For the last three weeks we have been wildlife watching and enjoying the Galapagos Islands.
Rather than take a week long boat cruise, we decided to travel around the islands more slowly on our own, organising day trips as we went.
The Galapagos have a unique selection of birds and animals, due to their isolated location 600 miles from the nearest land. All the wildlife originally had to fly, swim or drift over on vegetation to arrive and hence there are many reptiles and birds but few mammals. Once they arrived, they had to adapt to the warm land climate and cool seas plus the limited range of vegetation to eat and the volcanic landscape. The wildlife evolved new characteristics, in some cases different for each of the islands. All of the islands have Darwin finches but they differ in terms of colour and the shape and size of beak according to the food available.
The tortoises grew into giants, with the shape and pattern of their shells differing between islands. All food for thought for Mr Darwin when he visited in 1835.
As there were no people until very recently and few predators, the birds and animals have never learnt fear. So as a visitor you can get very close to them. We have been swimming with sealions, who are curious rather than fearful. And on the rocky shores where marine iguanas abound you have to be careful not to tread on them.
Apart from the three per cent of the islands where people live and farm, the rest of the islands and the surrounding sea is all national park and marine reserve. There are some problems with introduced species that have escaped and gone wild (goats,dogs and cats)in some parts, creating problems for the giant tortioses, but overall the islands are in an amazing pristine condition.
On Isabella Island we visited the small penguin population and went around the giant tortoise breeding centre where the tortoises are then released into the wild when they are 5 years old, they go on to live to 150. Isabella has 6 active volcanoes and we went on horseback up to the giant crater of Sierra Negra and saw Galapagos hawks and vermillion flycatchers. There are also miles of sandy beaches where iguanas sunbathe and sealions swim: great for humans too.
Santa Cruz Island has the main tourist facilities but within five minutes walk you are on quiet rocky headlands with scurrying lava lizards, watching blue footed boobies dive bomb into the sea to catch fish, great blue herons slowly stalking and sanderlings hopping about. Above, frigate birds soar: nesting season has just started and the males have an extendable bright red pouch that they puff out to show off to the females.
We took several day boat trips out to smaller islets from where we went snorkelling to look at the abundant underwater life, colourful fish and corals and graceful marine turtles. We also snorkelled looking down on Galapagos sharks and white tipped sharks below. From the boat we also saw dolphins and minke whales.
Overall we saw nearly all of the endemic species, learnt alot about the islands and their wildlife and did lots of walking and swimming in the sunshine.
To see more details on how we arranged our Galapagos trip go to:
http://journals.worldnomads.com/will/
