Hola Galapagos!!

Sunrise over Santiago Island.

Hola everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to get round to blogging!! The trip has been so action packed that we barely got time to sleep never mind be on the internet!
I arrived safe and sound in Quito, Ecuador 2 days after leaving home and early next morning I was off to the Galapagos Islands. The warm breeze hit you as soon as you stepped off the plane and it was sheer bliss!! We were brought by Zodiac to the boat we would call home for the next 4 days, the Pelikano. It was surprisingly spacious and the crew were lovely, in particular the laughing captain who just spent his whole time laughing!!

We saw so much wildlife during these few days, even our guide was shocked at how lucky we were. We swam with Sea Lions, Reef Sharks, Penguins and a multitude of different fish; saw land and marine iguana's, giant tortoises and so many birds that there is no point in me going into them here, just look at the photo's in my South America pics :

The group was brilliant. Everyone got on really well and had a great laugh. I of course, being Irish and of fair skin, gotthe back of my legs and my ass totally cremated one of the days whilst snorkelling! Not the most comfortable of ailments. That same day I lost my rings and went back over to the island at dusk to look for them and got 42 sandfly bites!! I later fround one of my rings on the boat, so my pain was all in vain! All part and parcel of the experience I'm sure?!

There are 12 islands in total in the Galapagos, all of which are volcano's and 2 of which are active. The last erruption was last May. One of the islands (Bartolome) has 15 craters and it's pretty amazing to see. Each island has completely different flora and fauna from the rest and as such you would really need about 2 weeks to go round them and see all the different wildlife. It really is amazing how all the fauna has adapted to life in this area.

On the whole the sailing was smooth, but one of the days we had a 6 hour cruise and the last 2 hours were so rough that nearly everyone on board was dying, not pretty!!
Everyone was sad to be leaving as it really was such an amazing time, but the one thing I was glad of was terra firma!! I really would advise everyone to go to the Galapagos at some stage, it's just amazing and the photo's really do not do it justice.