in fact helped cool things off. It was quire pleasant. (This would be the last rain we would encounter the entire week.)

We saw several lava herons, gray birds with red feet that eat Sally Lightfoot crabs. We spotted about 30-50 blue footed boobies scattered in different places along the shore. The boobies' feet all had different, individual shades of blue - light blue, medium blue, cobalt blue -- even purple.

The highlight, for me anyway, was spotting six land iguanas - from our Zodiac, no less. (Tourists are not allowed on shore here.) Since there are no exotics in Venecia, this is one of the few remaining spots were Land Iguanas may be seen in the wild with reasonable frequency. Even so, seeing six in such a short time - from the water - was unusual, according to Carlos. We saw four males, with bright yellow heads and brown bodies; and two females, all brown. Without Carlos' trained eyes, I'm sure we would have overlooked all of the land iguanas - they blend into the rocks. Our binoculars proved very useful.

We also saw three (or so) marine iguanas. All these iguanas were basking, not doing very much. These would be the only land iguanas we would see in the wild all week. But marine iguanas - well, let's just say that Venecia had a low density of marine iguanas compared to many other places we would visit.

Another highlight was two Pacific Green Sea Turtles mating. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but every now and then a head would pop out of the water, or two oval shapes would rise to the surface, sliding over/past one another. Carlos said the process can continue for six to eight hours, and that sometimes there will be more males lined up, waiting for their turn after the first has finished.

A Galápagos sea lion followed our Zodiac for a while, as curious about us as we were of it. It porpoised a few times above the water. The sea lion reminded me of a playful, curious puppy.

Other creatures we saw in Venecia: many, many Sally Lightfoot crabs (bright red adults and black juveniles), noddy terns, pelicans, white tipped reef sharks in the clear, shallow water, a few indeterminate finches, sea urchins, red sponges, small fish, magnificent frigate birds (male and female, and one dead), ruddy turnstone, yellow warbler. The female frigates have white necks, while male necks sometimes show traces of red, their throat pouches getting ready for the breeding season.

This was really only a half day in the Galápagos. What a great start!

Later in the day we had a brief scare due to some incomplete e-mails about our Golden Retriever from my sister, who is caring for her while we're away.. We missed a couple of e-mails apparently, before our names were added to the ship's e-mail system. Then we got a third e-mail that, in the context of the earlier e-mails, might have been less distressing, but as it was only made us worry. So I called my sister in the U.S. by satellite phone (not cheap!), since I worry about my puppy so much. It seems she got an ulcer and was throwing up from the stress caused by our departure, but is now on different medicines that seem to be helping. My sister reports that the dog's appetite is back and that her spirits are good. We really appreciate her conscientious care of our animals when we're away. Next time we go on vacation, I'll call the vet or our dog obedience trainer to see what we can do to reduce the stress on our Golden.

My son and the other 12-year-old boy on the trip are fast becoming friends. But tonight they played a mean trick on his sister, locking her in the bathroom. The culprit got quite an earful from his father, and reacted in typical adolescent fashion. I hope that tonight's encounter will prevent further unpleasantness of this sort on the rest of this trip. (It did - there were no further major problems with the kids.)

Map of the Islands (from the Emory Law School website)