Edit: I got my keyboard to work again so I finished the post.
On Sunday, I said that the last two things we wanted to see where Flamingos and Penguins, well over the last two days we saw just that.
On Monday, we traveled from San Cristobal to Isabela. We took a 10 seater plane, which sounds scarier than it was. Most people travel by ferry but we didn’t want to lose a full day to travel. After arriving, we got breakfast. I have to say, the food in the Galapagos is terrible. We have eaten out for 7 meals. Most were borderline inedible, all were expensive.
After that, we signed up to do a kayak of los tintereros and a snorkel. The tour was really late, so late that they had to call back the guide who had already left taking other people out. After getting into the kayaks, we headed out to some lava areas about 1 km from shore. The first thing we saw was a penguin, and then another penguin swum up and joined it sunbathing on the rock.
Penguins appeared in the Galapagos by accident. They got off course somehow from the Antarctic, and made a home here. While it seems down right chilly to us, it is far too warm for them. During the winter dry season (summer), they come to this area to fish. And right about now, they had back to the north part of the island to breed. The guide said that a month or so ago, there were 40+ penguins, all we saw were two. We also saw blue footed boobies, marine iguanas, pelicans and green sea turtles on the kayak.
After kayaking, we snorkeled. You use to be able to snorkel where we kayaked but they stopped due to the impact. This was awesome, we saw three type of rays, startfish, a pufferfish, and lots of other fish. Plus we got to play with the sea lions. They followed us around, and wanted to swim with us. So charming!
Today we slept in, and got to see flamingos and another turtle sanctuary. my bluetooth keyboard just broke. i am not going to write much more. hopefully i can get it to work otherwise there wont vs much on the way of blog posts!
Well I got my keyboard to work, so I thought I would write more detail. After sleeping in, we ate some breakfast and just rested. We decided to walk through the wetlands near the city.
It was a great little trail. Maybe 3 miles, and mostly boardwalks. It started with seeing some marine iguanas, which are basically appear to be everywhere. Then we saw a Pintail duck, and then 7 flamingos spread out over 2 pools including one juvie (white one above). We were both excited to see the flamingos. We saw some in africa but were not this close, and they weren’t that pink. What a treat.
Next we went to another tortoise breeding center. We got a tour and learned a lot about the Tortoises, such as 5 sub-species on Isabela. They breed them in these center as man introduced predators (dogs, goats, and rats) destroy the nests.
We walked back, booked a tour and bought some supplies. As mentioned the food here isn’t that good, so we made galapagos nachos, which is refried beans with peppers and tortilla chips. Ok, they are just nachos.
I have also been making daiquris and they are so yummy. Just a 2:1:1 ratio of rum:lime:simple. But quite refreshing.
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