My Last Big Holiday in the Galapagos Islands Last Christmas

Popular Misconceptions about the Galapagos

1, It is a tropical paradise with blue skies and warm seas, WRONG
For much of the year it is fed by the Humbolt current that comes up from the Antarctic along the west coast of south America, bringing cool water16-20 C and creating cloudy conditions and fog on the taller islands for about 6-8 months a year but no rain, most of the islands were cactus desert, with no leafy plants at all, the trees that do exist have no leaf during the dry spell. The sea is too cold most of the year to allow coral to grow so no coral reefs.
Hence I was incorrectly dressed for most of the trip and snorkelling was impossible for more than 15 minutes at a time, when the current changes to the panama current it is the rainy season and the sea warms to about 22-28 C, Jan to May.
2, The islands are small and closely grouped together, WRONG
The islands are huge, Isabella is over 100 Kms long and the islands are spread over 250Kms of deep ocean. This means that when travelling between them involves ocean going boating through rough seas for many hours, it took me 2 days to get my sea legs some trips were 7 hours long,
3, The Galapagos Islands are full of wildlife, WRONG
Nearly all the tortoises and iguanas are gone and there are only about 20 species of birds on the islands which have all been hit very badly over the last 200 years by alien introduced species, rats, cats, goats ect, so is impossible to see much in the islands and only a few spots where the iguanas and tortoises are still found are thronged by tourists
4, All tourist operations are experienced and professional, WRONG
The tourists must have been going to the Galapagos for along time but without doubt the operators are the most unprofessional bunch of amateurs I have ever come across, everything about our cruise came over as the first time they have ever done anything like it, only our guide was great, perhaps it was the boat owners who were just useless, the hotels in Ecuador in general were hopeless,
5, The Galapagos islands are a holiday of a lifetime, WRONG
Only the ardent wildlife nutcase who likes camping and doesn’t mind about roughing it will enjoy the archipelago. I can say it was a huge and fantastic experience but it didn’t live up to the 40 years of expectations I had about the place, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone for just a holiday, it is a special place but it is in the category of backpacking.



On Arrival in Quito we had to get our tickets for the onward flight to the Galapagos Islands from the local airline, we got a taxi to take us to a cheap hotel and asked him to take us to the airline office which is next to the airport, it turns out this guy is from the fields doesn’t know even the airport, so we went up and down the perimeter road for 30 mins trying to find this place and his questions on the radio were getting more and more irate replies from the radio operator, so we finally find the office and we parked on the opposite side of the road, Jenny went in to get the tickets and I sat with the driver, a military policeman moved us on and we had to go around the airport once more on getting back to the office the driver managed to crash into a parked car, I was hysterical with laughter at this point and pissing myself silly, the driver had to get out and barter with the other driver and ended up paying him cash, maybe $50 maybe $100, but the $6 fare wouldn’t cover that, after jenny got the tickets we set off for the hotel , the driver went up a side street and I was amazed that the hotel was 100 meters from the airport, I was laughing myself even harder at the fact we had been ripped off about the taxi fare as we could have walked in 5 minutes, but the entertainment was great.
We arrived in Baltra the airport of the Galapagos in the morning and was met by a grey sky and very fresh winds, I was shocked by this, the place looked out of the wild west all cactus and dead looking trees, we got to the boat in the harbour and we found a converted fishing vessel, it looked very old and when we got into the rooms we were shown, the smell of diesel was so strong we asked to be moved to an upper deck room, this was much better but it was still an old ship and not well looked after, we sailed and immediately we realised that this was a sailing holiday, the boat was rolling and rocking and bouncing of the waves, not good for people not expecting to suffer sea sickness. We had to sail about 1 hour to the first island and was met by the strongest smell of concentrated urine I have ever encountered outside a shop doorway, we had arrived at a seal colony, honking sea lions everywhere, it was fantastic, we landed amongst the baby sea lions and were walking through the cactus forest looking at marine iguanas and land iguanas, amazing stuff,

but island after island of marine iguanas and land iguanas and sea lions gets tiring even for the wildlife nutcase like myself,





a couple of islands later we had our first chance of snorkelling: we dropped off on a rocky outcrop called the devils crown, an old caldera . We landed into the middle of a huge school of marbled rays and white tip reef sharks, with millions of other amazingly coloured fish surrounding us, it was almost a shock to the system, and the water temp was also a shock, we were supposed to swim around the rock, but I was shivering so badly I could hardly get my breath, we had a couple of sea lions swim near us and I was frightened as they are huge and swim up to you fast when your not looking, like a big shark looming up to you, the whole thing lasted maybe 15 mins as I was chilled to the core and had to get out, but those sharks were scary anyway.
The boat we were on had a badly corroded anchor chain and it took maybe 15 mins to raise it, but on the last island before the main one the chain broke and we lost the anchor and they had to send a couple of the guys out with our snorkels trying to find the anchor, after 1 hour they gave up, someone would have to pay for that, probably the captain.
When we got back to the main island for a day, we had a look round the town and it is a glorified shanty town, with terrible buildings everywhere, the Darwin centre was OK but only had about 6 exhibits, most of the breeding stock and collection were out of bounds, there was some enormous tortoises there, which did look false as they were so big but the poor things were ex pets and as there origin wasn’t known, which island that is, they cannot be used for breeding, poor devils.



We went on with our tour of the northern islands, this is where the tour is elongated just to extract money from the tourist, we saw basically nothing on 4 islands apart from 2 Galapagos penguins and the seas are much deeper here and the seas were very rough, it was something I could have lived without seeing and I was unhappy that it had done this but you now realise that there isn’t a huge amount of wildlife here apart from a few islands, sea lions are everywhere, but you can see them all over the world, so I would recommend the 5 day or even 3 day tour of the southern islands if at all, it is so remote to get to and the connections are poor and the service is crappy as they know some tourists will always come, I had a great time but I am a wildlife nutcase but I can see when I am being exploited.

On arriving back at Quito we wanted to go to the equator line so as we had a map from the newspaper and it didn’t look far on the map. so we jumped on the nearest bus and paid the 40 cents,
( US currency ) and sat and watched the world go by for 1 and a half hours, it must have been 50-70 kms away, I was amazed at the desert like mountains, just barren huge mountains, and it was goddam freezing, very cold winds, again I was inappropriately dressed only shorts and t-shirts, everyone else had jackets and scarves, we got to the tourist attraction and found it deserted, it was a huge place maybe 10 restaurants and 30 nick nacks and clothes shops but we were the only people for the hour we were there, it wasn’t as impressive as I had expected and they wanted to charge extra for all the things you wanted to do like climb the tower and visit the museum, I didn’t bother as I though my $1.50 would have covered all costs, robbing bastards. I also found the exertion of walking and talking took away my breath making me gasp, it wasn’t until I read the altitude on the tower I realised why , it was 2880 meters high, almost 10,000 feet, and it also explained why it was so cold, I spent almost the entire time looking for an ethnic shirt made by the local Indians but couldn’t get anything nice or big enough as they are all midgets in comparison. but as I walked through the airport I managed to get one big enough for my Christmas party in Malabo. It is a strange mix of laces and Indian woven fabric and cheese cloth, honest it looks nice, you may get a picture from Malabo Christmas party. So that was it, a hard slog and very expensive, 12 days seeing a very poor part of the world and having to cope with the hopeless amateurish ways this part of the world call service, been there, seen it done it and probably willnot go back to Ecuador, there are many other interesting places to go, I fancy Madagascar or the Seychelles, we’ll have to save up for it next year