Musings

Another glorious sunrise.

Clockwise: husband coffee, wife coffee, husband batman oreos. Actual breakfast followed.

Commonly described as resembling a “Chinese coolie” hat, feast your eyes on Sombrero Chino, the destination of our immediately-after-breakfast walk. [When will this island be renamed for PC reasons?]

It began with a panga tour along a section of the lava-liscious coast, searching for wildlife.

Aha! Close view of a Galápagos hawk. Truly special to see it like this.

Wet landing, then part of the walk was on coral bits. This is the first time we’ve seen concentrations of coral like this.

Lava flow, cooled in place on its gravity-fed descent.

Water meets lava.

We spent some time watching the land iguanas emerging from this space between rocks where they had huddled together for warmth through the night (it was still early). They would stop almost immediately, perhaps doing internal iguana-yawns. Here are two adults and two young.

Back aboard we had lunch followed by our check-out briefing. Sad to contemplate the end of our fabulous excursion in the eastern Galápagos, the part with the older islands—older geologically, so more soil development in general, enabling more diverse plant life.

Afternoon dry landing on Cerro Dragón. This beach had teeny shells and sea urchin spines. Those are the fat tubes in Gustavo-the-Guide’s hand. He said his father and his contemporaries used those spine chunks on slate in school, and thus the common name is pencil sea urchin.

The tide was out a bit, exposing a sandy area with many hermit crabs, mostly not seen. They did leave evidence, not only their burrows, but also these sand balls. They take in the sand, filter all the organic matter that’s in it, then spit out the sand in these little balls.

Sleeping/resting dragon.

Brackish pond.

Stilt? Already forgot.

It took Gustavo’s sharp and well-trained eyes to spot this katydid, right by the trail.

Mature male land iguana. “Doing what they do best,” as Gustavo said.

Mature male iguana in “our” trail. Burrow nearby. Linear patterns in the sand are tail drag marks.

Finch.

View to sea.

Bartender Javier’s preparations are underway for the goodbye meet-up and toasts with the crew. Scarlett the Cruise Director once again went along the crew line-up, detailing their responsibilities and names. [This also helped us with tipping before we disembarked.] Several of us short-timers made a little speech of thanks. I did one in Spanish on behalf of all of us; my Spanish, although still stilted, has come back relatively rapidly after, what?, perhaps twenty-five years of disuse. Good for my brain.

Best tomato soup I’ve ever had. I am not a Campbell’s fan. This has no cream, and includes potatoes. The crew kindly used Google translate to make and print a recipe for several interested guests. The first ingredient was a certain amount of “dad.” Someone among us was clever enough to realize this was a translation of “papa.” While, of course, not an incorrect translation, it was the wrong one here. Papa means papa/dad, the Pope (as in Father), as well as potatoes.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Renaming ahead?

Too overcast for a dawn photo, so here’s the coffee, tea, and water station. That’s an urn of fine organic Ecuadoran coffee on the right, with a Euro coffee machine that makes latte machiatos, cappuccinos, and the like. Cold and hot water to the far right.

First off-ship activity: land on that beach to the left, walk into the interior, turn to the left and walk to cliffs on the other side, return.

This is the rock on the “right” end of the beach. Looks like funky sandstone, right? It’s compressed volcanic ash deposits from many different eruptions, if I have it right.

Red-footed booby condo. At least five families/nests here. Males build a nest then advertize it to the lady-birds. Location and nest quality are everything to the ladies, in that order. This is a safe tree in an excellent location.

Very red, those feet. Beak is a light blue.

Endemic locust.

Eastern-most point on Galápagos archipelago: Punta Pitt.

Blooming succulent, possibly common carpet weed.

Fighting male lava lizards. This is not territorial, it’s just to fight. They run in a circle, then use their tails to thwack the other guy. The male on the left has an advantage in this, as he has all his tail, and the opponent has a shortened tail.

This is Kicker Rock. It’s darned famous. Our captain circled it. Since it was mid-afternoon there were only a few birds, but several hours later, many would return from fishing expeditions, we were told.

Kicker Rock is actually two rocks. Those slabs of white on the sides: guano. Not mineralization or geologic formation. Next, we did a snorkeling expedition from the pangas. Lots of fish species and many sea lions. Very large sea urchin sand dollars. Fabulous snorkeling.

Pelican. Isla Lobos.

Candelabra cactus, with ever-present guano-ed rocks.

San Cristóbal vegetation.

Our cabin door and two windows, view toward stern.

Almost sunset. Remember this is the equator. Year-round, sunrise and sunset are at 6 am and 6 pm, or pretty darned close. No change. And the light changes fast.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

We began our days adventures on and around Española by landing on a small cement jetty and walking past dozens of marine iguanas just waking up…

…as well as these bright sally lightfoot crabs who were already very active.

Our first obstacle was a crowd of marine iguanas and a mother sea lion and her wee pup (black triangle behind mom). The iguanas weren’t warm yet, and so still congregated as they had been through the night to share warmth. In truth, they are not social creatures.

Our walk took us to a cliff-side overlook with wheeling birds of several species, and crashing waves.

Blue-footed boobies on the ground and a tropicbird showing off its long tail in the air.

Our guide, Sofia, stopped us frequently to point out something or to discuss evolution, vegetation, geology, inter-island variation, and the like.

I particularly enjoyed the plumes of water of the breaking waves.

Blue-footed booby parent with two chicks.

Here, a pair of Galapagos albatrosses (Phoebastria irrorata) are desultorily attempting courting. They split up soon after.

Some places the vegetation was very dense. This is not dead, merely leafless in the dry season.

The marine iguanas festooned the rocks and sand above the water line…only a few were warm enough to be down in the water or by it feeding. The red patches remain on the females, but are fading as the mating season has ended.

Returning to the jetty, we watched this sea lion mom, the one we saw by the path earlier, moving the pup up from the water line, as the tide was coming in. It was squeaking some from being grabbed and dropped, although the mom was careful enough.

For lunch we were honored to have ceviche of pez brujo, or scorpionfish. It was the appetizer of an Ecuadorian meal that was spectacularly yummy. We had timbalitos for breakfast, a sweetened maize dough wrapped in banana leaves and steamed as you would tamales. The main protein dish was a choice of a roasted pork or a cazuela (bowl) of mixed seafood in a mashed green plantain soup to make a stew.

Here’s the ceviche. Phenomenal depth of flavor in the broth. Oh, and dessert was a scoop of blackberry ice cream, and a scoop of subtle mint ice cream, with a little hard sweet biscuit. Yummy, that Ecuadoran food!

After lunch, we had a bit of unstructured time, then met at three ready to load the pangas for another snorkeling expedition along a rocky cliff, so we could look down and at the wall, or cliff face below water. I saw many kinds of fish, one turtle on the bottom, and several sea lions came and played with us and around us: incredible. No photos. The we rebounded and changed into dry clothing to stroll this beach on our own. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the Galápagos. It certainly was beautiful.

That’s the Grace offshore. This sea lion was playing in the water when we spotted it, then we followed it as it carefully moved along the beach, on and on until I lost sight of it. I think it had been sleeping and its group had moved on, leaving him/her alone. It stayed among the breaking waves, scooting along in the surf over the sand and sometimes going far enough out to swim a short distance, then returning to the surf-breaking area. My theory is that out farther was too dangerous, a lone sea lion would be quite the mean for a roaming shark. I silently wished her/him luck in finding safety.

One more food shot. The extremely talented chef, Alejandro, and I have had several chats about my low-glycemic index diet, and he has been kind enough to make small alterations in the servings/dishes for me. He’s a young guy and oh so creative. This is a salmon taco appetizer, which he put on a lettuce leaf for me, rather than a traditional tortilla. He also put the red bean paste on the side as an option. It had the creamiest guacamole I’ve ever had.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Española

Up with the dawn.

And saw the sunrise. We traveled overnight to Floreana Island, and anchored offshore.

That’s our yacht, Grace, in the background. We were ferried to shore in pangas, and with the many activities today, we’ll become very familiar with various ways and situations relevant to entering and exiting a panga, Galápagos style.

Our first excursion was before breakfast, a quick trip to the local post office, old style. Sailors used to stop here and leave mail for a later ship going in the appropriate direction, and collect mail for whomever they could deliver to. We left a few postcards in the spirit of this continuing instituion, and some folks took one to deliver. The delivery is meant to be done in person. This is especially ironic as the postal service for Ecuador has been closed as a cost-cutting measure, leaving DHL and FedEx as options.

Returning to the Grace. Next we were instructed about kayaking and snorkeling. I have no photos of these activities. Too close to salt water. I have now been on my first kayak ride. The Grace carries eight two-seater kayaks, enough for all clients to go at once. Most of us did. Saw green tortoises in the water and sea lions and blue footed boobies on land. Among others.

A quinoa croquette, our lunch starter. Lunch was followed by re-donning our wet suits, hoods, and neon life vests for a deep-water snorkeling experience among some volcanic formations that spear the sky (very vertical and craggy).

Our late afternoon activity was a nature walk on Floreana. Here, we’re headed for our landing place.

We started into the interior of the island and skirted this brackish pond. I saw several pink flamingoes with binoculars on the far side. Genetically, the flamingoes here are most similar to ones in the Caribbean.

We kept walking and popped out on a beach on the opposite side of the island, just in time to witness a bit of a feeding frenzy. Several sharks, diving frigate birds, and rays.

We enjoyed our meet and greet of the staff tonight. Yesterday was too complicated to insert that important activity, although you would expect it on Day One. The crew showed up in their dress uniforms, all white and starched. We attempted our most formal wear. The social director, one very lovely and super-helpful Scarlett (yes, named after Atlanta’s Scarlett) introduced each of the crew members and detailed their responsibilities, and then we introduced ourselves to them.

Previously, I didn’t know who the captain was, and was looking forward to seeing him. I was surprised to discover I had spoken to him several times during panga entrance and exit activities, and he had sprayed my feet with clean water after a snorkeling expedition. Rather egalitarian, ¿no?

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Busy on sea and land

Took the hotel shuttle to the airport, and went through special bureaucratic hoops to initiate our entrance into the Galápagos province. Our flight was on an Airbus, with new seats. And new vocabulary: código QR and rodaje. The latter means when taxi-ing.

Here’s our plane disgorging tourists (and a few locals). We found more bureaucratic hoops in the terminal, nothing that wasn’t solved by standing in line and presenting documents.

However, the airport is on Baltra, and we wanted to be on Santa Cruz, and there were many sturdy ferries to move us…

…and our luggage across the Itabasca channel. Yes, that’s the boat we rode in, and that’s our luggage on the roof. Darned sturdy roof.

Our first stop was a turtle sanctuary, where we ate lunch. Having gotten out of bed at 4:40, and it being after one (plus one time zone change), during which time we had little food and no coffee…we were darned glad to tuck into a superb spread cooked by the chef and team from our yacht, Grace. After dining, we donned lovely rubber boots, and took a stroll.

Here’s one of our two guides helping us understand the intricacies of tortoise life, love, and subsistence.

Most of the tortoises we saw were large males, which are typically about three times the size of the females.

We even got to see a lava tube. These are volcanic islands, like the Hawaiian archipelago, but much, much smaller.

Refreshed and excited from many turtle sightings, we bussed through Puerto Ayora to the harbor.

Right by where we put on our life jackets, a pregnant mama sea lion was zoned out while her very large offspring was dining on all milk s/he could extract.

Fascinating feet. Flippers.

We rode on pangas (dinghies) out to the Grace. Wonderful to have arrived at our home-for-a-week. Gorgeous sunset over Puerto Ayora.

And a giant moon in the opposite direction. This is the largest yacht allowed to ferry tourists in Galápagos waters. It has 100 guests. The Grace hosts sixteen.

Reminder: when the post time is 10:22 pm, it was posted at some point after the day it is dated.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Making tracks

First daylight view from our window, second floor. You can’t see the airport runways, a bit off to the right.

And here’s the hotel, viewed from over an irrigation channel.

Lupin, bush form—I think the seeds were/are harvested.

Didn’t recognize this. Online info suggests an Dalea species, perhaps Dalea coerulea.

Boulevard development appears to be stalled.

More lot development needed.

An older neighborhood. Note vacas.

Abandoned house. Note emptiness behind windows.

A more successful neighborhood.

Veggie operation, looks like beans.

Almost back to the hotel. That large bush on the right is a castor bean (Ricinus communis)—called a bean, yet not a Fabaceae bean, as in the field above. Do not eat castor beans.

Hotel flower. You knew I had to include a flower close-up.

Expect no posts for eight(ish) days. I’ll delay-post when I return to internet accessibility. Me, spouse, hat, masks, etc are headed west to Pacific isles aka the Galápagos.

Posted at 5:05 PM | 2 Comments »

We did a bit of outdoor socializing this evening. We had a storm cell come through before we convened, and it brought the temps down (yay!). So, it was quite pleasant, then the sun returned and the temp rose and the humidity re-blanketed us. That’s the way it goes.

Posted at 7:52 PM | Comments Off on Ice in our drinks

OTP in these parts means outside the perimeter, or away from the core of ATL metro and beyond the encircling Interstate. And we indeed passed beyond that limit, traveling all the way to Athens for a few brief hours of socializing, then, returning and catching this view of Stone Mountain en route. Ignore the myriad of power lines.

Posted at 7:23 PM | Comments Off on OTP

Shy rose? Petal screening privates, you might say.

Shy Olympics? Clouds screening upper slopes and peaks. One gorgeous day, however.

Posted at 7:05 PM | Comments Off on Anthropomorphizing

It appears that a spider found this protected spot to weave, and the rain stayed in the web rather than falling through. I wonder if the droplets have teeny critters zipping around in them.

Posted at 7:43 PM | Comments Off on Another world