Plans. And the most delicious dinner paradise has to offer.

Rule No. 1 while traveling South America: Never make plans! Have ideas, have information, but never ever make a plan and expect it to work out!

I had broken this rule. I had made a plan: I wanted to rent that mountain bike and go and explore San Cristobal. The guy had told me he would open at 8am, and I could have the bike all day long, if I wanted. Yes, that was what I wanted.

I got up at 7am to have some improvised breakfast (due to all of the shops still being closed) before walking to the bike shop. It wasn’t open yet. I decided to wait, get some sun tan in the meantime, and chill out. Never hurry in South America.

I waited for around an hour, before I decided to go running. I ran and ran and ran, and finally ended up at “La Loberia”, a place where sea lions are supposed to chill out. I found that to be an advertising mistake, as I had seen by far more sea lions around town than out here! Well, maybe that dozen surfer dudes had chased them away?

I went back to town and found the bike shop still being closed (11am), so I assumed I’d have all day to do other stuff. And other stuff was amazing: I explored the Interpretation Center, which is a goldmine of information about the islands, its past, its current problems as well as possible approaches to solve those problems. Amazing.

My only problem was: I had taken by far too little water with me. And there was still some walking to be done: Out to “La Tijeras”, as they often call the Frigate birds there, and “Punta Carolina”, two nice snorkeling spots, which are also terrific to look at from above the water’s surface.

I relaxed a little in the shadows of some poisonous trees before I had gathered enough (solar) energy to walk back. And because that solar energy doesn’t really convert into the energy my muscles needed, I rewarded myself with the best lunch I have found on the islands: A giant banana split at Bar Zanzibar near Playa Mann (4,50 $)! *yumm*

And I decided, should I ever try to obtain my masters degree, I should definitely do it at San Francisco University. The beach is like… well… 10m away. ^^ (But I'm not making plans. Plans never work out. It's just ... an idea ... *g*)

The university...

...right next to the beach.

The rest of the day was spent (involuntarily window) shopping, as no shop could provide me with the correct size of the T-Shirt I had fallen in love with. :( At least Wreckbay Diving had dive gear in the correct size, which I successfully tried before going to bed.

The 2nd best city on Galapagos: Puerto Baquerizo Moreno

Sarina had to leave around 8:30am, so we could have slept in – but our biological timer woke us up as early as always. We spent our last morning together strolling around, eating cake and ice-cream and recapping the last few days, before Felipe finally organized her a cab to the airport. CU, Sarina!

But, as I wrote before leaving the mainland, travelling alone is totally uncool. And it only took me another piece of cake and 45 minutes at Felipe’s reception (in which he told me a love story of him and a German lady called Laura, which had terminated two years ago), until Julez, his Mum and a Dutch lady called Nikki were standing at our hotels doorstep to say hi. We all (except for Felipe, who had to guard the reception) went out on the pier for a beer and to discuss past experiences and future plans. Somehow it’s always good to meet Julez, we never get bored together… :)

I had to leave the party after noon, as my boat to San Cristobal (25 $) left at 2pm. And there was still so much to see on the islands!

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal is the capital of the Galapagos Islands. Even though Puerto Ayora is bigger and more touristy, PBM is trying to catch up and is currently investing a decent amount of money into infrastructure and advertising.

In my opinion it shouldn’t. I found it to be more laid-back than Puerto Ayora, which made it instantly more sympathetic. Prices, especially for diving, are a little lower (160 $ on Santa Cruz compared to 120 $ on San Cristobal for a day trip, two dives), less cars and less tourists are around. But way more sea lions! No kidding – sea lions are part of the everyday normal life on San Cristobal. They are not just waiting (sometimes right next to humans) at the bus stations…

…but have also conquered the whole sand beach.

And, believe it or not, I even saw a sea lion walking into a restaurant at the beach front! It went in, as if it’d like to order something, sat down underneath a table and waited until a waiter came to friendly show it out! How cool is that? (Btw.: The waiter acted experienced, so I’m pretty sure this happens every now and then.)

The rest of the day I got used to the new city, watched the sunset from the soccer stadium grandstand, organized a mountain bike for the next day (15$/day) to be able to explore the island and a diving trip to Kicker’s Rock/Leon Dormido (110$ incl. photos; Wreckbay Diving) for Thursday. And then I went to bed in my 12 $ room in that hostel right at the beach front.

Floreana Island

Today, we had to lift our heads from the pillows even earlier, as our boat back to Santa Cruz (25 $) already left at 6am. Well – Ecuadorian time. We could have slept a little longer…

Via telephone, we had a one-day trip to Floreana organized (75 $). Due to our delay we arrived late back at Santa Cruz, a boat full of tourists was already waiting just for us. I felt a little weird, but only until I fell asleep again. *g*

Even though Floreana was the first inhabited island, it is the least inhabited one these days, due to a natural fresh water shortage. Around 100 persons live there, amongst them the Wittner family, a pretty well-known German family that has been living there for several generations.

After waking up on Floreana Island, we started to make first friends, hopped into a truck and drove into the interior of the island, towards some hills. It started raining, but no one cared. We had to hike some 300m uphill to reach a Giant Tortoise exhibition. Totally stupid thing: Some dumbhead had decided to move 23 giant tortoises here – a place which they had never inhabited naturally, and which was even too cold for them to reproduce! I was not too excited, as I had seen happier tortoises before on Santa Cruz. Well, other tourists obviously hadn’t been there yet…

Next stop were the pirates caves, with an Easter-Island-like entrance warden.

The caves themselves weren’t too impressive, I was hungry, and so not too unpleased when our tour guide announced that we’d head down to have lunch now. We passed by at the only fresh water spring Floreanos have, had a sip (it obviously grants you a long life!), and went back to where we started at.

Lunch was alright. After visiting “Playa Negra”, the black beach for like 2 minutes, we were promised a brilliant snorkel experience nearby. For Sarina and me, it wasn’t for the animals – more fish, more sea turtles, another Manta Ray. Honestly, I don’t understand that – we just had seen these stunning animals once a day ago, and it already felt like something totally common. Weird. Well, the other group members enjoyed the hour or so we had in the water, and so did we. I can’t deny that it was still exciting to try to spot as many turtles as possible. :) And Sarina was happy to finally have a great picture snorkeling with one.

But well, as we embarked the yacht again to head home, I wasn’t too sure if the investment into our only guided land tour had been really worth the money. Another reason why we organized the rest of our program by ourselves.

Right after we had touched down again in Puerto Ayora and had brought all our luggage to Hotel Elizabeth once again, we met up with an Argentinian dude who had been on the Floreana trip as well to discover “Las Grietas”. A water taxi brought us to the other side of the harbor, from where we started a half an hour hike through incredibly silent nature.

Las Grietas is nothing else than a canyon filled with water, which gives you the opportunity to swim in ice-cold water, go for some rock jumping or enjoy snorkeling once again – should you have brought mask and snorkel. We hadn’t.

So we swam a little, watched 10-year-old kids jumping down from hair-raising heights, jumped ourselves (from like 6m, whereas those kids went up to around 25m!) and finally decided to leave this nice place again, early enough to still find home by sunlight.

The maybe best part of the day was a delicious dinner with two guys from the boat tour that we had right at the pier of Puerto Ayora, consisting of bread, cheese, yoghurt and cake. Sometimes it’s the “normal” things that make life happy. It was Sarina’s last night on Galapagos (so far).

Finding paradise in paradise

We were up almost before the sun was. (But for sure before the sea lions were… *g*)

We grabbed the snorkel gear we had received from the hotel manager the night before, and walked some 15 minutes down to Concha de la Perla, the ideal snorkeling spot – especially at 6am in the morning, when there is absolutely no one else who doesn’t live there permanently; and that only includes sea lions, marine iguanas, sea turtles, crabs, some birds and a lot of fish.

Well – and those were our snorkeling companions. (Except for the sea turtles…) May I introduce again: Fish…

…fish…

…and more fish…

…as well as a sea lion, that came sooo close to play, that I was sincerely frightened it would attack me! But, turned out, that the more I turned around, the more I excited it to circle around me – in a speed one can hardly imagine! (The picture is taken without zoom! And yes, I do have a wide-angle camera!)

But well, obviously I was too slow for it after a while, and it didn’t speak my bubble-language. So it left and started looking for Sarina… ^^

Mr. Crab was there as well.

Oh, sorry, I forgot above to mention: Mr. Manta Ray was present as well.

After so much action I had to relax a little. But hey, take a closer look a the picture – I wasn’t the laziest creature on that wooden planks… ^^ (Guess which one it was?)

The solution: It was the marine iguana. Because, after I had lifted my weight off the ground again, Sarina and I stepped over it as if nothing would happen. That dude didn’t even bother to blink an eye! Sometimes it’s just impossible to maintain the recommended 3m minimum distance to those wild animals.

And it became even more impossible, when we wanted to pass the next animal – Mr. Sea Lion. For some unknown reason, it started to “attack” Sarina. Well, in my opinion, it just wanted to play, but you never know.

When it came after me, I stood my ground, and it understood who the master is (or the boring guy who's not in the playing mood, respectively. *g*).

So I stepped over it – and it started to chase Sarina again, another 10m down the path. *hahaha*At least I enjoyed the experience… *g* Honestly – would you guys think this cutie could do you any harm?

Anyway, we decided to leave some space between us and the sea lion for our early morning nap.

Finally we had earned our 5$-breakfast in our hotel (which was absolutely worth the money, fruit salad, croissants, toasts…), put our snorkel gear back and some sunscreen on instead, and walked back to the restaurant where we had eaten the night before.

The roads in Puerto Vilamil are amazing. Three reasons for that: Firstly, they are gravel roads, which are way more fun to cruise on on a bike, as I learned in my early childhood years. Secondly, there are hardly any cars or motorbikes to disturb the magical silence. And, last but not least, Puerto Vilamil features the coolest lampposts I have ever seen in my life so far! :)

Oh, and, Mum: There are tons of beautiful flowers along the way, wherever you go.

We set off to our bike tour. No biggie, you know. Just cruising along the beach…

…chasing marine iguanas from time to time…

…balancing our weight on those 2 wheels when some lazy animals wouldn’t move…

…gazing at some rather unspectacular lagoons along the way…

…which sometimes happened to be red…

…and parking our bike from time to time…

…to visit some marine iguanas nesting ground. (Someone wants to count all the animals to be detected?)

As you can see, it was a rather unspectacular ride, we only undertook to finally get barked at by a National Park guide for taking this picture:

I’m standing on “La Muralla de las Lagrimas”, built by some 300 prisoners who were brought here in the 18^th century. Working conditions were tough. So tough, that those poor prisoners were promised freedom. Should they survive. Most of them didn’t. That’s why it got its name: Wall of Tears.

I also almost burst into tears: My bike had a puncture. So we had to pay some ridiculous 10$ to get a cab ride home. What a bugger.

But well, those sorrows were rapidly forgotten after some yummy lunch at our standard restaurant. And we needed the energy, as also the afternoon plan was already made: “Las Tintoreras” was waiting for us. 

“Las Tintoreras” is a little islet some 2 mins from Isabela’s pier. We had to book a guide in order to get access granted to the islet, but that wasn’t a big problem, as our hotel manager, Julio, turned out to be a naturalist guide. 25$ per person had to be paid for an experience one will never forget.

“Las Tintoreras” is a breeding spot for marine iguanas. Not just a breeding spot – the breeding spot, I’d say. Hundreds, no, thousands of those dinosaur-like creatures are living on an islet not bigger than a soccer court. No matter, how vigilant we tried to stick to the path, one could hardly avoid stepping on an iguana or its nesting hole. Should you not believe me, well, try to count the iguanas in this picture.

Pretty easy, hmm? Well – it might be a bit more difficult here.

It is just stunning, to walk along those tiny pathways and feel like being part of the whole colony yourself. And Julio, our knowledgeable tour guide, enhanced the whole experience with loads of information on the iguanas, their breeding habits, other wildlife found on the islands as well as the history of this magical place. Here’s a little excursion into the past:

The Galapagos Islands, as we know them today, are pretty young. San Cristobal, the oldest island, is supposed to be around 3.5 million years old, whereas the younger islands, like Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed (last volcanic eruption on Isabela in April 2009). The islands lie above a so-called Hot Spot on a tectonic plate called Nazca, which moves around 2.5 cm East per year. That is why older islands are further to the East, whereas the younger islands are formed in the West.

Charles Darwin assumed that 3.5 million years are not enough time to bring evolution as far as he observed it when he came to visit the islands in 1835, some 300 years after they had been discovered by a Spanish bishop of Panama called Berlanga. Darwin was right: A lot of former Galapagos Islands have already sunk beneath the water’s surface to the East of San Cristobal, due to continuous erosion. And the same fate probably awaits every other islands of the archipelago… (The history since the discovery of Berlanga is covered pretty well in Wikipedia - and pretty interesting as well.)

Back to our story: After having seen enough marine iguanas for a lifetime, we embarked our little vessel again. But the trip wasn’t over: Way more wildlife had to be discovered. And as we had seen enough terrestrial animals now, it was time to scratch a little at the surface – and maybe have a look underneath the surface. The ocean’s surface.

The last thing we saw before jumping over board with our snorkel equipment were penguins. Yes, correct, penguins. At the equator. Galapagos penguins. Cute, ey?

Still, we had forgotten them some mere 10 minutes later – that is when Julio spotted the first sea turtle for us.

And there were more. I think, we saw around five or six of these beauty- and peaceful reptiles. Sometimes the current was that strong that It was hard to move away in order not to touch them! (Again – no zoom used for this picture!)

But there were more animals down there. The fish and the colorful corals almost became irrelevant extras…

…as I saw my very first “Tintorera”, a white-tip reef shark.

Julio went cave-diving to find some more for us…

…and was successful!

Only after I had dived down into that cave, found some more reef sharks and finally embarked the boat again, I was told that these fellows can be dangerous at times… ^^

But by then, I was already too tired to worry about anything. The sun was setting and we headed back to Sula Sula – for one last night on the most paradisiacal islands in paradise.