¡GALAPAGOS!After a week in the wonderful world of the Galapagos, Elizabeth is on a plane slowly making her way back to Laguna Beach as
Laura and I are back in Qutio plotting our slower, but muuuuuuuuuuuuch cheaper jump from Ecuador to Peru via the overland route...
We had a wonderful time in the Galapagos and thus are posting a ton of photos of all kinds of crazy animals, beautiful beaches, odd scenery, etc. Here are a few of our favorite photos and a bit about our ex
perience...
We spent 4 full days and nights aboard the Galaxy Yacht (Yate in Spanish) and would recommend the boat to anyone...
About our boat: the cuisine was amazing and often featured local Ecuadorian dishes, the rooms were fantastic and the itineraries were great... each day we had at least one expedition on land on one of the islands and at least one snorkel, either from the beach on the island we walked along or straight into the sea from a small panga boat... towards the end of the trip there were two snorkels a day, and these snorkels afforded us the opportunity to snorkel literally with sea lions, sharks, all kinds of cool fish, oh, and my absolute favorite, the Galapagos marine iguanas (see below).
We actually were lucky enough to snorkel with a marine iguana and watch it feast on algae a few feet below the surface and sun afterwords on nearby rocks... the marine iguana is a very unique animal that adapted specifically for the unusual environemnt of the Galapagos.... with a paucity of fresh water, the "vegetarian dinasaur" adapted to be able to drink the salt water abundant in the ocean, and either snort out the residual salt, or process it through its liver... they also adapted to be able to hold their breath under water for up to an hour so that they could eat the ocean algae as there was very little food for them on land... they can also handle the rather cold sea water and very hot temperatures on land... a really unique animal totally adapted for its incredibly unique home, really cool to see and even cooler to snorkel with...
Other highlights included visiting Genovesa island, literally an island for the birds... with no real top of the food chain predators, in the Galapagos the Hawk is the most feared predator, birds rule the islands, and Genovesa in particular... We saw countless blue footed boobies nesting in trees and diving head first into the ocean for food, pelicans that also majestically dive into the 
water for their food, owls, mockingbirds, etc. flying in chaotic swirls around jagged cliffs with splashing water almost reaching the tops of the cliffs ans soaking your shoes 40 feet above the sea... the only thing that interupted the all bird island were the occasional marine iguanas found sunning on hot rocks between meals. In the above photo featuring a pelican and its offspring, you can literally see the entire fish (tail peaking out from bill) that the pelican just pulled from the sea... so cool!We also really enjoyed hiking on lava fields on Santiago island and witnessing the first plants struggling for life between the lava that was only 100 years old or so, laying the foudnation for future life to inhabit the island, as they have done on the other islands of the archipalego also birthed from volcanic eruptions...
All in all, a great week... it was a lot of fun, and we certainly got a taste fo
r what inspired Darwin over 150 years ago...Hasta Luego,
Laura y Esteban
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