IMAGE: magnificent male frigate birds - up close and personal!

13th March: Due to the late flight into Guayaquil (mainland Ecuador) from Panama City we slept in the airport overnight and from 6am we were queuing up at the Galapagos Islands Administration Office to make our US $20 each administration payment and have our bags checked for any food or plant items.
The officials really do take any possible 'contamination' issues very seriously, and after a thorough inspection our checked-in bags and hand luggage were then sealed to prevent any further opening.
Finally we caught our short 45 min TAME flight to Santa Cruz Island. Once we arrived at Baltra Airport our bags were officially unsealed and hand-inspected again by the Administration officials.
As Baltra Airport was our official entry point into The Galapagos Islands we were required to pay (cash only accepted) our US$100per person National Park Fee. Inexpensive compared to the outrageous fees paid by all yachts on entry for various permits and entry fees.
Baltra airport is on a separate island, which was previously the US army base - so to get into the main town Puerto Ayora we first caught an airport bus to the waterside dock - then a 5min short ferry ride to the main island of Santa Cruz and then a 1 hour ride on the public bus into the main town - lots of baggage handling etc in the hot sun ... anyway the bus finally deposited us at Puerto Ayora town main ferry dock.

The town felt very quiet - we soon realised why, it was lunchtime and all the small shops, stores and offices were closed for lunch - 12noon till 2 or every 3pm. So with no tourist office open for any guidance, or a map we wandered into a welcoming looking restaurant for their Menu of the Day set lunch - excellent value at $5 per person for a cold fruit drink, soup, fresh fish salad with a side of rice, plus a grape and banana dessert with chocolate sauce. What a great start. After lunch, James stayed in the shade near the restaurant, and I went off in search of accommodation. After enquiring at a few places, I found an excellent self-catering apartment, just a short walk from the main waterfront street at La K-Leta for $45 per night. As we were staying here 4 nights we unpacked, hooked up to their excellent internet, and settled in, and took a much needed refreshing shower and short nap.

Later in the afternoon we enjoyed a walk of the main town to familiarise ourselves. Puerto Ayora felt like any Latin American tourist town with lots of tour agencies and tourist infrastructure. This is a full-on tourist town, with numerous restaurants, bars and shopping opportunities for all the day trippers, and cruise ship passengers. It is the undisputed hub of the Galapagos. Most of the restaurants, shops and accommodations are clustered on a half-mile strip around the waterfront. We called into the Tourist office and to a few tour offices to ask about the various excursions available, things to do etc. There were many travel agencies to book boat trips and excursions - the biggest problem with using such agents is that you enter the world of "high Gringo prices"- even more-so if your Spanish is not good. The phrase "you'll need a guide to take you there" will at least double the cost, anyway we managed to book our North Seymour Island day tour for the next day.

The main afternoon attraction was the waterfront fish market where the resident sea lion and many pelicans were enjoying the scraps. The outside restaurant here at the Fish Market was the Santa Cruz version of The Shed (our favourite UK restaurant) so we will be eating there one night. We needed to do some food shopping at supermarket for our breakfast, lunch and afternoon drinks for the next few days, but only found a very poor selection of any fresh or frozen food. Puerto Ayora is the "capital" city of the islands and is the principal town on Santa Cruz Island, despite this, it is actually quite a small town with basic supplies and services. The anchorage of Puerto Ayora (also known as "Academy Bay") was extremely overcrowded with small taxi ferries, Inter-island ferries, commercial vessels and the odd sailing yacht.

We returned to our apartment - and over afternoon drinks we started to settle in and start planned the next few days. James was a happy chap as he got some of his long awaited podcasts and downloads completed via the excellent internet. It had been a long day and we hit a wall early - thankfully James was able to walk just a block to the main street and get us delicious, freshly made Takeaway Pizza for dinner, before we crashed out.

14th March; Today was our Day tour to North Seymour Island - expensive at $170 per person, but a must do excursion for us. North Seymour is a small uninhabited island that has no plant or animal species introduced by humans (other than the land iguanas brought from the neighbouring island - see below). All life on the island is either endemic- ie unique to the Galapagos Islands, or natural- grows elsewhere and arrived here somehow by natural means.
We were picked up at 8.30am in a small tour minivan. Our National Park Guide was Janet, who spoke good English. The Galapagos has strict limits on the number of tours allowed to restricted areas and also the number of persons on each tour - we had the 16 maximum people allowed for this tour. The other English speakers were an Australian couple from Brisbane, a young Israeli guy who was on our plane from Panama, and 2 American men, all the others were Spanish speakers - mainly from Argentina. Our minivan ride of about 45 mins was north out of town along the Airport road, back to the same main ferry dock as yesterday. Here we met up with our main boat transport for the day - Narel a sports fishing boat. The Sports Fishing boat could not come alongside the shallow dock, so we had a short dingy ride to Narel, and then a ¾ hour ride to North Seymour Island, where we took up a mooring close offshore.

To land on the volcanic island we had a short dingy ride ashore, then clambered ashore over the jet black, rough lava rocks- to then walk ashore for about 1 hour around a designated trail. Janet was full of info. The air was alive with soaring birds and full of the sounds of their mating calls. The male frigate bird puffs out his scarlet red throat pouch and when a female flies by he opens his impressive wing span and flaps his wings and calls out to her. She appraises both him and the nest he has built for her and if she is not impressed, she flies on by. It was wonderful to see so many Great Frigate Birds -all the males with inflated red pouches, females, infants and some chicks - all very up-close and personal.

We really enjoyed seeing many famous Blue Footed Boobies, all very photogenic. Whilst walking the trail was full of nesting boobies and frigate birds, as well as swallow-tailed gulls. The swallow-tailed gull is unique in that it is the only gull in the world that feeds at night. Scientists think it might be the bioluminescence of the squid and fish that helps the gulls find their supper. When the gulls return to the nest it is thought that the white spot at the base of the upper beak helps the chicks locate their food.

The shoreline was a nursery for baby sea lions which we saw frolicking in the shallows. An alpha male sea lion patrols the coast to ensure that no sharks come in too close and attack the babies, while the mothers go out to feed. Late afternoon they return to suckle the babies.

We spotted several large yellow and gold land Iguana. The land iguanas are unique to the Galapagos. They were brought to North Seymour from Baltra, the neighbouring island, by scientists who wanted to see if they would survive there. If they hadn't, these iguanas would be extinct as the ones on Baltra were wiped out when the US turned Baltra into a military base after Pearl Harbour. It was apparently the fastest eradication of a species in living history.

After a long, hot, but very worthwhile guided walk,we all piled into the dingy again to get back to Narel, where lunch was served - fresh fish and salad with canned fruit cocktail as dessert. With the land excursion part of our day completed we were now off for the sea excursion a snorkelling stop. We arrived at Bachas Beach on the north of Santa Cruz Island for dingy ride ashore for some snorkelling and a walk on the white sand beach. Apparently there is a turtle nesting area and also flamingos feed in the shallow lagoon behind the sand dunes, but for some reason Janet said we were not allowed to wander up in the dunes! The snorkelling was not too exciting - except for one large sea turtle swimming around with us. I was excited to get some good photos with my newly purchased underwater camera. After about an hour in the water it was all aboard the dingy back boat, where an afternoon snack was served.

For our return water trip back to the main dock we sat in the upper deck to get some fresh air and view out over the seascape. Tour now over - so it was back to town again in the minivan, and then a mini tour of the various accommodation options as we did the passenger drop-offs. A good day out -- this is why we came to the Galapagos, the wildlife did not disappoint.

We stayed in our apartment for afternoon drinks and had store bought Lasagne for dinner, making the most of our self-catering kitchen. We went out for a cooling evening walk of the town, enjoying some very tasty Italian ice-cream whilst watching some traditional dancing event happening in the town square. All the locals, young and old were out enjoying a Saturday night walking out along the waterfront. A large seal ion had made its way up to the walkway on the main ferry dock and made his home there for the evening. There were about 6 yachts at anchor in Academy Bay - we did not recognise any of them. A good day - great bird, land and sea animal watching which is why we are here and what the Galapagos is all about.

15th March: Slow start after muesli with fresh fruit, croissants and coffee - this self-catering apartment is perfect for us. We set off down to the main dock to find a driver to take us around for a few hours - we finally found a young guy who spoke a little English to drive us on our self-tour up into the Highlands. The highlands of Santa Cruz are home to the islands fascinating geological features, lava tubes and sinkhole craters. This is an excellent area to look for some elusive birdlife like the Woodpecker Finch (one of only a few bird species in the world to use tools), Small Tree Finch, and the Vegetarian Finch.

Our 1st stop was at the Tunnels of Love - the lava tunnels in the village of Belavista - about 7 km from Puerto Ayora. The tunnels were huge to walk through - the lighting very poor - thankfully we had our little head torches. These geological formations were very interesting. The tunnel is about 600 metres long, and is a great example of geological formations resulting from lava flows.

Our next stop was at Los Gemelos - locally called The Twins - as they are twin craters. The twins are two large collapsed craters/sinkholes that were formed by a series of eruptions when the islands were still active. The surrounding forest is home to approx 300 different fern species as well as a forest of Scalesias, a relative of sunflowers. Los Gemelos is the only location in Santa Cruz where you can see this forest of the endemic tree. We walked around the rim of both craters, enjoying the cooler highland air. Next we were off to see some tortoises at El Rancho Manzanillo, a Giant Tortoise Reserve. Here several giant tortoises roam freely in and out of the local farms and at the El Chato lagoon. At this particular farm there is a natural waterhole for these lumbering reptiles to live in their natural habitat. The Tortoises were very shy, and some withdraw into their shells as soon as we came close. This was a lovely, peaceful sport for the large tortoise to wander, wallow in the mud and swim in the pond. A large Gallineulas Duck family were enjoying swimming in the lake. The lake had a lot of red algae - so the colours make the site very colourful. There was the odd Darwin Finch flitting about - we managed to spot and photograph both a male and female Darwin finch feasting on the tortoise poo.

By now it was lunchtime. I had done some research on where the local families go for Sunday Lunch on Santa Cruz and Parillada Los Guayabillos was it. We drove up to a large outside BBQ , with many large cooking pots all on the go - several tables were ready under the awning - all very low-key and very local - just right for us. We had a mixed grill lunch with 2 types of salad, potatoes and large chilled fresh grapefruit drinks for $28. There was too much grilled food - so we took a doggy bag of grilled chicken back to the apartment with us for tonights dinner. Our driver dropped us back to the main dock - we topped up our food shopping at the local supermarket and then back to homebase.

The plan for the afternoon was to go to the local swimming spot Las Grietas for a cool down swim - but by the time we got our act together, caught the local ferry across the harbour and walked the path to the National Park entrance we got there at 4.45pm and were not allowed entry....! so a bit of a wasted afternoon. Back in town, a few sea lions kept everyone entertained on the main ferry dock and a small cub was playing happily in the shallow waters off the Coastguard office. I looked through the tourist shops, visited a wonderful sculpture garden. Another great day that planned out well.

16th March: We made a morning visit - just a short 10 minute walk from our apartment to Charles Darwin Research Centre - obviously the most popular tourist thing to do, as tour groups were constantly being led around. The Research Stations various exhibits were interesting and informative. By listening into the guides and reading the info displays we learnt about the several Galapagos animals brought back from the brink of extinction by the research foundation, and heard about the successful re-population of the islands with the once-endangered land iguana and several species of giant tortoise. We saw some large tortoises mating, little baby tortoises in protected trays, and several large colourful land iguana. A very well laid out and informative centre.
We set out wandering the backstreets looking for an almuerzo 'locals lunch'. While this food was "Ecuadoran," it wasn't too unfamiliar. We enjoyed chicken soup and then a grilled fish dish with white rice, and a fresh banana - a great deal for $3.50pp. With our snorkel gear and wet suits and headed again to Las Grietas- spanish for the caves, or the crevasses. Once off the across via the harbour ferry, the trail took us past the only 5 star resort in the whole of the Galapagos -The Finch Bay Lodge Resort - very posh indeed. The walk took about 40 mins, - the path started out great, past an OK beach (Playa de los Alemanes- trying to be the private beach for the resort) along raised wooden platforms above the swamp, but then it started to deteriorate, becoming muddy and rocky. After scrambling over a bunch of large rocks, we eventually we came to the site - an interesting lava fissure formed by two giant walls crossed by an arm of brackish water that filters down from the highlands and mixes with seawater to form a long narrow cool-water swimming hole amongst tall cliffs and tumbled boulders. We really did need our wetsuits - the water was freezing for our swim and snorkelling in the very clear waters. We had an enjoyable afternoon swimming and enjoying the experience. On the way back from Las Grietas we spotted some interesting birdlife among the landlocked shallow water bodies whilst walking along the raised platforms.
After pre-dinner drinks in our relaxing apartment we headed for our Restaurant night out on Binford Street. This is THE street food street in Santa Cruz. All the local Mom & Pop joints put out long tables and everyone joins in to enjoy the food and the atmosphere. Seafood was the top choice - James chose a hot fish pot - lobster tail, prawns, octopus , white fish meat all on a yam puree. I had whole grilled fish and salad - wonderful.

After 4 very varied and interesting days on SANTA CRUZ - we are off tomorrow to see an do more of the Galapagos on Isabella Island.