The Gringo Trail: Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Craig was looking forward to this more than me. It’s not that I wasn’t excited about the prospect but I was wary about the “sheep syndrome”, that is I was concerned that there would be so many people following each other that any sense of “adventure” would be non-existent.

It wasn’t really like that, we certainly didn’t encounter as many people as I expected. We managed to book a really cheap, last minute, cruise on a ‘first class’ boat (US$900 each). The boat had a maximum capacity of 16 passengers and 10 crew, and there were only 12 passengers on-board, so that was good too. During the daily landings and subsequent short walks to see the wildlife we rarely encountered other groups and we never exactly had to follow the person in front.

I had read beforehand that in order to see everything in the Galapagos Islands you need at least 7 days, our cruise was only 4 days/nights. 8 out of the 12 passengers on our boat were doing the ‘full’ 8 days/nights, but after the 3^rd day everyone was wondering what else they were going to see and do for the remainder of their trip. We did feel slightly disappointed overall, although we saw almost everything that we expected. We just felt like a lot of the things we were doing were starting to be repeated daily, each day doing a walk on an island in the morning and a snorkel in the afternoon.

Unfortunately SCUBA diving wasn’t an option as now you have to go on a specific dive boat if you want to dive. The snorkelling was good though, and now I’m keen to get diving again!

Our boat lived up to our expectations but there were a couple of things that could have been better;

1) Our guide could have been a bit more enthusiastic

2) The bar could have been better stocked with beer

On the latter point there was a group of 4 young Irish girls and blokes on our boat. On the first night the bar ran out of beer by about 8 o’clock, and it was a similar story on the 3^rd. On the 4th, and last, night there was not a drop at all. Fortunately Craig and the Irish crew had managed to buy vodka on the main island itself, after we visited the ‘Charles Darwin’ tortoise sanctuary on the first day, and on the last night I pushed the barman on his earlier offer to sail 8 of us to port, and a 'discoteca', in one of the boat's dinghies. See later post for pics!!

The other passengers were a North American couple, a German couple and a Swiss couple. Apart from the Germans appearing to think that they could do what they wanted, when they wanted (they almost got lost on the first day and our guide was furious) it was a great group. We actually encountered the Germans on the plane from Quito when the woman accused Craig of sitting in her seat, at the window. I’m certain that she knew fine well it wasn’t her seat and she was just chancing it.

This has essentially been the first time during our entire trip that we’ve been having conversations with other people in English, with the exception of Mago in Mexico (¡hola Mago!).

Between Craig and myself we took about 1000 pictures. I’m about to quickly go through them and post the best ones; but sorry – I’m not wasting an entire day of our holiday doing so! There was no WiFI on the boat but I managed to edit the pics there and I’m currently on the boat typing this – I’ll create the post itself when we get back to land and into a hotel. We’re currently sailing between islands during the day, which I thought they we supposed to do during the night, in order to maximise the daily activities…

Just one other thing to mention here – it was my turn to get a dose of the shits! Craig had been bad for a few days in Columbia and used up all the ‘gastro-stop’ pills. Fortunately we had the foresight to buy more, otherwise I would have spent far too much time on the boat! I wondered whether it was actually the antibiotics I was taking after the dog bite that were causing it – so I stopped taking them.

Oh, one more thing – the food on the boat was fantastic! I swear I’ve had the best tasting prawns ever!

The German woman that turned out to be on our boat. She accused Craig of sitting in her window seat on the first of our two flights.

Craig on the piss in Guayaquil airport waiting for our second flight of the day

Here she is again, standing up behind her husband. This time her husband was sitting next to Craig, while she was seated a few rows further forward. As the plane was taxiing, close to take-off, she got up and dragged the guy to a spare seat beside her!

Finally we arrive on Baltra Island, Galapagos

We meet some of the other passengers as we assemble at the airport after meeting a couple of the crew members. This is Steven from the US

This crew member wasn't meant to be in this shot, he turned the corner just as I was taking the picture of the "bridge"

Our boat

The (mostly dry) bar

Dining area

We spot this tortoise while en route to the Charles Darwin centre on a bus. All part of our cruise

A picture of part of the main island, Santa Cruz. There's actually tens of thousands of people living on the islands

Entering the Charles Darwin centre, it wasn't up to much at all

One of a few tortoises at the centre. They were pathetic looking compared to the ones we saw in the wild. They had numbers painted on them and they weren't as big as the wild ones, although there are a few different species on the island

A rather pathetic looking iguana at the Charles Darwin centre

Again at the Charles Darwin centre, although this is a wild iguana. They say the most amazing thing about the Galapagos Islands is the fact that the animals are so tame. It wasn't exactly true for them all, in fact it was surprising to get this close to an iguana (even if it was spitting poison on me at the time!)