As we came closer to the end of our trip, we decided to splurge!
In our last time at South America, we missed the Galapagos Islands, due to money issues, we decided to make the effort and arrive to Ecuador, in order to visit the Galapagos Island.
Since out last stop was Huraz in Peru and in order to make it to the Galapagos, we had to go to Guayaquil, we have to take a very long bus from Huaraz straight to Guayaquil, crossing the Peru-Ecuador border. Since Huaraz was a relatively small town, there was no direct bus, so we had to take a bus to Trujillo at the north of Peru and then change buses there for a bus to Piura. There, we had to change the bus once again and take the bus that curses the border and goes straight to Guayaquil. We left Huaraz at around 21:00 and got into Guayaquil at 5:00 AM 2 days afterwards (40 hours in buses!). Guayaquil was a very large and busy city with a hot and humid weather. Since we were very tried we got a cheap hotel there and went straight to bed. After we woke up at the after noon, we took a walk in the city and visited some agencies that specialize at the Galapagos island courses.
According to stories I heard from people that visited the island, there is 2 option: take a cruse from Guayaquil or Quito, pay a little more, and spend no extra time on the islands, or just fly to the Galapagos, and take a cruse there - a process that might take some time and you might spent few very frustrating days there (in the Galapagos main village - Porto ayora).
After few hours of visiting the agencies and listen the agents talking about how this is the high season and there is not place on the cheap boats, and the more expensive boats are much more expensive (about 2000 dollars for 8 days!). I decided to take the second option, so I just bought the flight ticket from Quito to the Galapagos and back, and take the chance that I would not find a cruse. You probably ask your selves; why not fly from Guayaquil and save the 8 hours bus trip to Quito? Well this is the time to explain why navit is not coming with me to the islands. I don't know how well many of you knows navit, but those of you how does, knows that she has a very serious sea sickness and there for should never board a boat under no circumstances. Since the flight to the Galapagos is not very cheap (350 dollars) we decided, that she would wait for me in Quito rather then in Guayaquil, since we remembered Quito from our last trip as a very nice and tranquil city.
The next day, we took the early bus to Quito, found a nice hotel for the night, and I took the Galapagos flight early the following morning, leaving Navit behind for at least 10 days. This was the first time that I left her this trip and it was very traumatic for both of us. But more on that later.
A bird's Eye View of the Cotopaxi mountain in Ecuador:
As I arrived at the Galapagos (again Porto ayora), I immediately started looking for a cruse. The village was very small with only a few agencies. All the agencies were located in one small street so you could; go into all the agencies in an hour. For my disappointed none of the agencies had some last minute offers, so I had to just find a hotel in the village and hope for a better luck tomorrow. As I was looking for hotel, it turn out that everything in the Galapagos is much more expensive then I was used to, and a decent hotel can cost at least 30 dollars. Since I was on thought budget, I decided to take not-so-decent hotel and pay only 10 bucks a night. It was a very basic hotel, dorm room and so hot water, but it was cheap!
At first my mood was down, since for the first time in the trip, I was all alone in a strange place with no one to talk to in miles. To pass the time till the next day, I took a walk in the village and visited some dive shop to see what my dive options are. After spending some time wondering around I decided to take a dive the next day, to very easy dive site for beginners in a place called Isla Santa Fe. By taking this trip I actually gave up the opportunity to take a curse in the next following, but I had to make that decision, since I was afraid that if I won't find a trip for tomorrow, I will have another boring day in the island and I couldn't take that chance. In the mean time I've managed to take a glimpse at the island life and really appreciate the tranquility and peace of mind.
Getting up close and personal with a Galapagos Seal:
The following day I woke up very early in order to take the boat trip to the dive site, and just as I want out of the hotel I met an Israeli guy that was very nice and asked me if I want to move in with him to a double room in another hotel, which has hot water. I first I was a little suspicious, but he looked like a nice guy, and I accepted the offer.
This is the time to say something about the Galapagos weather. When I thought of the Galapagos, I thought about sunny Tropical Island with big sandy beaches and warm ocean water. Well, for my surprise, in July the Galapagos in either of these things. The wheatear was cold (20 degrees), the sky always grey, more time top time there is a small drizzle, the beaches was rocky and the water temperature was cold (18 degrees).
So this is why I like the hot water idea very much.
No back to our story. The dive was very nice and we saw some very interesting things: sea turtles, seals and some big fish. The dive site was easy as promised and the water was relatively calm with no strong currents. However, the water was very very cold, a face that really bothered me at first (I was used to the warm water in Eilat), but I just got used to it at the second dive (each dive trip includes two dives, with and intermission for lunch between the dives). Nevertheless, I was a little disappointed since I haven't seen the biggest attraction in the Galapagos, the hammerhead sharks, or any other sharks for that matter.
Diving at Santa Fe Island:
Pelicans waits for an afternoon meal at Purto Ayora Fish Dock:
As I got back, a met with the guy from the morning (yair) and we took a room together, It turn out that I is also a technion graduate the travels after few years working as an engineer and, he also hate the hi tech gold cage. He introduced me to some other Israeli couple (Yarden and Avichai). Meeting them was one of the best things that happened to me at this trip, since they turn out to be very nice people and since I was staring to fell without Navit, they boosted my moral. It turn out that Yair was in the islands for few days now and I wants to leave for Isabella Island the next day and offered me to join him. I've jumped on the offer and at that point decided to forget about the curse and just do dives and day trip instead. This is a much cheaper option and although this is nothing like taking 8 day trip in a boat, its still fun and you could see almost all of the animal life that island has to offer, at the fraction of the curse cost.
So, the next days me and yair want to Isabella, met another Israeli couple that yair know (it turn out that when you travel by your self you meet a lot of people) and book a trip to some nice underwater arches in the islands. Again I really enjoyed the fact that I was with other Israeli people and we had a lot talk about, since we came from completely different background and we were in different stages in life.
Since Isabelle has only three main attractions, we decided to stay in the island three days. One day we want to the underwater arches ("Punta Moreno"), which was very pretty and the water there was very very clear but cold. At the arches we saw some very interesting underwater animal such as giant turtle which are endemic to Isabelle island, small penguins (the Galapagos is the southern point in the world where you can spot penguins) and of course seals. We also did some snorkeling under the arches, but the since the water was very cold, I left the water soon after. Anyhow we enjoyed the company and enjoyed the fact that this place was very quiet and there were no other people there.
The Arches of Punta Moreno on Isabella Island:
Snorkeling in the cold Galapagos waters:
A Galapagos Penguin swimming in Punta Mereno:
The following day we visited the other attraction Isabelle Island has to offer: the volcano. As most of you the whole Galapagos archipelago, is from volcanic origin and was created during an eruption. Isabelle Island is no exception and the island has some very inserting active volcanoes (the big volcano is called "Sierra Negra Volcano. The volcano has the biggest carter in the world (7.5x12Km!). The small volcano is called volcan Chico), which even erupted in late 2005.
Me on top of the Volcan Chico crater:
There is two ways to take this trip: take a horse or just walk. Since both I and yair liked walking, we decided to walk. The only option to get to the volcano is to join a group, take a truck to the mountain bottom and start walking from there. As it turns out, I and yair were the only ones that took the walking. This turned out to be a great things since me and yair had a lot to talk about and we mostly bitched about how crap it is to work in the high tech.
Isabella Island from the top of Volcan Sierra Negra:
I also wanted to go diving in the island, but since I had no partner to do so, and yair don't dive, we decided to leave Isabelle a day earlier and to go back to Porto ayora.
Just before we left the island we want to a place called "Las Grietas" not to be confused with a place with the same name is Porto Ayora. In this place we saw loads of white tip reef sharks from a view point.
Overall, Isabelle was a very nice and interesting place. It has a lot less tourists then the main island, and the people there are much nicer. While in Porto Ayora the people look at you like a walking dollar bill, the people here just saw you as a person and the whole village community there is very small and thigh. They know that tourists in Isabelle mean money and that the reason they were so nice and welcoming to there island. I recommend a visit to the island very much, although it's a little out of the trail for most people.
When we got back to Porto ayora, yair decided that he had enough of the Galapagos and he decided to go back to Quito. I was alone again, but not for long. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I met yarden and avichi and that told me that the plan to go and see some spot on the main island. The main island had few interesting places that include giant turtle's farm, and a very nice cave with fresh water, where you can go snorkeling. Both of the attraction was nice but not very interesting. Again, the cold water and the grey weather put us down. When we got back to the hotel we decided to make dinner and we cooked my favorite food: chips and schnitzel! This of course reminded me of navit that all over the trip made me very delicious food and I was starting to miss her. Furthermore, I understood from her mails that we were very miserable in Quito and she is bored and she can't wait for me to come back.
This is the point that I decided to make a change of plans. I would go to two more dives in the next couple of days and on the third days I will change my original flight date to get back to Quito as soon as possible.
So in the next day we want to "Las Grietas" which is a gorge with a fresh water pool with very clear water (cold!) and nice snorkeling, we also went to the very nice beach called "Tortuga Bay", where we saw small turtles coming out of there shell, and we also saw some interesting birds and land and water iguanas (the Galapagos is the only place in the world where you can spot marine iguanas. Another interesting spot is the "El Chato Tortoise reserve" which is a giant turtle farm.
The Giant tortoise Farm at the end of Purto Ayora:
A land iguana:
Las Grietas On Santa Cruz Island:
Since I had some more spare time I went on my own to the Lava tubes at the island high lands. The lave tubes are natural lava tunnel very long and dark. In the area I also took a long walk to the café plantations in the Galapagos and picked a lot of passion fruit straight from the bush.
Passion Fruit tunnel on the way to Tuneles De Lava:
The Lava Tunnels on Santa Cruz Island:
The Galapgagos island are known all over the world for the variety of birds and the fact that most of them are indifferent for humans due to the remoteness of the islands. Since i haven't taken a curse, I've decided to take a day tour to two of the most beautiful islands in the archipelago: Plazas and Seymour Norte. Yair recommended this specific island and told me that they have the vast majority of birds you must see when visiting the Galapagos. Well, he was was right. In this day trip i saw more birds then i have seen in my life : blue footed bobbies, frigate bird (the one with the big red balloon under their beak) and much more. The tour was very interesting, but at the end of the day, i was happy that i don't to spend 8 days watching these birds. Let's face it, bird watching is the nice for the first 2 hours. After that it just become boring.
Blue Footed Bobbie:
Frigate Birds on Seymour Norte:
As for the dives, I went to a very interesting dive sites called Gordon rocks, which is a volcano crater 30 meters in the ocean. This site is considered one of the most challenging sites in the Galapagos, since the currents are very strong and the visibility is poor. The up side is that this is the best place in the Galapagos to see hammerhead sharks. The dive was in did very challenging and at one of the dives we had to stop the dive since one of the divers surfaced without telling anyone, and got the whole group worried. In spite of the harsh condition we saw some hammerhead sharks and even some Galapagos sharks. It was truly amazing.
With this dive I concluded my trip in the Galapagos and I have come to some interesting observations about the Galapagos Islands:
1. They are very very expensive compared to what you get.
2. There are thousands of American tourists in the islands right now, mainly old rich guys, which causes the prices to go up and the places on boat to go down.
3. There is no such thing as last minutes prices here. Even 2 hours before the boat leaves they still ask for the full price (they claim it´s last minute price but it still 800 dollars for 3 nights!)
4. You don´t have to go on a cruse to see all the wildlife the Galapagos has to offer. You can just walk on the main island and observe sea lions, iguanas, turtles and all kind of special birds.
5. If you want to have fun and spoil your self, they you can take a Cruise, enjoy the boat and wildlife and forget about the money.
6. The underwater life is amazing. It´s worth to go here only for the dives.
7. The water is very very cold which make it hard to enjoy the wildlife.
8. The birds are nice but you get bored if you see too much of them (well, all the bird of the same spices look the same...)
9. If you can, come in January or February (less tourists, the water is hotter and the climate is much better)
10. If you do come in July or august, bring lots of warm clothes, since the weather is cold (like the winter is Israel, not as cold as Patagonia...)
11. The Galapagos is for old rich guys, not for muchileros.
12. I feel that the Galapagos is overrated (I think it´s maybe because all of the American tourist that come here and waste 2000 dollars in 1 week, and when he gets home, he says to his friend that this is the most amazing place on earth)
However, after all, it´s still a very nice place to dive in and I am not sorry that I came here. Maybe if I had taken some Cruise for 8 day I could enjoy it very much, but mainly from being in a boat for 8 days and less from the wildlife. However, I can take a cruise from Miami to the Caribbean for 700 dollars for a week, on a five star ship with my girlfriend, I prefer to do that then to spend twice the money on a crappy boat and see some birds.
After I got back to Quito, I and navit got reunited. This reunion was very happy to both of us, and we hope that this will be the last time that will be separated in this trip.
Preparing for a dive:
A video we took during the dive at Gordon Rocks:
