Ecuador was better than I expected, and the Galapagos Islands ending up being the highlight of my South America trip. I enjoyed both Quito and Guayaquil (in Ecuador), but the highlight was definitely the Galapagos Islands. My friend Kevin came for about 4 days, and we swam in crystal clear waters with giant turtles, seals/sea lions, and sharks. There was wildlife everywhere you looked, many of it not afraid in the least of humans. There were so many iguanas everywhere that you almost stepped on them just walking about. I had to change where I was about to step a couple of time or I would have stepped right on one of the poor guys! The sea lions and seals were always lazing about on public benches as if they were kings on their personal thrones. To the right is a picture of a sea lion squawking at Kevin when he got too close to the sea lions sitting spot. Birds of all colors and sorts were fighting for the scraps from the daily catches of the local fishermen, and bright orange crabs, fish, iguanas and small sharks all decorated the local boat dock.

Most people who go to Galapagos go on a boat tour, where you stay 4-10 days on a boat that cruises around the different islands. I had read on the internet that the best way to save money is not book ahead on the internet, or you will pay a premium for the reservation and the guaranteed cabin in a boat. Instead if you arrive to the island and book a last minute cruise there, you can save a lot of money. I had also read about the cheapest option of staying in a hotel on the main island, and then doing day trips to the other islands. So, me and Kevin decided to arrive and then figure out which option we wanted to go with at that time. We looked at a couple of last minute cruises when we got there, and it looked like it was going to be about $2,000-$3,000 for a 4-5 day tour. The hotel and day trips option would be a couple hundred for the hotel and less than $100 for each day trip. So, we opted for the cheaper day trips option. I am glad we did, as it was still amazing. Even doing the cheapest day trips option, the Galapagos islands were still overall very expensive. With the airfare, park entrance fees, hotel and tours, it was by far the most expensive part of my South America trip.

So the hotel we stayed in was situated on the main island of Santa Cruz. This gave us the best options of getting to the other islands on day trips. After settling in the only thing we did the first day was visit the Charles Darwin center. This is a little informative area with a whole lot of giant tortoises. The do a lot of breeding on multiple islands to ensure the tortoise population is strong as it was almost wiped out in the 19th century. Unfortunately, some types of tortoises, that were only found on certain islands, were put extinct before these programs could be put in place.

It's hard to tell scale in the pictures, but some of these guys shells could get up to 6 feet in length! Most of the big ones I would say were 4-5 feet. Seeing them up close is really quite interesting. They also moved a lot quicker than I thought, and were not as lethargic as I thought they would be. I always think of turtles and tortoises in the zoo just sitting there, but these guys were always moving about.

We also got a special show when I noticed strange rhythmic sounds coming from somewhere in the trees. I then spotted a few tortoises where the sounds were coming from, and sure enough there was two of them mating. You can see them in the picture to the right. Looks like there is a 3rd onlooker as well... hmm... lots of comments come to mind, but I will keep them to myself. :) I have a video of the mating, along with the crazy sounds they make in the Santa Cruz picture gallery.

The second day we did a day trip and visited San Cristobal island. After a couple hour boat trip to the other island, we were taken by minibus to a beach that was a Sea Lion Refuge. As we were walking to out destination there were a few sea lions lounging around at various places on the beach. By this point this was a common site, and we hardly stopped to say hello.

We continued on until we got to a bay with shallow water that was sheltered from the open ocean. This provided natural protection from sharks and we were told there would be some sea lions out there to swim with. Cool, this was my number one thing I wanted to do in Galapagos. Swim around with the seals and sea lions in the open ocean. I think I saw it on some nature show once and wanted to do it ever since.

So, we put on our snorkeling gear and waded into the water. There were a lot of natural rocks and reef and the water was never very deep, maybe 10 feet at the deepest. You can see a few people snorkeling around in the picture to the right. The seals were hard to find. Eventually we found a few who were swimming around. I think there were less than a half a dozen in the whole bay though, so you really had to swim a lot to keep up with them. They were a little playful, but mostly just swam about according to their own agenda, what ever that may have been.

What ended up being more amazing was almost as soon as we got in the water we were surrounded by giant turtles. They were about the same size as the land tortoises, but just lazily swimming around everywhere. At one point I was standing in waist deep water cleaning my mask and one swam right into my leg. I saw him coming towards me, and thought for sure he would steer around, but he swam right into me. Kevin brought an underwater case for his iPhone so he was able to take some pictures, like the one to the left. Unfortunately he did not know how to take them without all the iPhone icons showing. There is a link below under the "Related Information Links" where he uploaded his underwater photos. Hopefully the pictures are still there when you are reading this, as he's not quite as organized as me... then again who is. :)

After about an hour at the bay in the Sea Lion Refuge we returned to the bus and returned to the boat docks. We boarded a different boat in order to visit a few different places around the island. The first stop was at Kickers Rock. This is a rock formation a few kilometers from the main island that juts suddenly out of the open ocean. It has bird colonies roosting in the upper rocks, but otherwise it's nothing but a couple of rocks with sheer faces. The attraction here is a narrow opening between two of the rocks there is a gap where the ocean floor is only 20 feet down and often sharks and rays can be spotted. Cool!

A few of the people on the boat were a little reluctant to get into the water when there was a pretty good chance that there would be sharks swimming around. I figured that they must take tourists here all the time, so the sharks can't be that eager to eat people or it would not stay a big tourist attraction for very long. Right? Well, I think I was first into the water. Kevin was right with me, and eventually everyone else followed us in.

At first it was a little freaky because when I put the mask on and started snorkeling I could not see a single thing. It was just completely black water. OK, I was a little nervous then because you have no sense of distance, so when I see the shark will he be like all of a sudden right in front of me?!? But after swimming for a bit and getting closer to the rocks, I was able to see the sides of the rock and could tell that the water was crystal clear with a visibility of about 20 meters. It was only because we were in really deep open ocean when we first got in the water that nothing was visible.

So eventually we swim far enough into the gap between the rocks to see that the ocean floor comes up quite a bit here and we can see all the way to the bottom, maybe 15-20 meters down. Still have not spotted anything yet, but then all of a sudden a couple of Galapagos sharks swim right along the bottom of the gap between the rocks. At first it's just a few, but still exciting, I turn around and shout at the others.

So for a while I am just swimming and watching for more sharks on the bottom when suddenly it got much more amazing, and scary! One of the Galapagos sharks started swimming up at the same level as us! It seemed to be checking out the snorkelers, it was way cool and very scary. The Galapagos sharks were about 8-9 feet long, and looked like proper sharks, e.g. not like reef sharks or anything. They would get about 10 feet away from me before turning around and zooming away. I guess they were probably more afraid of us than we were of them, if that was possible from all the shrieking from some of the girls in our group! :) After that a lot of the girls headed for the boat, which swung around the rocks and met us on the other side of the gap.

Once the girls were out of the water it got better, and more and more Galapagos sharks would come up to the same level and check us out. It was very cool. After a while there was whole groups of them swimming at the top of the water. They were quite a way away. I am not sure how comfortable I would have been if the whole swarm of sharks came 10 feet away at the same time! So, after about half an hour in the water they called us back to the boat. I should have ignored them, like some of the others did. Kevin spotted a few giant rays, which I missed by getting out of the water ahead of the others. Oh well, it was just an amazing experience.

So, back on the boat and off to the third and final stop for the day. This was another sheltered bay on the main island of San Cristobal. Once again we are supposed to swim with the seals and sea lions that swim about within the protection of the bay. In the picture to the right you can see Kicker Rock in the distance and the natural barrier between the open ocean (dark blue), and the sheltered area of the bay (green/blue). Both waters are crystal clear, but the colour difference is stunning.

Fortunately for us, this time the seals and sea lions wanted to swim with us as well! At least half a dozen of them were very playful, swimming circles around us the entire time. They seemed to playing a game of how close they could speed around us without being touched. I only managed to touch one of them once, very fun though! I think the very playful ones were the younger ones. They were a little smaller than the others, maybe 5 feet in length. There was also one or two giant sea lions that were a little more lazy, hanging around at the bottom of the bay. Overall it was exactly what I wanted though, and my highlight of both Galapagos and my South America trip.

So the next day we were up early again, and on another boat for a couple of hours in the opposite direction to Isabela island. Here we saw many of the wildlife we had already seen, lots of giant tortoises and iguanas, seals, and sea lions.

We also saw some wildlife that was only native to this island, such as pink flamingos, and the very cute miniature Galapagos penguins.We also saw a slew of reef sharks sleeping in a natural crevasse for the day, and more giant turtles and marine iguanas when we went snorkeling.

It was probably not as exciting as the previous day, actually swimming with the sharks and sea lions, but it was still a very impressive array of animals, and an another excellent day trip.

The final (full) day we decided to spend on Santa Cruz island itself because there seemed to be quite a few attractions just within walking distance of our hotel. We took a walk through some caves which turned out to not that exciting. Then we went to Tortuga Bay, which is the big beach on the island. It was also not that exciting as it was the same big (massive actually) white sandy beach that you see all over the world. And since we were not there to swim or suntan, there was not much to do. Kevin found a spot way off in the corner where there were some reef sharks, but I was not about to wash off sunscreen in order to see them. The walk there and back, via a long well built boardwalk was quite pleasant though.

The third and final stop at Las Grietas was the highlight of the day. This was a natural lava canyon leading from fresh water into the salt water of the ocean a little further. At the point we went snorkeling it was a mix of fresh and salt water. Still very clear water, and a good 5-10 meters deep. There were some fish, not sure what kind, but the canyon itself was just fun to swim through.

So the next day Kevin had to leave. He left one day before me. I decided to take it easy as I had aggravated my sprained wrist getting out of the boat after snorkeling. Actually... I went to the local hospital in town to get an x-ray just to make sure it was not broken. It wasn't, but it still took 3 months to heal! And that was Galapagos. Definitely recommend it to anyone who it thinking about going, it was an amazingly different travel experience.