Yesterday I channeled my inner selkie on the tour of Espanola, a bird filled island. Today my curious side took over making me today’s park guide, Martine Cox, worst nightmare. It started when he looked sideways at me for carrying a CTD (instrument the measure conductivity temperature and salinity) on the tortoise, bird and snorkeling tour. Two hours later we were at the north end of the island ready to start a hike toward the water hole where the Galapagos tortoises congregate during the dry season. While Karl has grabbed the first zodiac to the beach, I was the last one to arrive as I was making a CTD cast (throwing the instrument into to water and letting it fall to the bottom of the bay). Martine was in lecture mode and I was in ask a million questions mode. He started with the pile of skulls at the trailhead – sea turtle, feral goat and something with sharp scissor teeth. He wanted to talk about the bird but I want to know how the skulls fit back together. Tomas and Rae the young Ecuadorian kids (8 and 13) were totally with me. After Tomas, Rae and I reconstructed the skull and took an interesting series of photos perhaps shot through the eye of a sea turtle we finally got Maxine’s attention and answer our questions – what it this (a sea turtle skull), Is this how it goes together (no the jaw is upside down), Where are the teeth (sea turtle are more like birds and do not have teeth but use their beaks to scape algae off rocks. Attempting to distract me, Martine quickly began identifying everything in the pile of skulls before I could ask anything else – spiny lobster arm, sea urchin shell large and small. After trying again to distract us with birds Martine pointed to the noisy mocking bird on the trail sign making it became clear it was time to head inland.

While Martine did not tell us, the goal was to get as far inland as possible as fast as possible. It is winter, the dry season and all the leaves have fallen off the trees. Unable to find food clase to the sea, the giant tortoises have moved about 5 km inland to the fresh water at the Media Luna Cone. The team Martine was trying to drag inland fast included Karl, Robin, a shark geneticist from Belgium, the family of 4 from Quito and 5 Norwegians including a woman, wearing a mask and coughing all the time. As we walked past the parched salt water marsh and into the arid lowlands my curious side began to pepper Martine with questions…. What it the lump of grassy stuff in the trail (turtle scat)…. How to you identify a giant tortoise on the along the trail? (no answer). Do the park guides have a whatsap channel to share updates on where the tortoises are? (yes but tortouises move) What are the tiny pellets in the trail? (goat scat). Then my favorite question: Isn’t that a tortoise you just walked past? (aaaa … yes but). I decided it was time to shut up. Yes, I had found the first tortoise of the tour. Martine was gracious about it even as he has just spied a small one in the middle of the trail. I attempted to stop asking so many questions. This was best done my drifting to the back of the line of walkers with Karl.

In the arid landscape where we hunted for large retiles, the bare trees were full of Darwin finches and mocking birds. The tree’s grey back was covered with either pink or yellow fungi. Colors reminiscent of an ocean sunrise. No the Our next stop was at Olivine Beach where we hiked up the interior of a cinder cone to reach a plateau where red and blue footed boobies nest. I vowed to return to my standard questions for a tour guide or museum guard: (1) what is the weirdest thing here and (2) what is your favorite thing here. I refrained from being the most annoying tourist for most of the hike.