Ah, Tuesday, bright and shiny, just perfect for reminiscing about my two-week cruise aboard the Cormorant Catamaran in 2012 with Naturalist Guide Harry Jimenez, owner of the Galapagos Eco-Lodge on San Cristobal Island.
Day 9 featured a wonderful excursion to Sullivan Island, where I found myself up to my neck in lava and where my husband practiced snow angels on a human barbecue.
On Day 8 of my Galapagos journey, we said goodbye to several guests and another 8 joined us. We were officially on Week 2 of the cruise, with stops at North Seymour Island (Blue-Footed Boobies galore!) and Bachus Beach, where I saw a beautiful Blue Heron.
Another Tuesday, another kick-off to the Galapagos Eco-Lodge Blog, where I’m guest-blogging about my fabulous trip in 2012 aboard the Cormorant Catamaran with Naturalist Guide Harry Jimenez, owner manager of Galapagos Eco-Lodge on San Cristobal Island.
This week I’ll take you to Genovesa Island, my favorite island of all those we visited during Week 1. If you love birdlife, you’ll adore Genovesa Island. Read all about it and see pictures at my guest post.
There were those who doubted I would ever finish my Galapagos travel posts. Need I remind you that wrapping up these posts was one of my 2013 New Year’s Resolutions? And it’s only May. I think I did pretty good. In fact, today, the day this post appears, is the day we actually arrived back home in Canada. May 6, 2012. One would almost think I’d planned my year of posts this way, no? One would think I had that much foresight. That I am that clever. Or one might think something else entirely. I’ll leave what you think up to you.
Galapagos Cruise: Day 15
Ecuador Trip: Days 20-21
I switched around the headings just to keep you on your toes.
On the last day of our cruise, we had to get up super early because the flight home from Baltra Island left in early afternoon. I don’t know about you, but I have a tough time going to sleep when I know I have to catch a plane the next morning. It’s dumb, because not only did my husband have an alarm set on his Blackberry but Harry, our guide, woke us up every morning with an announcement over the loudspeakers. Harry was quite imaginative with his wake-up calls, and we smiled with sadness that this would be our last one.
When you’re on a Galapagos cruise, though, it’s unlikely that you’ll wake up, eat, and travel to the airport. There’s always something to do along the way. Whether you accomplish one or both visits on your itinerary depends on what time your plane is landing or departing. When we arrived on Baltra at the start of our cruise, it was late enough in the day that we didn’t have time to visit both sites on the itinerary. The same occurred the day we left. We had time to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, but we did not have time to visit the Twin Craters, although we passed them on our way to the airport.
In all honesty, if you do a two-week cruise in the Galapagos and follow the same itinerary we did, by the time you get to visit Charles Darwin Research Station, it’s the third such visit and might not feel strictly necessary. We visited similar sites on other islands, during Week 1 and Week 2. But the Charles Darwin Research Station WAS home to Lonesome George, who was about 100 when he died on June 24, 2012, about six weeks after we saw him (we had nothing to do with it, I swear!). And visiting the icon was something we did not want to miss.
Here he is, in all his lonesome glory:
A lot of fuss was made about Lonesome George, because he was the last of his sub-species, also famous for not wanting to get jiggy with it with any of the female tortoises. In other words, George didn’t make any babies once he was in captivity.
Lonesome George was the last of the land tortoises found on Pinta Island. In 1972, he was transported to the Research Station to encourage mating with other, similar tortoises found on other islands. Alas, George would not have it. Meanwhile, another tortoise at the Charles Darwin Research Station, Super Diego, has been having babies out his whazoo (or the females’ whazoos) for several years. Hence the “Super.”
Apparently, Lonesome George did manage to impregnate a couple of females at some point, but the eggs were not viable. Lonesome was determined to remain Lonesome!
Bye-bye Lonesome George!
After seeing Lonesome George (during which one of my fellow travelers told me that I have “too much energy” – can you believe that, anyone who’s met me?), we boarded a little bus and headed back for the tiny ferry that would take us to Baltra Island. Then we boarded another little bus and went to the airport.
It was sad saying goodbye to Harry, because when you develop a rapport with your guide, he begins to feel like a friend, not “just” a guide. So there were many sad faces amongst our group as we left Harry at the airport. And, we were also sad that WE would be parting ways. There were many hugs, talking and laughing on the flight from Baltra back to Quito. First, we had to leave a lovely couple from Australia at the airport at Guayaquil. The rest of the party got off in Quito, but of eight of us who had become quite close during Week 2, only the Group of Four were actually flying home that night. Our flight wasn’t until 11 p.m. out of Quito, which isn’t the largest airport in the world. So when a couple from Ontario invited us to leave our suitcases in storage at the Quito airport and join them for dinner in a couple of hours, well, that seemed like a very good idea. Two other cruisers had massages booked back at their hotel, but when they found out the Group of Four was spending the evening in Quito, of course they dropped everything and came to see us!
The six of us went out to dinner, and although we were all exhausted by then and eager to get back to our respective homes, we had a lot of fun.
The Group of Four got up before 5 a.m. to have breakfast on The Cormorant and then go see Lonesome George. Our flight left Quito, like I said, at 11 p.m. at night. No sleeping was done in the interim. And we had to change planes twice before we finally arrived back in Canada on May 6th, 2012. Despite the exhaustion that long hours of travel brings, though, My Liege and I were both full of a weird energy those first couple of weeks after we arrived home. Yes, he got sick at the end of the cruise and had to miss the last excursion, and, yes, I got sick because he got sick, but I managed to wait until we arrived home. But the feeling of utter joy and freedom and happiness, when you are getting along with people and you have a fantastic guide and crew at your disposal, you’re exploring new islands every day and having amazing experiences…the Galapagos stays with you for a very long time. Even now, writing about it, I smile. Because I miss the Islands. I don’t know if I would ever want to visit again, because I know it would not be the same. However, one couple we met on Week 2, from Germany, were staying for two weeks, and their Week 2 was the same itinerary we’d had on Week 1…our trip with them was their second or third to the Galapagos. They just love it. I’ve also heard from others who have visited the Galapagos more than once that even if you follow a similar itinerary, it isn’t the same. You go at a different time of year, a slightly different route, and the people are different, the time of day you visit a site might be different. You might not get to see the Waved Albatross and you might not get to swim with young sea lions, but you will see baby sea turtles breaking out of their eggs and rushing down to the ocean (something we didn’t get to see because the eggs were still in the sand nests), and you might see more sharks and tropical fish and porpoises and pilot whales (the latter two which we didn’t see). Or you might island-hop instead of going on a cruise. Or you might take up diving and have a totally different experience than on a snorkeling cruise. It would be awfully tempting to go again.
If I won a mega-lottery, I would totally go again with my husband and take my sons and their respective S.O.’s along. In the meantime…
Our Galapagos cruise was technically 15 days long. However, the last day (Day 15) was also the day we flew back to Quito and then began a very long journey home (during which I barely slept a wink). So by Day 14 the knowledge that we were nearly at “The End” was bearing down on me and making me a little sad. But I was also determined to soak every ounce of enjoyment out of the trip that I could. Like I said in my last Galapagos post, I thought Floreana would be all about showing us Post Office Bay. But we had an extra treat. And while our guide explained our underground excursion the previous evening, Cindiana Jones didn’t really realize what she was getting into until she, well, got into it.
First, we visited Baroness Viewpoint on Floreana Island. We had a lovely walk and snapped photos of bird life. There is a legend about the first inhabitants of the islands that is full of intrigue, mystery and maybe even murder! According to our itinerary, we would learn about the legend at Baroness Viewpoint (thereby named because a baroness once lived there). However, our guide wasn’t into relating negative stories about the islands. For example, on Isabela Island during Week 1, according to our itinerary, we were supposed to visit the Wall of Tears, which is evidence of a wall built by prisoners back when Isabela Island was a penal colony. We wound up visiting another area of Isabela that was replete with beautiful mangroves, but we didn’t see what was left of the wall at all, which is too bad, because to me that would have been interesting. If the Wall of Tears or Baroness Viewpoint is on your itinerary, you are free to ask your guide about it. I didn’t ask our guide about either, because I was too busy enjoying nature. But I would have enjoyed visiting and learning about the Wall of Tears.
If you want to learn more about the Wall of Tears on Isabela or Baroness Viewpoint on Floreana, you can click the links I just provided.
After Baroness Viewpoint, we visited Post Office Bay, where 18th century whalers placed a wooden barrel as an unofficial mailbox. Since the Galapagos National Park started receiving visitors, people from all over the world have brought postcards to the Barrel Post Office to leave for future guests to find. The staff of The Cormorant provided us postcards for this purpose. Yes, it’s basically a touristy thing now, but it’s fun.
One of the Group of Four approaching the “post office” with our guide. Some people leave actual postcards and others scratch notes on pieces of wood or whatever else they can find. We left a note pretty much chicken-scratched on a piece of wood for the Couple from Arizona (from Week 1) to find if they ever return to the Galapagos for the second week of the cruise. Although, by then, our chicken-scratched piece of wood might be destroyed, we tried!When you reach the barrel, your group goes through the postcards and notes that have been left by previous visitors. Some are only weeks old and others are years old. We divided the postcards between the members of our group, and if the address of one of the postcards was close to us, that person would take it and then have the responsibility of delivering or mailing the postcard to the recipient to which it was intended, upon their arrival home. We know this really works, because we left a postcard for my husband’s cousin in Australia, and, months later, she announced on Facebook that it had arrived at her door. She was pretty surprised, and so were we. Meanwhile, my SIL took postcards addressed to people from British Columbia, and I’m guessing she mailed them once we returned home. I’ll have to ask her about that.
After the post office visit, our guide took us to the underground cave that we were going to explore. He had told us about the visit in advance, and while every member of our group went to Floreana, not all went down into the cave, for good reason (like, say, if you have bad knees). Unless you had a headlamp or were constantly snapping pictures, it was very, very dark. It was pitch black! And the descent into the cave was extremely steep. Here’s Harry trying to get us to follow him down into the cave:
See that little hole to your left? That’s where we climbed down. We left our daypacks up top, and I also left my camera. My husband took his Blackberry and he had a little flashlight. My brother-in-law had a headlamp. Myself and my sister-in-law had to rely on our husbands to help steer us down the “staircases.”If that woman at the bottom of the stairs (there was more than one set) looks like she’s holding on for dear life, it’s because she is. I had to go down the stairs backwards, because I was more sure of my footing that way. We were basically all helping each other along with the flashlights and the flashes of those brave enough to take cameras underground when we knew we would eventually wind up waist deep in water.To get to the big lovely opening where our group could spread out and take pictures, we had to trundle through this big crack in the rocks. My husband took this picture, and he had the flashlight, remember. I was pretty much in the dark and relying on him telling me to keep coming and the person behind me encouraging me forward. The water wasn’t the warmest, but as a Canadian it was entirely walkable. To Harry, our Ecuadorean guide, the water was very cold.This picture gives you an idea of how dark it is underground in the cave while you are standing waist-deep in water. Everyone turned off their flashlights for the picture.
At other times of the year, the water is even deeper. And when it’s deeper, I think it might be warmer, too. Harry insisted that the water during our visit was far too cold for him to swim to the very back of the cave. Would no one swim to the very back of the cave to see how far it extended? Only one person. My husband! He took a tiny little flashlight with him and swam until he reached the narrowing at the other end. I was a trifle concerned, because this is what it looks like when your husband is swimming away from you to the end of a cave where God knows how many trolls lurk:
If I looked worried, I was! Can you see that tiny pinpoint of light way back in the tunnel? That’s my husband!
At this point, we had taken a bunch of group pictures and we were getting hungry! So the group made its way back to the surface. However, My Liege, Rembrandt and I loitered behind the group. We wanted to see what it felt like to totally be the only three people down there. We knew approximately where the others were ahead of us, but we left enough time and space so that we started singing (I think it was “Oh, Canada!”) as we were climbing out of the cave, and apparently none of the group ahead of us heard us! You know what this means, don’t you? If my husband had chosen that moment to clunk me over the head and then say I’d tripped, no one other than my brother-in-law would have heard him commit the dastardly dead. However, I can be charming when I want to, believe it or not, so I escaped from the cave unscathed.
Day 19 was a very busy day! We had our last snorkeling excursion, however, I have no pictures because Rembrandt’s old underwater camera had busted by that point. We had a nice lunch and then continued to Cormorant Point, where a last surprise was in store for us. My husband wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed behind while I accompanied the group to the Point. When my parents visited the Galapagos at the turn of the century, they saw a lot of flamingoes in the lagoons on Cormorant Point. I don’t know why, maybe they were just shy, but we saw only one flamingo from very, very far away during our trek to a nice sandy beach that looked like this:
We thought we were just going on a walk. It’s really too bad My Liege missed this part, because it was amazing. Our guide told us to wander into the water, but not to take big steps. To shuffle our feet along the ocean floor. What he didn’t tell us but left us to experience for ourselves was that every time the tide rushed in, like you can see above, it brought dozens of rays with it! When you’re standing there and the water comes in, you can’t see the rays, but when the water rolls out again, it’s incredible:
Honestly, these rays were just around my feet! That Harry, leaving a special surprise for the very end of our cruise. I could have stood there for an hour, I’m sure.
A close-up of a ray:
Totally amazing.
We made our way back to the boat and enjoyed a sociable evening. However, everyone trekked to bed by 9 p.m. For one thing, all that exploring is exhausting. For another, we knew we had a wake-up call for 5 a.m. the next morning, because we were all flying out of the airport on Baltra, which meant we needed to return to Santa Cruz first.
Awwwwwwwww, Galapagos, it is nearly time to say goodbye. Except, first we had to visit Lonesome George. Little did we know that the famous century-plus-old giant tortoise would pass away a couple of months after our cruise. So we were amongst the last Galapagos visitors to see him. I’m glad George waited for me, because seeing him was on my Bucket List. It didn’t occur to me to make the list more general (like Visit the Galapagos). Learn from me, people! Learn from me!
Ah, thirteen, my favorite number. No wonder Day 13 of our Galapagos cruise was one of my favorite ever. We spent Day 13 at Española Island, otherwise known as Hood Island. Española is a photographer’s paradise. I think it was my favorite island during Week 2. Genovesa Island captured that title for Week 1, and both islands feature tons and tons of birds. But the cool thing about Española is that if you visit at the right time of year (April and May are excellent), you’ll see literally hundreds of these marine birds, because they come back to Española every year to mate. That’s one of the reasons I chose our Galapagos cruise for mid- to late-April. I did not want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing the Waved Albatross. We encountered the Waved Albatross in the afternoon. In the morning, we visited Gardner Bay, which is home to more sea lions than you can shake a stick at. We basically walked along the beach and took millions of pictures:
They kind of look like gigantic baking sardines. But these sea lions are just basking in the sun enjoying being the center of attention. There was a lot of groaning and barking and sticking up their heads trying to outshine each other. Sea lions make a lot of noise!Here’s a little guy rolling around doing an imitation of a beagle.Moi! Trying to make sure my hat doesn’t fly off. My BIL and SIL and I had walked down the beach to join Harry, our guide. We sat in the sand and just hung out. It was a gorgeous day.
Following our walk along the beach, we returned to the Cormorant for a light lunch. Then we had one of the most amazing snorkeling adventures that occurred during our entire two weeks. By now we were used to seeing amazing fish and swimming after sea turtles, and also frolicking with sea lions. However, snorkeling at Española was a delight, because there was this cool cave where the young sea lions hung out. Harry called them his “kids” and his “pets,” depending on his mood. He was amazing playing with the sea lions and allowing us to interact with them without touching them or getting in their way. It was almost like the little sea lions thought we were just really big fishes, or maybe a weird variety of sea lion. There was a cave that Harry took us to, and the tide would flush you in and out of the cave if you just let go of your fear and allowed the ocean to carry you. My BIL and my DH took good care of me in the cave, because I was a little afraid of bonking my head against the interior rock walls on the in-flush. Then I heard Harry shout, “Don’t be afraid. Let the water carry you.” And once I did that, wow, what fun. I just hung there in the water, letting the tide flow me in and out of the cave with the others, and it was such an incredible joy to find myself and others in our group floating in and out with the sea lions, watching them below the water while they watched us right back. It’s really an experience that is hard to describe. But I could have spent two hours floating back and forth in that cave. Alas, there were other guides with other groups who wanted their turns, the greedy sorts. Eventually, we gave up the cave to the next group, finished our snorkeling for the day, then returned to the Cormorant to make our way to Suarez Point, also on Española Island.
Suarez Point is a nesting ground for the Waved Albatross, but you can also find several varieties of bird life there, including the Nazca Boobies and the Blue-Footed Boobies. For an island abundant with life, it feels incredibly peaceful. We really enjoyed just soaking in the sights and sounds of nature, and, once again, it felt like our guide had introduced us to something really special—which he had! I could return to Española Island again and again and not feel bored, I’m sure. Let me show you…
All those little white blobs are varieties of Boobies and other marine birds. The sea washes in and out. It’s noisy and serene at the same time. The young birds learn to fly here. Pity the bird who breaks a wing, because it’s survival of the fittest in the Galapagos. Very Darwinian….As well as the marine birds, we saw dozens of the red “Christmas” iguanas (Iguana wish you a merry Christmas…)
Here’s a close-up:
One of the super cool things about Suarez Point is the famous blow-hole. As the tide swept in, water would shoot out of the hole, like a great rock whale:
You know I gotta show you some Blue-Footed Boobies! They were plentiful on Suarez Point.
Typically, he’s trying to get her attention and she’s ignoring him. I’m pretty sure the female Boobies are the originators of “playing hard to get.”
Now for the Waved Albatrosses! There were literally fields of these nesting guys and gals:
A lot of them were sitting on eggs. Wouldn’t it be cool if I actually had a picture of one of them showing us an egg?
They would waddle around in the fields, and it was so funny, almost like they were trying to sneak up on each other. When they weren’t waddling, they were flying:
Here’s a “couple” discussing what they’re going to name their children. Their beaks made a clacking sound as the conversation progressed:
Isn’t that cute? Now which do you think is the male and which the female? Is the female the one doing all the yacking? Or is she the one sitting there thinking, “That blow hard. There he goes again. I do NOT want to name our baby Hermatroid!”
As it so happens, I do have a photo of a nesting Waved Albatross showing us an egg. My husband took this picture with his Blackberry. He was very patient, waiting until the bird figured, hey, it was just him and this weirdo in a Panama Hat, so why not show him who’s got the goods?
See the egg? Isn’t that amazing?
By this point in our travels, with only two days remaining in our cruise, I thought there was nothing else Harry could show us new under the sun. We were on our way to Floreana Island, where you can find the famous Post Office Bay. I thought the Barrel Post Office was all Floreana would show us. Boy, was I wrong. In the Galapagos, it’s one surprise and one amazing discovery or experience after another.
