Traveling the Galapagos Islands

On my way to the Galapagos Isles it was worth while spending some time in the Ecuadorian volcanic highlands, in Quito with it's colonial era capitol and coastal Guayaquil, the economic center of the country and our departure airport to the Galapagos. The main attraction in Quito is it's magnificent colonial "old town." The three hundred plus year old beginning of the city boasts impressive original colonial architecture and hundreds of years old churches. There are endless photo ops in the square mile that is colonial Quito. A thirty minute flight delivered me to my next destination, Guayaquil, a modern city with miles of a beautiful river front promenade and a colonial times artist neighborhood in which the neighborhood it's self is art. In general, costs of visiting these cities can be done, nicely, on a cheap South American fare or on a pricey and fancy New Yorkish city expense account, your choice.

As the overhead luggage compartments of the plane are sprayed for unwelcome, non indigenous bugs, as you are approach landing in the Galapagos, you begin to better realize you are going to visit a special place. The tour operations are well organized by the tour operators and most week long tours start and end on Saturday. As the tour companies chartered flights land in the small airport in Isla Baltra, buses are waiting for the short trip to the docks and the harbor where the live-on-board yachts and boats are anchored. A quick zodiac trip brings you to your boat. The options of tours range from large, hundred passengers ships to eight passengers motor and sailing yachts. The two or three days tours are land based and use speed boats to transport you to near by isles where many other tourist are also visiting. For the week long boat tours, in my opinion, the smaller the better, as I will explain.

The Galapagos Isles are a highly regulated and protected National Park. Isles tour destinations are mandated by the park and not the tour company and are subject to change. Itinerary are similar although some are a bit better then others. Virtually all itinerary include all the target species that visitors come to see. The one important exception is the giant tortoise. The place to see these creatures in the wild is in the highlands of Santa Cruz Isle and require transportation from Puerto Ayora to the sanctuary where tortoises can be found.

All landings are from zodiac type vessels called "panga," the larger one's can carry up to sixteen persons. Landing group size is limited by park rules, largest group I have seen was fourteen. From the larger boats, I saw several zodiac trips depositing visitors on the isles and soon there is a "mob" of groups being hustled along the trails. Some of the smaller and more pristine isles can not tolerate such numbers, I bet the larger tour boats do not get permission to go there. At any given time there maybe several boats unloading the passengers for isles visits, if there are several such groups on the isles, visits can be short and unfulfilling. Touring with a photo tour and wanting the early morning and sunset light we landed twice per day; early, around six in the morning for about three hours and at three in the afternoon till sunset at about six in the evening. Most of the time we where alone, other groups began to show up as we were leaving the island in the morning or after we arrives in the later afternoon. Nevertheless, I spoke with several visitors who toured on board the larger boats and they all described a wonderful experience.

Our itinerary started at the airport in Baltra, after boarding the boat we motored to North Seymour and our introduction to the Galapagos. Hundreds of Sally foot crabs adored the black lava rock on a beautiful soft sand beach with a backdrop of scrub and cactus. We took photos until sunset, we loved it. Over night we cruised to the far northern isle of Genovese, a lava isle inundated with all types of booby and frigate birds. We were amazed at the indifference the wild life demonstrated, photos where possible within a foot of incubating birds. We spent the morning taking photos and reluctantly departed, headed for another part of the isle. The afternoon was taken up by photographing monster looking marine iguanas. The trip began to feel like a Jurassic park experience, and it was only our first full day in the Galapagos....

Another overnight trip brought us to the West side of Isabella, the largest Island in the Galapagos. We spent the next two days exploring that area and the near by isle of Fernandina. We snorkeled for the first time in the cold waters, were nozzle by the curious sea lions and saw some huge puffer fish. As we learn from our very able naturalist about geology, flora and fauna, our amazement with the wildlife experience on each landings continued. A rare sighting of a large group of twelve Galapagos penguins graced us during a panga ride, and if we thought this was enough to make the day, later that afternoon as we snorkeled in the same area we encountered the same group heading straight at us as they were hunting for fish. Underwater these land clumsy bird move at a speed of a missiles.

The next destination were the isles of Bartolome and another side of North Seymour. The target species were large congregations of sea lions and nesting frigate birds. We watched for hours as the male frigates displayed their red gular sac trying to attract the picky females frigates soaring above them.

The giant tortoise on the Santa Cruz isle and Darwin Station were our next destinations. We anchored in Puerto Ayorta, a nice touristy town with some nice hotels, shops and outdoor cafe's. The attractions are Darwin Station and the highlands with it's ever present mist and tortoise sanctuary. A bus met us as we disembarked and took us for the forty minute ride to the highland's sanctuary. After we spent the morning photographing the tortoises we headed back to Ayorta to visit the research facilities at Darwin stations and walked around the artists shops.

Flamingos on a pond on Floreana isle was our next destination. We remained at the pond till late sunset trying to get the wow shot with the sun setting behind the birds.

Espanola and San Cristobal were our final islands to visit. You'd think we'd be jaded by now? not a chance, more remarkable sights, the rugged cliffs of Espanol, and more new to us target species, albatross birds and red and green iguanas. After a full morning of shooting we took off for the fishing town of San Cristobal for some souvenir shopping and a few beers on the harbor front cafe. It was a nice ending for our last day.