Galapagos, Day 5

 

 

As mentioned in the last blog, we motored all night for about 12 hours, across the equator twice - once on the way north past the northern tip of Isabela and once south on our way back to Baltra. Most of our cohort were leaving - only Sally and Chuck; Giselle and Peter and us were staying on. More travellers would join us later. I was sorry to ssay goodbye to a few people, but on the whole I was happy that most were leaving. There was the expectation that the newcomers couldn't be worse! In the meantime, we disembarked at Baltra, met a temporary guide and travelled over to Santa Cruz and up into the highlands to a tortoise sanctuary. This was fairly impressive, with large numbers of the critters just roaming freely. They were everywhere - even on the sides of the roads. And we thought it was bad to hit wombats with cars!


Roaming Tortoises

We also ventured into a lava tunnel. Bruce and I have always wanted to explore a lava tunnel, and the Galapagos is riddled with them..


Lava tube

A brief drive, and we joined our new cohort for lunch at a retaurant in the highlands. We now had some more Australians, a partially sighted English girl (why?), some Germans and Austrians, New Zealanders, young Americans, and some Argentinians. Oh dear - some smokers. No-one from the last lot smoked!

We also swapped guide Whitman (who was a bit of a pain) for Alessandro, who was really, really knowledgable and nice. The duo of Victor Hugo and Alessandro proved to be excellent.

After lunch we traveled to Pueto Ayora, the biggest town in the Galapagos and visited the Charles Darwin Research Centre. This was a bit ho-hum after all the liberated toroises we'd seen in the morning, so when Alex offered us a lift back to the boat, we gladly accepted. It was also incredibly hot. There were sea lions lounging about the dock area and we saw further evidence of the changes in beaks of the Darwin finches. All 6 of the old cohort travelled back to the boat along with partially sighted Sally, and we had a relaxing few hours before the newbies joined us. Poor Sally was really challenged by the circumstances - the panga, getting on and off Coral 1 and getting about the boat. Most people helped, but I sometimes wondered what she gained from the experience. She was a lovely lady, though and good company.

Memorial to Lonesome George

 

We had welcome cocktails with the newcomers. Some of the crew had changed as well, and our new barman was Roberto aka Mosquito. It was revealed that Alessandro's nickname was Turkey and Alex's was Chicken. A bit of an animal theme going on here. And, of course, Victor Hugo was Iron Man!