Around the World

Marine Iguana

I will try to fill in some details about our boat excursion through the Galapagos. Our fellow passengers were a varied lot and all younger than us. There was a young couple from Holland, another young couple from Spain (he works in Ireland), a girl traveling alone from New Zealand, a young man also traveling alone from Israel and a family from Belgium (mother, father, daughter in her twenties). All spoke English to one degree or another. Juan our tour guide was Spanish speaking but did well enough to be understood in English. The Belgians were French speaking and a little weak in English, the Israeli was also weak in English but did better in Spanish. Somehow we all made it work. The rest of the Encantada crew spoke Spanish with very little English.

Marine Iguanas

The wildlife on the islands has no fear whatsoever of human beings. We literally had to tiptoe through the iguanas on a number of occasions. Sea lions make themselves at home anywhere, benches lounge chairs, boats, etc. Tortoises will tolerate your presence, but if you persist they will turn their back on you, they are old and remember the times when it wasn't safe to be a tortoise. The islands are totally free of trash, though we did see some minor incidences of graffiti on cacti. I hope it wasn't a stupid American.

Crabs, Marine Iguanas

The landscape on most of the islands is very volcanic and looks a lot like the lava beds in northern California or the lava fields in Hawaii. There have been eruptions within the last ten years with lava flowing to the sea. Some of the beaches are very beautiful. We swam off a black sand beach and off a red sand beach. The red sand beach was kind of gravelly and hard on the feet.

Penguin

In our tour through the islands we crossed the equator twice. Most of our traveling was done at night as is so often the case with larger cruise ships. This enabled us to have maximum time on each new island. I think our captain was a vampire.

Returning to the beach as sea lion supervises

The weather has been very good. This is supposed to be the rainy season and we did have rain on our first day and a little on the second, otherwise it has been dry with temperatures in the mid eighties, moderated by a nearly constant sea breeze. Water temperatures are a little less than you would expect at the equator due to the influence of the Humboldt Current from Antarctica, hence the penguins. Lots of folks went snorkeling and wore partial wetsuits. When Linda and I went in the temps were in the mid 70's which was fine with us.

Watching manta rays jump around sunset

Ever since Machu Picchu I have been dealing with some issues with high blood pressure, which is not usually a problem for me. It has sapped my energy and caused my feet to swell considerably. Now that our boat ride is over we are spending two nights at a resort on Santa Cruz Island and they were able to get a doctor to check me out. He prescribed some medicine to lower my bloodpressure and a diuretic to deal with the swelling. I am peeing lots and starting to feel better.

Volcanic landscape

Tomorrow we get back on the big bird and head for two days in Lima Peru. We have some truly horrid connections and so will be spending lots of time on airport benches. After that it is on to Buenos Aires.