A few tiny pieces of land.

Today, the day after my return from the Galapagos islands, just happens to be Darwin’s birthday.

The Galapagos are said to be the source of Darwin’s evolutionary ideas. People talk about Darwin’s finches, his trip there, and everything else you can think of. Actually, Darwin only spent a few weeks in Galapagos, classified the finches completely wrong, and made his evolutionary observations mostly on the tortoises that the Beagle, his ship, brought away from the island to eat. (All sailors who came through Galapagos in that time period took tortoises with them for food since they can live up to a year without food or water. That’s part of the reason that there are so few left now.) But all the same, Galapagos had a big influence on Darwin’s thought, even if he arrived in and left the Galapagos as a creationist.

Our trip, though much shorter than Darwin’s, was, I’m sure, much better informed.

We flew into Santa Cruz, one of the larger islands, on Saturday and immediately were fed and taken to the beach. Which I think is a grand start to a vacation. We were actually shown around town a little bit first, introduced to the sea lions all over the sidewalks, and generally welcomed to the islands. My first impression of Galapagos, even in the town, was that it is beautiful. You’re always surrounded by water, and the water is that pure tropical blue that only happens in warm waters close to the equator. The water, next to the black rock of the volcanic islands and the white sand of the beaches, creates a scene out of a catalog. Except that it’s real. And not only that, there’s new things to see everywhere. The sea lions are not so much friendly as they just aren’t scared. The same with the iguanas. They will all still run away from you, but you can get within a few feet of them before they decide to move or warn you to move instead. I think we just spent our first half a day figuring out that we really were in the Galapagos, it was gorgeous, and we had a whole week to enjoy it. Our first trip to the beach found us swimming excitedly and sunning as though we’d never seen the sun. Chandler and I swam way out towards where the big incoming waves were crashing, but found it impossible to get past the point. The current was too strong. The struggle was worth it though. We got to see a sea lion swimming along inside one of the big waves. It was incredible.

Day two, we visited the only fresh water lagoon on any of the Galapagos. It’s in a volcanic crater high up on Santa Cruz. Fragatas (Frigate birds) and other animals go there to get fresh water for themselves. Fortunately, the pond (it’s not really big enough to be a lake) is protected by the park, so the town doesn’t use it. If they did, it would probably disappear. We also made our first visit to a tortoise breeding center. It was actually pretty exciting at first to see where the tortoises are bred and taken care of until they are old enough to be released. The breeding centers are necessary because the tortoises need help rebuilding their population levels, and the young ones have a hard time surviving in the wild before they’re about 3 years old. Before that, they are just too small and get eaten by rats and cats and dogs and all manner of things. At three years of age though, they are big enough to be safe from such threats. Post-breeding center, we returned to the beach. We went swimming in the ocean just about once every day while we were in Galapagos. And I don’t think any of us were complaining.

Our third day, we set off early for the docks and boarded a couple of boats to set out on a (fortunately) calm sea. It was so calm, the captain was agreeable to having a few of us sit out on the prow of the boat. Michelle and I were the only two who took him up on the opportunity, and it was quite the experience. It was kind of cloudy while we were out there, but it never rained on us and the sky was still bright. At first, we were spotting sea lions and few sea turtles in the water ahead of the boat. Then, suddenly, there was a dolphin leaping up to the side of the boat. Then more. For about ten minutes, a school of them followed us and jumped around a bit, causing Michelle and I to jump up and down (seated) and clap our hands together, laughing like little girls. Eventually, we had to go back into the boat as we approached Floreana, another of the good-sized islands. We stopped first to snorkel around the base of a giant rock outcropping populated by blue-footed boobies and frigate birds. The snorkeling was amazing. I saw many types of fish, a number of sea lions and sea turtles, a couple manta rays (waaaaaay down from where we were) and even a shark. The Galapagos don’t really have coral reefs, or even all that many corals, but they have a lot of fishies and big animals. From the rock, we went up onto Floreana to see a small trickle of water seeping out of the rocks. The only flowing fresh water source on all of the islands. Floreana has an interesting history (which you can read a summary of here) because of that water. The first settlers on the island left a few other interesting things behind, and the geologic construction of the island is interesting, but it’s still a pretty small island. Floreana has a small community, barely able to be called a town, and ice cream (more important that the fresh water, if you’d have asked me while I was eating it). Once done exploring the island and eating our ice creams, we took off for the largest island: Isabella. We arrived on Isabella too late to do much except watch the sunset, eat dinner, and go to sleep.

Our first full day on Isabella was filled with an extensive hike up the volcano Sierra Negra to Volcan Chico (The little volcano that is part of Sierra Negra and exploded most recently). The volcanic rock and lava formations were incredible. I’ve never been that close to lava flows before. The volcano is still active, but not violently so. All you can see of its activity are a few clouds of steam emanating from holes in the rock. But the sheer variation in the colors of the volcanic rocks, their formations, and their structure was mind-blowing. Not to mention the fact that the landscape was desolately gorgeous as well. We ate two large snacks on the way out and back, to tide us over until lunch. It was nearly too much food, and would have been if I hadn’t decided to join the group that ran the last half of the way back to the trail head. We got back long before everyone else, so the guide that ran with us took us down to a little shop and bought us all beers. Once the rest of the group finally caught up to us, we went and got lunch and then headed back to town and had free time to swim or do whatever we wanted until dinner.

The next day we made a visit to the wall of tears. After WWII was over, the US tried to get a 100 year lease on the Galapagos, since they had had a military base there, but Ecuador didn’t give it to them, so they left, and Ecuador tried to populate the island with prisoners instead. They brought them there and gave them hard labor to do to keep them from revolting. The hard labor was to build a giant wall around the prison compound. Apparently many died in the process (the saying goes that there, “the weak will die and the strong will cry”) and some, if not most, were put into the wall itself. In 1959, the Galapagos islands were made into a national park and the prison compound was disbanded, finally halting the construction of the wall. For the time that the prisoners worked on it, the wall isn’t very long, but its story is still disturbing. After the wall, we went to another tortoise breeding center. This time though, we got to see a turtle egg, and even two turtles in the process of making those eggs. It can take them up to 4 hours. We didn’t watch that long. Our afternoon was supposed to be taken up with looking at penguins, walking an iguana trail, and snorkeling. But it started raining. We did see a few penguins, and some of us went snorkeling in the rain, but we abandoned the walk and eventually just returned to the hotel for hot chocolate.

Our last morning on Isabella though, we split up and some people went to see the iguanas while the rest of us went snorkeling in a little lagoon-y area. I saw way more sea lions, some interesting starfish, a swimming iguana, and a bunch of little tiny shrimp-y looking things. In the end, we had to pack up, eat lunch, and head out for the next island: San Cristobal.

San Cristobal has the largest population. Our first day there (after arriving the evening before), we went to a beautiful beach with a mangrove lagoon for our last bout of snorkeling. The lagoon was very shallow and murky, but I saw two sharks, a sea turtle, and some fish that were fun to follow around and annoy. The main beach was perfectly white, with clusters of black rocks and a HUGE population of iguanas. All the swimming kind. We regretfully left the beach for lunch, and then headed over to the Darwin Research Station. There, we saw more tortoises (by this time we were kind of sick of them, to tell the truth), land iguanas, and, the most exciting bit, Lonesome George. Lonesome George isn’t really all that interesting. He looks just like all the other tortoises, and he’s not even that giant. But his story is what makes him interesting. We had some free time after visiting the station, so we all ambled through town, buying delicious ice cream at one of the best ice cream places I’ve ever been to, buying little Galapagos trinkets, and generally having a good time. At some point, Adrianna, Katie, Mysha, and I found ourselves down by the Artisan Market, right next to the Ocean. There was a built up cement area with benches for sitting and looking at the bay and places to tie up boats where a large group of locals were jumping off into the water. Most of them just wearing clothing and not bothering with swimsuits. Adrianna and Katie decided to join them, and, after seeing their first jump into the water, so did I. Of course, I didn’t have any chance to back out at the last minute, since one of the Ecuadorian boys who had been jumping in came up and gave me a little push that sent me over the edge. What ensued was great fun. We jumped and dove into the water repeatedly, joined by the local kids and having a blast. It was an awesome experience I’m not going to forget.

Our last day in Galapagos, we had to cross the island to get to the airport island next to San Cristobal: Baltra. On our way we first stopped at an entrance point into a lava tunnel. It’s made by lava creating a crust and running hot under that solid crust, until it runs completely out of the middle and leaves the crust behind. It was a pretty cool thing to see. Our second and final stop of the morning was to see yet more tortoises. These were basically wild though, which I suppose made them something new and different. Sorta. The fun thing about the stop was an empty shell we were able to crawl into to pretend to be a tortoise. And ice cream. I ate a LOT of ice cream in the Galapagos. The islands are just so HOT.

In the end, we all had to return to Quito and to the realization that we have so little time left. In exactly two weeks, I plan to be sleeping in my bed in Michigan by now. I guess the feelings that brings up are the next to tackle. Stay tuned!

Galapagos pictures here! Sadly, these are only pictures from the last half of the trip (wall of tears and on) because the memory card I filled up in the first half is missing. I think it’s lost for good at this point, and I’m really disappointed about that, but there’s not much I can do.