April 2010 – Grand Cayman

Since I am not tied to a work schedule and Maxine had a free week, we are on our way to Grand Cayman for some scuba and sun.

July 6 – Lima to Cuzco

Another travel day.  Up early, luggage outside, shower, dress, breakfast, on to the bus, check in at airport, wait.  They do make sure that you aren’t going to miss a flight.  It is pretty nice having someone else handle all the check in and luggage details.  The flight to Cuzco was pretty short, less than an hour and considering that the landing was at over 11,000 feet, the pilot did an excellent job.  Guess what?!  Peru is going to have a national strike and our scheduled day for Machu Pucchu is that day.  So our entire Cuzco schedule is juggled.  Today, instead of a restful morning a the hotel and then a short city tour, we are going directly from the airport to the tour of the Sacred Valley.  The Sacred Valley was so named by the Incas since there is a river providing excellent water for irrigation and fertile level land.  The drive provided an interesting view of the city of Cuzco, the poor neighborhoods that surround it and beginnings of the outlying agricultural areas.  We stopped for  lunch at a lovely hacienda, right on the river and then continued to Ollantaytambo (try to say the fast five times).  This was an Inca city, with terraced hillside fields,   grain storage houses, and  of course, temples for prayer and sacrifice.  Most of the sacrifice was of animals like llama, but there is some evidence that when things got really bad, like a severe drought, the occasional human might be offered to the gods.  It is amazing that after 500 years, much of the irrigation systems that were carved out of the rock to provide water to the terraces are still there and fully functional.  After that, we returned to  Cuzco, checked into our hotel, had a very nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.  The menu featured both traditional and local Andean cuisine.  Having had some grilled alpaca at lunch, I felt it necessary to try the salad with fried guinea pig.   I can’t say that it had any special flavor, since it was prepared a lot like a chicken nugget, it sort of tasted that way.  That was quite a day at 11,000 feet and Machu Picchu is tomorrow.

July 5 – Galapagos to Guayaquil to Lima

Wow!  One entire day spent traveling.  Up early to have breakfast and get out of our cabin.  It always seems like such a shock when a cruise ends.  Your cabin, your steward, your waiter and tomorrow they will belong to someone else.  Like everything else on this cruise it was done very professionally.  The luggage had been collected the night before and early in the morning it had been taken off the ship by Zodiac and trucked to the airport.  We never had to touch it.  We knew there was going to be a wait at the airport and it turned out to be a hour longer than expected since the charter flight was a bit late.  Most passengers were going onward to Quito, but 11 of us got off in Guayaquil to continue on the tour to Machu Picchu.  We claimed our baggage and went to international departures and checked them for our flight to Lima.  We then had a short bus trip to a hotel in town for a nice buffet lunch.  Then back to the airport for our flight to Lima.  We were met and taken to our Lima hotel, the Country Club.  It  was a very nice hotel.  How nice?  The President of China (or some similar high Chinese official) was staying the in Presidential Suite.   Up early tomorrow for a flight to Cuzco.

June 28 – Quito to Galapagos

Up very early for our flight from Quito to the Islands.  How early, well the checked luggage needed to be outside the room in the hallway by 5:00am.  Since we didn’t want it to sit there all night, the alarm sounded at 4:45 and we were off and running.  The hotel opened the buffet breakfast at 5:00 and we were there not long after.  At 6:15 we joined a short queue to pick up our travel documents:  pre-printed boarding passes for the airplane, Galapagos entry cards ($10.00) and Galapagos National Park entry forms ($100.00).  The buses were waiting and it took a very short time to get to the airport, not much traffic that early on a Sunday morning.  One thing was a bit of a surprise, we had been told that the flights were on Tame, the Ecuadorian National Airline, but instead we were on a charter flight on AeroGal.  Not a flying female, but a contraction for Aerolines Galapagos.  Turns out that they are very good.  The aircraft was a recently refurbished 757 and the service was excellent.  We flew first from Quito to Guayaquil, about 35 minutes and made a stop for fuel and to board a few more passengers.  From there, another hour and a half got us to Baltra.

The arrival procedures were amazing.  We had to (1) have our passports checked, (2) Have our entry card punched, (3) have our entry forms stamped and stapled, (4) have our carry-on bags checked for contraband (fruits and such), (5) sign in with the cruise desk and (6) board the bus to the ship. The trip was only about 10 minutes and we arrived at the pier.    The introduction to the wildlife of the Galapagos didn’t take long.  There was a sea lion sleeping on the bench at the pier.  The ship doesn’t dock, we climbed onto a Zodiac and were shuttled out to the ship.

By about 2:00, everybody and everything was on board and the ship sailed.  Unlike most cruises where the initial sail might be several days, this one was several minutes and by 3:30 we were anchored at our first stop, North Seymour Island.    The island was nothing like you would picture a tropical island.  Rather, picture a piece of the desert from the area around Tucson placed on a small island.  No trees and almost no green bushes.  More scrub and cactus.  After a short Zodiac ride we were at our first island.  Almost immediately we began to see the famous animals of the Galapagos even before we got on land.   Frigate Birds were in full mating activities with the males displaying their famous red pouches and the Blue Footed Boobies were sitting on the rocks.  As we landed and began our walk, we started to see more of the Frigate birds and many more Blue Footed Boobies.  We were also able to see many more Sea lions and Fur Seals.  Actually the fur seal of the Galapagos is another form of sea lion, not a real seal, (whatever the difference is) and is smaller than the one that is called a sea lion.  There were many infant sea lions and seals, small and cute like so many infants of most mammal species.   There were also fledgling Blue Footed Boobies.  We also got our first glimpse of the famous marine iguanas and the land iguanas.  Then, back to the ship to experience the excellent dinner.

June 29 – Galapagos

One of the things that the Galapagos are famous for is the scuba diving.  Since the waters are cold because of the Humboldt Current, you don’t see many of the colorful tropical fish, but there are some and there are many unique species.   When I checked before we came about scuba diving, I was told, depending on who I was talking to, that scuba would be available if there were 15 divers on board, or maybe 10 divers on board, or maybe it wouldn’t be available at all.  The truth is that the ship doesn’t do scuba, but there are three places during the week where we are close enough to towns that have scuba shops for them to come out and take the people who wish to dive to a local site.  Monday was the first of these.  The ship stopped at a location called Kicker Rock for most of the passengers to look at from the Zodiac.  Three of us were picked up and taken to the base of the rock.  We jumped in and drifted through the channel between the parts of the rock.  We saw a couple of Galapagos sharks as well as several local fish.  The second dive was a the corner of the rock where the current flows.  We dropped in, and hid behind a rock, hoping that interesting fish would come to us.  Nothing special came by, but as we were leaving we spotted several hammerhead sharks swimming by.  Unfortunately, they didn’t stop to pose for a good picture.  Then back to the ship to have lunch and prepare for the afternoon trip to Espanola. 

 

Another trip by Zodiac to the island where we were told we might see several types of birds.  That proved to be an understatement.  As soon as we had landed, we had to step aside on the walkway to allow the marine iguanas to cross, and there wasn’t just one or two.  There were literally hundreds of them in piles, warming on the black rocks.  It looked like the snake scene from Indiana Jones.  As we walked the path we saw more evidence of how tame these animals are and totally unafraid of humans.  Right in the middle of the path a Nazca booby had decided to take a nap.  He woke up a bit as the tour group crowded around him, but realized we were just taking pictures and went right back to sleep.  Further on we came to a blow hole, about the same size as Spouting Horn in Hawaii and with about the same size spout  It must bother the birds since directly down wind was one of the few places there weren’t birds.  Just a bit on we came to an opening in the brush.  The albatross are so poor at landing and taking off that the require a large flat area, sort of their local airport.   The seem to taxi up (waddle) take off and when they return, they taxi to their nesting area.  Once airborne, they are fabulous flyers.  We were fortunate to have a nesting pair with a very young chick right by the path.  Again, we were able to stand and observe for several  minutes without the birds seeming to care.   Then we fought our way through the sea lions and marine iguanas and back to the ship.

June 30 – Galapagos

Today we are spending the whole day at Floreana Island.  The morning is a land tour and then snorkeling. This was are first “wet” landing where the Zodiac  just pulls up on a sandy beach and we hop out into the surf.  Fortunately, it was quite calm and the water only came up calf deep.  We were prepared with appropriate footwear, so it wasn’t a big issue.  Our first stop  was at a brackish lagoon where there was a colony of Greater Flamingo.  This is the first time I have ever seen them in the wild (unless you could the plastic ones on peoples front lawns).  They are amazingly pink and look strange when in flight.  We then walked over a small hill to a beautiful white sand beach where there were several depressions in the sand that are turtle nests.  You can even see the tracks where the turtles have “walked” across the sand to lay their eggs.   After the return to the ship, we left almost immediately for a drift snorkel at Champion Island.   They dropped us in at one side and followed along in the Zodiacs, picking us up on the other side of the island after the current had taken us there.  There were several schools of Surgeon Fish but the highlight was the sea lions coming to play with us.

The afternoon was another trip to Floreana, this time to “Mystery Bay”.   The Zodiac cruised around  a mangrove inlet looking for interesting animals.  We found turtles, sting rays and, of course, more sea lions.  There was also a climb to the top of an observation tower for an overlook view of the area.  The highlight was a long (shaggy dog long) story  told by the naturalist about the Baroness of Floreana and her trials, tribulations and assorted lovers.  It was almost more fun than the nature talk.

 

July 1 – Galapagos

Even though it doesn’t matter at all, this morning I became eligible for Medicare.  Somehow, I don’t feel old enough.  Medicare is for those elderly people.

This morning we anchored off of Bachas Beach on Santa Cruz Island.  It is a beach that would make a perfect setting for either a steamy romance novel or a pirate tale.  It is perfect fine white sand with the occasional black lava outcropping.  As we approached the beach it appeared that there were several sea lions hauled out in the sun.  As we got close enough to see clearly, it turned out that they weren’t sea lions, but rather brown pelicans.  Our guide had never seen them be so tame with tourists all around, perhaps they have been hanging with fishermen and learning to eat the cleanings.  After our “wet” landing we walked  the beach, finding several new items and repeats of several from earlier islands.  The marine iguanas are of a different variety and don’t have any of the red coloration of the ones we saw earlier on other islands.  There were several sets of turtle tracks leading to a part of the beach with  literally dozens if not hundreds of turtle nests.   We walked to another set of brackish lagoons and found more flamingos, these appeared younger as they weren’t quite so pink (they get more pink as they eat more shrimp and absorb more of the die from the them.)   I guess Darwin was right, the animals on each of the islands are similar, but different, adapted to the specific foods and environment available to them. 

The afternoon excursion was to Bartolome Island for some snorkeling but primarily to see the penguins.  Galapagos penguins are the most northerly penguins, kind of obvious since most of them are in Antarctica and these are on the equator.  They are small, about 18 inches tall (second smallest, smallest are the Fairy Penguins in New Zealand and Australia).  Like all penguins, they look like little men in tux and are incredibly cute.  We were warned that there was always the possibility that there wouldn’t be any, but that is always the way when setting out to view wildlife.  I guess we were fortunate, there was a single bird right at the entrance to the channel and another group of three a bit further along.  All of them seem to have been expecting us and stepped right out to pose.  The group of three turned out to be mommy, daddy and baby with the baby staying on the rock while the parents went off to fish.   After the boat ride we landed at a sandy beach for snorkeling.  This was a perfect place.  Lots of fish, Blue Footed Boobies diving right where we were snorkeling and a couple of penguins came along to swim with us.  Celebrity must be paying the animals well to have them perform like this.

July 2 - Galapagos

Today we will visit two islands, Isabela and Frenandina.  The morning stop was at Urbina Bay on Isabela for a short walk into the scrub to look for our first sighting of the giant tortoises.  Urbina Bay is a lovely little inlet with lava rock on both sides and a pebbly black sand beach.  The area was sea bottom until a sudden upwelling in the 1950s.  It happened so fast that fish were caught inland, a testament to the volcanic activity of these islands.  Isabela is one of the newest of the island and features five active volcanoes.  We didn’t see any live tortoises, but they did have a skeleton along the trail to explain the anatomy of the animals, how they grow and the differences between the species on the various islands.  We did see several of the land iguanas, larger than the marine iguanas and a beautiful golden color.   The marine iguanas sit on the black volcanic rock and their color blends perfectly.  These land iguanas disappear into the dry brush and grass.  When we returned to the beach, there were several juvenile Galapagos Hawks waiting for a cheap meal when the baby sea turtles hatch.

For us, lunch was a BBQ buffet on the deck.  Perfect weather with calm seas, sunny skies and perfect warm breezes.

After a short (in distance) cruise, we arrived (after several hours) at Frenandina Island.  This is the newest island in the chain with volcanic activity as recently as March 2009. There are many raw lava fields where the plants haven’t yet had the chance to take hold so they are just large expanses of black rock.  Where the sea touches the land, the algae and  similar marine plants have taken hold and with it the algae grazing animals.  This is one of the largest colonies of marine iguanas, in fact, one of the things we had to watch out for was to make sure we didn’t step on them, they were that thick.  I love to watch them swimming.  It seems so natural, even if they are totally unique.  This island also has a nesting colony of  Flightless Cormorants.   It is interesting listening to people attempt to explain in Darwinian terms how they lost the ability to fly.  It is so easy to attribute desire….they “wanted to swim” or chance…they “didn’t need them so they disappeared”.  In any case, the mating rituals were fun to watch.  This was also an opportunity to view the sea turtles resting on the beach.  They are another grazer on the algae so the richness of the vegetation attracted several.

July 3 – Galapagos

Many years ago, when Dan was about 8, we took him to places like Stonehenge, Jerusalem, and the Alhambra.  Our next trip was to Greece and he welcomed the Acropolis with “Not more old rocks!”   Well, Maxine has reached the point where is it “Not more marine iguanas!”  This morning on Santiago Island we started our walk by visiting another colony.  This time they again had the reddish sides from eating the red algae.  It was a bit cloudy so they weren’t very active and kept the tight clusters to maintain their warmth. From there we went to a tidal pool that was full of sea birds, pelicans, oyster catchers and, of course, Blue Footed Boobies.  It is always fun to watch the pelicans with their very awkward landings and the boobies with their incredible arrow-like dives.  There were also a few land birds, finches and yellow warblers.  There was also a very large patch of Morning Glories, a vine that grows on the sand dunes, trumpet shaped purple flowers and a major nectar source for the carpenter bees.  Further along the beach, we came to some collapsed lava tubes that have opened up and they call them the “Sea Lion Grottos”. They are interconnected to the ocean with lava bridges dividing them into several separate  pools.  There were sea lions (the fur seal variety) playing in the water.

 

The afternoon was a visit to Santa Cruz Island.  There wasn’t much new to see and we decided to just hang at the beach and do some snorkeling.  It was a bit rocky at the landing but the beach was nice white sand.  The area just off the beach was quite shallow with several rocky outcroppings.  This led to several areas with interesting fish and a sting ray hiding in the sand between the rocks.  The highlight was just to the right of the beach where there was a small cave, probably the result of a collapsed lava tube.  It couldn’t have been more than 20 feet off the beach and right on the sandy bottom of the cave were three white tip reef sharks.  I’m sure we were more an annoyance to them than they would be to us, but it was fun to see them “up close and personal”.  Then back to the ship for dinner and evening activities.  Tomorrow is our last full day.

July 4 – Galapagos

Happy 4th of July.  Somehow, here in the middle of the Galapagos the day seems not to be very special.  It is just the last day of our cruise and, finally, our visit to the tortoises.  The ship had a very short journey and anchored early in Port Ayora.  The morning tour was to the Charles Darwin Research Center.  There were originally 13 species of giant tortoises.  Today, two are considered extinct and one is down to its last individual, called Lonesome George since there are no longer any females of his species.   One of the others was down to less than 15 individuals when the captive breeding was established.  The Darwin  center has a captive breeding population for the species on the edge, but is also concerned with growing the populations of all the varieties back to close to pre-human levels.  To this end, they will find breeding females in the wild and follow them, collect the eggs and then artificially incubate them.  The young are then carefully raised at the Center until they are large enough (about five years and the size of a dinner plate) to survive in the wild.  When hatched, they are about 2-3 inches across and so small that they can be prey to rats.  They are kept in pens with wire lids until they reach about 5 inches and can survive outside.  There are two main varieties, the dome and the saddle.  Usually we see the dome ones, when you see the saddle, it is very obvious where they get the name.  We were able to see the tiny and small individuals as well as enter the pens where they keep some of the breeding stock.  All in all, it was a very interesting and informative visit.

In the afternoon we visited a farm where they keep a pasture open for the tortoises.  The animals have been migrating through here for millennia, they have just made it a bit more attractive so they hang around a while longer.  It gives the tourists a chance to wander around the animals without harm to either man nor beast.  It was quite an experience to get up close and personal with a tortoise that might weigh as much as 500 pounds.

Then back to the ship for our last night.  Tomorrow morning we leave and head to Lima.