January 22nd and 23rd. Travel days – Amazonia to Galapagos

Lava Lizard Male, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos

After an early breakfast at Yachana, we all loaded up onto the shuttle canoe and met our bus back up river. With a combined sense of sadness to be leaving, and excitement for the next stage of the trip, we drove out of the Amazon towards Quito. After a short stop to stretch our legs and sample the thin air at 13,200 feet, we descended back into the city.

El Paramo high grassland ecosystem, elevation 13,200 feet

Daniel was kind enough to meet us at our hotel and coordinate a laundry run for all of our muddy and mildewy clothes. After settling in, we headed out to dinner, where students had the opportunity to sample one of the local delicacies. Called Cui, the food was prepared in a pretty tame fashion, with only one little foot giving away it’s identity as a guinea pig. I have heard that it is sometimes served whole, where you get to see the toothy face looking back from its plate. I passed this one up, but reviews were overall pretty positive. I was happy enough with my empanada sampler and fresh hot chocolate.

We took an early morning flight from Quito and after a bit of confusion at the airport, and a two hour flight, we arrived in the Galapagos. We landed on the island of Baltra, where the airfield was built by the US air force during World War two. As we waited to get our bags, we were greeted by some lava lizards and two different finch species, which are a little tricky to tell apart, unless you are measuring their beaks.

Small Ground Finch female

The first thing that struck me was how tame the wildlife is on the islands. Humans have only been living in the Galapogos for about a hundred years, so the wildlife doesn't have a historical reason to fear us. Looks like my 200 mm lens will be plenty of zoom for these guys. After getting our bags and meeting our two guides, Julio and William, we caught a bus, hopped on a short ferry to Isla Santa Cruz, and hopped on another bus to the top of the island. Along the way, we passed through dramatically different ecological zones, from the coastal and arid zones to the transitional zone, to the humid upland scalesia zone, which receives much more rainfall and is dominated by Scalesia trees. The Scalesia trees were odd in appearance, owing to their relation to sunflowers.

At the top of the island, we saw two large volcanic craters, which could have been right out of Hawaii's volcanoes national park. The parallels with Hawaii are kind of interesting, as both are volcanic island chains, but the flora and fauna are very different. We drove back down through some farm land on the other side of the island, where we saw our first giant tortoises. We should get a much better view tomorrow, when we hike in the area. As it was, the guides seemed in a hurry to get us to our hotel in Puerto Ayora and get us geared up with our masks and snorkels. After checking in, we had a nice lunch, then, headed out to try our gear. From the main dock, we hopped in a boat taxi, then hiked across a lava field for about 30 minutes to a giant crack in the rocks that was full of sea water.

The objective was for all of us to try on our gear and for the less experienced snorkelers to practice their skills before heading out to the open ocean. It turned out to be a little tricky, as it was Sunday and full of locals dive-bombing from above. We did get to see some neat wildlife, however, including some marine iguanas, Lava Gulls, more finches, and an endemic mockingbird.

Marine Iguana hangout

Lava Gull

Yellow Warbler

Back at the hotel, the students took their second exam with Jay, and Dr. B schooled Zach, Rachel, and I at 8-ball on the hotel pool table. After dinner we walked down to town to check out the scene. The dock area and main part of town were packed with locals of all ages, who come out to socialize. Jeff and I watched as a brown pelican dove for fish in the lights, and a young sea lion seemed to be entertaining himself with some fancy figure eights under the pier.

Pier at Puerto Ayora

Blood Donor