Where in the world are we now? 
We've boarded a tiny boat in the Pacific on a fabulous archipelago. In 1831, a young naturalist set sail from England for a 5 year trip to explore this isolated land. His observations, and the conclusions he drew forever changed the way we look at the world. This is the Galapagos. Five years seems like overkill for us, so we opt for the shorter 7 day trip. On a small boat, named the Darwin, with 11 fellow passengers from around the globe, we travel from island to island, marveling at the wondrous animals here. Each day, we take a couple of hikes and usually a couple of snorkels. It's staggering the number of animals we see! Hundreds of sea lions, some swim close enough for us to touch. We see two dozen shark circling below us.
The baby seal lions were super cute. I almost filled up my memory card taking shot after shot of them. We are told not to get too close to the babies, since they recognize their mother because of her scent. If they smell someone else (and, there are days we are definitely odoriferous) the babies can forget the mother's scent. We also learn that the mothers, exhausted from child birth, leave the babies for up to a week to return to the sea to feed themselves. The babies stay on the shore without food or water, becoming increasingly frantic. We watched mothers return to shore, and babies scamper as fast as they can to meet them, trying to push the mother onto her side/back to allow them to nurse.
The birds are amazing. We see 3 different species of booby--red footed, blue footed, and masked. All developed different mutations as a result of the slightly different environments. There's not much drinking here--we are exhausted and only indulge in the medicinal beer after the late day snorkel to cleanse the salt water from our mouths. We could definitely get used to the notion of the afternoon nap, which we love. The plumbing, and the bunk beds on the boat are not nearly as alluring, and I doubt we will be adopting either the quaint use of the basura (trash bin) instead of the toilet for the toilet paper or the narrow, firm (read: hard) bunks once we return to terra firma. An interesting side note: it takes us longer to adapt to the land than it did for us to get used to being on the boat. All four of us took almost 2 full days to stop feeling like the world was rocking.
We've boarded a tiny boat in the Pacific on a fabulous archipelago. In 1831, a young naturalist set sail from England for a 5 year trip to explore this isolated land. His observations, and the conclusions he drew forever changed the way we look at the world. This is the Galapagos. Five years seems like overkill for us, so we opt for the shorter 7 day trip. On a small boat, named the Darwin, with 11 fellow passengers from around the globe, we travel from island to island, marveling at the wondrous animals here. Each day, we take a couple of hikes and usually a couple of snorkels. It's staggering the number of animals we see! Hundreds of sea lions, some swim close enough for us to touch. We see two dozen shark circling below us.
The baby seal lions were super cute. I almost filled up my memory card taking shot after shot of them. We are told not to get too close to the babies, since they recognize their mother because of her scent. If they smell someone else (and, there are days we are definitely odoriferous) the babies can forget the mother's scent. We also learn that the mothers, exhausted from child birth, leave the babies for up to a week to return to the sea to feed themselves. The babies stay on the shore without food or water, becoming increasingly frantic. We watched mothers return to shore, and babies scamper as fast as they can to meet them, trying to push the mother onto her side/back to allow them to nurse.
The birds are amazing. We see 3 different species of booby--red footed, blue footed, and masked. All developed different mutations as a result of the slightly different environments. There's not much drinking here--we are exhausted and only indulge in the medicinal beer after the late day snorkel to cleanse the salt water from our mouths. We could definitely get used to the notion of the afternoon nap, which we love. The plumbing, and the bunk beds on the boat are not nearly as alluring, and I doubt we will be adopting either the quaint use of the basura (trash bin) instead of the toilet for the toilet paper or the narrow, firm (read: hard) bunks once we return to terra firma. An interesting side note: it takes us longer to adapt to the land than it did for us to get used to being on the boat. All four of us took almost 2 full days to stop feeling like the world was rocking.