The Story of our trip to Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador & Galapagos Trip 31.7 to 15.8.10

[caramelo]

We had some free time and used it to see some of the ship:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We were very much looking forward to this trip as it promised to be something totally different to what one normally sees. Here you can see the entire route of the week in the Galapagos:

 

 

 

The best was that at 4:30pm we had our first visit to land on North Seymour Island. There were 2 options: the tour of more activity and the other a little less intense, the details were in our information received in the cabin:

 

 

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North Seymour Island is an island belonging to Ecuador's Galapagos archipelago and is located near the island of Baltra. It is named after an English nobleman called Lord Hugh Seymour. It has an area of 1.9km² and a maximum altitude of 28 meters. It was formed by the elevation of a submarine lava formation and is largely flat and arid with little vegetation, including cacti, palo santo and saltbushes.

 

There is a circular trail for visitors to North Seymour Island about 2miles long across the interior of the island and takes you to explore the rocky coast where you can observe the nesting sites of the colorful blue-footed boobies andc olorful frigates that are visible through out the year.

We chose the first option: "long walk activity" with a dry landing, ie, the panga boat goes directly to the main land without you having to wet your feet getting out of the boat.

The first image arriving at land:

 

 

We walked about 2 km on a trail of rocks where we saw our first images of the land iguanas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The sea lions, the baby looking to take some milk from its mother:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the next image you think it is a long tooth that comes out of the mouth but it is actually just a small shell!:

 

 

 

 

The blue-footed boobies have attractive bright blue feet:

 

 

 

It is a bird common in the Galapagos Islands that nests near the coast in many of the islands of the archipelago and it also feeds near their shores.

Is an endemic subspecies with an average lifespan of 15 to 20 years. Unlike its relative the Red-footed booby the bluefooted booby fishes on the shore and make their nests on the edge of the coast.

The male is small compared with the female. It is characteristic of the males to whistle while the females cry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw lots of eggs, chicks and juveniles:

These were the smallest:

 

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And now the chicks are a little bigger:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is fascinating is the comical mating ritual dance performed by blue-footedboobies. I think I have a picture of it but in a later chapter.

The next 3 pictures are from another passenger on the ship of the boobies in flight:

 

 

 

 

 

Also the blue-footed boobies who find it easy to dive from a great height into the sea at a speed of100 km to fish

 

 

Sometimes boobies went right in the tourist trail so we had to take a little care so as not to step on them when walking around!

And here's a booby with a land iguana:

 

We also saw a red-footed booby. It was the only one we saw during the whole trip! This is the lighter booby weighing about a kilo. Red feet are adapted tograb on to the branches. This type of booby is the only one that nests in trees.

 

 

 

 

[caramelo]

I saw a snake in the Galapagos: the Galapagos reptile may be slightly poisonous to humans and are very difficult to find due to the fact that snakes are very shy and elusive. These snakes are constrictors and all types are generally small, reaching an average of 2 to3 feet long. Its colour is dark brown with longitudinal yellow lines. The Galapagos Islands snakes usually feed on insects, lavalizards, marine iguanas and chicks.

 

There was also a little canary mangrove:

 

 

 

One of the biggest attractions of North Seymour in the Galapagos Islands is looking at the huge frigate birds with their red pouches hanging from their necks. They inflate their red pouches when they are trying to attract or draw the attention of a couple, these birds are also well known for stealing food from the blue-footed boobies.

These are the females and juveniles frigates without red pouches:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a Galapagos hawk:

 

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And here are the males with their red pouches:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that when they are inflated they are barely left with room to breathe, ha ha ha!

 

 

 

 

 

And in flight:

 

 

 

The tour lasted a total of one hour and a half and we came back on board around 6pm.

Returning to the ship we saw the last sea lion with our boat in the background:

 

 

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My favorite time each day was when we returned to the ship and had an aperitive snack in the BeagleGrill and took half an hour having a glass of wine and reflecting on experience of that day and chatting with other passengers, seeing the photos on the camera etc.:

 

 

 

At 7:30pm Captain Fausto Pacheco welcomed us with a glass of champagne and presented his team of the staff on board.

 

 

 

 

After the Cruise Director, Jorge Parrales, gave us the explanations and details of the next day's activities, which he would do from now on every evening and it was very important to be able to choose amongst the different options available each day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the talk we went to dinner. In this class of ship which is not a cruise but an expedition ship, there are no fixed tables and you were not seated with the same people each night which was so nice because you could talk with different people every night. The dinner was every night between 7:45pm and 9:30pm.The clientele was about 80% of American clients, maybe a 20% of Canadians and very few Europeans as this route was not generally offered on sale in Europe, then we were just a few from Europe: us, a young couple from Belgium, a couple from Luxembourg and another from Greece).

[caramelo]

After dinner,everybody goes to bed early as there is little night entertainment and there are not many activities as one has to get up early in the morning, but we took the habit of going to take the last drink on one of the terraces where we met almost every night with a very nice French lady who has lived many years in the U.S. and she went out to smoke a cigarette and more than once we ended up smoking a cigarette every night with her. We have stopped smoking for more than10 years but we got a taste for"oneafter dinner" which we really enjoyed....... especially after such a wonderful day!

Images of the subset that evening:

 

 

 

 

 

We went to sleep really looking forward to the following day.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…………… in Kicker Rock & San Cristóbal Island

[bellybutton530]

Carmelo:

 

Your thread is FANTASTIC.... I am sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for more.

 

I did an in-depth South America in 1976. Back then, there were no digital cameras to record what I saw. And, sadly, the photos I did take have faded. I just loved the photos of Machu Picchu; it brought back many fond memories. With your permission, I would like to copy some of your photos to my photo album.

 

And those zodiacs. They bring back memories of landings on the Antarctic peninsula in 1999 and 2000. Fabulouso!!!!!

 

I now know why the Galapagos is on my Bucket List.

 

I've bookmarked this thread so I don't miss anything.

[taxjam]

Can't believe each installment is better than the last!

 

Can you tell us the camera and lenses you used?

[caramelo]

Hi Cheryl,

 

Glad you´re enjoying the travelogue and of course you are welcome to use whatever photos you want. I reduced the weight of the photos to put them here on cruise critics but if you want any with more pixels then just let me know and, as I see your email, I can always send you them

 

Thanks Taxjam. :) I have little idea about cameras and am not a professional at all, and have no idea even about lenses. I use the combination of 2 different but normal cameras: Sony DSC-H50 which has a good zoom, and is simple to use, and what I like is that it has the screen-display to see the photo before you take it rather than a look-though small square. The second camera which I am very happy with is a Sony Cyber shot DSC-HX5 which is a small pocket camera which is good for night images or shows etc. without having to use the flash, does panoramic photos and also takes very good quality videos which is great in certain places where cameras are allowed but videos not.

[caramelo]

Monday, 9th of August

 

 

The ship's activities were entirely optional allowing each passenger to participate in 2 or 3 different activities daily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first day, although it meant an early rise, we opted for the first outing at 7am and it was a ride in the zodiac boat around the KickerRock.

 

 

 

 

 

Kicker Rock, also known as the Sleeping Lion has an impressive rock formation. It is an islet from the top of San Cristobal and is seen as a silhouette of a lion. It consists of a rocky cliff in the form of an obelisk that rises from the sea and the rest of the island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between the rocks a channel has formed which can be crossed in a small boat.

 

 

 

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Kicker is a volcanic cone type lava ash that has been eroded by the action of the sea of which there is only left tiny portion, consisting of two rocks, which are perfectly vertical walls, forming a small channel, its highest point reaching 144 meters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw some sea lions sleeping on the rocks and also a blue-footed booby. We also saw a large turtle in thewater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it seems that the sea lion is even posing for the camera, ha ha!:

 

 

 

 

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We returned to the ship at 8am and enjoyed a good breakfast.

 

 

At 9am we went back in the zodiac boat, this time to go to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno.

On the way to land we saw dolphins:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is located on the island of San Cristobal.

 

 

Most visitors do not know that the Galapagos Islands have their own population but about 20,000 people live in the four inhabited Galapagos Islands.

These were the first images landing at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruiseman111111]

WOW...Great Review...

[caramelo]

 

 

 

There was a sea lion waiting on the steps of the pier to welcome us:

 

 

 

 

 

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is the capital of the province of Galapagos, Ecuador. It is located southwest of the island of San Cristobal, the eastern most island of the archipelago.

Despite being the capital, the city has the second largest population of the islands 5,600 inhabitants, mainly fishermen. Primary industries include fishing, tourism and culture farms. The city has an Interpretation Centre, but the tourism infrastructure is not as advanced as in PuertoAyora.

The town takes its name from President Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno(1859-1951).

We went in the local bus to the Interpretation Centre. Here the visitor can obtain information about the history of the islands, their natural environments and conservation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The center comprises of three separate buildings connected by walkways and gravel paths and has two performance halls, one devoted to natural history, to see how the islands were formed millions of years ago, and another on the Galapagos of our days.

 

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The Information Office of the Centre, has a small library on Galapagos which can be used by locals and visitors. This room is destined for temporary exhibitions.The Centre has a screening room for 40 persons and an auditorium that will accommodate250 people for environmental education activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we had free time for an hour and a half, and where went back to the centre by bus we decided to walk as we had seen that it was not far away and we were close to a beach with a lot of sea lions. We had seen them before from the zodiac boat:

 

 

 

So we went down to this beach, the “Mann” beach, where we have been quite a while watching the sea lions who were very funny, playing, fighting, in and out of the water and the babies looking for their mothers and others just sleeping.

 

 

 

 

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Afterwards we walked back to the centre and saw a little of the different streets and shops before returning to the meeting point to board the ship to return.

 

 

 

And the village even seemed to have some nightlife with its discoteque, haha