Wednesday, August 6

8 Days on a motorship with sometimes strong winds and high waves, and only on the last night did we get seasick (well, only Marloes). That was the worst that happened during our wonderful trip to the Galapagos islands. We could have travelled almost 2 more months for the money that it cost us, but it was well worth it.

We booked the trip only a few days before in Guayaquil and it turned out there was not much choice left. But we ended up at a beautiful boat with 14 other passengers, a very nice group with all the same attitude towards the nature and animals.

The wildlife is amazing and ofcourse that's why the Galapagos are famous. Immediately on the day of arrival we visited an area with giant land turtles and the Charles Darwin station where they raise turtles until they are released in the wild. There we also saw Lonesome George, an enormous land turtle, the last of his kind. And only 2 weeks ago they discovered that finally, after 15 years of trying, one of his 2 mistresses had laid eggs!

The following days we saw on different islands land and marine iguanas, many different and special birds, boobies with feet in 3 different colours, lava lizards, sea lions and beautifully coloured crabs. All in the wild and sometimes just a meter away (or we had to step over a bird or iguana because they didn't move away from the path). They have no fear for humans at all and just look at you like "what are you doing here?". Our very knowledgeable guide told us a lot about how the different species evolved in different ways on the different islands in order to adapt to the different environmental circumstances (Darwin's Theory of Evolution). For example; there are 13 different kind of finches (vinken), all with a different beak adapted to the way they find/pick their food.

The blue-footed boobies were the funniest animals. It's mating season for these birds now and they search for the perfect partner in a funny way: the male puts his butt and feathers in the air and makes whistling noises. The female answers in a honking way and they both start tapping their feet as if they are dancing. According to our guide we were in the middle of the Boobie Discotheque! See also the movie below for an impression of this flirting.

Besides walks on the different islands we also went snorkelling every day. The underwater life is amazing as well. Many different fish, all beautifully coloured, gracious sea turtles, stingrays and mantarays, sea lions swirling around you and even sharks!

The nature is less spectacular, because they're all volcanic islands with little vegetation. But it was great to see how the animals are totally unafraid of people and not even interested in them.