Yfat saying "hi" to a Blue-Footed Boobie. Animals were
everywhere, and totally unafraid!
The Three weeks spent there were some of the best of the whole four month South American trip.
Yfat (from Israel) and Kathleen (Swiss schoolteacher) on the
dingy,
headed back to the boat for lunch!
Typical sunset every evening during dinner on the boat.
$55 bucks a day included everything (except booze, so bring rum!)
Cruising between islands, the captain spotted a rare Whale Shark.
He turned the boat around, and we spent the next half hour photographing
and just marveling at this huge guy! I took this shot from the top of the
boat, looking down at the dingy.
Exhausted, trying to climb back in the dingy, after some serious
snorkeling! Time for lunch! We snorkeled three or four times every
day. We pushed our naturalist (the guy steering, a local native)
to the max! We all wanted to go, go, go, all the time! We weren't
here to relax; we had been doing that for the last three or four months,
and would all kick back later in Colombia!
Our poor guide was completely exhausted at the end of every day!
(Thank God we had no yuppie-preppies or slow old fogies along to slow the
pace.) We usually sat out on top of the boat every night after dinner and
the naturalist talk, just singing, playing guitar, and drinking rum, but
were usually asleep by ten every night. No time for excessive partying
or reading (except lots of field guides) on this trip!
*
Hundreds of Iguanas everywhere. Totally unafraid of anything!
For two months of travel through Peru and Ecuador, I wondered if i would spend the $ and fly out 600 km. to the Galapagos islands. I had been traveling with Yfat for several weeks, and we finally got on a plane and headed out to the islands. We decided that we would just get a room for a few days, and relax by the ocean. We wanted to take our time and carefully handpick both the boat and the boat mates that we would be living with for a week. We climbed aboard many boats, and had beers and danced with many travelers before putting together both an excellent group and a great boat. Everything is negotiable in the tropics, so never ever book ahead. You might get lucky, but you could be real sorry!
We turned down several excellent deals on real nice luxury boats, just because we didn't want anything to do with some of the wealthy ornery bastards we met. We weren't there to be pampered; we wanted to have maximum time on the islands and in the water with fun energetic people. I met lots of folks who seemed to book blindly with an agent, ending up with a lousy group, and telling me how much it sucked. Our small close group had three awesome weeks on the islands! And everything can be very inexpensive if you don't book ahead.
After spending a week on a boat ($55/day; everything included, but bring your own rum!) touring and visiting most of the major islands, seven of us hired a boat and went out to one of the outlying islands (Isla Isabela, see map below). There we stayed in cabins right on the ocean for about $3 a day. We were the only "gringos" on the island, and for meals we had to stop by the outdoor cantina several hours before mealtime and let them know how many would be coming by!
One day we decided to take the long horseback ride up to an ancient volcanic rim (see photo above; I'm top left). We spent a few hours getting there, then several hours on foot exploring the cinder fields. The place was like a lunar landscape. The whole day (horses, truck for the day, and guide) cost us $10US each!!!
On the way back, both Anne (bottom right in photo) and I had fast horses. After trotting several times, she took off in a gallop. Seeing how it was my second time on a horse, I decided to race her! Yee-haw! The closer I got, the faster she went. While blasting through a small mud bog, my ass slowed down abruptly, but I kept going! I was airborne! Luckily I held on to the reigns, so that dude didn't get away. If he had, he would have gone all the way down the mountain without me! Stupid horse!
Two years earlier I had a slower horse on some backcountry roads in coastal Costa Rica. That dude just would not go, until I got him on the beach. There he went like heck.
The galapagos were awesome! I have to put some more photos up
SOON.
Afterwards, Yfat and I headed north to:
Next stop, Columbia!
My other pages:
Note; sorry about the poor photo quality. These images are all from 4x6 photographs I took, then scanned in on my $99 scanner, then compressed as small as possible to upload to my ISP's server. The original images are much nicer.
Page created and updated by Tim D; August 1999 (page me here; ICQ# 20756120)