Galapagos: North Seymour

We took an early flight to the Galapagos Islands on Sunday. I took some cool photos from the plane of the Cotopaxi and Chimborazo volcanoes, so I'll have to post those sometime. Anyway, the flight would have been much shorter if we hadn't had to land in Guayaquil first, but at least we didn't have to change planes.

The Galapagos airport is on a small island called Baltra. The airport was originally built by the US military to protect the Panama Canal during WWII. The military handed it over to the Ecuadorean government after the war, and it's served as the Galapagos airport ever since. In any case, this was the most ghetto airport we've ever been in by far. The conditions weren't terrible, but it was very small and all of the buildings were open-air. Kind of weird.

We were driven to a nearby dock and then taken to the ship via Zodiac inflatable boat. This would be our transportation to and from land for the next week. After we dropped off our stuff in our room, we had a buffet lunch and then hung out for a while. After a short drill, we were off to our first stop, North Seymour island. North Seymour was very dry, with a fair amount of brush and cactus. It was here that we discovered that most of the trails that we'd be on would be clearly marked, and that we would not be permitted to stray much from those trails. I loved this vacation and there are few things about it that I would change, but this was one of them. I like to wander around and do my own thing, and this is not allowed in the Galapagos Islands. You have to stay on trails and you have to be accompanied by a registered guide. Bummer.

We quickly discovered that what people say about the animals in the islands is true: they're abundant and they don't fear people. You can walk up to or next to them, and for the most part they won't flinch, won't run away, won't attack you. It's very unusual and unlike anything I've seen anywhere else in the world.

The vast majority of our stops included "long" and "short" hikes; we always opted for the "long" hikes, and I'm glad we did. I felt like we saw more, spent more time on land, and the hikes were anything but strenuous, except for one hike up to the top of a hill to catch the view below (more on that later).

I'll let the animals and the scenery do the rest of the talking for me.

Typical North Seymour terrain:



Sea Lions:



Frigate bird:



Yellow warbler:



Our first marine iguana:



Our first land iguana:



Another land iguana (we would quickly discover they were everywhere in the islands, and each island pretty much has its own varieties, with different colors and sizes):



Blue-footed booby:



Baby blue-footed booby:



Another sea lion:



Blue-footed booby:



Great frigate (fascinating how they puff up those red sacs like that):



Blue-footed boobies mating:



Galapagos dove:



Our ship, the Celebrity Xpedition:



Sunset that evening: