GALAPAGOS

Hola amigos!

Well, my oh my, what a vast adventure we have had here. I will start by saying that we got a great deal but I deeply believe that no matter how much you spend here, you got your moneys worth. We're just on a short excursion in the town before returning to the boat so I don't have time to upload many pictures just now. I'll try to add a few of the best ones, though I'm not certain how I'll choose.

OK, we flew into Puerto Ayora, the main city on the second largest island in the archipelago... there are many islands in the Galapagos. We thought we would stay the night on shore and sort out a tour the next day but one tour promoter was excellent at slowly lowering the price and adding little things gratis that we ended up on a ship that evening. On the way we were given a tour of the land turtle farm... litterally, it's a conservation farm for land turtles. These are the really big guys, living up to 200 years. There was also a lava tunnel on the farm which was really neat, a great big circular cave that had been made out of lava, which is a creepily cool thought when you're walking through it.

Our ship is the smallest one I've seen. It's a 50 ft sail boat, taking only 8 passengers. This is fantastic as we are all young and willing to loose comfort for experience. We were always the first group onto the islands, giving it a little bit of that explorer feeling. The first island we visited was small... and fully PACKED with sea lions. Literally hundreds and you just hang out with them, watch their behaviour, and try not to challenge the bulls. There were also some colonies of marine iguanas and sally lightfoot crabs.

OK I'm going to add some pictures now and then I'll report more. I don't like to potentially loose text during picture addition.