We’re still coming down off the Galapagos high. We’d been looking forward to it for most of the trip, and our 8-day tour really lived up to our expectations, especially because we were joined by our UK friends, Jen and John, who we have been travelling on and off with for 6 weeks.
Everything on the islands is conservation focused, and in almost all cases the interests of birds, fish and animals are put before those of humans. Our guide explained that as most of the island’s creatures have never experienced human cruelty, they don’t have any reason to fear us. We’d heard that we’d be up close to the birds and animals but had no idea that we would have to in some cases step over them on the walking trails, or have animals so close that our cameras couldn’t focus on them. We were amazed to see a sea-lion lying next to our towels on the beach on the second day, but by the eighth day it was clear that they are as common as stray dogs in the rest of South America, but much nicer.
A real unexpected highlight was snorkelling each day (sometimes twice a day), swimming with playful sea-lions, marine turtles, pelicans, flightless cormorants, sharks (we didn’t see them, but a lot of the others swimming with us did), zippy penguins (the sheep-dogs of the ocean, rounding up herds of little fish), marine iguanas munching on algae, tropical fish and on the last day, a 3-metre wide manta ray swimming gracefully underneath us.
We’re a bit further up the coast of Ecuador now, in Puerto Lopez, spending a week or so relaxing before we head down to the Amazon in Peru.
