Isabela Island – Los Túneles

Posted on February 12, 2021February 16, 2021 by Lark

Does it feel like we’ve been in the Galapagos forever? Well, there are certainly worse places to spend however many months it’s taken me to write these posts. Believe it or not, though, we’ve made it to the final full day of our trip! We had one last tour scheduled, and the day kicked off when my alarm went off at 6:30AM… approximately 30 minutes after I fell asleep after spending most of the night trying, and failing, to fall asleep through the New Year’s party happening in the town square. Anyway, suffice to say that the day wasn’t off to an ideal start.

On top of that, it was raining. Of course. I was hoping that it would be like some of the other days when it rained in the morning but stopped by the time we got to wherever we were going, but we weren’t so lucky. The good news is that it’s hard to have a bad day in the Galapagos! Even with the rain, we got to see some amazing things.

Our destination for the day wasn’t too far away. We were headed to Los Túneles (The Tunnels), an area on Isabela Island (where we were staying) that’s known for being a great snorkel spot and for its lava formations. We’ll get to that, but first… it takes about 40 minutes to get there by boat, and on the way, we saw manta rays in the ocean!! I don’t think I even know that these things existed, and if you’re like me… think stingray, but HUGE. The ones we saw were probably at most 10ft (3m) from fin tip to fin tip, but on average, they’re about 15ft (4.5m). At their largest, they can be 23ft (7m) across! Oh, and weigh 6600lbs (3000kg). HOW did I not know about them?? Man, the ocean is a CRAZY place.

For context, we were staying in Puerto Villamil (on the south coast), and Los Tuneles is about at the blue pin.

The captain stopped the boat so that we could watch them, and the guide explained that they are very curious and often stop to investigate/“play” with boats. They were sticking their fins out of the water (looking creepily like shark fins) and flipping over to show their bright white undersides. They may be intimidatingly large, but they aren’t harmful to humans. They can’t sting, and they eat plankton by filter feeding, like blue whales. To do so, they swim with their giant mouths open (the largest ones could fit multiple grown humans in their mouths… eek!) and direct plankton and water in with the help of these weird little flexible horns that they have. Everything goes through a filtering system, and food gets consumed while water gets expelled. They can also swim impressively fast. At a sprint, they can reach speeds up to about 22mph (35km/h), though they usually cruise at closer to 9mph (15km/h). One more fun fact… they have the biggest brains of any fish.

Here’s a not-great-but-best-I-have video of one of them surfacing. You can see the horns I mentioned (they’re the things sticking out of the water above its gills).

After they got tired of us, we continued along to our first stop. Los Túneles has some amazing lava formations. As its name suggests, there are lots of tunnels underneath the surface, plus caves and bridges. Remember how we’ve talked about how lava formed the islands? As we’ve seen in other places, there can be voids underneath the surface in the form of lava tubes and such. That, in combination with the erosion caused by waves crashing into the coastline, created a landscape unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Aside from the fact that it was STILL raining, I was thrilled to have the chance to walk around. We got to walk over some of the lava bridges, and the water surrounding us was so incredibly clear that we could see all sorts of sea life swimming by! We saw a few golden rays (so, so, so cool to see them swimming! Even if they’re much smaller than manta rays), plus tons of sea turtles. Oh, what I would have given to swim in that water! But it’s a protected area, so no swimming allowed.

Rain making a strong appearance in this picture.

With the bridges and the cacti… man. What a weird landscape, right?

There were also a bunch of blue-footed boobies with some of the brightest feet I’ve seen, plus their chicks. We had seen a few newborn chicks on Espanola Island, and they weren’t especially cute… they looked a bit like dinosaur/alien babies. These ones were a little farther along, though, and they were little fluffballs.

Okay so like… prepare yourself for so many blue-footed booby pics because I tried my hardest to narrow them down, and this IS the narrowed down selection.

They don’t seem to love the rain… Also, those little piles of white fluff (one in front and one in the back) are babies. They… yeah. They don’t look thrilled.

So many pics, I just couldn’t choose between them!

Also a little mysterious/menacing maybe?

From there, we headed to the snorkel spot. It wasn’t quite as cool as near the tunnels, mostly because the water wasn’t as clear, but there was a LOT of wildlife. In some places, it was very shallow, and the bottom had a lot of loose plant matter on it that people kept kicking up with their fins which made it even more difficult to see (just a PSA if you ever go snorkeling, especially with other people around. Try to keep your feet submerged while you’re kicking so that you don’t create bubbles, and be extra careful not to move the water too much if there’s stuff on the bottom! In general, just try to be aware of your surroundings. Your fellow snorkelers will appreciate it).

Hehe I actually have a few more blue-footed booby pics, but I thought you could use a break.

We saw SO many sea turtles, and some of them were absolutely huge… practically land tortoise-sized! There were approximately a billion fish, some in giant schools, that swam so close I could have touched them (but ew, no thanks). The most exciting thing was that we got to see sharks!! I know, who am I? Me, excited to see sharks? Well, I was also terrified, but I lived through my first shark sighting at Las Tintoreras and was ready for another.

The guide pretty much guaranteed that we would see whitetip reef sharks on the tour, named for the white markings on their fin tips (creative, right?) and the fact that they generally stick to shallower areas, usually in water 25-130ft deep (8-40m). They mostly hunt at night, and during the days, they rest in caves, often returning to the same cave day after day. A lot of sharks need to swim to breathe, but not these sharks! Their bodies can actively pump water over their gills, allowing them to rest in place. We popped our heads into a few of their resting caves and saw crazy numbers of sharks lined up across the cave floor like enchiladas. We saw one swimming, and I almost had a heart attack. He was right in front of me! Came out of nowhere and we were probably within touching distance. I backpedaled a bit, he turned, and whew! I survived. Again, though, I surprised myself and was more excited than scared. Nice!

It’s pretty dark in the caves, so photo-taking isn’t the easiest, but my cousin did get this picture of one chilling close to the mouth of the cave. Note the white tip on the top fin.

The last thing we did was swim through a mangrove… grove? Mangrove forest? Through some mangroves? However you’d properly say it, you get what I mean. Mangroves grow in the water and provide a great habitat for all sorts of creatures, especially for those who are a little more vulnerable, like babies. They can hide in the tangled roots of the mangroves, out of the sight and reach of predators.

We had one last exciting sighting for the day… seahorses! The seahorses found in the Galapagos are Pacific seahorses, also known as GIANT seahorses. Get this… they average 4.5-7.5 inches in height (12-20cm). Massive, right? Like other seahorses, the males carry the babies. Females deposit eggs into a pouch, the males fertilize the eggs and seal the pouch, and after 14 days, they go into labor, pushing out little baby seahorses that are around a centimeter or less in height. They can be a variety of colors, including green, brown, maroon, grey, and yellow. We got to see three! They were clinging to the mangrove roots with their tails, and without a guide pointing them out, there’s no chance we would have spotted them. I suppose that’s kind of what they’re going for…

Seahorse photos also thanks to my cousin!

After that, we headed back to the boat and rode “home” to Puerto Villamil. To everyone’s delight, we saw more manta rays on the way back! What a great day!

That was our final full day on Isabela. The next afternoon, we took a ferry back to Santa Cruz to catch our flights to the mainland. I was headed to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, and the rest of my family was headed back to the States. We did have time for one more little exploration… near the dock in Puerto Villamil, there’s a snorkeling spot called “Concha de Perla” (Pearl Shell). It’s a sheltered little lagoon where you can swim with sea lions and turtles and rays… it’s supposed to be really great! We didn’t have time to snorkel, but we did enjoy walking there through the mangrove groves (hehe) and admiring the crystal-clear water at the other end. So, if you’re ever on Isabela, I strongly recommend snorkeling there. As for me, I guess I’ll just have to wait until I visit again someday!

Of course with some sea lions doing their best to be in the way

The church in Puerto Villamil… interesting architecture

The smaller dock used for excursion departures

North Seymour Island – walk around some blue-footed booby nesting grounds.

Las Grietas and Los Gemelos – lava tubes and other cavities beneath the surface contributed to the formations in Los Tuneles. Check out some lava tubes and collapsed magma chambers on Santa Cruz Island!

Las Tintoreras – if you’re a fan of bright blue water, you’ll love Las Tintoreras.

Sierra Negra Volcano – hike to one of the volcanos that formed Isabela Island and admire some amazing lava colors!

Española Island – go back to where our Galapagos journey began and see some baby Nazca boobies!

Isabela Island – Tortoises, Flamingos, and the Wall of Tears

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Lark

After our morning tour to Las Tintoreras, we still had half of the day free for more activities! My aunt and I went into town after a brief stop at our hotel and started asking around about renting bikes. There’s a 3 mile-long (5km) gravel path to the west of Puerto Villamil (the main town on the island) that winds past different points of interest, and we wanted to make a plan to explore it later in our stay on Isabela.

Here’s Isabela Island, for reference again. And Puerto Villamil, the main town, is on the southern coast.

Welp, as is often the case with traveling, that is NOT what happened. We talked to a few shopkeepers and realized that since the next day was New Year’s Eve, stores were going to be closed for the next two days aka the rest of our time on the island. If we wanted to bike instead of walk the 3+ miles each way, this was our last chance. There was really no question… we went back to the hotel, broke the news to the group that we were NOT going to be having a chill rest of the day, and quickly got ready for another outing.

The girl at the bike rental place gave me a map and some recommendations of where to go and in what order. I love it when someone removes the guesswork and just tells you what to do! She showed me how to get out of town and then recommended that we visit the tortoise breeding center and flamingo lake before following the bike path. There was a general “Do we really have to see more tortoises?” vibe coming from the group, but since she who holds the map holds the power, I said yes, we did. And so, off we went. Also, before you start thinking of me as some sort of travel dictator, I’ll just say that we saw a lot of tortoises on our trip and no one ever regretted a tortoise sanctuary/breeding center visit in hindsight, this time included.

Isabela is, by far, the largest island in the Galapagos. It’s nearly four times the size of the second largest island, Santa Cruz, and was formed by six shield volcanoes. Isabela is home to the most wild tortoises of any island, and due to its size and difficult-to-traverse topography, there are actually five different subspecies of tortoises found across the island. These roam freely in five of the volcano calderas.

The tortoise breeding center on Isabela was founded in 1995 after some fires in the southern part of the island reduced the southern tortoise populations. Even before that, the tortoises faced survival challenges, such as competition for food with an ever-growing population of non-native goats (these have since been eradicated from Isabela). Tortoises were brought from across the island to the center to breed, and the populations have been seeing steady growth ever since. The center protects eggs and hatchlings, and once the tortoises grow big enough to give them a good chance of survival, they’re released.

This map shows where all of the subspecies of Galapagos tortoise are from. As you can see, there are five on Isabela, and they’re each somewhat centered on a caldera.

I enjoyed this visual aid in the little information center. It shows a little timeline of human life vs. tortoise life… the human life starting with a baby and ending with a tombstone around 100 years (optimistic)… and the tortoise starts with an egg and ends with a full-grown tortoise still alive at 150 years.

Hehe I thought it was funny seeing this tortoise flopped on the ground. Looks like she’s having just one of those days, you know?

The tortoises at the breeding center are fed three times per week.

These tortoises were going CRAZY for their leaves.

This guy got scared and hid in his shell. It’s pretty cool… they tuck their heads in and then use their arms to cover/shield their heads.

LOOK AT THIS SHELL. This is a Cinco Cerros tortoise and their shells are just about as flat as they get. It’s almost comical.

After we left the breeding center, we biked a bit farther down the road to hopefully see some flamingos! Isabela has the most flamingos in the Galapagos, and they can often be spotted feeding in the many salty and brackish lakes near Puerto Villamil. We weren’t there at an ideal feeding time and thought we were out of luck when we reached the first lake and saw nothing. Luckily, there were some people coming off of a side street who told us that there were a few hanging out in the next lake over! Awesome!!

The empty flamingo lake… but even flamingo-less, it’s a pretty view!

Flamingos!! You can (maybe?) see one flamingo in the front lake area, and there are two on the far end of the second lake area.

The flamingos were pretty far away, but that didn’t make seeing them any less exciting. My camera lens wasn’t even nearly strong enough to get good pictures of them, so my uncle taught me about the “poor man’s zoom” aka take as many pictures as you can, and once you’re looking at them on a computer, crop the best-quality ones. Ha! So… I took a lot. You can judge the effectiveness of that strategy for yourself.

These two were so far away that there was really no hope

From there, we biked back to the main road and started on the bike trail. The trail started with a sandy stretch, but that thankfully became a nice, packed-gravel path. It was a super pleasant ride, mostly flat with a few uphill sections that weren’t too bad if you accelerated into them a bit.

This sandy stretch was NOT my favorite part of the path. Also, very bold move of me to take a picture while biking on this because I wasn’t feeling especially stable.

Doesn’t this look like it’s meant to be a painting?

We decided to ride to the end of the path first and then slowly make our way back, stopping at the different sights along the way. The path ends at the Wall of Tears (Muro de las Lágrimas), a memorial to one of the many sad chapters in the Galapagos human history. After World War II, a penal colony was established on Isabela as a bad solution to the problem of an oversaturated prison system in Ecuador. If you remember from the Galapagos History post, there were other penal colonies in the Galapagos throughout history, and none of them ended especially well. This one was no exception.

In 1946, about 100 inmates and 30 guards were sent to Isabela. Wooden structures used by American soldiers during WWII were repurposed into prison buildings. From the very beginning, it was a nightmare. There were significant food and water shortages. Many prisoners died from tuberculosis and other diseases. The guards made up pointless tasks to keep the prisoners occupied, the worst of which was constructing a hulking wall out of lava rocks. This process involved harvesting stones from a not-so-nearby quarry and carrying them to the wall location where they were then broken into smaller pieces and stacked on the wall… all while baking in the harsh Galapagos sun. The wall became known as the place where “the strong cry and the weak die”.

“In memory of those who suffered and died here 1946-1959”

This project was a death trap for many reasons. Those who weren’t pushed to exhaustion by the heat and exposure were in danger of injury by the not-infrequent wall collapses. With no access to proper medical care, even minor injuries could lead to much more serious health problems. The guards were cruel and unrelenting, sometimes shooting inmates for not working hard enough. Many people died, slaving over a worthless wall. In 1958, the prisoners had had enough. They rebelled, escaped from the colony, hijacked an American yacht, and sailed to the mainland. Many prisoners and guards were killed in the uprising. The event was reported in American newspapers, shedding light on the horror of the colony, and it was finally shut down for good in 1959.

Today, this portion of wall is all that remains of the prison. It was 620 feet (190m) long, 30 feet (9m) tall, and 20 feet (6m) wide at its base. People say that the wall is haunted, that you can still hear the wails and cries of those who perished, hence the name “The Wall of Tears”.

Everything that I read before we went said that you shouldn’t expect too much, that it’s not especially spectacular or impressive. I don’t agree. It has a sort of haunting beauty to it, and anyone who thinks it isn’t impressive has probably never built anything. The stones are stacked up with no mortar, hence the many wall-collapses during construction, and they’re fitted together like a puzzle. To support its height, the wall has a super thick base that narrows as it rises. Along its length, the whole thing undulates, like a snake. I don’t know whether it’s haunted or not, but there is a definite heaviness to the place. I could feel it clutching at my heart as I walked around, amplified even further by the fog that settled in while we were there.

This is how the weather conditions looked when we started our hike…

…and this is how it looked by the time we came down. That fog really just rolled on in while we were up the mountain.

Nearby, there’s a mountain you can climb for a view of the sea and surrounding area. The weather was already looking a little questionable, but by the time we got to the top, there was no more question. It was going to rain, and we needed to get back to town ASAP.

The trees looked kind of eerie with all of this moss (I assume?) hanging off of them.

We hiked approximately forever… and then there was practically nothing to see from the top.

It was cool to see the coastline, though.

The rain really messed up our plans to visit the other sights along the path on the way back to town. We made no stops, just biking and biking and trying to get back to town and out of the rain in case there was a deluge coming. So, it wasn’t quite the outing we expected, but hey, that’s life!

Santa Cruz Tortoises – if you’re not tired of tortoises yet… meet the tortoises of Santa Cruz!

San Cristobal Highlands – and if you’re STILL not tired of tortoises, meet the tortoises of San Cristobal!

Santa Cruz – Tortoises and Tortuga Bay

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Lark

Last time, we did some adventuring around Santa Cruz Island. We visited some spots downtown and checked out Las Grietas (aka the best snorkeling spot), Los Gemelos lava craters, and the lava tubes of El Chato Tortoise Reserve.

There are a few tortoise reserves on Santa Cruz, and I told our taxi driver, Fredy, to take his pick and that we’d be happy as long as there were lava tubes and tortoises. So, we ended up at El Chato. These reserves are different from the conservation centers because they’re privately owned, and the tortoises are technically wild! They’re there because it’s a good habitat, not because they can’t leave. It was weird to see them in the “wild”… we even saw a tortoise crossing the main road! (That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.) It was a strange sight after only seeing them in captivity to that point. At least with tortoises, unlike with deer, you don’t have to worry about them speedily darting out in front of your car!

Anyway, El Chato used to be a cattle ranch, but around 20 years ago, the owners started working to return the land from farmland to a natural habitat for tortoises, changing the farmland vegetation to native vegetation. This transition naturally brought tortoises back to the land. Now, it’s a lush, green forest and is really beautiful! Besides the vegetation, there are also a bunch of muddy pools that tortoises love. They sometimes spend multiple days hanging out in them, likely to help regulate their body temperatures and maybe to also kill ticks and protect from mosquitos.

I’ve talked a little bit about tortoises in previous posts, but later in our trip, my aunt and I visited the Charles Darwin Research Center, also on Santa Cruz, and learned a lot about the Galapagos tortoises in general. There were originally fifteen distinct Galapagos tortoise species from ten different islands. Now, unfortunately, only eleven species remain, due mostly to human interference and the thousands and thousands of tortoises that were killed for food and oil back in the whaling days.

This map shows where each of the 15 species originated and differentiates between the ones that still exist (blue) and those that are extinct (pink).

The Darwin Center is a research hub that monitors the wildlife of the islands and works to minimize damage and neutralize threats. The Center is involved with all sorts of conservation projects, and as part of their tortoise research, they’ve identified genes from two of the extinct species, the Pinta and Floreana, in some living tortoises! The hope is that it may be possible to essentially recreate those species through careful breeding. It sounds insane but also kind of amazing!

At the Darwin Center. I’ll never get tired of looking at baby tortoises (note the folded up screen that they use to protect them at night)

It’s just crazy to me that these tiny little things turn into those giant tortoises

This is taxidermized Lonesome George. He was the last Pinta tortoise, found there in 1971. There was a global search for a female Pinta tortoise, but it was unsuccessful, and George died in 2012. He’s now creepily memorialized at the Darwin Center.

The tortoise species fit into two major categories: dome-shell tortoises, and saddleback tortoises. The Santa Cruz tortoises have dome shells. These are typical of tortoises that live in wet zones and where food is plentiful close to the ground. As you’ve seen from the pictures, that’s definitely true of the Santa Cruz highlands! In drier places with less vegetation, the tortoises had to adapt to survive. Saddleback tortoises have shells that allow a wider range of vertical motion which allows them to reach food higher off the ground. It’s so cool to see such a clear example of how different habitats impact how species develop!

This is a good comparison image, showing the difference between the dome shells and saddleback shells.

These are the most dramatic dome shells… It looks like a mushroom was plopped on top of this tortoise. Like it actually almost looks like the tortoise and the shell aren’t really connected.

I don’t know what kinds of tortoises any of these are, but just observe the similarities and differences in their shells. This one has a very dramatic saddleback shape.

You can see that this is clearly a saddleback shell as well, but it’s not quite as dramatic as the last one.

These are definitely from a wet island because those shells are like pancakes.

I was surprised to learn that most Santa Cruz tortoises are migratory. It seems crazy for that to be the case for such a slow-moving animal! They move anywhere from about 65-2,300 ft (20-700 m) each day, and they travel up to 6mi (10km) from the coastal areas to the highlands during the rainy season. Tracking has shown that while most migrate (and move back and forth between two general areas), some of them seem almost nomadic, wandering here and there without any clear rhyme or reason. One aspect of the tortoise conservation work in Santa Cruz has been educating the locals about these migrations and asking farmers to use raised barbed wire fences so that tortoises can freely move about.

In case you’re wondering how quickly that distance is covered…

The answer is, “Not very.”

As you can see, plenty of green things to eat close to the ground

Fredy (our taxi driver) said that the tortoises have the feet of an elephant, the neck of a giraffe, and the face of a serpent. He’s not wrong.

Is it just me or does it look like this tortoise is glaring at us?

This balance between allowing people to live their lives vs. conserving wildlife is complicated. Some people think no humans should live in the Galapagos or even visit. Others think that people should be able to do whatever they want. Neither of these extremes is likely, so the question then becomes, “How can we best serve both interests?” It’s like a case study in compromise, and I think it’s something we can all probably learn from. Don’t get me wrong, the situation is far from resolved. But people are paying attention and trying to figure it out, and I think that’s worth something!

I think this little buddy is a Galapagos flycatcher

The tortoise reserve was our last stop for the day, so we headed back into town when we were finished. Everyone was pretty exhausted!

We had dinner at one of the little restaurants along this road. It closes to traffic at night so that they can put tables and chairs out in the street!

The next day, we had time for one more adventure before we had to catch our ferry to Isabela Island. We decided to check out Tortuga Bay, aka the MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACH IN THE WORLD. Yes, another one of those. Like I’ve said, I’m not a great judge of beaches, but this one was definitely memorable.

We walked from our hotel all the way to the beach, first walking about seven blocks to the start of the trail, and then walking another half hour/45 minutes on a shade-less trail to get to the bay.

The scenery along the way isn’t especially exciting, but I was fascinated by these cactuses with trunks that look like cartoon tree trunks. They’re in the opuntia cactus family, or “prickly pear”, and while many varieties exist, the Galapagos opuntias are endemic (they only exist there) and are the only ones that grow like trees! The tallest opuntia are found on Santa Cruz where they can grow up to 40ft (12m) tall! That’s crazy, in case you didn’t know.

Opuntia cactus trunk! Does this not look like a cartoon drawing of a tree trunk? It doesn’t look real. And it feels kind of plasticky and fake as well. But it’s not!

The opuntia cacti are well-suited to survival in the Galapagos. They can store large amounts of water, making them resilient in long dry periods. They can grow directly on rocks, an essential ability when the island is nothing more than a giant lava rock. Finally, they’re able to self-pollinate, so they don’t need other cacti nearby to reproduce. It’s not hard to see why that might be useful in a situation where you’re a wayward seed trying to populate a barren island! These cacti are a critical part of the Galapagos ecosystem. Iguanas and tortoises eat their pads, fruit, and seeds. Cactus finches eat their flowers, fruit, and seeds, extract water from their pads, use them for protection when building nests, and distribute their seeds across the islands (thanks to their poop!).

Try to tell me that these look real. (I won’t believe you.)

When we finally reached Tortuga Bay, we found ourselves at Playa Brava, the longest and flattest beach I’ve ever seen. With its white sand stretching out as far as the eye can see, it felt almost otherworldly. Most beautiful beach in the world? You can decide.

I like how they can curl themselves up like this.

Outcropping separating Playa Brava from Playa Mansa

We walked the endless beach until we reached another, Playa Mansa, where you’re allowed to swim. (You can’t swim at Playa Brava because the tides are too dangerous.) It’s supposed to be a great snorkeling spot because of the nearby mangroves, full of sharks and sea turtles, so my cousin and I decided to check it out. We tried to swim out to deeper water, but the ground sloped so gradually that even after swimming pretty far, it was maybe 3ft (1m) deep. Even so, it was so cloudy that I could barely make out the bottom! There were a lot of dark spots, but most of them seemed like seaweed until… eek! Was that a stingray?? I turned back to check… and it was! A small one, maybe 8 inches (20cm) in diameter. Apparently, I was emotionally unprepared for an actual stingray. My heart skipped, and I let out an underwater scream in surprise! It scared me half to death, and then my scream scared it (hopefully only) half to death! It shifted to the left, then to the right, and then sped away, like when a person gets scared and looks around spastically before sprinting away. Once I calmed down, I felt terrible for scaring it so badly. Sorry, little stingray! It was kind of hilarious… but I also decided that I did NOT like how close I was to it without being able to see it.

I swam over to my cousin to say that I was ready to go. She said that she had seen a shark fin and tried to swim after it, but she couldn’t see much, and it disappeared. I got the “I need to get out of this water immediately” feeling, and we sprinted back to the beach. Later, my uncle told us that he talked to some people who had been kayaking where we were swimming, and they said there were TONS of sharks in the water. EEK. It would have been cool if we could see them, but you know how I feel about swimming in water that I can’t see through. Normally, I’m just irrationally afraid that there are sharks. This time there really were! Nope nope nope. Noooo thank you.

This seems like a good time for a few more relaxing beach pics…

Mangroves! These are another super important plant. Their roots are a great place to lay eggs and hide away if you’re a small fish or other critter trying to escape larger predators. This also means that they’re popular with birds who are looking to eat these little fish! And sharks, doing the same.

I really thought that I took a video of this dude swimming, but I can only find pictures (argh!)

Look! There he goes! You can see his tail snaking behind and propelling him forward.

We headed back to town with plenty of time to grab our bags and head to the dock before our ferry departed. The entire organizational system for ferry boarding is a disaster, but I’m not going to go into that (you’re welcome). Just know that my calling that mess a “system” is incredibly generous. The chaos drove my engineering mind insane (I have approximately 1000 ideas for how to improve it). We ended up on a ferry with a “floating casino” sort of vibe. The only two windows were blue and dolphin-shaped, casting bluish light across the interior, and the seating was a plush, wavy bench that wound around the perimeter. Before we left, a guy walked around with a roll of plastic bags for anyone worried about getting seasick… hehehe that’s comforting, right? We had a bumpy start, but after the captain came down and moved some people around to better balance the boat, it was much smoother! Thank goodness because the ride was maybe 2.5 hours, and I don’t think I could have taken another ferry ride like the one from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz (where I closed my eyes and pretended that I was totally comfortable while repeating to myself, “You’re fine. Your stomach is fine. No, your face doesn’t feel hot. You don’t feel queasy. I’m sure we’re almost there.”).

The ferry took us from Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz to Puerto Villamil, Isabela.

Next time, get ready for more adventures on a new island!

Las Grietas and Los Gemelos – explore more of Santa Cruz and learn about the crazy volcanic activity that created some of the island’s most interesting features.

Kicker Rock – for more adventures of swimming in cloudy water with definite but invisible shark companions…

San Cristobal Highlands – investigate other Galapagos claims of “world’s most beautiful beach” and check out the San Cristobal tortoise conservation center.

Diamond Beach – check out this beach in Iceland that may give Tortuga Bay a run for its money… though in a VERY different way!

Española Island – meet some especially colorful members of the marine iguana family.

Santa Cruz – Las Grietas and Los Gemelos

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Lark

We had one “free day” worked into the schedule while we were on Santa Cruz, and like before, that didn’t mean “do nothing day”. My aunt had a whole list of things that we could see on the island without a tour, so we plotted a route and headed out for another very long day.

Here’s the location of Santa Cruz in relation to the other Galapagos Islands! It’s the second largest island, about 20mi/32km wide x 25mi/40km long.

Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Galapagos archipelago and is a “shield volcano”, like many of the other Galapagos islands. This means that there wasn’t an explosive eruption that formed it (exactly what it sounds like/what you likely imagine when you think “volcanic eruption”). Instead, there was an “effusive eruption” which means that low-viscosity lava flowed steadily for a period of time. Since the lava is extra “flowy”, it spreads out farther and results in a land mass with a much more gradual slope than would result from an explosive eruption. So lava steadily accumulates in layers, building a short and flat-ish island, called a “shield volcano” because it has a similar shape to a round shield lying on the ground.

It’s a very ecologically diverse island, the only one in the Galapagos with six different vegetation zones. I was amazed once again by the difference between the coastal areas and the highlands, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway…

On the way to our first official stop of the day… Puerto Ayora had some very thematic Christmas decorations. I guess the reindeer get a little help from the locals when delivering presents to the islands!

Also, I know that I wasn’t at the birth of baby Jesus, but I don’t know about this rendition… Sea lions, frigatebirds, tortoises, and blue-footed boobies? (Also, the green and brown stuff on the ground is broken glass. There’s a lot of interesting recycling happening on the islands.)

Our first stop was the local fish market. This is where the fishermen bring in their catches, and there are big, concrete tables where they’re sorted and prepared for sale. If you like fresh fish or lobster, this is the place to be. I personally don’t like fish, fresh or otherwise, but I do always enjoy watching people at work (in a totally non-creepy way), skillfully going about their business. The major tourist draw is the photo op, of course. The fish attract all kinds of critters hoping for scraps… sea lions and an assortment of birds that hang around and, if they’re feeling especially cheeky, try to snatch fish right off the tables. The fish attract the birds, the birds attract the people, and you’ve got yourself a crowd!

Lobsters! Lobster fishing is strictly regulated in the Galapagos. The season lasts from September 1 – December 31 each year. These are red spiny lobsters and are the variety most commonly found in the Galapagos.

Taking pictures of tourists taking pictures of this lady doing her job.

Sea lion trying to get some pity scraps. This lady isn’t buying it.

Breaking the two-meter rule (only once, I promise!)

We weren’t there at prime time, so things were pretty quiet. That was fine with me! When everyone was ready to move on to the next adventure, we headed for the dock. Our destination was “Las Grietas”, or “the cracks”, which is a deep crevice that was created when the lava forming the island cooled and contracted. This particular crack falls at the junction of an underground river and the sea, so it’s filled with brackish water (mix between fresh and saltwater). There isn’t a large, clear passage to the ocean, but there is enough space for water and fish to trickle in. No sharks, though!

We passed this funky house on the way to the dock!

No clue what this kid was doing, but apparently we were all entertained by it (pic by my uncle)

The only way for a human to get to Las Grietas is through a boat ride/walking combination. You can’t drive there. You can’t walk the entire way. You can’t boat the entire way. You take a water taxi from the main dock in Puerto Ayora, cross the harbor, and walk about 30 minutes from there. You can also take a boat a liiittle farther and save yourself maybe 15 minutes of walking, but then you still have to walk the final stretch.

We passed these salt mines along the way! Saltwater comes in with the tide and fills the area, and after the water evaporates, people harvest the salt that gets left behind (you can see the white rings of salt around the pools in the picture).

With my aunt and cousins and some pretty flowers we passed on the walk (pic by my uncle)

Las Grietas is about 330ft/100m long and consists of three “pools”. As I researched, it seemed like everyone (everyone who seemed even mildly adventurous, that is) agreed that you should absolutely go all the way to the third pool. My uncle, cousin, and I geared up in our fins and snorkels and headed down a set of wooden stairs to the first pool. This is the biggest one (at least in my estimation), and it’s crowded because that’s as far as most people go. Not us! There’s not much to see in the first pool, so we swam to the end pretty quickly. From there, we climbed over a section of slippery rocks (only falling once… eh, maybe twice… but always very gracefully, of course) into the small, rocky, shallow second puddle (it’s way too small and shallow to be called a pool, so I’m amending the name). If I didn’t know better, I would have thought we’d reached the end. But no.

To reach the third pool, you can either climb over some large boulders or swim about 5 feet through an underwater “tunnel” beneath them. The tunnel route is way easier, but at the time, we didn’t know that was an option. (I think it’s semi-common knowledge, so I’ll take the blame for that intelligence failure.) We only found it by chance. At the rocky transition from the first pool into the second, I tossed my fins ahead so that I could use my hands as I crossed over the rocks… and when I reached the puddle, one of them had vanished. Uh oh. They’re bright orange floating fins, so I knew it had to be on the surface, but then why couldn’t I see it?? After some minor panicking and intense searching, I found it wedged between two rocks. There was clearly a current that carried it there, and a quick peek underwater revealed the tunnel! So, it was two exciting discoveries in one. I got my fin back, and we found an easier route into the third pool! My uncle had already scaled the boulders to get there… whoops! But at least the return trip was easier.

Well, it was quite the journey, but we finally made it to the third pool. It’s slightly smaller than the first, but we had it all to ourselves. It was awesome. The water was incredibly clear and calm, all the way to the bottom, maybe 10-15ft (3-5m) down. As soon as we passed that last boulder wall, it was like the world around us ceased to exist. Underwater, the silence was the ear equivalent of being in a pitch-black room. And then the fish! Everyone said that there’s not much to see underwater, but I disagree. Sure, there were no sharks or turtles, but there were a few schools of BIG fish cruising around… like at least a foot long (30cm), and many of them were probably bigger than that. The best part was that they were almost completely unfazed by us. I dove down and swam along next to them. They looked surreal… like they were mechanical fish or were too three-dimensional to be real. And just the general ambiance… I don’t know exactly how to explain the feeling, but from now on, if I need to imagine a place where I feel completely at peace, I’m going to be there, suspended on the surface of the clearest, quietest water with hyper-realistic fish gliding by.

We had the pool to ourselves for a while, and it was glorious. By the time another group showed up (and completely shattered the serenity), we were about ready to go anyway. We made our way back under the boulder, through the puddle, over the slippery rocks, across the first pool, and up the stairs (which were now about a million degrees after baking in the sun… and I had no shoes at the bottom so that was really great planning on my part).

Loving life. I didn’t bother taking my waterproof case-equipped phone, so all of these pictures were taken by my uncle or cousin

GIANT fish hiding in the rocks along the edges of the third pool. I glimpsed something light as I swam by and got in closer to investigate. I’m a terrible estimator, but he MUST have been more than 2 feet long (60cm). I think. And I know I said that I didn’t take any pictures, but for this one, I borrowed my cousin’s camera and got right up in this fish’s face because it was too dark to see it very well at the time, and I really wanted to know what he looked like.

Just looking at this picture is making me all sorts of calm

Okay just one more picture (also because I have practically no pictures of me from this entire trip, so here are 90% of them in one go, all with me looking especially cool in my snorkel)

From there, we walked to the water taxi stop and then boated back to town. The water taxis, by the way, are hilarious. The ride back to town went something like: get on water taxi, stop by a boat anchored in the harbor, pick up empty water jugs, drive to another boat, pick up person, drive to another boat, drop off empty water jugs and pick up bag, drive to another boat, drop off person, drive to dock, give bag to person waiting on dock, let off passengers. I never understood what was going on, but I was always entertained.

After a quick stop at our hotel, we headed back out in search of a (regular) taxi to take us to the highlands. On Santa Cruz, people generally go to see two things in the highlands: a tortoise sanctuary (of course) and a pair of craters called Los Gemelos. Fredy, our taxi driver, suggested that we visit Los Gemelos first, and I figured he knew better than any of us since he’s probably taken people to both places a million times.

Los Gemelos, or “the twins”, are two craters formed by collapsed magma chambers. What are those? When lava is flowing, it flows fastest at the middle. The lava at the top and edges cools and hardens more quickly while the lava beneath continues to flow. Eventually, the eruption stops, halting the supply of lava and leaving behind empty space beneath the hardened lava. This can take the form of a tube-like cavity (lava tubes) or, in the case of the craters, large, open chambers. At Los Gemelos, through a combination of erosion and seismic activity, the unsupported lava above the chambers became unstable and collapsed, forming the twin “craters” that you can visit today.

This sign by the craters roughly shows their shapes/relative sizes. I read somewhere that the larger one (I assume?) is about 1 mile in diameter (1.6km) and 920 feet deep (280m).

In the surrounding forest (pic by my uncle)

None of us really knew what to expect from Los Gemelos, but they were really cool! It’s like being in another universe because they’re in the middle of the largest Scalesia forest in the Galapagos. This is an important habitat for tropical flowers like bromeliads and orchids as well as mosses, lichens (a fungus/algae mashup), and birds. It feels like you’re in the middle of the rainforest! Since the craters collapsed a long time ago, they’ve filled in with plants as well.

Impossible to fit the entire crater into one picture without a wide-angle lens or a panoramic photo

And then this forest… can you believe this is the same island where those barren salt mines were??

The tree to the right of the path in this picture reminded me of a giant spider. Eek! But the moss hanging off of those branches is the craziest thing!!

The density of the fog changed pretty quickly, but there were times when it was hard to even see the opposite side of the craters

After our hike around the craters, we loaded back into the taxi and headed to El Chato, one of the private tortoise reserves on Santa Cruz. It used to be a ranch, but for the last 20 years or so, they’ve been working to restore native vegetation and create a natural habitat for the tortoises (more about that in the next post!). Tortoises aside, they also have some lava tubes that you can walk through! It’s kind of creepy to think that you’re walking through a giant pipe where hot-enough-to-vaporize-you lava used to flow! But also… how cool!?

This is weird. There’s a lower tunnel area where you can see my cousin walking ahead, and then there’s a layer of cooled lava and ANOTHER cavity above that. Very confusing looking.

I loved looking at the shapes of the walls!

Next time, we’ll talk about the tortoises at El Chato and some final Santa Cruz adventures!

San Cristobal Highlands – compare the Scalesia forest and lava craters of Santa Cruz to the highlands and crater lake of San Cristobal!

Kicker Rock – snorkel in the open ocean surrounded by some very NOT clear water (and probably over a bunch of sharks… eek!)

North Seymour Island – check out the weird bird life and barren landscape of North Seymour Island, just north of Santa Cruz

North Seymour Island

Posted on December 16, 2020December 16, 2020 by Lark

The day after we explored San Cristobal’s highlands, we made our first relocation from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz, the second largest island in the Galapagos and home to their most populous city, Puerto Ayora. After a few days in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal (~7,000 inhabitants), Puerto Ayora (~12,000 inhabitants) made me feel like a small-town girl in the big city. It was a bit jarring. Also a bit jarring was the ferry ride… I spent most of it with my eyes closed, praying it would end soon and lying to myself by saying that I didn’t feel the least bit seasick. (And like I’ve said before, I do NOT get seasick easily. It was rough.)

To keep you oriented, we left from San Cristobal and headed west to Santa Cruz! As you can see, lots of open water which probably didn’t help with the ride’s seasickness factor.

The next morning, we were back at it with another tour, this time going to the uninhabited island of North Seymour, north of Santa Cruz. We had a bit of a hybrid journey this time. Puerto Ayora is on the southern coast of Santa Cruz, so we took a 45-minute bus ride from town to the island’s northern port, and from there, we took a 40ish-minute boat ride to North Seymour. Well, actually “yacht ride”. This was a fancy tour which meant hellooo, luxury! The yacht had real bathrooms, air conditioning, and an upper deck! That was the best part. Our family claimed the upper deck while everyone else sat inside in the A/C. Whew! Too much luxury like that and I’m going to be ruined for traveling on the cheap! Just kidding, but it was a fun one-time thing.

We started in Puerto Ayora, took that one road to the north end of the island, and then yachted to North Seymour (circled). Baltra (beneath that) is the location of one of the airports, and that’s where the land iguanas came from (you’ll know what I’m talking about soon).

Unlike many of the archipelago’s islands, North Seymour was NOT formed by a volcanic eruption. It’s a seismic uplift, formed when the Earth’s crust was pushed up by the lava underneath it over the course of thousands of years until it lifted above sea level, forming an island. As a result, it’s very flat (the max altitude is only about 90ft/28m) with dramatic cliffs along the shoreline, and evidence of its previous life as part of the seafloor is abundant, with shells and large rocks scattered across the island. It’s also small, only about 0.75 square miles (~2 square kilometers) in area, and there’s not much vegetation. It’s very low and bushy, but that doesn’t bother the TONS of birds that nest there during the year.

Let’s talk about these plants. They look super dead, right? They’re not. They’re Palo Santo trees, and they lose their leaves to help them survive when there’s not enough water. So as soon as the rainy season comes, they bloom! Palo Santo is considered a cleansing/purifying plant, and its oil is used for aromatherapy and incense.

Once we reached the island, we started off with a walking tour. North Seymour is known for being a great fishing and nesting site for birds, especially frigatebirds. They’re the weirdest! The males have these red chest pouches that inflate during mating season because what could be more attractive than that? The mating ritual is the weirdest thing. We didn’t see it, but my goodness, look up a video because I can’t possibly explain it. Nonetheless, I will try. The males build nests. They sit in their nests, puff up their chest pouches, spread their wings, and then make this noise that can only be described as extraterrestrial. Their entire bodies vibrate from the effort. And the females fly around until they find a nice nest and pouch, and when they land nearby, the males wrap their wings around them to tell other males to scram. The exciting thing about North Seymour is that you can find frigatebirds nesting year-round whereas, in other places, it’s a rare treat to get to see a puffed frigatebird (unofficial terminology).

Okay, opinions, everyone. Does this look comfortable?

Fun fact, it takes about 20 minutes for a chest pouch to inflate

Someone asked the guide what would happen if the pouch was punctured. All he said was, “It would be very bad.”

I’m sure that pouch is great for cutting down on wind-resistance… not.

And if you’re wondering what it looks like uninflated… I think seeing it like this makes the size of the inflated pouch even more amazing.

There are actually two varieties of frigatebird found on North Seymour, the magnificent frigatebird (which is endemic to the Galapagos) and the great frigatebird (also found elsewhere). They look very similar, especially the males. The magnificents are slightly larger with a purplish sheen to their black feathers, and the greats have a slightly wider wingspan and a greenish sheen. They also make different noises, and the great frigatebirds go farther from land to get their food, which is good because then they don’t compete with one another for resources. The guide pointed out both varieties and I think I have pictures of each, but don’t quote me…

I’m no expert, but this sure looks like a great frigatebird to me (greenish feather tint).

And this one looks like a magnificent (purplish feather tint).

The females are easier to tell apart. The magnificents have a blue eye ring and a black throat, while the greats have a red eye ring and a white throat. I don’t think we saw any great females, or at least I haven’t found any in my photos.

Female frigatebird in flight (I think? I’m really not great at this whole birding thing). They’re majestic.

Of course, the females don’t have quite the same pizzazz as the males.

And we saw some chicks and immature frigatebirds which I attempt to identify below…

An immature frigatebird. And I don’t know this for sure, but I think it’s a great frigatebird because of its rust-colored head. But I could definitely be wrong on that.

I really feel like this one is looking at me.

Anyway, the chest sack isn’t the only odd thing about frigatebirds. They don’t have waterproof feathers, so unlike many of the other Galapagos birds, they can’t go diving for their food. Instead, they eat things off the surface, like crabs, squid, flying fish, small turtles, etc. and sometimes they steal food from other birds, earning them the nickname “pirate birds”. At first, I thought this meant that if another bird was carrying a fish or something, they’d make them drop it. NOPE. Well, that is part of it. They dive-bomb other birds and make them drop their prey… but more disturbingly, they sometimes make the other bird regurgitate its food, aka they eat bird vomit. How do they do this? Either by chasing them around until they’re so stressed out that they throw up, or by grabbing them by the tail feathers and shaking them around until achieving the same result. And then they swoop down and grab their “food” (ew) before it hits the water. Nature is gross.

I know it’s hard to tell, but these frigatebirds are sitting on nests. They often re-use nests from year to year and sometimes steal nest materials (not shocking considering they don’t seem to understand ownership boundaries like “after I’ve swallowed a fish, it’s mine”).

Other interesting/less gross facts… they have a really high wingspan to body weight ratio which makes them great at gliding and maneuvering. Their wingspans are up to 8ft (2.4m)… which is crazy. Their bodies are about 3.5ft long (1m), so it’s not like they’re small birds in any way, but still. They can spend more than a week floating on wind currents! They also care for their babies longer than any other bird. A baby starts to fly at around 4-6 months, but the mother continues to supplement its diet for another 6 months to a year+, depending on oceanic conditions (in years when it’s harder to find food, the length of care is usually longer).

The male frigatebirds help after the baby hatches, though they may not stick around for quite as long as the mom. This guy is currently watching over his little puff ball.

The male frigatebird definitely understands what it means to suffer for the sake of beauty.

Blue-footed boobies are also a big attraction of North Seymour, and people come to watch their weird mating ritual which, most famously, includes some dancing. They lift their feet one at a time like they’re casually trying to show off their vibrance, bow their heads, maybe give a gift, and finish off with a finale of wing-spreading and head-lifting. If a female is into it, she goes over and joins the dance. Unlike frigatebirds, blue-footed boobies are great hunters which, unfortunately for them, makes them a frequent target for the pirate birds.

I’m no expert, but I don’t think this blue-footed booby was very happy to have us around. But look! Eggs!

This blue-footed booby is still immature, which you can see because he’s still mostly brown. The adults have a lighter head (see next picture). He’s also clearly not ready for mating because his feet are so dull. They get much brighter when it’s time to find a mate.

Booby and alien-bird booby baby. You can see that this adult’s head is much lighter than the dark brown immature booby from the previous picture. And look at those feet!

Even as an uninhabited island, North Seymour has had its share of issues with non-native species messing with the island’s ecosystem, primarily rats. There was a big effort to eradicate the rat population in the 2000s, and by 2007, the island was rat-free. About 10 years later, though, in 2018, more rats were discovered. You may be wondering how they got there… Did you know that rats can swim? Some can swim for over a MILE (1.6km). Baltra Island, home to one of the islands’ airports, is within swimming distance, and it’s thought that they came from there.

The rats are a big problem. They eat iguana and bird eggs (and many of the birds on North Seymour literally just nest on the ground), gnaw on the plants and eat their seeds, eat pollinating insects, and reproduce quickly… basically, they wreak complete havoc on the ecosystem. Usually, poison would be spread over the island using helicopters, but that’s crazy expensive and imprecise for such a small land area. So, in early 2019, they tried something new and used drones to drop the poison! This was great because they’re much more precise which means that they could minimize water contamination, and it’s much cheaper than renting a helicopter! The island was closed for a few months, and they think that the rats have been completely eliminated which is pretty cool. They’ll keep monitoring the island for the next two years to see how the ecosystem is recovering and to make sure that no rats return.

Imagine swimming in that beautiful water, looking over, and seeing a RAT swimming next to you. Ew ew ew!

I think it’s really interesting to hear about how they’re trying to repair these island ecosystems because it’s such a unique situation. Since they’re islands, you can actually contain the problem and control more of the variables, unlike if you’re working with a larger landmass. Another sort of “test case” that happened on North Seymour involves land iguanas. There are a LOT of land iguanas on the island, but interestingly, they actually aren’t native. These iguanas originated on Baltra Island, but Baltra had a goat problem that was damaging the land iguana habitat and population, so in the 1930s, a few were brought over to North Seymour to give them a better chance of survival. By the 1950s, land iguanas were extinct from Baltra… but since they were thriving on North Seymour, some of them were taken to be reintroduced! The North Seymour land iguanas have also been taken to Santiago, another island where the native population became extinct, and have repopulated there as well.

Land iguana on the moon. Seriously though, what a trippy landscape!

Land iguanas are larger than the marine iguanas that we’ve seen before, and unlike marine iguanas, which you’ll see in large groups on the coast, it’s rare to see more than one at a time. They are vegetarians and mostly eat cactus pads which seems like a painful diet, but they have really thick skin in their mouths, so they can eat them spines and all!

I have a lot of pictures of this guy and had trouble choosing just one… so I didn’t.

He must have been doing a lot of push-ups because he has some chest definition (kidding, I don’t know if land iguanas do that… but some lava lizards actually do defend their territory via push-up competitions, so it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility).

Marine iguana. You can see that the coloring is COMPLETELY different from the land iguana.

Before heading back to the boat, we walked along the beach, looked at some sea turtle nests, and visited a lake where the guide said you can sometimes see flamingos! We lucked out, and even though it was suuuper far away, it was still awesome to see.

Sea turtle nest. The mom sea turtle comes out of the water at night, digs a body pit and then an egg chamber, plops out the eggs, covers the egg chamber and does some camouflage with dry sand to try to hide the nest from predators, and then she gets back into the ocean and says, “Later, eggs! Good luck!” And they definitely need luck to make it to adulthood. First they need to even hatch, then they need to make it to the ocean without being eaten, and then they need to grow big enough to not be an easy target for every bird and other predator they might encounter.

We had a little time for swimming and snorkeling before the end of the tour, too. I didn’t take my camera with me, and even though there were some cool fish, I didn’t regret it because the water wasn’t very clear. You’ll just have to imagine.

After that, we headed back to Santa Cruz, and everyone was exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel. We did go on one more adventure that night… my aunt read that you can sometimes see sharks from the end of the pier because the lights illuminate the water, so we figured we might as well check it out (especially since I thought it might be good to see a shark from outside of the water to help me get over my paralyzing fear of them). We weren’t expecting much, but we actually did end up seeing a few!! They were maybe like 3 feet (1m) long, and it was hard to see because it was dark, but still, how cool! Enjoy my super clear photo… I promise it’s a shark.

Española Island – check out more Galapagos birds, including the waved albatross and Nazca booby!

Welcome to the Galapagos – learn about the formation of the Galapagos Islands and a bit about their early human history.

San Cristóbal Highlands

Posted on October 23, 2020 by Lark

Following our two days of full-day tours, we “took it easy” with a “free” day that ended up being one of the most exhausting of all. We didn’t have an official tour scheduled, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have any plans. We hired a taxi driver to drive us around the island, doing the classic “highlands tour” circuit that goes from end-to-end on the island’s one major road.

We started in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, then visited the Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado (tortoise reserve and breeding center), Puerto Chino (one of the many “world’s most beautiful” beaches), Laguna El Junco (lake), and finally stopped at the island’s oldest ceiba tree/treehouse before heading back to town where we had some other adventures on foot. Like I said, it was quite the day.

To give you some context…
We started at the blue house at the western end of the island, then we went to the Galapaguera (green), Puerto Chino (red), Laguna El Junco (blue), and the ceiba tree (yellow). After getting back to town, we walked up to the Interpretation Center and Cerro Tijeretas (purple).

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though! Our first stop was the Galapaguera, a tortoise reserve that was opened in 2003 to help rebuild the island’s tortoise population. There were originally 15 subspecies of Galapagos tortoise. Four of those are extinct, and all of them are endangered, mostly due to human activities. During the pirating/whaling days, it’s estimated that 100,000-200,000 tortoises were taken and killed for their meat and oil. In addition, non-native species were introduced that hindered repopulation. Rats, pigs, snakes, and army ants eat eggs and threaten hatchlings (as do some of the native birds). Goats and other large mammals compete with them for food.

Tiniest lil baby tortoises!! These could easily fit in your hand, maybe like 5″ (13cm) max in length.

And these are big enough that you could ride around on their backs.

One of the things that saved many of these tortoise subspecies is their longevity. They live an average of 100 years with the oldest recorded living to 152! This meant that even with the many repopulation challenges, only a few tortoises needed to survive to make conservation efforts possible. Many of the islands now have tortoise reserves and breeding centers which aim to grow the tortoise populations by giving them safe places to mate and grow and eventually releasing many of them into the wild.

In the breeding centers, park rangers collect the tortoise eggs and simulate normal conditions while also protecting them from predators. They incubate the eggs, and after the tortoises hatch, they are kept in growing pens for their first few years of life to further protect them while their shells are still soft. After this vulnerable period, there are virtually no predator risks for the tortoises, and survival is just a matter of finding enough food. The amazing thing, though, is that they can survive for up to a year without eating or drinking! They have a slow metabolism, and they spend more time resting when there isn’t enough food. They also can store water internally for long periods, so they’ll drink a lot when they have access to fresh water and save it for later. (This is actually part of the reason why they were so desirable on ships because they could survive in the ship’s hold without needing food or water, allowing the sailors to have fresh meat at sea with little effort.)

This is where the smallest tortoises are kept until their shells get hard enough. I think they said the first 4 years? Or at least the first two. The fencing on top is to keep out predators, and at night, another cover with even smaller holes is closed as well to protect them even further. (pic by my uncle)

These tortoises were around 5 years old, I think. They’re maybe 1.5′ long (0.5m). Maybe.

This guy was a little freaked out by us. When they get scared, they pull their heads into their shells and use their arms to shield the opening.

We were lucky to arrive at the reserve just in time for feeding! The tortoises are fed twice each week, and the rest of the time, they fend for themselves by eating plants around the sanctuary. Usually, the tortoises are wandering around and you may or may not see many of them, but since it was feeding time, we saw them all! It was really interesting to watch them interact with one another.

This video shows a tortoise “fight”. The dominant tortoise is generally the one that can stretch out its head to be tallest, and you can see that happen in this interaction. Tortoises generally don’t make noise, so it’s just a silent challenge, silent fight, and silent retreat (well, aside from my uncle’s narration hehehe).

‘Get out of my way!” Mr. Tortoise says as he steps over his fellow tortoises.

While we’re at it, here’s one more video showing a tiny tortoise stuck on its back. Some of his friends tried to give him a hand, but ultimately, one of the employees came and flipped him back over.

After we were satisfied, we loaded back into the taxi and headed for Puerto Chino. It’s another SUPER BEAUTIFUL beach, supposedly one of the most beautiful in the islands, but I don’t know. They’re all kind of the same and all very pretty. We weren’t planning to go swimming, so I spent my time practicing taking pictures of sea lions, lava lizards, and this pretty yellow bird that kept flitting around.

Path to Puerto Chino. It’s very nice and paved, but hopefully you don’t need any shade along the way…

You’re supposed to keep 6 feet between you and any animals… but the sea lions do NOT make it easy.

We considered eating lunch at this picnic table, and then a sea lion came and plopped himself right on top.

Puerto Chino. What do you think about the beauty of this beach vs. the others we’ve seen so far?

I’m obsessed with the lava lizard facial expressions

Sea lion striking a pose at Puerto Chino

From there, we headed to Laguna El Junco, a volcanic crater lake that’s one of the only permanent freshwater supplies in the islands. Now, this goes back to what I mentioned in a previous post about the crazy diversity of landscapes on a single island. The lake is at 700m above sea level, putting it in the “highlands” category which means it’s green and damp and can be foggy while the coasts are simultaneously clear and dry. So even though the weather was beautiful in town, it was VERY foggy at the lake. Even so, we hiked up to see what we could make out through the fog.

At first, nothing. We couldn’t even see across to the other side! But the wind kept the fog moving, and we were lucky to get a few moments of decent visibility. The lake is about 300m wide, and it’s filled by rainwater. Birds like to swoop around and use the water to clean the salt out of their feathers. It felt like we’d stepped into another world! I was happy enough with being able to see the opposite side of the lake, but on a clear day, they say you can see nearly the entire island as you walk around the rim of the crater!

Path leading up to the edge of the crater

Looking back towards the parking lot. Look at the solid layer of fog at the top of the picture!

Plants around the edge of the crater lake

Panoramic picture of the lake during the few seconds that the view was kind of clear

We made one last stop on the way back to town, in the tiny settlement of El Progreso. This is the oldest surviving settlement in the Galapagos, and if you recall from the history post, it has a horrible past. It was a penal colony, and eventually, this guy named Manuel Cobos turned it into a sugar mill. He started treating the workers like slaves, and they ultimately killed him for his cruelty. Now, about 500 people live in town, and it’s also the home of the islands’ oldest ceiba tree! Ceiba trees aren’t native to the islands, but it’s assumed that this one was planted by some of the earliest visitors. It’s said to be ~300 years old which is possible but maybe unlikely because the first settlement attempt wasn’t until the 1830s. But who knows? It is monstrous: 131 ft tall (40m) with a 61ft circumference (19m).

There’s a bridge leading up to the treehouse

The tree is interesting enough just in itself, but it also features a treehouse! And it’s not your average built-by-a-kid treehouse. You can actually rent it overnight, and there’s electricity and wifi (the two most important things, of course), a loft with two beds, a kitchen, and a functioning bathroom (including a shower!). Craziness. And underneath the tree, there’s an underground room where I lasted about a minute before I started thinking about the fact that we were underneath a tree, and if the room collapsed, we’d be dead. So that wasn’t exactly my favorite part, but it was still cool.

Inside the treehouse. The beds are up in the loft, and the kitchen is straight ahead.

My cousin coming up from the underground cave

This is the garden outside of the treehouse. So pretty! (The treehouse is behind me to the right. You can see some of the tree branches sticking into the picture.)

That was the end of the highlands tour, but like I said, it wasn’t the end of our day! After the taxi driver dropped us off back in town, we walked to the Interpretation Center which has a bunch of information about the islands: how they were formed, their human history, the ecosystems and flora and fauna. It’s actually where I got nearly all of the content for my Galapagos History post.

From there, we walked up a nearby hill, Cerro Tijeretas, where you can get nice views of the town and other parts of the island. You can even see Kicker Rock from there! It overlooks a pretty snorkeling spot, and there are a lot of frigatebirds flying around because there’s a colony that nests nearby.

Looking back towards Puerto Baquerizo Moreno

This is supposed to be a really great snorkeling spot

Do you see Kicker Rock out there in the distance??

We also popped into a couple of beaches along the way, Playa Punta Carola and Playa Mann. They were fairly crowded because they’re public beaches close to town (especially Playa Mann). I guess if you’re looking for a beach vacation, that’s where you’d go? But I don’t think I’d recommend going to the Galapagos if you’re interested in just chilling on a beach. Save that for a less interesting place.

I guess this beach is kind of pretty too

I was ready to collapse at this point, but my uncle really wanted to go to ANOTHER beach, Playa Lobería, to watch the sunset. We grabbed a taxi and got there only a few minutes before the beach closed, but that was enough time to look at some adorable little sea lion babies and take a few pictures of the sunset. After THAT, I really was toast. We got some dinner before heading back to our apartment, and I feel confident in saying that everyone slept like a rock that night.

I understand why this beach is named after the sea lions

The tiniest little baby sea lion!!!! The mom sea lions go out to hunt and then come back and reunite with their babies by making sounds at each other. Even though you know they haven’t been abandoned, it tugs on your heartstrings to see such tiny babies crying out for their moms!

I suppose the sunset was worth the exhaustion

I’ll leave you with this…
The sea lions literally just go wherever the heck they want. This one was camped out waiting for the tourist information center to open.

Kicker Rock – experience another side of San Cristobal and snorkel in the open ocean!

Lake Bosomtwe – visit a crater lake in Ghana, the country’s largest natural lake

Zakopane – while we’re talking about lakes, go for a hike in Zakopane, Poland to one of the prettiest lakes I’ve ever seen!

Kicker Rock

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Lark

In my mind, there are two types of vacations: the “lounging and relaxing” type (not worth going too far from home because you can lounge equally well anywhere), and the “I need a vacation to recover from my vacation” type (anytime you go somewhere new and interesting). A Galapagos vacation clearly fits into the latter category, and my goodness. By day two, I already felt ready for my recovery vacation!

We had another full-day tour, this time sticking a bit closer to “home” and exploring other parts of San Cristobal rather than visiting another island. We were staying in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the largest town on San Cristobal and the capital of the Galapagos. It’s at the western end of the island, and for this tour, we sailed up to explore the northern coast. This boat ride was MUCH smoother than the previous day’s since we stayed near the island rather than crossing open ocean, and I don’t think anyone was upset about that.

We started at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, went up to some spots along the coast south of the circle, and then went to Kicker Rock (in the red circle).

Our first glimpse of Kicker Rock as we headed past on the way to our first stop (warning: this is the first of MANY pictures of this rock)

You didn’t have to wait long for another picture of it… Spot Kicker Rock!

We also had a surprise on the way… DOLPHINS!!!! Excuse these terrible pictures but I was caught unprepared and tried my best

After about an hour, we made our first stop. The boat dropped anchor off the coast of the island, and we took a dinghy to the shore because the water was too shallow. There, we did our first “wet landing” which means that we had to get our feet wet, hopping out of the dinghy into the waves and walking up through knee-deep water onto the beach.

On the dinghy headed for shore. Are these not the most insane blues??

One of the many cool things about the islands of the Galapagos is that even though they aren’t very big, they have some incredibly diverse landscapes. San Cristobal is less than 200mi² (500km²), and sometimes it’s a beach, sometimes it’s like a rainforest, and sometimes it’s like the moon (official terminology). This was a moon stop. That is, if the moon was made of lava that flowed and then cooled and still looks like it could have been flowing five seconds ago. Seriously, it’s crazy! It’s not hard to look at the wavy lava formations and imagine it as molten lava because it looks like it was frozen in action. There are also these fantastic cracks in the ground which are almost exactly like how it looks in a cartoon when there’s an earthquake and you think “that’s so unrealistic”.

What the heck is happening with that lava?? It’s so cool. And so weird.

I think the lava shapes are super awesome, and I was also in awe of the colors! There’s iron in the lava, and it oxidizes (like rust) and makes it turn shades of red/orange! Generally, the landscape is pretty barren, and I found it kind of eerie. It’s like looking back in time to a prehistoric age. Or like the moon (basically the same thing). And it was creepy quiet when no one was talking, aside from the sound of the wind and loose lava pieces clinking across the ground anytime someone accidentally kicked one. It sounds almost like if you tapped two pieces of porcelain together. Besides the lava, we saw a few birds and some cacti, but it wasn’t exactly a hot spot for wildlife.

They’re endemic to (only found on) San Cristobal Island!

Lava lizard. He’s maybe about the length of a hand (well, my hand), and different varieties of these little dudes can be found running around most of the islands.

We cruised past these blue-footed boobies on our way to shore! Check out how crazy bright its feet are. They get brighter during mating season.

Try to tell me that doesn’t look like the moon

For our next stop, the boat headed west (back in the direction we came) for a few minutes, and then we did the whole dinghy/wet landing deal at a beach, Cerro Brujo or “Witch’s Hill”, named for a craggy ash mountain at the end of the beach that I guess someone thought looked witchy? The guide said it’s one of the best/most beautiful beaches in the world… and then we also heard that said about at least five other beaches in the Galapagos alone. I’m no beach expert, but it seems like a tough call when every beach has the same deep blue waters and powdery white sand. But hey, I’m not complaining!

Wet landing at Cerro Brujo (pic by my uncle)

What do you think? Most beautiful beach in the world? I don’t know…

Beach views. And Kicker-Rock-from-a-distance views.

I spent our free time at the beach walking along the shore and admiring the birds. There wasn’t anything new, but we saw more oystercatchers which was exciting (I felt like such a birder because I knew exactly what they were), plus the usual iguanas and sea lions.

Marine iguana, wiggling its way along the beach

It’s very entertaining to watch the marine iguanas walking. Plus, when they’re feeling defensive, they do this weird head-shake thing.

Sea lions aren’t the most land-graceful creatures

Scoping out my next shot (pic by my uncle)

Our final activity of the day was snorkeling at Kicker Rock, aka León Dormido, a formation about three miles (5km) off the coast of San Cristobal. Here’s the extent of my understanding about its formation: hot magma escaped from the sea floor, and when it collided with the cold ocean water, it caused an explosion. This formed a volcanic “tuff cone” (a cone of compacted volcanic ash) that was then eroded for thousands and thousands of years by the sea. Today, there’s a two-peak formation, about 500ft (~150m) tall from the ocean floor with a channel between the two visible rocks that’s about 60ft (19m) deep.

Kicker Rock. You can see the channel super clearly from this angle.

It doesn’t look nearly as intimidating in the sun!

The names are things that people think the rocks look like. Kicker Rock is because someone thought it looks like a boot, and León Dormido, or “Sleeping Lion”, is because someone thought it looks like a sleeping sea lion. I think these “someones” were a little kooky. (Also, there was a beach near where I lived in Peru called León Dormido, and that mountain/rock also looked nothing like a sleeping sea lion. My conclusion is that this is just a default Spanish name for rocks near the sea.)

and León Dormido? I guess I can kind of see it, but no.

Kicker Rock is known for hosting a great diversity of sea life: tropical fish, rays, sea turtles, sometimes sea lions and marine iguanas, and a few varieties of sharks including hammerheads. So, why is this location such a hotspot? It’s a combination of things… the strong currents + the ocean depth + a big, solid structure in the middle of the ocean = a disruption in normal water movement and the stirring up of nutrients that are usually found in the deep sea. The deep-sea nutrients end up closer to the surface and attract sea life.

This provides an especially cool opportunity for snorkelers because it puts some deep-sea diversity within reach and makes it feasible to snorkel somewhat in the open ocean. I was mostly excited about this… but I was also mildly terrified. Okay, confession time. I have an irrational fear of sharks. I mean, it’s semi-rational because yes, sharks can be dangerous, but it’s irrational because I don’t like going in the ocean AT ALL unless the water is clear. And that’s so that I can get myself out of the water ASAP if there’s a shark in sight (yes, in my mind, I can outswim a shark). The concept of WANTING to see a shark while being IN the water is not one that my fear can comprehend. The tour guide said that there are always sharks there, but whether you see them or not depends on the water clarity. I assume other people were excited by the high probability of a shark sighting. I was just anxious, and almost paralyzingly so. But I didn’t want to miss out on something because I was scared, so I told myself that I had to get over it. Did I? Well… get over it? No. Persevere through it? Yes.

Unfortunately for us, the currents were kind of strong, and the water wasn’t especially clear. The boat dropped us near Kicker Rock, and we swam our way around the formation. Visibility was decent for maybe 10 feet, and most of my energy was spent trying to move forward, not get pushed into the rocks, and not get pulled too far away from them. I’m a good swimmer, but it was a lot, especially if you’re also trying to look at things as you go!

I didn’t handle the currents nearly as gracefully as this sea turtle…

Since the visibility wasn’t great, I mostly spent my time looking at the little fish and plants and stuff (clearly I’m no marine biologist) that were on the rock. The colors were amazing, and I imagined I was swimming past little fish neighborhoods. I also saw a couple of sea turtles and a faint shadow beneath me that looked like a ray. The worst thing was that there were TONS of tiny jellyfish. I’m 99% sure that the guide told us they didn’t sting, but that was NOT true. It wasn’t super painful, but I kept feeling sharp pinpricks on my face and arms. Wonderful. It also was a little disconcerting to not be able to see the bottom of the ocean (personally not a fan), and it absolutely didn’t help with my shark fear. Focusing on the rock helped me to keep my bearings and feel slightly less adrift.

Jellyfish! These were not very big… maybe about 3″ long (8cm)

Oh to have an underwater camera! (I had my phone in a waterproof case. And I was also nervous that I was going to drop it to the bottom of the deep blue sea, never to be seen again. Even though it was attached to me by a lanyard. And my hand’s death grip.)

Here’s some footage of the fish neighborhoods!

These look like they’re just bubbles, but I’m almost positive that they were little fish. I called them bubble fish. (I’m a GREAT namer, in case you couldn’t tell.)

Not super clear, but these were my favorite little fish. Not the one that’s most obvious in this picture, but if you go up a little, you’ll see a smaller fish with similar-ish coloring (blue head to yellow, orange, and a pink tail).

When we were nearly all the way around the formation, the guide delivered the “good news” that the currents weren’t too strong to keep us from swimming through the channel. Oh, goody. Did I mention? The channel is where the sharks like to hang out. Thought stream: “EEEE! Deep breath. Stay with the group. No sharks want to eat you. Go for the eyes and gills. You can swim faster than most of these people. You’re okay. Don’t think don’t think don’t think.” I did it. It was not great. I couldn’t see anything which made it infinitely worse because there were almost definitely sharks, they almost definitely knew where I was, and I had no clue where they were. Nope nope nope. Not my favorite experience. The good news is that I didn’t get attacked by a shark, so at least my irrational fear took a slight hit (it likes to tell me that if there is a shark in the area, it WILL attack me. Now we’re down to “it MIGHT attack me”).

Anyway, after we swam through the channel, the boat picked us up on the other side. My nerves were about spent by that point, and I couldn’t get out of the water fast enough. Plus, I was tired of getting zapped by jellyfish. And just tired. Everyone seemed to be on the same page because we rode back to town in near silence, and after we got back, I sat around like a potato until deciding on an early bedtime.

With our guide after getting back (pic by my uncle)

Welcome to the Galapagos – learn more about the islands’ formation

Española Island – explore another Galapagos-ian island with a completely different landscape

Diamond Beach, Iceland – compare the white sands of Playa Cerro Brujo to the black sand beaches of Iceland!

Ada Foah, Ghana – lounge around in the Ghanaian beach paradise of Ada Foah

Batumi, Georgia – I can’t talk about beaches without mentioning my favorite pebble beaches of Batumi!

Macaw Morning

Posted on June 16, 2020November 10, 2020 by Lark

If you’re looking for a relaxing vacation where you can sleep in and lounge around, the rainforest probably isn’t a good destination for you. Well, there’s plenty of lounge time, and you couldn’t pick a prettier place… but don’t expect to do much sleeping in. We set our alarms for 3:30AM because we had a 4:15AM meeting time with our guide, Juvenal.

So, what exactly was exciting enough to rouse us at such an absurd hour? Macaws. We’ll get to that in a bit, but at the end of this post, you can be the judge and let me know if you think it was worth waking up well before dawn was even considering cracking.

When our alarm went off, it sounded like it was raining outside, and Juvenal had mentioned that it’s only worth going if the weather isn’t bad. We got dressed anyway and headed to the lodge to figure out the plan.

Juvenal said that he thought the rain might stop, and it was up to us if we wanted to chance it and go or if we wanted to try the next morning instead. I was 100% on team “let’s go” because no way was I trying to have ANOTHER 3:30AM wake up call the next day! The only thing worse than an early-morning wake-up is an unnecessary early-morning wake-up! And what if it was raining even harder then? We delayed for a few minutes in the hopes that it would let up a bit and then grabbed our boots and umbrellas and hit the road. Well, hit the trail. And then the boat.

My first attempt at taking a picture of a flying bird… hehe not great.

Much easier when the birds are moving slowly!

We had a two-hour boat ride, and by the time we reached our destination, the rain had stopped completely, and the weather was absolutely perfect!! So, what exactly WAS our destination?

Every morning, as long as the weather is nice, you can find huge numbers of macaws gathering at clay licks to, as Juvenal put it, “get their daily vitamins”. The macaws visit these areas to literally eat the exposed clay. Experts aren’t entirely sure of the reason for this behavior, but a leading theory is that the clay contains salt that is otherwise hard to find in the Amazon. Salt is important for many bodily functions and helps to keep the nervous system and heart functioning properly. Animals, like macaws, with a primarily plant-based diet can have trouble getting sufficient salt from their food. Consuming the salty clay helps to cover this deficiency. Another theory is that the clay helps to cleanse the naturally occurring toxins that are found in plants and prevents them from being absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract. The sodium theory is more widely accepted because studies of macaw behavior have found that they prefer saltier clay. There was one clay lick in particular in Peru where macaws were seen eating from a specific clay layer, and analysis showed a much higher concentration of sodium there than the layers above and below. This isn’t a behavior of only macaws in the Amazon. Other plant-eating birds, like parrots and parakeets, do the same, and even mammals like jungle pigs and deer make regular visits to the clay licks, though not quite as often as the macaws.

The boat docked, and from there, we had an easy 10-minute walk to the viewing area. There was one other tour group already there, but everyone had plenty of space and a good view. Juvenal said that it can get very crowded in the high season, so I felt pretty good about our timing, even though the more unpredictable weather of the rainy season was less than ideal.

When we first arrived, there wasn’t much going on. There were some macaws high up in the surrounding trees, but none of them were anywhere near the actual clay lick. Juvenal said that they partner up for life, so if we watched closely, we’d notice that they go and come in pairs. More and more gathered, and then they started creeping down to lower and lower branches. He said that all they needed was for one bird to make the first move and then they’d all be on the clay. Sure enough, one brave soul boldly landed, ate some clay, and flew away… and then came back after nothing disastrous happened. Pretty soon, there were birds all over it!

Getting a liiittle bit closer, with a couple of new friends.

These are all basically the same now, but my gosh I just can’t even believe that this is a real, normal thing. Like, this happens EVERY DAY. What a world.

I’d never seen anything like it! I mean, I don’t know when I would have, but the screeching and the sounds of their wings flapping… well, I think you have to hear it for yourself.

I was having quite the orientation with my new camera. I still wasn’t really sure about the settings or what everything meant, and Dad told me to just shoot on auto because it would still be better than anything I would take with my cell phone. True. The next leg of my trip, after my parents left, was with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and my uncle knows a lot about cameras. I planned to take advantage of his knowledge, but until then, I just had to make do and play around with it. So… yeah, these aren’t the best pictures. But I’m pretty sure that taking pictures of distant, flying birds is just about the hardest thing to start with.

I wanted to get some pictures of them flying because the colors are even more incredible when their wings are open.

Pretend this isn’t blurry and just appreciate how majestic these birds are.

That one with its wings open on the tree… whoa.

Those two birds flying away on the left are awesome!

The best thing, though, was that Juvenal had a telescope with him. It made you feel like you were right next to the clay lick! And you can literally take pictures through the telescope using a phone camera which is crazy!

It’s like he’s staring straight into our souls

If I were a bird, I think I would like to be a macaw.

That one on the bottom left is taking a big ‘ole bite. Yummm, clay!

We saw three different types of macaws. The scarlet macaws are, to me, the classics. They’re the ones that look the most rainbow-like. The red-and-green macaws are very similar, but they don’t have yellow feathers like the scarlet macaws. And finally, the blue-and-yellow macaws are pretty easy to separate from the other two. See if you can spot all three types in this photo!

At one point, something scared the macaws and they all flew away. It happened so quickly… they were all on the clay lick, and then a second later, they were gone! I guess they just went and took a lap or something because soon enough, they started gathering in the trees again, and the whole creeping process repeated until they were back on the clay lick in full force.

I’m telling you, taking pictures of flying birds is not easy!

Not a great picture, but I just love those two blue-and-yellow macaws who look like they’re resting their heads on each other.

Getting set for another round at the clay lick

I think I could have stayed there watching until all of the macaws left, but after a while, we called it a morning and headed back to the boat. The ride back to the lodge was so pleasant. There was no sign of the nasty weather from the morning. The sky was blue, and being on the boat on the river was the best feeling in the world. I sat cross-legged on the bench so that I could face forward and look out at the riverbanks and decided that I was at my peak happiness on the river. You think I can live on one of those boats?

The fam with the clay lick in the back left

We didn’t see anything too thrilling on the way back, but we did see a bunch of birds. We cruised past another, small clay lick right on the edge of the river. I was no longer afraid of using my camera on the boat, so I had it out (with the strap around my neck and a VERY tight grip in my hands) and was snapping sure-to-be-terrible pictures along the way. The only way to get better is to practice!

It was only about 10AM when we got back to the lodge, but I felt like we’d already lived an entire day! Thankfully, we had some downtime before lunch, and I used the time to lounge on my bed and rest up for our afternoon adventures… which I’ll talk about next time!

Adventure Walking

Posted on May 5, 2020May 11, 2020 by Lark

After winging it on our first day in Canta, we started off Day #2 with a very well-defined plan: hike to “that” waterfall. See photo below for details… (Can you find the waterfall?)

Took this picture while speeding down the road between Canta and Obrajillo (David was appreciating the open road after we got past a spot of traffic). Have you located the waterfall? Scroll down for help…

To orient you, Obrajillo is in the valley to the right, the overlook is at the edge of a village, San Miguel, and we hiked up to the waterfall trickle that you can barely see (which seems kind of close to San Miguel, but I promise you that it’s not).

Okay, so the plan was vague, but Julie did some research and came away with the conclusion that it’s definitely possible to hike there (probably). The directions, as far as she could find, were to start by walking up to a popular viewpoint overlooking Obrajillo. Okay, easy enough. And then, walk to the waterfall. Hm. Welp, at least we knew the beginning part! We could figure things out from there, right?

The good news is, I love to overpack for hikes which means I was already prepared for uncertainty. My formula for day hikes is roughly: (day hike + 4 days) x # of people… and then I pack snacks and water accordingly, as though no one else is bringing anything (even though they are). It’s good to be prepared! What if someone else is underprepared? What if we get lost? What if someone gets hurt? What if there’s a mudslide and we get stranded and don’t want to resort to cannibalism? No one ever says, “I wish we had less food.” Worst case, you don’t need it all and get stronger from carrying the extra weight.

Once we were ready for anything, we walked to get breakfast sandwiches before heading out. This was our staple meal for the weekend (literally 3/5 meals in Canta): a fried egg on a roll. After you eat approximately four, you’re good to go! Then, we piled into the van and drove down to Obrajillo. There was traffic because of course there was. As soon as there are two cars on the road, it seems to be inevitable (I think it’s because Peruvian are so proud of their traffic, they need to make sure it’s always living up to its terrible reputation).

After we parked, we located the path to the viewpoint, and David, Dina, and her daughter split off to do other things… apparently the idea of a potentially endless hike didn’t appeal to them. Sorry, I mean “adventure walk”. Julie doesn’t like “hiking”, so we rebranded the activity. That ended up being a much more appropriate name in this instance anyway. “Hike” implies order, a defined path. “Adventure walk” says “I don’t know where we’re going, but that’s part of the fun!”

I can’t get over the greens! Maybe if they knew THIS was the view they were missing out on… nah, they still would have ditched us.

Anyway, the path to the overlook was easy enough to follow. Maybe that could be called a hike. From there, it was inarguably an adventure walk. After the viewpoint, we started asking every person we met for directions. That may sound like overkill, but it was a necessity. When people don’t know the answer to your question, they don’t say, “I don’t know.” They say, “Oh, it’s that way!” and point and say it with full confidence and make you think they have a clue. So, the only way to be safe is to ask as many people as possible, rate their trustworthiness, compare answers, pick a direction, and remind yourself that not knowing where you’re going is part of the fun.

Like seriously. (Also, that’s Canta on the left.)

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY GREENS? Also, fun fact did you know that the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other color?

The good news was that we could see the waterfall, Catarata de Shupucro, in the distance. The bad news was that it wasn’t clear how to get there. Even now, the only thing of which I’m certain is that our beginning route was NOT right… because there was no path, and we ended up inside the locked gates of a school. So, thanks for nothing, people who gave us directions up until that point.

Okay, let’s try again with the directions. We asked the school groundskeeper (who looked confused about why we were on the school property… yeah, same) and he unconvincingly pointed us in a direction. A few steps later, a woman vaguely motioned that was as well. Finally, we found a guy who confidently pointed at a path and said it would take us 2 hours to get there. He had the highest trustworthiness ranking. Welp, nothing left to do but cross our fingers and start walking!

Despondent donkey on the path. He was probably trying to find the waterfall as well.

Just starting out, back when we were so young and naive

I mean, it’s kind of like being in an airplane… The earth looks like a patchwork quilt.

Our biggest mistake was asking for more directions after trustworthy-guy. Right as we started up the path, we saw a few people coming down. Julie asked how far it was to the waterfall, and the guy said 20 minutes (LIES) and then gave some directions for how to get there. They seemed trustworthy… I mean, they had just come from there, so you’d think they’d know something. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

The way up was unpleasant. The path was well-defined but also steep and rocky, and we were all feeling the effects of the altitude. Eventually, Jocelyn tapped out and told us to pick her up on our way back down. I felt bad leaving her, but she clearly wasn’t going to change her mind. We left her just before a fork in the path where we started following the directions of the guy we saw coming down.

Taking a breath before scaling these rocks…

Wrong choice. Very, very wrong. I still don’t know what we should have done, but definitely not that. We ended up on the wrong side of the mountain, and after maybe 30 minutes of walking up the worst ever uphills, we bumped into a couple coming down. Julie asked if we were going to the waterfall, and they said, “No, this is the path to the cross!” And then they pointed at this teeeeeny tiny cross at the top of a mountain in the distance. Can you spot the cross?:

THERE it is. My gosh. Is there anything about this picture that makes you want to walk to that cross??? It looks like torture.

This is me, standing on the path to the cross, looking up at the trail ahead, zig-zagging up this steep mountainside. No, thank you.

The only benefit of going the wrong way was getting this view of the valley

Yeah, no thank you. So, we turned around and tried to find where we went wrong. At this point, we also realized that we were almost all the way back to Jocelyn, so we sent Paul to bring her to meet us. She was nice and rested after her 40-minute break, and we were exhausted after our spirit-crushing uphill climb to nowhere.

Time to change strategies. We could see the waterfall, so instead of looking for the “right” path, we decided to walk towards it until we got there. I’m Peruvian-giving-directions confident that we took the proper route, and I will now describe it here, just in case you ever find yourself hiking in Canta: when you get to the fork in the path, don’t go left. Also, don’t go right. Instead, walk across the poop-covered field, following no path. Jump down the 5’ wall into the cornfield. Cross the field and climb over the short wall at the other side, taking care to avoid the cacti on top (nature’s barbed wire). Cross the river. Walk along the river until you reach a big rock and little waterfall. Cross the river again. Climb up the 7’ rock wall. Continue to walk towards the waterfall until you see a path. Follow the path to the waterfall.

Keeping our eyes on the waterfall while hopefully not destroying this cornfield

Can you spot the Lara? I’m hiding somewhere in this picture!

Exhaustion break disguised as a photo op

Got that? I couldn’t have made it any clearer. No wonder no one could give us directions!

As is generally the case with waterfalls, the view of the actual waterfall wasn’t great from up close. We did, however, get a better view of the valley and took a moment to pat ourselves on the backs because we made it!

The hike up had been steep and tiring, but the way down was brutal. Lots of slipping and sliding with a few falls. Jocelyn had the worst luck. On one of her falls, she caught herself on a cactus and got a cactus spine stuck in her finger. We tried to pull it out on the trail but couldn’t get a good grip or tell how deep it went. I had tweezers at the hotel, so she decided we should just leave it until we got back.

Can’t believe we were at that waterfall…

The layers in this picture are crazy… the bright green foreground, the hazy green middle (thank you, smog), and the low clouds above, chopping off the mountain tops.

Once we got past the steep part, the rest of the return trip was easy. Well, there was one part where a rock wall collapsed beneath me, but it’s fine because Kylie caught me by the backpack and saved me from disaster. It’s good to have friends with quick reflexes!

Found this kitten model on the way back to town

Back in town, we met up with David, Dina, and her daughter and drove back to Canta. Our first order of business was getting the spine out of Jocelyn’s finger. I got my tweezers and tried to ease it out, thinking it might be short. That did nothing, so Jocelyn braced herself and I pulled as hard as I could until it came out. It felt like I was going to pull her finger off! When it finally gave, we all freaked out because it was SO much longer than we thought. I can’t believe she walked around with that thing stuck in her finger for like 4 hours! And I can’t imagine how much the extraction hurt. Geez! Jocelyn wins the pain tolerance award.

We headed to dinner after the drama and devoured our food, only slightly hampered by the nightly power outage. It’s clearly not an uncommon occurrence because the waitress was prepared, bringing in an emergency light. And then the power came back on… and went out, and came on, and went out. Geez, just leave it off.

Back at the hotel, we made a solid effort to stay awake a little longer (it was only like 7:30PM) and eventually gave up and passed out. What a day!

Laguna de los Tres

Posted on May 4, 2019 by Lark

Our only full day in El Chaltén was dedicated to the hike to Laguna de los Tres. It’s the most popular hike in the area, is listed as “difficult”, and is supposed to take 8 hours, so we were prepared for all of the above. In our usual “let’s avoid the crowds” fashion, we aimed for an unrealistic early departure time (6:30AM) and left at a more reasonable early departure time (7AM) which is apparently still long before anyone else in town is even awake. Well, except for this one guy we met who said he hiked there for the sunrise, but he was a rare bird (we’ve been over this before, but who wants to hike for 4 HOURS in the dark??). Anyway, we were not in good company at 7AM. We were in nearly no company. Fine with me!

The valley on our way up — Sleepy valley

The general profile of the Laguna de los Tres hike felt pretty similar to Laguna Torre, the hike we did the day before, but slightly “more”. The beginning has a bunch of unshaded uphill with great views of the valley. When you feel like you might collapse, it turns flat, and trees start popping up!

The shadeless beginning of the trail — No. Shade. Also, see the little rock peeking up in the far background? That’s where we’re headed (though I didn’t know it at the time).

Slightly sunnier view of the valley — The world slowly waking up

Gnarled forest along the way — Funky forest

About an hour in, the trail forks, and we picked the path that goes to a viewpoint where we got our first glimpse of the mountains we were headed towards. It was breathtaking! And we were super lucky with the weather again, so the skies were clear and the views were completely unobstructed. Seeing the mountains was good motivation to keep going but was also like… “Wait, we’re walking ALL THE WAY THERE??”

Me gazing at Fitz Roy from the viewpoint — First look at the mountains. Can you say WOW!?

Mike with Fitz Roy — This is where I start having the same-ish pictures over and over again because they’re all so darn beautiful.

Selfie with Fitz Roy — Brother-sister selfie!

Fitz Roy and the rest of the mountains — Okay one more. Fitz Roy is the tallest peak in the middle, to the left is Poincenot, and to the right is Mermez.

From the viewpoint until the very last segment of the hike, the trail wasn’t bad at all. It’s basically flat… and then you get to the end, and there’s a sign that says the last kilometer is going to take an hour because it’s like 400m of elevation. And then it actually takes an hour. And it is SO steep. And long. And steep. It wasn’t the worst hike I’ve ever done, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either (lol but technically it was a walk in the national park).

Fitz Roy with some cloud cover — Stay away, clouds!

Fitz Roy with some clouds trailing off the peak — It’s like a little smokestack. Getting closer…

The good news was that we were there early, so there weren’t a lot of people coming down. That part of the trail is only really wide enough for one person at a time, and it would have made things much worse if we had to keep moving aside to let people pass. And, probably most importantly, the sun still wasn’t too hot because of course there was zero shade from that point on.

The one thing that was far from ideal was the wind. It was crazy! Most of the way was shielded from by the mountains, but the final stretch was completely exposed. I know I’ve said this before, but I meant it then and I mean it now… I was not confident that I was safe from blowing away. At the very least, there was a very real possibility of blowing over, and it was so steep that blowing over would probably also mean rolling down the mountain. I stopped multiple times and just dug in because I wasn’t confident that I could land my foot where I wanted.

Green valley — 100% chance that I took this picture as an excuse to stop hiking for a second. We came across that river on the left side and through the green patch above it.

Rock and wood-covered trail — The way up…

The rock peaks just over a ridge — Almost there almost there almost there!

Then, I got to the top (Mike was already there), and the struggle was all but forgotten. The mountains you’ve been looking at all day are RIGHT THERE, with their jagged peaks and snowy slopes. The lake below them is the bluest blue you’ve ever seen. (After the brownish Laguna Torre from the day before, it looked especially blue.) There weren’t many people there, and it felt like we were part of an exclusive group lucky enough to experience the magic. Like what the heck is this world we live in??? Who would expect a lake like that, tucked up in the mountains? It’s not even fair for places like that to exist in the world. You blink and blink again and then one more time just to be sure… and it’s still there. And it’s still incredible. And even though it’s clearly real considering you’re standing there looking at it with your own eyes, you think they must be messing with you. How is this place real??? And the weather! I can’t talk enough about the weather. There was one little cloud near the peaks when we first arrived and then it cleared away completely.

Laguna de los Tres — Okay, sorry in advance but like… I took a LOT of pictures, and I only picked a few… But there are still so many because they’re just too pretty! And also basically all the same, but can you blame me?

Me with the lake — Okay now glamour shots

Same pic without me — Okay now get out of the picture, Lara!

We walked down to the lake and then around the edge until we could see another lake right next to Laguna de los Tres, Laguna Sucia. That must be one of those Iceland/Greenland naming things (they named the green land Iceland and the icy land Greenland so that people would leave the green land alone) because “Laguna Sucia” means “dirty lagoon”, and that name couldn’t possibly be less suited.

Me on a rock looking down at Laguna Sucia far below — Laguna Sucia

Laguna Sucia from above — What dirty water, right?

While the two lakes are, basically, right next to each other, it’s super weird because Laguna Sucia is like 100m lower in elevation (that’s a pure Lara estimate though, so take it with a grain of salt because my estimates can absolutely not be trusted). There are waterfalls coming out of the top lake that turn into rivers flowing past the lower lake. So strange.

Laguna Sucia and Laguna de los Tres above — This was my best attempt at getting both lakes in the same picture so that you can see the elevation difference between them. How weird is this??

The blue waters of Laguna Sucia — Someone please explain to me how this lake got the name “dirty lagoon”. The glacier that feeds the lake is at the far end of the picture, Glaciar Rio Blanco (white river).

Laguna Sucia and its awesome surroundings — How is this place real?

Laguna de los Tres and the drop-off to Laguna Sucia — Laguna Sucia is to the left, where it looks like the world just ends.

The waterfall between Laguna de los Tres and Laguna Sucia

We admired the lakes for a while until Mike said he was getting cold from the wind (he was in shorts and a t-shirt. I had long pants and a jacket). Then, we hiked up this little mountain nearby to get one more view of the two lakes before heading back down. Already, we could see that the crowds were getting bigger (aka they actually existed), and clouds were starting to gather around the mountain peaks!

We also eavesdropped on this tour group whose guide was explaining how people rock climb Mount Fitz Roy, the tallest peak. After doing the hike that we just did, they walk around the lake, strap on crampons, and hike up the ice. Probably they will stay the night on the ice, so he pointed out a good place to set up your ice cave for sleeping. The next morning, they walk the rest of the way up the ice, partly having to ice climb until finally there’s just rock. They’ll switch into their rock-climbing shoes from there and take one of the routes that have been defined over the years, basically all named for the origin country/state of the people who first completed it. And after all that, they have to go allll the way back down. Geez. People are crazy!

The water. The mountains. No clouds. HOW did we get so lucky???

The lake. The mountains. Again. — I can’t handle this. Also, that’s the ice patch you have to climb up to get to the peak.

Another lake pic — No words, mostly because I already used them up on the infinity other pictures.

The lake. AGAIN. — THE WATER. I’m still not over it.

The valley — View from the top while trying not to blow away

Laguna de los Tres and a little Mike — Spot the Mike, running away from the wind.

Pano of the lake and surrounding mountains — Pano by Mike from the edge of the lake. AHHH so pretty!!

Super aqua waters of Laguna de los Tres — LAST ONE I PROMISE.

Mike had big dreams for the rest of our hiking excursion. After we hiked down from the lake, he wanted to explore these two other offshoots of the trail. One was to see another glacier, Piedra Blanca. We walked until we had a good view (we decided there was no need to go all the way to the viewpoint when we could see it just fine already) and then turned around and walked back to the main trail.

The glacier Piedra Blanca is peeking out between the mountains

On that path, there were SO many caterpillars. Earlier in the day and the day before, we noticed that there was a weirdly large quantity of caterpillars on the trail, and we tried to avoid stepping on them. On this trail, there was no avoiding them. It seemed like they might have been an invasive species because there were WAY too many. Besides being all over the path, they were also EVERYWHERE in the branches of the tree and bushes. It got a little creepy once you noticed all of the places where they were lurking.

Trail littered with caterpillars — Spot the caterpillars! (It’s not hard.)

Me refilling my water bottle from the river — Water break! Drinking from streams never gets less awesome to me.

There was one more offshoot that Mike wanted to check out, and I had decided that I was fine with doing whatever he wanted to do (my feet were feeling surprisingly okay). We got about 6 steps down the path before he decided that the weather seemed questionable, so we should head back. Also fine with me! We still had like 3 hours of hiking ahead. The skies had been getting cloudier and cloudier from the moment we left the lake, and by the time we decided to head back, you could see almost nothing of Fitz Roy! Thank goodness we went early! I’m sure the lake is still beautiful even with cloudy mountains, but if you have the chance to see them all together, there’s no question that clear weather is the best way to see it.

The valley with two lakes — The two lakes in the distance to the right are Laguna Madre and Laguna Hija. They’re along the second side trail Mike wanted to explore

Fitz Roy blocked out by clouds — Looking back towards Fitz Roy… So. Many. Clouds!

On the way back, we went the other way at the fork and walked by another lake, Laguna Capri. I wasn’t expecting to walk right along the shore! I imagined that we would be up high above it. It was a cool surprise. We didn’t stick around for too long, though, because I think we both just wanted to get back at that point.

The clear waters of Laguna Capri — I wouldn’t mind going for a swim in there!

Campsite in the woods — One of the campsites along the way

Trail through the forest — Nothing better than a hike through a forest! Also, on the way in, there was a sign warning you about the high winds in the area and saying that if they’re really bad, you should avoid standing under a tree. Can someone explain to me where we should be standing in this FOREST to avoid the trees?

Back at the hostel, I think I sat on the ground and “stretched” for about 2 hours before I felt like I wanted to move again. We hung out with some of our new hostel friends, ate our usual ravioli dinner feast, and went to sleep at the usual “way later than planned”. At least we could sleep in the next day, for once!

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