Tuesday, June 15 1999 - Arrival at Galapagos

Hello fellow world travellers,

we have finally arrived at what is going to be one of the high spots of our tour, ‘Las Islas Encantadas’ the ‘Enchanted Isles’ the Galapagos Islands’. I cannot possibly write a full account of the geology, climate, history, flora and fauna, and Darwin’s unparalleled contribution to natural science today - it would be more than my synapses could handle.

I hope to just set the stage a little today for what is going to be a thrilling and fascinating couple of weeks. I shall be feeding material into the science page, roughly in the order listed above, over the next couple of weeks, such that by the end of our stay here I hope to have touched on most of the relevant topics concerning the Galapagos Islands and hopefully will have passed on a little of the magical aura that surrounds these Islands, so bare with me, it should be a wonderful journey.

We are anchored in Academy bay, on the south east coast of Santa Cruz. The main town on the Island is Puerto Ayora.

My first impressions- obviously by dint of my occupatio9n the first thing I noticed was the shape of the Island. It has the classic gently sloping, domed shape of a basaltic shield volcano (similar to the Hawaiian Islands). The flanks of which are dotted with parasitic scoria cones.

We have a great deal of official paper work to get through, before we can embark on our tour of the islands proper. We need permission from innumerable agencies, and must present a relatively firm schedule to the Director of Galapagos National Park. However, considering that the Galapagos Islands have been designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO, this seems only right and proper. I am happy to see that the authorities are doing all they can to make the Islands accessible to people but also to conserve them for future generations to wonder over, as I am sure we will.

Sally lightfoot crab, named for a Spanish dancer who wore a red dress

We were able to go on land this afternoon into Puerto Ayora. This is a small but thriving town, which caters very much to the ever-increasing number of tourists. There is a supermarket, innumerable bars and gift stores, even a disco and Internet café. This would be extremely disappointing were it not for the fact that the some of the Galapagos wildlife displayed on every T-shirt is to be seen even within the environs of the town. Marine Iguanas, looking like miniature black dragons waiting to be slain by a tiny St George lay basking on the basalt jetties and on the seaward sun terraces of many bars. The sea walls were alive with brightly coloured red-orange and black Zayapas Crabs (Sally Lightfoot Crabs).

The animals were not so much easy to spot, but lay there so blatantly that one almost overlooked them. We walked through the town heading east along the coast for a quick visit to the Darwin Station. The well laid out paths are made of bright red scoria and all the way we saw Lava Lizards with their delicately speckled brown and cream backs and bright orange necks.

Yellow Warbler on Santa Cruz

Darwin’s Finches were everywhere in the vegetation along the sides of the path. They flitted in and out, proving irritatingly difficult to photograph and identify. I can however say with relative certainty that I spotted the black, heavily beaked Large-billed ground finch, and possibly also the Cactus Finch. Also very much in evidence were Yellow Warblers, Espanola mockingbirds, and amongst the mangroves I also spotted a Lava Heron.

I will only report briefly on the Charles Darwin Research Station at this point. One of their programmes is the breeding and rearing of Giant Tortoises. Eggs are collected from endangered subspecies, and hatchlings are reared until 3 or 4 years old before being released into wild. They also have full-grown examples of the subspecies particularly at risk

Giant Tortoises, two heads are better then one!

Now for flora lovers, a word to the vegetation. The town was brightly decked out with scarlet Hibiscus and deep pink bougainvillea, but around the Darwin Station there were examples of the more typical island vegetation; Giant opuntia cactus (up to 4m high) with its paddle-shaped leaves branching off a central thick, orange-brown trunk, the branching Jasminocereus cacti, also up to about 3m, and the ubiquitous Red Mangrove all along the shore. More esoteric, you’ll probably have to look this one up… Parkinsonia aculeate.

Well that was just a taster of the things that are to come

Stay posted until tomorrow

Janet