The three days we spent in old Quito before embarking on the Galapagos leg of our journey went quickly. Chief among priorities was attending to a pungent argument emitting from our duffle bags to do the laundry. Traveling light is a good thing, and highly recommended, however it does have its challenges.
We were surprised how the old town had a comfortable familiarity.
In the mornings there was the tiny Querubin restaurant with its strong, rich coffee, exquisite black berry juice and pancakes that never appeared in the same way, or quantity, twice. After breakfast we would stroll the hilly streets, or watch the world go by from a shady spot in the park in front of the president's palace. Life was very pleasant.
I don't know why it has been quite so challenging to write about this leg of our journey. I thought there would be a lot to say, a belief no doubt animated by childhood stories of The Beagle, Charles Darwin, the evolution of the species, and unusual creatures in a faraway and exotic place. However, with neither the insight, perspective or background of a botanist, herpetologist, marine biologist, or ornithologist the experiences was less immediate than what the imagination had announced. This is not to suggest that the islands are not extraordinary, or that walking amongst turtles, iguanas, birds, seal lions that have not fear of humans is not a truly remarkable experience. In the Galapagos it is easy to feel part of the natural world. The great biologist, E.O. Wilson calls it biophilia - the human bond with other species.
January 9
Pick up was at 6h00 for the ten-minute ride from the our hotel in New Quito to the domestic airport terminal. Small and bursting with with hurried passengers the place was a dizzying experience, made tolerable by our representative form Peregrine Tours, who like a seasoned drover moved us without a single loss from where we needed to be to where we needed to be (drover seems appropriate as all but the tow of us were Australian - eleven Aussies and two Canuks on boat)!
Once out of the terminal and on to the plane it was a short forty-minute flight to Guayaquil Airport, barley enough time for the flight attendants to move through the plane and hand out cupcakes. From there it was a longer flight (more cupcakes if wanted) to Baltra in the Galapagos.
Landing protocols in Baltra go beyond the usual "please ensure your seat belt is securely fastened, your seat back and tray table are in their full upright and locked position. If have taken any carry-on luggage out during the flight, pleas return it underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bin. At this time we ask that you discontinue the use of, or stow away portable electronic devices in preparation for landing" to include the flight attendants opening each overhead bin and spraying the stowed luggage with what smelled like disinfectant. Al thought this made perfect sense. It was to protect a fragile eco-system. However, Al did not wonder why they didn't also spray the luggage stored under the seats. Nor did he know that the frenzied atmosphere of the Quito airport and the up-down-on-off journey so far foreshadowed what lay ahead.
Baltra airport is tiny, hot, humid and about to be replaced by a new facility.
Walking through a dusty, heavy equipment construction site does not make much of a first impression, and is at odds with the ones made by spraying disinfectant on luggage and obliging everyone to walk over disinfecting carpets before entering the terminal. Al thought that construction in the Galapagos should be stringently controlled, however he didn't elaborate on how it ought to go - and I didn't ask! Later on, he would comment on the number of plastic water bottles, food wrappers and plastic bags he saw on the sides of the road. "This makes a horrible impression", he said. I stopped listening. It is better that way.
To be honest, arriving on the islands was trying; queuing up in long lines, attempting to fill in the parts of an immigration form (written in micro type) whilst pushing luggage along with the foot, digging for money ($100 USD per person park entrance fee to be be ready for the stern and exigent immigration officers), baggage searches, more shuffling and general consternation until meeting the park guide who led us out of the terminal and onto an overstuffed bus. Almost there we thought.
Wrong!
The overstuffed bus led to a water taxi. The water taxi crossed from Baltra Island to Santa Cruz Island where everyone disembarked to get on another bus (much more comfortable than the first one). This bus continued down Santa Cruz to the pier where everyone got off to wait before getting into the dinghies that shuttled from the pier to the ship that was our home for the next few days.
Seven hours had elapsed since we left Quito. Finally we had arrived, we could settle into our room. Not so!
Soon after lunch it was back into the dinghies, to get back on the bus, to drive back up the road to a farm where turtles grazed on its long grasses. The turtles were interesting.
An hour later, it was back on the bus, back down the road, however not to the dinghies, but rather to the the Charles Darwin Research Station, to see turtles and iguanas - in captivity! Al thought this was odd since it is much better to see them in the wild, as we had an hour before.
Al thought that the Charles Darwin Research Station must be pretty prestigious place, and it may well be, however he thought that so many souvenir shops selling things like tee-shirts announcing " I love boobies" detracted more than a bit. Grumpy Al!
Late that night we agreed that if we were to rate our first day it would get no more than 2/10. Both of us missed the green freedom of the hiking in Ecuador. We went to bed hoping that the next day would be better.
Jan 10
6h30 wake up
7h00 breakfast
7h45 dry landing
North Seymour Island
10h30
snorkelling
12h00 Lunch
2h30 snorkelling
4h30 wet landing
Mosquera Island
6h30 briefing
7h00 dinner
At 5h30; 24.2°C
clear sky, wind calm.
Everywhere the use of colour to attract, conceal or warn was evident.
We were soon to
discover that the Galapagos beneath the waves was no less a surprise.
Even when dry
the on inside, a wetsuit sucks itself against bare skin. Almost instantly a battle
begins between it and you as you pull, hop, wriggle, wrench squirm, breath in,
and tug. Neoprene, on the other hand, binds, bunches, twists around and holds
tight. Persistence ultimately prevailed, and with some sense of satisfaction we
zipped up the front of our suits, then walked out on deck. The triumph was
shorted lived. The zipper goes to the back! Humbled, we retreated to our cabin.
Spitefully, the suits put up as much fight coming off as they did in the first place, and were no more cooperative when put them on again. The whole episode took
the better part of twenty minutes. We were pooped!
Next lesson: the
mask. We learned that the best thing to do before using a new mask is to put a
little tooth paste on your finger, smear it on the inside of the lens then
rinse it off. Back again to your cabin for step two.
Step three
involves spitting into the mask, smearing that around and then strapping it
tightly to the face before entering the water.
Okay, we were
ready, but how to get off the dinghy? Fall in backwards? Heave one ungainly,
flippered foot at a time over the side (without whacking the person next to
you) then slide in and swim away?
The talented and
experienced few went in backwards. The rest of us didn’t. Al had his own
technique. He went over the side and straight down (even in a buoyant wetsuit,
Al is not buoyant). His mask slipped up. He let go of the snorkel to breathe and
drew in his first breath of ocean. There he was flailing on the surface,
spitting, gasping, cursing as he struggled to regain composure, and his mask.
Al is not elegant in the water, but he is resilient. I swam off.
The other
curious thing that Al did that morning was to dive in with the camera he bought
a few years prior. “It’s water proof”, he said. I am not sure why this was the
moment he chose to find that out, but good thing that, at the last instant he
tied it to the zipper pull of his wetsuit! He was on a mission. He was going to do what nobody else was
doing – take pictures underwater.
And for a guy who can’t see clearly without his glasses, can’t swim to
save his life, with an inexpensive camera, did really well.
Lunch that day
was full of excited chatter about what we had seen. Al was all to keen to show his
pictures to anyone he could corner. Clearly, day two Galapagos was much, much
better than day one, the war with wetsuits notwithstanding.
The third and
fourth days fell into a routine of short walks and snorkelling.
Jan 11
6:30 wake up
7h00 breakfast
9h30 Black Turtle Cove – mating turtles
12h00 Lunch
14h30 snorkelling
16h30 dry landing Cerro Dragon
18h30 briefing
19h00 dinner
At Black Turtle Cove:
Unhappily, our guide decided to cut snorkelling short in order to get a jump on another group going to Cerro Dragon. This was not good, particularly since we spent as much time getting in and out of our wetsuits as we had spent in the water. Wet neoprene is formidable!
On Cerro Dragon:
Jan 12
6:30 wake up
7h00 breakfast
7h45 wet landing Sombrero Chino
9h30 snorkelling
12h00 Lunch
14h00 snorkelling Rabida Island
16h30 dry landing Rabida Island
18h30 briefing
19h00 dinner
On Sombrero Chino:
Al’s camera
technique was getting better. At one point it dawned on him that the camera
takes videos. He had a new mission – cinematography. If Jacques Cousteau could
do it so could he. Things were going quite well unit he forgot that when you
dive down -or turn upside down to follow something- you must never breathe
through your snorkel.
On Rabida Island
The curious, red volcanic landscape was inspiring. Here and there a solitary cactus held on tenaciously. Al was reminded of the last lines of a poem by Theodore Roethke. Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. (The Root Cellar)
Jan 13
5:15 wake up
5: 45 disembark to watch Easter Pacific
Green Turtles
7:00 breakfast
8:30 luggage on deck
9:00 on the bus to Baltra.
Our final ‘day’,
really only a few meaningful hours, was a disappointment. Although we were up
quite early to see green sea turtles before they went into the ocean, when we
got there, they had already left!
It was not hard to think of P T Barnum (get’em in, get their money and get’em out). Things appeared timed to the second, balanced and calculated - loss unacceptable. The Galapagos is big business.
We were really on our own at the airport.
No helpful guide any longer. When we finally got to the correct ticket counter
the computer system crashed. Was it because of the sweltering heat or because
of the overload travellers it was being asked to process? Who knows, but the
weight of it was painfully clear on the faces of the staff. In the meantime
our guide stayed cool in the VIP lounge, he got his ticket more than an hour
before.
Postscript
On the last night our guide mentioned the
term biophilia and defined it as “the love for
life.” Yes, it is that. For us the little poem In
Moonlight by Canadian poet Lorna Crozier expresses
to us what the Galapagos is about in a different way.
Something moves
just beyond the mind’s
clumsy fingers.
It has to do with seeds.
The earth’s insomnia.
The garden going on
without us
needing no one
to watch it
not even the moon.
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