Living the Good Life: Our Galapagos Cruise

Hey Guys!
I am so excited to get the Galapagos cruise blog up! This will be part one of a two part blog on the Galapagos cruise Jared and I took. Then there’s lots more Galapagos goodies- fun things we did after he got off the cruise boat, but that’s for future blogs…

We definitely started the trip off right, we got upgraded to first class. It totally blew our cheapie-backpacker minds.

I thought it was quite fitting that the first wildlife we saw was one of the Darwin’s finches. We learned about how there are different types of finches with different beak and wing adaptations for the different diets they consume on all of the different islands. The Galapagos has 13 major islands, six minor ones, and a whole lot of little islets and rocas. One of the coolest things about this place is that each island has its own identity- over millennia they have evolved specific characteristics to each of them.

The main island of Santa Cruz alone has six different vegetation zones. If you are in the Highlands it is arid but as you descend down towards the coast it becomes more humid. That’s a lot of variation for an island that’s only 250 km².

Here we are inside of a lava tunnel underground. A lava tunnel is formed when lava closer to the surface cools and stops flowing, while hot lava is still flowing underneath. Then that lava flows away and leaves a hollow space behind.

And here we are meeting the giant tortoises!! This was so so cool. They’re just so huge and so slow. They were all happily munching grass when we came to see them, although sometimes they go for a bit of a wallow in the mud, not unlike a pig. I didn’t know this, but the giant land tortoises are actually born with all the rings they will ever have on their shells and as they grow older the space increases between the rings. As a result, you can look at an old turtle and you will see more space between the rings than a younger one. The rings are also a lot less defined because of years and years of weathering. When I say years I mean hundreds-giant land tortoises can live to be 300 years old!

There are two main divisions between the giant land tortoises- dome shaped and saddle backs. This guy above has a dome shape. There is no upside-down u-shape above his head to allow his neck to extend further up. We’ll have pictures of saddlebacks later on, and you can see how they are able to reach their necks up higher to reach higher vegetation. The dome shaped guys don’t need it as they just munch casually on the grass and low-lying vegetation, but the saddlebacks use it to get up higher. They live on more arid islands where food is more scarce. It is crazy these islands are all in an 8000 km2 area, and yet they are like different continents.

This is at Los Gemelos, a giant sinkhole that was created when a lava tunnel collapsed.

Aren’t they massive?

Look at us being so respectful and good, observing the guidelines of at least 2 m distance from all the animals of the National Park.

Huge tortoise poop with foot for scale. It was like 80% grass.

It was a great feeling to finally make it here. Not so great for the bank account, but great all the same.

And that night we also finally boarded our ship to begin our 6 day cruise around the western islands of Galapagos.

We went to another turtle breeding centre the next morning. We learned about how close the giant land tortoises came to extinction because in the days of sailors and pirates they would come here, load up on female turtles and leave them down in their holds as a source of food while they sailed the open ocean. They usually only took the females because they were smaller and easier to pack down in the hold. What’s really terrible is that they would put them upside down and leave them alive with no food or water for weeks. Turtles can live a surprisingly long time before they actually die. Sad stuff.
It also resulted in an in-balance between males and females and the populations started to decline to dangerously low levels. Conservationists came in and started incubating eggs at a certain temperature to create more females than males. They have brought a lot of types of the land tortoises back from the brink. But it was too late for the Pinta land tortoise. The most famous example of which was lonesome George that passed away a few years ago.
There also distinct species of land tortoises on each of the islands. For example there is the Santa Cruz giant tortoise, there are also even distinct species groups in some of the volcano calderas on the island of Isabella.

The little babies were insanely cute. They keep them in these protective cages until they’re three years of age, because before that the Galapagos hawk is able to peck into their shell. After three years they’re shell is too firm for anything to get to them and they’re essentially without predators after this point.

Something we were quite lucky to see were flamingos. They inhabit the islands but aren’t that commonly seen.

Something that is, however, commonly seen is the marina iguana. We must have seen thousands of these guys. They all huddle up together at night to stay warm, and during the day they venture out into the sea, dive down and chew on the algae.

Sally light foot crabs

The sea lions were absolutely amazing, they are just like the dogs of the sea. They are so curious and they just want to come and swim around you and play. They also play with each other a lot. It was really fun. I should mention (though it is probably pretty obvious) that you aren’t allowed to touch any of the animals on the Galápagos Islands.

This is a panorama shot of the Sierra Negra caldera. It is 7 x 10 km in area, and occasionally erupts. The dark black lava rock made a beautiful contrast with the lush green sides of the caldera.

This marvellous day was finished off with piña colada and cerveza on the beach.

The next day on our tour we took a boat ride out to a small bay on the island of Isabella. Here we got our first looks at the flightless cormorant. This is a really cool bird that lost its ability to fly through evolution, but gained the ability to dive deep into the sea for fish.

And penguins!! I don’t know what is so captivating about these little guys, but they were definitely a highlight. The Galapagos penguins are special, because they are the only penguins that live on the equator. The water in the Galapagos is actually quite cold. The Humboldt current comes up from Antarctica and let me tell you-I was always in the water in a wetsuit!