7-21 Day 3 in the Galapagos

7:10 am

Didn't sleep well last night, but I did get a nap in the afternoon for an hour or so. Last night we had dinner, it was some kind of fish with rice, it was very good. At dinner, we talked about where we are all from. Right now there are five of us. Four men, 1 woman. They are a young couple from Amsterdam. She is German, and he is actually from Amsterdam. She is a student, he works for a coffee shop in Amsterdam. (Cafe=coffee, coffee shop=weed). The oldest guy in our group is "Larry" the postman from Sweden. He talked a lot about his travels. He gets 6 weeks vacation per year, and he can carry over 2 of those weeks. He told me that one year, he carried over two weeks and took November and December off, as well as January and half of February because he get his vacation time at the start of the year. On that trip he had gone too a restaurant for dinner, and the portion was to large, he only ate a third or so of it. He asked for a doggy bag to take it with him. Realizing he would never finish it, he offered it to two homeless people outside the restaurant, they in turn graciously accepted, but made a small request "can you buy us a coke to have with it?" He obliged.

The last person Jurs is from Denmark, he is a finance guy who is trying to keep up his English. Nice guy, says being away from work allows him to slow his thinking to the important things like eating, sleeping, and "bathroom".

After dinner we walk down to the town square for snacks to take with us today and a drink. The waitress, who affectionately referred to everyone as "oh my loved one" made a silly remark about my order of a sprite while everyone grabbed a beer. It took a while before I could find out what she said about me, she said "only a sprite for a big man like you?" Doesn't sound like much,but she said with gusto...

Oh well, breakfast is fruit and what I think are soft boiled eggs, today we have our first excursion. We had fresh papaya and guava juice too.

We will be swimming with sea lions, penguins, and sharks.

12:00 PM

I finally understand how Darwin felt. We took a small boat to an island for our first walking tour of the Galapagos right in the harbor for Isabella. When we hit the little dock there was a baby sea lion sitting there in the sun. He was such a ham.... from there we walked along the island of black volcanic rock. It looked as Darwin described it. No life, just rock and coral, but as we walked slowly you began to see the rocks come alive. These marine iguanas blend with the rock so well that at first it is easy to pass them by, then suddenly something moves and you begin to see dozens of them on the rocks, that is once you know how to spot them. Even now as I lay in this hammock by the beach near my hotel, the Hotel Volcano, you see dozens of them come on shore from their morning meal at the sea bed. Even as I write this, there is an average size one, around 20-22 inches watching me as the younger smaller iguanas move up from the surf. Perhaps they should be more concerned with the frigate birds and pelicans. Back to our walk, even before the island, we had our first look at the Blue Footed Boobies and Galapagos Penguins. The island had a trail that we followed that led us to a nesting ground for Iguanas where the babies are just beginning their life, and then on to sea lions nursing their young, amazing. From their we went snorkeling and right away found two tortoises in the middle of the inlet we went to. I swam to the far side of the inlet and found myself swimming in the middle of an underwater valley, and there were 6 male Marine Iguanas swimming by. It was truly amazing to see these tings most people only see on the Imax.

So now we will eat 1pm and then off again at 2, perhaps if time permits, we will snorkel again after the tour.

Lunch was weird, we had carrot soup with popcorn... you actually put popcorn in your soup... it was good. Lunch was chicken and potatoes.

Stops along the way :

Tortoise Breeding Park

Their was a cool wall we saw out on Isabella called Wall of Tears. Prisoners were brought here and given meaningless tasks to break their will. They built this for fifteen years. These prisoners were the most dangerous ones they had.

Ok so it seems everywhere we go in this little bus (they use it to take the kids to school too... I seem to smack my head over and over again on the roof.

I saw my first lava tube... it is amazing when you get there knowing that this is formed by molten lava, it is unreal... there are tons of Marine Iguanas around.

I was told I need to check out a Spanish cartoon called "Mafalda"