Where to start... I picked up a last minute 4 day 3 night tour of the southern Galapagos Islands in Quito for $820 on the luxury class catamaran Millennium. There are primarily three tours people do - 4 days of the northern islands which are mostly (but not entirely) scenic, 5 days of the southern islands which contain more animals, and 8 days of everything. There are also 4 classes of boats to choose ranging from Tourist class, higher tourist, luxury, then first class. Including the cruise, $416 for flights (locals pay only $45!), $100 for park entry and $10 for an entry card, the total came to just over $1300. I had a last minute emergency discovering thay my travel insurance had expired 3 days earlier and had to call Australia long distance but in the end got it all worked out (and found out just how expensive travel insurance is!!). Before I left I also tried another local food (not quite as exotic as guinea pig) - hot chocolate with cheese. Not as bad or strange as it sounds.

Arriving (late thanks to Aerogal) I was met at San Cristobal airport by the guide and found the other 8 passengers already on board the boat refilling with fresh water. I had a quick lunch, relaxed in the sun on one of the 3 sun decks then we headed to a museum for some history and general information. Other in the trip had been told we would have additional excursions the first day but as it turned out we spent the rest of the day onboard the boat sitting in the harbour and did`t head for the next island until 2am the next morning. You always travel at night and waking up to the view of a new island out my bedroom window each morning was one of my favourite things. That and showering with the bathroom window wide open to the view outside - you did have to keep an eye out for any passing craft and people, and more than once I almost went out the window when the boat swayed one way and I went the other. Along with having our rooms cleaned twice a day when we were ashore, we had amazing food and that night was fish, turkey, and strawberries and sweetened cream.

The first morning we woke up at Española Island, Gardner Bay. After breakfast we had a wet landing on the island, and walked through a Mockingbord fight for the water they could smell in our water bottles, many resting sea lions, Darwin finches, crabs, sea iguanas, and after the walk along the beach jumped in the water for a snorkel. At one point I heard a splash, and looked to see two sea lions swim straight by me. They were fast, and as our guide told us, sharks can swim 4 times faster.
After lunch and a `mandatory` siesta (which I took on the top deck in the sun) we headed for Punta Suarez on Española Island for a walk among the animals. Among those we saw were: sea lions, marine iguanas, mockingbirds, darwin finches, lava lizards, blue footed boobies (there are t shirts you can buy with `I love boobies` written on them), nazca boobies, endemic plants, galapagos doves, galapagos hawks, albatross, and a blow hole. Often many of these can be seen at once, I often felt like I was walking in some sort of animal theme park, there was so much variety in such close proximity to each other, and so tame that you could literally touch (not that you are allowed to) almost all of the animals. Another great dinner of roast beef and mushrooms, potato bake, calamari, asparagus with mustard sauce and stuffed apples, but as the sea was a bit rough that evening a few people didn`t make dinner and a few others retired to their rooms for a `rest` part way through. I managed to keep mine down.

Next morning, rolling towards the open window on my left I found we had arrived at our next destination with flat seas, Floreana Island, Cormorant Point. I could hear the sounds of splashing outside so peered over the side of my deck to find pelicans fishing, and larger fish leaping out of the water also catching their fishy breakfast. More sea lions, darwin finches and yellow finches greeted us, along with a snorkel with large sea turtles. At one point I had a sea turtle on my left and a sea lion cruising by on my right.
The afternoon we stopped off at Post Office Bay - so called because it is the sight of the oldest post office in South America, stared in 1792 by pirates to pass along messages. I made a makeshift postcard out of a Galapagos map a friendly Ecuadorian teacher had given me on the trip from Cuenca to Baños, dropped it in the mail. The post office works by hand delivery, no stamp required. Look through the pile, find one in your home town and hand deliver it to the recipient. There were a few postcards but many I saw had a 2009 date. More snorkeling with sea turtles and I actually lost count of how many I saw. Some of the, the females, are huge, their shells alone measuring close to 1.5 metres, and they are so close I had 3-4 on all sides of me. While waiting for our ride back to the cat, 4 blue footed boobies put on a diving show for us, dropping out of the sky into the water to catch unsuspecting fish.

Last morning we woke up in Puerto Ayora where we had arrived the night before, a cheeky shower with an open window and hopefully no one watching (we caught one of the members of our group naked in the shower when we returned after them), and we had to leave our floating home for the last 3 days. We took a trip into the highlands of the island to see giant land tortoises that made a hissing sound and withdrew into their shells when scared, and then carried on to see lava tubes created by old lava flows that you can now walk through.

Getting back to the island and finding my accomodation for the next three nights, I splashed out on a mixed seafood grill of calamari, fish, scallops, lobster and the best octopus I have ever tasted. A bit expensive at $30 including beer, taxes and tip (which is always included in the bill). As I didn`t feel I was quite yet done with the Galapagos yet, I went searching for a 4 day boat cruise of the northern islands, but none were available for the next few days, so I booked a dive for the next day insead. Others in my cruise had seen 4 day northern island cruises for a little over $400, and as I found out one night, they had booked their cruises on the islands and some had paid as little as $650, and I thought I was getting a bargain at $820.

Up just before 7am I headed to the dive shop where I had been kitted out for wetsuit, mask and fins, boots and BCD (boyancy control device) the day earlier, and met the other 4 to be diving that day. I was lucky, the dive site, Gordon Rocks, we were going to has quite a strong current and other companies will only take divers with more than 20 dives udner their belt. All the others in my group were well over that with one guy up around 80, but that was dwarfed by the guide / dive master who was up somewhere around 9000 dives. On the way out we saw whales along side the boat, and manta rays breaching the water in the distance.

The first dive took me about 15 minutes to get my breathing under control, not having dived since my PADI in Thailand 7 months earlier, but all was fine and we were soon dropping down to a depth of 25 metres where the others saw a school of maybe 25 hammerhead sharks which I only saw the end 6 of. The second dive we were straight in and dropped down to just over 20 metres, where at one point we had to hold onto rocks on the side of an udnerwater cliff to steady ourselves for a few mintes against the current. We swam through large schools of many types of fish, saw more hammerheads, and just as we surfaced and were waiting to be picked up by the boat, one of the guys saw some mants rays splashing about on the surface. We headed over and were greeted with a school of maybe 40-50 mants rays cruising on by. They were a little curious of us, would head towards you then vear away, and just when I thought we had swam through them all either another school or the same one turned back and swam around us again. An excellent day diving for $130 and another two dives under my belt.

Getting back to Quito and mainland Ecuador turned out to be quite exhausting. Once againg Aerogal (the company I was flying with) was late, and then later, and after more promises of arrivals and then more failed promises, after an 8am arrival at the airport we were finally on the plane sometime around 4pm, and didn`t reach my hostel in Quito until 10pm that night. We had to fly via Guyaquil as all flights into and out of the Galapagos do, and there was a large fire burning at one side of a runway with 3 emergency vehicles with lights flashing, but no explanation of what was happening. The other airline, TAME, arrived and departed with no problems. Moral of the story - do not fly Aerogal. 2 flights with them both late, a 100% failure! And to add to their crapness, I found, going against stickers on the table in front of me, the emergency card in the seat pocket, and the directions of the airhostesses during their emergency drills, my life vest not under my seat my tucked behind magazines in the seat pocket in front. I checked and it was not just mine - the two people beside me also had their life vest hidden away in seat pockets.

I think this must be the longest one I`ve written so far so will end it now, you can see from the photos what an amazing place it is, definately worth a visit, and definately worth grabbing a last minute price from here rather than booking from home. Today I took a long trip out to the ecuator line and balanced eggs on nails and drained water in different hemispheres to prove water drains in different directions (and straight down on the ecuator line!), and tomorrow I am off to the Amazon for 4 days. Leave 11pm tonight on an overnight bus arriving sometime around 6am tomorrow morning to take a short drive then jump on motorised canoes to head for our accomodation in the jungle for the next three nights..... time to keep moving.