In Praise of Galapagos

 

If you’ve been following our posts on social media since we arrived at Galapagos you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the Amazon Rainforest’s reign as ‘the best thing ever’ didn’t last. As it turns out it rains longer than it reigns.

Our experience in Galapagos was simply fabulous. ‘Wow, just wow’, as Pam Bewes put it when commenting on one of our posts, just about sums it up. If you have a bucket list, put this place on it. I'm sure it helped that we chose the best cabin on the best and newest boat operating in the islands. Come on, it was Tracy’s 60th, if we weren’t going to ‘push the boat out’ then, when would we?

Through their evolutionary history, over tens of millions of years, the species here survived with no predators. Left to get on with it themselves they developed their own fear free ecosystem. So, when man turned up some 400 years ago, they were sitting ducks, or sitting tortoises to be more precise, and their trust in man proved to be unfounded. Fortunately, since 1959 the islands have been a national park, 97% of which is protected and only 3% allowed to be inhabited by man. The tortoises are back on the up, tourism is heavily regulated, the humans are instructed to be nice to the animals and the good nature of all living things prevails.

If you are a natural history buff this place is heaven on earth. Not only do you find many species here that you won’t find anywhere else, but you can get up close and personal and the wildlife doesn’t get fazed. In fact, many of the creatures appear to revel in the attention. The giant tortoises accept their fate of having iPhones stuck in their faces with magnanimity, although in truth they have little choice. They are not really built for running away. It is the sea lions though that believe they are the stars of the show, popping up just about everywhere, on land and in the sea. On the land they mainly lie around wherever they fancy or lumber around in their rather ungainly way. Sometimes they hop on the boat to sunbathe. In the sea they are elegant, playful and completely at home with human company.

Tracy’s desire was to see the blue-footed boobies for her birthday and, right on cue, we first saw them on that very day. They are larger than we expected, plentiful in number and yes, their feet are very blue. We even got to see them doing the mating ritual where they parade around showing how beautiful their feet are to one another. I’ve heard humans have websites with a similar purpose. Having seen the titi monkey in Peru and the boobies in Ecuador I’m looking forward to what Key West has in store . That's enough smut!

I have only ever dabbled with snorkelling before, so it was a new experience for me to be immersed in sea life for extended periods of time. What we encountered was almost beyond belief. Giant turtles gliding around, sea lions frolicking, marine iguanas feeding on the seabed, the occasional shark on the prowl, wonderful colourful fish and the highlight undoubtedly being the penguins. Threatened by climate change, Galapagos penguins number only about 2,000 so we were really lucky to find a raft (apparently the collective noun for penguins at sea) of around 10. They literally played with our group. Our guide Ally told us this is extremely rare. Her theory was that nature was paying us back for being such a great group of people. We all agreed.

I could go on for a long time about all the fabulous wildlife we have experienced but you only need to look at the pictures and videos we have posted to see how wonderful it is, on land and in the sea. In fact, you’re probably fed up with the amount of content we have shared, sorry.

Our boat has a crew of 13 to look after a maximum of 16 guests. For our week on board there were only 11 guests. The reason for this is that there have been a lot of cancellations following global news of ‘civil unrest’ in Ecuador. Or at least that is how it was perceived. The reality is that there was a presidential candidate assassinated and some rebels backed by the drug barons stormed one of the television stations. These two incidents had little to no impact on the general goings on in the country which, like most places, has parts you wouldn’t go to but many others that are perfectly safe. Nor did they threaten the safety of any overseas visitors, and certainly none visiting Galapagos. But due to the global and instant nature of modern media, many potential visitors got spooked and the poor hard-working people in the Ecuadorian tourism industry have suffered. Quite what the alarmed potential Galapagos visitors feared remains a mystery – giant tortoises taking up arms? Blue-footed boobies dive bombing cruise boats? It’s sad because they are lovely people here and very proud of their country. They were very grateful to us for visiting which, let’s face it, has not exactly been a hardship.

You may have noticed the irony of people being so afraid of other people that they cancelled the opportunity to visit a place where even the animals are not afraid of the people. The animals are right and the unfortunate people who cancelled were wrong.

Talking of people, we were conscious before arriving that we were about to spend 8 days in close quarters with a group of strangers. Our fear was that they would all be old and American. You know, the loud type with the plaid golf shorts who think they know it all and speak with loud voices. It was an irrational fear based more on stereotype than experience. The vast majority of Americans we meet are nice, interesting people. But we still live in fear of the minority that fit the description.

As it turned out Tracy was the oldest guest on our boat, so seniority was not an issue. Indeed, the ages, ranging from 10 to 59 (60 by the end!), were as diverse as the ethnic origins of the group. This included a couple from Hong Kong; a family of four Americans - parents with Egyptian and Indian heritage and their two exceptionally well-behaved sons; three Israeli’s – parents meeting up with their 22-year-old daughter during her backpacking trip; and the two of us, British Australians. Our fabulous guide, Ally, is Colombian and the crew mainly Ecuadorian. And we all got on famously. Ally suggested some ‘house rules’ at the beginning of the trip that included “no politics” which, in the circumstances, was good advice. What we have elicited from our new Israeli friends is that they are just desperately sad about what is going on, which I think we can all agree with.

So, for sure we will remember the wonderfully diverse, accessible, beautiful and accommodating wildlife that has happily shared these islands with us, and 320,000 other tourists this year. At the same time, we have been reminded that good people come in all shapes, sizes and ages and from all over the world. Whether as a result of our fellow guests or, possibly more so, the wonderful crew and guide that have looked after us, we left with a renewed faith in humanity, as well as wonder at the joy of nature.

Sea lions, turtles, giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies, even humans. We loved them all!

ps the most beautiful creatures? The crabs. Poor things don’t even get a mention.