A photo expedition to The Galápagos

A sea lion rests atop a rocky climb on South Plaza Island in The Galápagos while frigatebirds fly overhead.

The sea lion couldn’t have cared less about me. It was as disinterested as the iguana that I almost stepped on while photographing my cousin getting off the plane. That tortoise I took a dopey picture with? Yeah, as indifferent as they come.

I wasn’t expecting that down here on The Galápagos, just a touch south of The Equator and 600 miles out to sea.

A marine iguana appears to be spying on our expedition ship — the MS Santa Cruz II — on Española, the archipelago’s southernmost island.

I am on a week-long Galápagos cruise to seven islands and islets in the chain. Wet landing or dry landing; that’s the vital information you need before each shore trek. Since our ship can never dock, we take little inflatable rafts to our hikes — pangas, they call them. Sometimes we jump out of the boats into the surf; sometimes there’s a rocky set of stairs. On two occasions there were actual docks, if you can believe it!

A giant tortoise cools off in a lush highland pool on Santa Cruz Island. This particular tortoise is likely older than The Titanic.

One time early on, somebody from our cruise fell into the ocean. We all wear life jackets and she was quickly fished back out.

I debated back and forth — mostly with myself — about what camera gear to bring. One of my pro digitals with a great lens? Certainly a GoPro, right? In the end, just my iPhone made the journey and everything you see here was snapped with it.

A sea lion sleeps amidst the shore rocks on Española Island.

The animals’ lackadaisical attitude toward these silly homo sapiens sapiens let us co-mingle right up close on the beaches and rocks like we were just a dorky sub-species of island life. Still, at all times, we’re told to keep two meters away, even if they approach us.

The famed Blue-footed booby stands guard on Baltra Island.

If not, The Galápagos Air Force flying above us, will surely take notice. Daniel, one of our guides, calls all the birds — above and grounded — the islands’ air force.

Though over the decades, they’ve learned not to give a leaping lava lizard about us. That hasn’t always been the case.

A lava lizard (not leaping; thank goodness!)

An afternoon expedition on South Plaza Island.

“Odd thing about these Galápagos,” I write to a friend back in the States. “They were whaled, fished and destroyed well into the 1900s.”

That was in response to his assumption that I was seeing the same things that Charles Darwin saw nearly 200 years ago. I assumed that too, before traveling down here to these islands. People and governments didn’t take real, concrete measures to preserve them until the late 1950s, early 1960s!

Tortoise numbers alone declined from over 250,000 in the 16th century to a low of around 15,000 in the 1970s. And they went extinct on three islands. Then, the Ecuadorian government started repatriating tortoises from across the world. Now, they and the Charles Darwin Foundation use targeted precision to re-populate and rehabilitate the natural wonderland.

We carefully trek through a tortoise preserve in the lush highlands of Santa Cruz Island.

Ol’ Darwin, himself, was in The Galápagos for only five weeks in 1835. And, brace yourself, The HMS Beagle left the Galápagos with about three dozen tortoises on board. No, not for scientific study, but as a source of fresh meat for their return home.

After carefully walking us through, guide Jhosellyn Aguas Flores shows us the walls and ceiling of a lava tube formed two million years ago on Santa Cruz Island.

Our guide Jhosellyn tells us to put ourselves in their shoes, along with pirate’s and whaler’s. What would we do back then if we were out to sea, only eating fish for months. Now we know better; back then, they just needed to eat.

An up close and personal look at a land iguana on North Seymour Island.

While we’re at it, an up close and personal look at a sea lion on Santa Fe Island.

Oh, our guides are fantastic. All of them are natives of The Galápagos. There are roughly 32,000 residents on the islands. We find out only 3% of the entire archipelago are inhabited by humans. Those people are spread out mostly just over two islands. Of the other 97% of land, only 1% is visited and only during very strict times by permit.

Strolling with my new pal Kevin along a gorgeous white sand beach on Española Island.

Española Island was simply stunning.

Studying a humpback whale skeleton on Española Island.

They spray our airplane cabin before disembarking to help ward off invasive species. Not coming by planes, but in cargo holds of ships, invasive black rats have been a particular problem for Galápagos animals. They feed on bird and reptile eggs, obviously wiping out new populations before they’re even born. We can’t bring ANY food or snacks onto the islands as we trek; only filtered water from the ship is allowed.

After an intensive eratication (sorry) in this new millennium, the first new giant tortoise hatchlings were born in more than a 100 years.

I won The Darwin Award for the most selfies with Charles Darwin on Santa Cruz Island.

Darwin came up with his famous theory of evolution after his visit down here. I’m glad he didn’t see me trying to ride a bike up that island mountain earlier — Survival of the Witless, Unnatural Selection.

The Tortoise and the Hairless. I was sure they’d kick me off these islands for silly things like this and mimicking a sea lion. But my guide Daniel Christian Moreano Alcivar of Hurtigruten Expeditions happily took my photos.

I am definitely in shape, however, for all the other island landings, kayaking and trekking we do. We are continually told to never leave the boat without our life jackets, water, sunblock, raincoat, insect repellent, (and my camera phone).

The temperatures down here are pretty constant throughout the year, though October nights (Springtime here) feel kind of chilly. Since we’re so near the Equator, the fluctuations aren’t too radical. But they tell us March gets pretty beastly hot.

From SA Vacations and Weatherbase & IGTOA data.

It’s fascinating to see how completely different the islands can be from each other. There are rainforests and almost-deserts, with savanna grasslands thrown in between. One day we land on the most beautiful, pristine, white sand beach I’ve ever seen. The next, it’s rocky and scrub bushes. After that, two giant tortoises cause a rush hour traffic jam along a lush, palm-lined road.

A tortoise turnpike on Santa Cruz Island.

And by traffic jam, I mean just the two of them and our bus which has to stop and wait them out. It’s just like they do when iguanas slowly meander out toward us on our final day, heading to the small airport. Harming any of the wildlife on the islands is a serious offense. The driver just gets out and slowly walks a bit nearer to them than two meters. They take the hint and mosey elsewhere.

 A cute little baby flops around its mother in a colony of sea lions on Santa Fe Island.

The Hurtigruten photographer walks casually among sea lions on Española Island.

I’m here with my dad’s 90-year-old-next-month cousin. “Cuz,” we call each other. He always wanted to come here and when he offered to pay my passage to help him out — to be his “keeper” as he says — I jumped at the chance. I’ll write more about that soon and it’ll magically appear here when I do.

My dad’s cousin Dick, right, rides in our panga as we cruise around viewing the cliffside and sea life.

Most of my time down here is spent enjoying the wildness and trying to snap good photos. But just before taking off from the mainland, I get a call that my mother had emergency surgery and my wife, who was with her, collapsed on her bed and is recuperating in the ER. I looked at all my options, but my wife and family reassured me that they had it all under control. Still, I keep calling and texting whenever I can sniff out a sparse signal.

Thick as thieves, marine iguanas on Española Island.

What’s up?

A land iguana chills out on South Plaza Island.

A curious baby sea lion on Española Island.

(UPDATE: My mother is out of the hospital and recovering just fine; my wife is back up and running too.)

Anyway, our guides are just full of incredible facts about tortoises. Like, some plants on the islands can’t grow unless their seeds have gone through a tortoise’s digestive process. Weird, I know. But something in their bodies provides the right nutrients and chemical breakdown for their favorite plants to grow once pooped out of them. It would be like if I couldn’t make popcorn unless I’d … no, we’ll just leave it at that.

A Galápagos hawk poses atop a marker as if to remind us of what it’s saying:
“REPUBLIC OF ECUADOR
NATIONAL PARK OF THE GALAPAGOS
VISITORS ARE RESPECTFULLY REMINDED
THAT THE INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE OF THESE
ISLANDS IS STRICTLY PROTECTED BY LAW.”

We also learn other wild things.

True tortoise tales:

  • Tortoises live to be well over 100 years old and weigh 500 lbs or more.

  • They can live a year without food or water.

  • They spend 16 hours sleeping each day.

  • Tortoises can’t back up; they can only move forward.

  • Galapago is the Spanish word for tortoise.

  • The Galápagos Tortoise can float a while, but can’t swim.

  • Tortoises live on land. Turtles live in water.

  • And weirdly, Galápagos tortoise exploitation dramatically increased with the onset of the California Gold Rush in 1849. They were used to feed the miners.

Our ship, the MS Santa Cruz II, awaits us off of Santa Fe Island.

A wet landing and departure in a panga.

Oh, we are taught the differences between sea lions and seals too:

  • SEALS: have flatter noses, internal ears and two breasts

  • SEA LIONS: have noses like dogs, noticeable ears and four breasts

Now you know.

Our last expedition is to North Seymour Island. A Québécois couple and my German friends got there a panga before us (for a dry landing).

This trip has been part of Hurtigruten Expeditions. This particular part of the tour is called “Galápagos Islands – In Darwin’s Footsteps.” It was fun, beforehand, asking fellow travelers in airports if they were part of the Hurtigruten team. Oh the looks I got, particularly when I used a fake Norwegian accent.

A huge grove of Palo Santo trees grow on North Seymour Island. Palo Santo, or Wood of the Saints, is a traditional remedy that people across the world rub on their skin or burn as incense to reduce pain, inflammation and stress. Folks in South America have used it for thousands of years.

I’m home now, taking care of my mending mother and dealing with the new political landscape. I keep dreaming, though, that I’m back there, on a boat somewhere floating around the islands. It’s strange — for at least two weeks, almost every night since I returned — I am in some iteration of a group about to land on one of the islands. A few nights ago I was in a marching band; another night I was just with some friends and our destination was not in this dimension, but it was still The Galápagos.

It gets into your psyche.

I am grateful beyond expression. This was a never-in-a-lifetime journey for me that I actually got to make. I hope my fellow travelers felt that kind of gratitude too. Even the panga rides to and from the islands were joyful. I’m thankful to my Cuz, to the guides and to the people in Ecuador who had the foresight to preserve and protect this almost impossible wilderness.

Our final sunset before the two-day sojourn home, which was an expedition in its own right.

Okay, a sunset on the last day is OBVIOUSLY the best place to end an epic photo journal of an epic trip. But what about all these extra photos I have?! What about …

… this picture of me taking the lead photo of the snoozing sea lion with the Galápagos Air Force flying in formation above (taken by the official excursion photographer)?

Or this picture, also taken by the ship’s photographer, of me taking …

…this photo?

Or hey, remember that sea lion on the rocks? My wife likes this version better because — if you zoom in or look carefully — you can see a bunch of iguanas all over the place.

How about this wild juvenile Magnificent Frigatebird?

Or everybody staring down through the glass-bottomed boat?

SIGH … okay … I know it’s time to sign off. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for joining me on this voyage! Wave goodbye, sea lion.

 

For more about Rodney’s Travels to South America, check out:

Machu Picchu and Pisco Sours

and this one too:

People Don’t Really Talk About How To Actually Get To Machu Picchu

 

Rodney Curtis is a recovering journalist and author of four books.

Check out Rodney’s books here.