Cruising the Galapagos

After our lovely free breakfast at the tour agency on the waterfront we sat and waited to join our cruise. While waiting we met up with an English guy Ronnie, and a Dutch couple Steff and Auke, all of whom were on our cruise. In the end we waited for about two hours before starting our 'cruise', the first part of which involved getting on a bus and driving to a tortoise breeding centre. It was fantastic to see these huge tortoises right up close, as they are well used to humans, and they really are HUGE. Later in the trip we got to see more of them in the wild, which obviously was a nicer setting, and also visited another breeding centre (their numbers were devastated by early settlers and whalers, and so these breeding centre are helping to rapidly build up their numbers again).

So after that wee tour it was back to the waterfront and bringing our bags onto the boat. It turned out that the 2-hour delay was due to a delayed flight arrival and also some problems with the plumbing onboard our boat, which didn't bode very well. Having gotten such a good price on a budget boat I was kinda expecting the worst. I didn't know if the boat was going to be a rust-bucket, or what our cabins would be like, if we'd have our own bathrooms, or if there would be hot water for showers, or anything really!

But arriving on the boat we were all very much surprised and relieved to see that the boat was in really tip-top condition. It was all lovely wood finishes and freshly painted, in fact they were still in the final stages of painting some of it. We were all shown to our cabins, and again I was really pleasantly surprised by just how clean and comfortable they were. We had our own spotless bathroom with hot water, and although it was very small and cramped with the two of us standing up, it was really neat and cosy.

We later found out that the owners of the boat were spending a lot of money upgrading it from an economy class boat to a more upper-class one, and we had timed our arrival perfectly as we got the budget price for a newly snazzied-up boat.

Back in the comfortable common area of the boat we discovered that the continuing plumbing problems meant that 3 of the cabins couldn't be used (all the other cabins were fine, and we never had any problems with the plumbing). It meant that instead of 16 passengers there would be only 11, meaning the boat felt quite spacious and never crowded at meal times. After four days they repaired the plumbing and Ronnie left the cruise (he'd just booked a 4-day cruise), and 1 French guy and 5 Israelis joined the boat, so making up the full complement of 16 passengers for the last 4 days.

So each day basically involved getting up at 6:30am and having a nice breakfast at 7:00am. Then we'd do some morning activity that usually meant landing on an island and strolling along trails checking out the wildlife. Then back to the boat for lunch at 12:30, some relaxing time on the boat with maybe some cruising to another location, and then another island landing or maybe snorkelling (or one afternoon spent jumping and diving from the top of the boat).

The itinerary for this cruise was the best of the few we saw from the various agencies, as it included the southern islands of Floreanna and Espanola (the best islands for wildlife apparently), and also visited Isabela Island. So over the 8 days (really only 5 full days of cruising) we got to see all the 'must see' wildlife that the Galapagos have got to offer. I think the only major critter we didn't see was the red-footed boobie (a sea bird!), simply because they only live on islands we didn't get to (and although we saw millions of marine iguanas on land and a few swimming along on the surface of the water, I never got to see one feeding underwater, which was a pity).

I must say one of the highlights of the trip for me was simply relaxing on the boat drinking the lovely free coffee while watching islands glide past as we moved location or just lounging about in our cabin. In quite a few ways it reminded me of trips cruising down the Shannon river back home, everything was just so laidback. As for wildlife one of the first things we saw was a pelican fighting off hoardes of frigate birds as they swooped in trying to snatch lumps of placenta from a very newly born sea lion, while the mother and squawking babbie got to know each other just a few feet away.

Everywhere we saw loads of sea-lions (on one beach a female had a very large, very raw and very nasty looking bite on her back, with a few triangular teethmarks around it - all very sharky looking), lots of land and marine iguanas, and gorgeous red crabs. Not so numerous were the beautiful white tropical birds with mad long tail feathers, Galapagos hawks, Nasca boobies, magnificent frigate birds (including a good few males blowing out their huge bright red chest pouches trying to attract the attentions of overflying females), flamingoes (you know you've been travelling a long time when you start to become a bit blaise about seeing flamingoes up close, or turtles or sharks), albatrosses (only the 10th largest species apparently, but the couple of young fluffy chicks we saw seemed huge), lots of lava lizards (including two biggish red-headed ones that had a quick 2-second little fight right in front of me by slashing their tails together and then running away), a large pod of dolphins racing along in front of the boat for ages (one guy swimming upside-down and flapping his tail on the surface of the water for some reason, like an escaped SeaWorld performer or something), and of course many peoples favorite, the blue-footed boobies.

It really is one of the weirdly unique, Galapagos-only things - to see these normal enough looking birds, apart from their bright blue feet, just waddle right up to you without a care in the world. The very first one we came across was a female with a fluffy chick in tow. At first we all kept our distance, but as we just stood there the mother and chick both came right up to us. They seemed to be just as curious about us as we were of them, and so everyone got the easiest close-up wildlife photos you can imagine. As we strolled about we passed quite a few more, one was even incubating an egg and wasn't in the least bit perturbed by our group passing by within a couple of feet.

Of course this is one of the main reasons the Galapagos is so famous - the timidity of the wildlife. But even knowing this is was still amazing to walk within inches of the birds, sea-lions and iguanas. Having said all that though I must say that I was also expecting there to be vast colonies of life on the islands, since that was what I saw on the 'poor man's Galapagos' of the Isla Ballestas. But in fact we only ever came across fairly small groups of birds. We saw lots of sea-lions, but never in really large concentrations either, like we'd seen in Africa. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was disappointed in this regard, but because of it I wouldn't use the word 'spectacular' to describe the Galapagos (whereas I would use it to describe the Isla Ballestas).

The landscapes also wouldn't be in my 'spectacular' category, although they are lovely (the grotto excursion we took with Steff and Auke to Las Grietas where myself and Steff jumped from the sea-cliffs (Steff was behind me and the local lads took him higher than me - d'oh!), was probably the highlight landscape-wise, although the high views of the coves were nice, and the lava tunnels were interesting too in a 'its just a cave really' kind-of way). Basically the main islands we visited don't climb to major heights (although Isabella does have 5 volcanoes, our trip didn't take us to see any of them), and really for 'spectacular' you need mountains I reckon (although there was an impressive blow-hole along some not-so-high cliffs).

Some of the snorkelling we did was brilliant though. Our first trip had by far the best water visibility and within seconds of jumping into the water I spotted a large white-tipped reef shark swimming very close. The whole group of us were amazed at the number of sea-lions that played with us all too. I had actually scuba dived with sea-lions in Dublin bay, but the visibility there was only a few metres, here it was much, much better and the sea-lions were far more numerous and far more playful - they'd often swim straight towards your face, and then smoothly turn away at the very last instant. I got to snorkel with sea-lions a couple more times during the trip, both times after the cruise had finished - once after a scuba diving trip, and another time when it was just me and Sarah on the beach.

Everyone got to see loads and loads of turtles (both while snorkelling and from land - at one beach there were about 10 turtles visible from the beach, and a couple of them where mating in the breaking surf, while a shark swam about with his pectoral fin popping up out of the water occasionally). I think everyone who snorkelled got to see sharks up close too - some of us got to see loads of them. They were just white-tipped reef and endemic Galapagos sharks, all totally safe and harmless to humans. We also got to see about 12-15 sharks in very shallow water at a natural canal as we walked along the edge, so that was pretty cool too, and even the people too afraid to snorkel got to see lots of sharks that way.

During another bit of snorkelling I saw a penguin shooting around under water. He was so fast I only got to see him for a couple of seconds, but still a mighty impressive sight (we only got to see a handful of penguins on land during the whole cruise). I also saw a boobie shooting back to the surface, having missed his diving entry into the water, and 3 very large rays under a big rock, and a couple more turtles. I also managed to get a good dose of sunburn too, something I was always worried about snorkelling, but it was a price worth paying I reckon (yes, I wore a T-shirt the whole time, and used a factor 50 suncream, but the water and strong sun were still too much).

So when we finished our cruise I decided to hang around for a couple of days to try a bit of scuba diving (we knew at this stage that we could basically pick our departure date, as it was low-season and the airline was very flexible). I was lucky to be able to bargain a good price for a couple of dives to the best local dive site of Kicker Rock - in itself a very impressive rock formation.

It was great because there was only 4 of us diving (Raphael from our cruise and a Canadian brother and sister), and all of us had lots of scuba experience which generally means a longer dive since nervous, inexperienced divers tend to burn up their air quicker (well actually Raphael only had 8 dives, but he was an expert skin diver and so his breathing was excellent - although he did run out of air at the end of the first dive!).

Unfortunately visibility was terrible, but still both dives were pretty good, with lots of large shoals of small fish, a couple of turtles, sharks etc. But the whole scuba trip was completely made for me by spotting a huge 3.5m hammerhead shark swimming directly above me. Due to the lack of visibility I only got to see him for a few seconds, but luckily he was directly overhead, so the sunlight silhouetted him perfectly and his hammer-shaped head was utterly unmistakable, and he was swimming along slowly with that uniquely sharkey swagger. The others on the dive also saw a shoal of small hammerheads, but somehow I missed that.

Poor Steff was going mad when we got back from our dive, as he is a qualified scuba diver (although not very experienced), but he didn't think the expense of diving would be worth it. He was kicking himself all day, and when we came back having seen hammerheads he decided to go the next day himself. I was tempted to go again, but I was satisfied after seeing such a huge hammerhead myself, although Steff did manage to persuade the Canadians to go again. Luckily enough for me though, as their dives were both very short (Steff's inexperience showed by running out of air quickly), and they didn't see any hammerheads. But at least Steff had taken the rare opportunity to maybe see a hammerhead. He was just unlucky I reckon, but at least he won't be kicking himself for the rest of his life for not even taking that opportunity.

Actually, another one of my all-time under water highlights was on this trip too, although I was only snorkelling at the time. I was with Raphael, the expert snorkeller, and it was he who spotted and pointed out to me a group of 9 golden rays swimming along in formation. They were moving along quite close to the surface and the close-knit formation they made with their amazing golden colouration and totally graceful movement was utterly mesmerising - definitely one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen as I dove down towards them.

So all-in-all it raises an interesting question of whether the Galapagos are worth the expense. It's impossible to answer really, as it's so subjective and depends on what your travel budget is. Undeniably it is a unique place in the world, so you can't really put a price on it, since there's no competition. I certainly thought it was worth it, as I loved the whole experience and I could easily have spent another week on our boat (but then I could say the same about many places I've been to).

But I really don't think I would have enjoyed the whole thing as much on a big, expensive, highly organised cruise ship. A few people on our boat expressed the same opinion - due to the budget nature of our boat all the passengers were quite young and very easy-going (we had a nice older Czech couple, but they couldn't speak English anyway!), and originally there was only 11 of us, making a nice small group (even when full with 16 it still felt a comfortable number). We'd all seen a large cruise ship or two disgorge their fleets of landing craft (OK, the largest 'fleet' I saw had only 4 boats, but each was packed with 16 passengers), while originally all 11 of our lot could be brought to land in a single trip.

So anyway, after nearly 2 weeks on the Galapagos it was time to head back to the mainland. We got the same flight as Steff and Anke, and simply walked the 10 minutes from the Cactus Hostel to the airport. Their computer system was down though, so after a bit of confusion at check-in, we got through and arrived back in Guayaquil effortlessly enough.

After checking a couple of places to stay we all went out for local crab, then back for a wee rest before hitting the waterfront for dinner and a few drinks. After getting ripped off by a taxi driver (charging us full fare for a trip literally around the corner - obviously we didn't know exactly where we were), we hit a cool local bar, but we were all quite tired (except for Steff!), so really it was an early night.

Next morning we headed to the swanky new bus terminal and got a bus to Riobamba, a town famous for a railway trip through the mountains that actually takes you down the face of one of those mountains while you spend the entire journey sitting on a cushion on the roof of the train - now just how could I resist that?