I returned from my trip to the Galápagos Islands a few days ago, but I’ve been recovering from sunburn and sleep deprivation and up until yesterday I still felt like I was on a boat. Didn’t think I would need a vacation from a vacation. I also have been putting off this update a little bit because I am afraid it’s going to be exhaustively long. This trip was so insane and amazing and I can’t even begin to describe it so I think I am just going to do some bullet points so that I don’t have to come up with any actual structure to this post. 

• Just a quick back story if you didn’t read it in my last post, but I went to the Galapagos a year ago with my family. It was our first family vacation since the 90s and it was to celebrate my parents turning 70 and their retirement. Unfortunately my dad fell 24 hours into the trip, cut his head open on a rock and we had to go home. You can read all about that here. Luckily my parents bought travel insurance, we got all our money back and returned to the Galapagos a year later.
• The trip took place on the boat the National Geographic Explorer II with a travel company called Lindblad Expeditions. It’s somewhere between a scientific expedition and a cruise. You are with naturalists the whole time, learning things and the accommodations are pretty Spartan compared to a cruise, but also they are feeding you constantly and there’s like 4 cappuccino makers on board. Linblad is all about conservation so the trip is done on a ship to minimize environmental footprint.
• We flew into San Cristobal Island which is the Eastern most island in the archipelago. From there we traveled south to Espanola, then west to Florena before heading north to the most populated island Santa Cruz. This is where my dad spent a year in the hospital last year. Continuing north we went to Santiago and then all the way to Genevesa before heading south to Baltra the small island off the coast of Santa Cruz that was a US military base during WWII which gave the Galapagos it’s first airport and gave us a flight back to the mainland. Unfortunately the trip did not take us to Isabella, the largest island in the chain, or Fernandina the island where all those snakes didn’t kill that baby iguana. If you want to follow along here’s a map of the Galapagos. 
• Okay, let’s talk about the animals because that’s clearly the most important part. In the Galapagos there are very few predators. Everything on the islands (that wasn’t introduced by humans relatively recently) came one of three ways. They flew, they swam or they floated. Pretty much only reptiles can float all that way without starving so there aren’t any large predators. So basically if you too big for a hawk to eat you, you don’t have to worry about predators. Millions of years without predators means the fear of predators is evolved right out of you, so pretty much any animal you run into looks at you like you are a rock. You could walk up to an iguana and slap it in the face and it wouldn’t even know what to do although that kind of thing is strongly discouraged.
• Giant Tortoises: The Galapagos is famous for these monsters so clearly you want to hear about them if you are reading this. They are insane monsters and they are essentially dinosaurs, but the coolest thing about them might be how I saw them. We visited a cattle farm on Santa Cruz and they had tortoises everywhere. In the middle of the last century the Ecuadorian government offered free farm land to people who wanted to colonize the Galapagos. Many farmers took them up on this only to find that the soil was only a couple inches deep before you hit lava bedrock and packed up and went home. Some of the farmers realized they could raise cattle and Ecuador would send a boat over to pick all the cows up and pay the farmers for them. The problem is that the lowlands where all the farms were would be infested with tortoises during a certain season. The 200 year old tortoises, having a very different concept of time, would run into the barbed wire fences and just keep pushing for days until the fences would fall over and they could get to where they were going. Unfortunately the cows would escape so the farmers started killing them as pests. However, the farmer who owns the plot of land where we saw the tortoises didn’t want to kill them and he had an idea that’s so simple it’s brilliant. He just removed the lowest barbwire on the fence so the turtles could pass freely and the cows still couldn’t escape. Decades later he has 200 tortoises on his farm every year and he makes more money off tourism than he does raising cattle!
• Sea lions: Galapagos sea lions are descendants of California sea lions who got lost in a current coming down the Americas millions of years ago. The main difference between CA sea lions and Galapagos sea lions? They don’t give a fuck. Sea lions are everywhere in the Galapagos and they are fucking amazing. I was taking a video of a sea lion playing with an iguana and I almost tripped over another sea lion just living his best life laying on the beach. They seem like dogs in almost every way except they smell like fish and seem to like the water a lot more than my parent’s dog who starts trying to bite the ocean water until he gets sick and pukes. The sea lion pups will play with you in the water and when we were snorkeling one day I got way ahead of everyone and found this little cover with 2 feet deep water and high volcanic rock walls covered in crabs and suddenly a sea lion spotted me and just spent like 10 minutes playing with me. He was like splashing me and swimming all around me. It was one of the most amazing things ever.
• Fur Seals: The Galapagos also has some fur seals (who are apparently actually sea lions too) that came up from the Antarctic many many years ago. They were hunted for their fur and are more weary of humans but they do play with the sea lions and they all hang out and stuff. I somehow lucked out and had one who was very curious about me and jumped in the water and just hung out with my brother and I for a minute. They have cool mustaches like the Lorax or something and just hang upside down in the water like corks.
• Penguins! The endangered Galapagos penguins only exist on the west side of the archipelago and we didn’t make it over to Isabella, but we did go to Santiago. We were told that we MIGHT see penguins because there aren’t many that live on the island. There was a 6am hike that I skipped where people saw penguins in the distance. My parent’s went on the hike and still didn’t see them. So when we were snorkeling and suddenly there were penguins everywhere swimming around us I was so fucking psyched. They are like tiny missiles of meat zipping around underwater. One of them just stopped in front of me and just seemed to be wondering what I was up to. It was pretty fucking magical. I took a picture with this disposable plastic camera so hopefully that will come out when I develop it but I am not counting on it.
• Birds: Aside from penguins who are just fish with wings, there are a lot of damn birds on the Galapagos. The different mocking bird species on each island are how Darwin ended up coming up with the theory of evolution even though the finches are named after him. Whatever. There are three different types of boobies including the famous blue footed ones. There are frigate birds who live on a diet of fucking other birds up. They literally will attack birds until the regurgitate some fish for the frigates. They also have these giant red ball sack on their necks to attract females which is nuts. The Galapagos has the only seagulls who are nocturnal and have blood red eyes and the only owls that are awake during the day. Nothing makes sense! Oh, and they have albatrosses that are pretty fucking weird looking. On top of all of this, none of them are afraid of people and you can just walk up to them and they just look at you like you are a moving tree. It’s pretty wild.
• Iguanas: Galapagos has the only marine iguanas in the world. They eat algae because when they got to the Galapagos all they could eat was the algae on the rocks when the tides would go out and after millions of years they got better and better at holding their breath and diving under the water and eventually they grew a god damn salt gland where they can shoot excess salt out of their nose which is fucking psychotic. There are also giant land iguanas which are the size of small dogs and just trot all over the place getting in everyone’s way. We had one walk right up to us and take a shit in front of us but because I am a good person I didn’t include that photo in this gallery. You’re welcome.

Okay, there is probably a million more things to say about the Galapagos but I have to go to Dallas in the morning for a tattoo convention and I got a hockey game to watch in an hour so I gotta get these photos up and move on with my life. At least you got to hear about all the animals. That being said, when I get the film developed next week I might do a second update with film stuff if I think it’s worth it, especially if the underwater stuff turns out at all, but again, not expecting much from a plastic camera. 

Now click here to see all my (digital) photos from my (second) trip to the Galápagos Islands!

Comments (0)