Oldies On Tour

Thursday 9^th & Friday 10^th May

Well today is the day, the day we start the long trek back to UK and then onto Spain.  Again we were early to bed last night so naturally this morning we were wide awake at 0700hrs, showered and down for our last lingering breakfast in the Galapagos and enjoying the view by 0800hrs.  We had been told our taxi driver would be collecting us at 0930hrs but imagine our shock when the bell boy collected our bags at 0830hrs saying our driver had arrived!  A quick scurry round, into reception to settle our bill only to find our driver was not waiting, we think they just wanted us out of the room for an early clean.  That didn’t work as we went back to complete what we had started earlier!

0920hrs our driver actually arrived, he loaded our bags into the water taxi, we followed and we were off.  Out of the water taxi and into a Toyota Pick Up truck, that is what they use as Taxis here, and the ¾ hour drive back to the ferry which takes us across onto Baltra where the airport is situated.

Our taxi driver had accompanied us all the way and deposited our bags and us at the check in queue where we said our good bye’s, only to find when we arrived at the counter our flight was running 1½ late, there’s a surprise!!!  We sat down for a cuppa when we suddenly heard our names called out over the tannoy system, oh we thought, they may be putting us an earlier flight as we had pestered them about our connecting flight to Madrid, but no, one of our bags tripped their security system and it had to be checked.  Christine went out to open only to find they were worried by the wind chime she had bought as a souvenir; why this tripped their security we can’t think; back again to the Café for another wait.  Apparently this flight originated in Quito where the Ecuadorians have built this new modern airport, flying via Guayaquil to Galapagos but, this new airport suffered bad weather and all flights were delayed!!!!

Anyway we did the security thing, got “booked” out of the Galapagos Islands and were waiting at the gate by 1330hrs, the time we were told to be there.  Our ‘plane eventually arrived around 1400hrs and was turned around by 1430hrs, two and a half hours later than planned, we took off.  By now we realised we would miss our connection but had already decided that an extra day in Guayaquil would be very acceptable, but no.  Upon landing there was a LAN rep collecting all the folks who had missed the original flight and organised us onto a later flight.

This new flight was heaving, not a spare seat anywhere and worse, it was a very old Airbus, and the trolley dolly said it was due to be scrapped. I agree it should, it was one of the most uncomfortable seats I have sat on in an aeroplane and worse, it didn’t have the entertainment screens in the seat backs that we have become accustomed to; it was like flying in the late 80’s early 90’s when there was only one film on a big screen and it was pot luck if you liked it or not.

We arrived in Madrid next morning, our time, but in fact it was 1400hrs Spanish time. To be fair to both the Captain and the old aeroplane, between them both they made up quite a lot of the lost time but not enough to catch our Heathrow flight.

Again we were placed on a later flight but this time we were on a brand new aeroplane with all the bells and whistles and full entertainment system but unfortunately being only a short flight, we didn’t have sufficient time to watch a film, oh dear you can’t win in this world!!

In the end, after the changes and delays we arrived at Heathrow 2 hours later than originally planned.  The combination of Iberia and LAN Airlines and their staff did us proud, apart from the extra wait in Galapagos, everything went extremely well.

The other worry we had was, will our bags arrive with us bearing in mind the flight changes etc., so you can imagine our anxiety whilst we watched the conveyor belt going round with everybody’s bags on but ours, and then, there it was, our first bag. We then relaxed, assuming that if one bag arrived OK the other would soon be following; it was.

Heathrow, Terminal 5 is a very civilised terminal building, as yet not too busy so we were soon through and onto the Heathrow Express and 20 minutes later we had arrived at Paddington Station; far better than catching the tube into London.  We jumped into a cab and arrived at Andrew’s new flat in Soho ½ an hour later.  We got caught in the Friday night rush hour, theatre traffic, as well as every red traffic light en-route, still we arrived into Soho’s buzzing atmosphere with Andrew waiting at the corner to meet us.

After a “proper” cup of tea we ventured out for a meal, Andrew took us to a Japanese restaurant which was very busy but nice food, after which we had a couple of pints of good, true, British real ale in one of Soho’s many old pubs. This was a very satisfying end, to an extremely happy and exciting honeymoon.

Once we had decided where we wanted to visit for this special holiday, we were recommended to use “Select Latin America” they advised us and made many itinerary suggestions before we finally decided on what we wanted.  Select Latin America then organised everything for us, they told us when to get to Heathrow and from then right through ‘till we arrived back to Heathrow, 25 days later, everything went according to plan.  At every juncture where we had to change hotels, flights, trains etc., etc., they had a personal representative waiting to collect us and send us on the next part of the journey.  We both had a wonderful time and we have to thank David Howell and Luke Charny for organising everything but notably, their attention to detail; it was first class.

Wednesday 8^th May 2013

Beach at Waterfront Hotel

Up at a reasonable hour today, had a relaxing breakfast, and then decided to walk to the beach, only five minutes away, we meandered down many paths before we actually found it, not the cleanest we have since, but it was ok. We paddled for awhile until we decided to look at Finch Bay Hotel, Lulu and Nigel had stayed there a couple of days earlier.

We asked if we could get coffee, and then asked if we could use

Finch Bay Hotel

the pool, sadly ours has not got one; the answer was yes at a cost! So we decided to make ourselves comfortable and relax by the pool, for the day, we did not want to go anywhere, think we have covered most things.

Fruit Le Mar

At lunchtime we had the nicest Fruit del Mar I have ever tasted, no shells just fish, prawns and green lipped mussels, we then had desert, mine was a hot chocolate, inside a sponge, with ice-cream and Geoff had Cherry Ravioli, he enjoyed it as well.

After lots of swimming, and relaxing, we walked back to our Hotel, showered and changed, we then had some Mojita and

Overlooking the waterfront

Geoff had his Dry Martini Classico, followed by a lovely dinner, sitting overlooking the harbour, very nice.

We have thoroughly enjoyed the last few days, thank you Dave and Jane for treating us, it was so good to come of the boat, and just chill out for two days.

We have had an amazing time, going places we would not have dreamt of, and a big thank-you to Select Latin America for arranging such a brilliant trip for us, we would certainly recommend them.

Tuesday 7^th May

Black Turtle Cove with a stingray going through the water

We had a rude, though expected, awakening this morning when the boats engine started up around 0500hrs.  We had to be up and ready to board the dingy at 0600hrs for a trip into the “Black Turtle Cove” all this before breakfast would you believe, though we did manage to down a cup of tea before we left!!!

We entered this cove just as the sun was rising, this was a first

Mangroves

as though we were always up early, we hadn’t managed to see the sun actually rise.  Once in through the entrance the cove opened up into a big lake surrounded by Mangroves and as it was a very low tide many of the roots were exposed and the water was very shallow.  This shallow water helped us spot many a creature.

Golden Rays

As we travelled around the cove we saw a variety of different sub species of Rays, White Tip Sharks, Turtles, Pelicans and on the way out of the cove, naturally a solitary blue footed Booby was there to wave us good bye!!  The whole party was a little apprehensive about this early start, especially as it was our day for departure but

Turtles swimming in bay

we were all very glad to have had this opportunity to make this one last boat ride.

We were back on board for breakfast at 0730hrs where we enjoyed Scrambled eggs and crispy bacon together with the customary plate of cheese, toast and jam.  By 0900hrs we had completed breakfast, packed all our bags, paid our bar bills, exchanged e mail address’ and we were, as instructed, waiting for our transport to the airport.

At this point I must say how well we all bonded.  Our age range started in mid twenties and went up to late sixties, yet everybody got along very well.  Apart from the first night, we were always mixed up around the table at each meal and the conversations generally involved everyone which much laughter most of the time.  , Duncan joined us for tonight’s meal and though he was very diplomatic with many of his comments, he seemed to enjoy this party; let’s hope we all contributed well into his “tips” envelope, he certainly deserved them; he was a very knowledgeable fellow or a great storyteller; we hope it was the former!!!!!

The bus eventually arrived so we jumped into the dingy for one last ride across to the landing stage where our bus was waiting, and 10 minutes later we were collecting our baggage and saying our farewells, promising to keep in touch with each other; I wonder!!!  We were off to the Angermeyer Waterfront Inn back in Puerto Ayora, the town where we first boarded the Beagle.  The rest of the party queued to book onto their flight for Guayaquil, leaving a couple of hours later, after which they would all go their separate ways.

We enjoyed a short coach ride, (the whole coach to ourselves), to the strip of water separating the two Islands, Baltra and Santa Cruz, then a short boat hop across the channel followed by a Taxi ride for the 42 Kms to the Waterfront Inn.

We checked into our room, “The Penguin”, (no number) and enjoyed a hot shower and a relaxing and un-winding lay on the bed.

Later we took a water taxi back into the town as we were desperate for cash; we had been having trouble getting our cards to work in various ATM’s at both the airport in Quito and the ATM here in Puerto Ayora, so armed with passport etc., went into the local bank and eventually managed to get cash.  I am very annoyed with my Bank, NatWest, as I specifically rang them before we left and said we were travelling Peru Ecuador and the Galapagos, and please mark my account accordingly, do not stop my card; so what do they do, yes that’s right, put a block on my card.  Now I didn’t contact the Nationwide to tell them our plans, and that was the card that worked!!! Anyway, armed with Dollars again, we had lunch in a local restaurant.  We then mooched about and found the LAN offices so decided we would see if we could book our seats for the long flight back but of course, we hadn’t got the flight details, so water Taxi back to the Hotel, collect flight details and taxi back across bay and we walked into the LAN offices for the second time.  After waiting quite a considerable time, they were very busy, we were told we couldn’t book the Guayaquil to Madrid leg as it was operated by Iberia, ha, we know it will be a LAN flight, so Christine will be trying to do it via the Internet tomorrow.

Geoff drinking Martini classico

Back to the hotel, another shower then down to the bar for “happy Hour” though what we wanted to drink wasn’t covered by their “happy hour”, never mind we enjoyed our sit alongside the water mulling over everything we had enjoyed.

Jane and Dave gave us these two nights here as a wedding present and a nicer waterfront hotel you couldn’t find, thank you Jane and Dave for this fantastic experience and you were right, after everything we did whilst sailing around the Galapagos, we certainly needed the time to un-wind and reflect.

A leisurely candlelight dinner followed and then we fell into bed around 2200hrs, totally exhausted, after all it had been a long day.

Monday 6^th May 2013

After a good night’s sleep, we awoke to the engines being switched on, we are off to Sombrero Chino, which is a little island shaped as a Chinese hat.  We stopped at one of the

Stacey making friends with the sea-lions

islands and tried looking into a volcano crater at flamingos, I just caught a glimpse of them, not too worried as there are 100’s near where we live.

Penguins on the rocks

Then breakfast was taken, eggs with onion and tomato sauce, very unusual, but it tasted nice.  After we went for another walk, after first looking for the penguin’s again, they are very cute, and the smallest in the world, we saw sea-lions lazing on

Sally lightfoot crabs

the beach; we sat down and just watched the waves cracking over the rock laver, with the crabs crawling all over, very pretty.

This was going to be our last snorkel, so we were all looking forward to it, the sea was a bit choppy, but I had two wet suits on, as one was so thin, it had lots of holes in it, so I was not going to get cold.  We all jumped in, and we saw many kinds of fish, then someone spotted a marbled sting-ray, then the penguin’s jumped in, also a sea-lion, lots of parrot fish, it was fantastic, what a way to go! The penguin’s just kept playing with us, and we managed to catch them on a cine film, a marine iguana swam along at the end, just to make our day.

A lonely flamingo

After lunch we did some navigation, to another Island it was called Cerro Dragon, which is located on the north west coast of Santa Cruz Island, we hiked up through Palo Santo and Opuntia Cactus forest, past a couple of lagoons where we saw one solitary flamingo, and two stilts.  It was a lovely walk, with a few land iguanas, but not much else.  Geoff was not really impressed, but I enjoyed.

Back on the boat, we had rum and lemonade, which I really enjoyed, then showered, and started packing, we have one more trip tomorrow before we leave to go into a Hotel, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself here.

Sunday 5^th May

We were let “off the hook” this morning as we only had a short boat trip therefore the Beagle’s engines didn’t fire up ‘till 0545hrs, much better. The strange thing was most of us woke up around 0100hrs as this is the normal start up time!  Unfortunately this morning is very overcast and those who got up early to watch dawn breaking were disappointed, still I am sure it won’t rain.

0700hrs up for breakfast again, but this morning seemed a little dull as we missed the affable Larry and Pam; they left us yesterday evening; still another excellent breakfast with a good plate of fresh fruit, omelettes, spicy ham and of course the usual cheese and bread/toast and jam.

Male Frigate bird trying to find a mate

At the appointed hour, 0800, we were booted, fed, watered and waiting as instructed for our dingy trip to the island of North Seymor, a dry landing though as we approached the landing zone which was amongst the rocks, it looked far from dry!!! Still we all disembarked and stayed reasonable dry as we clambered

Frigate birds on nest

across the rocks and started our trek. Here we enjoyed the beauty of the spectacular male frigate birds with their red puffed up chests, trying to seduce the female frigate birds into their nests for a little “hanky-panky” and hopefully produce their one egg every two years.  Because of the Frigate bird design” they are very lacking until fully grown so the chicks are about two years old before they can fend for themselves. Additionally and to add to the confusion, there are “great Frigate Birds” and “Magnificent Frigate Birds”, here Duncan went to great lengths to explain the differences though it all sounded too complicated for most of us!

Land Iguana

Wandering around we had the usual sea   lions near the sea and lying across the rocks, we saw the mandatory blue footed Boobys, and the local sub species of the Iguana, the males here on North Seymor are the largest we have seen so far.  This is a

Mother and baby

very flat Island, fairly barren but covered in numerous species of sea birds etc., etc., etc.

After 2 hours, when the circumnavigation was complete, we were picked up by the dingy, again we crossed the rocks expecting to get very wet, but no, we managed to board and stay fairly dry.  10 minutes later we were aboard the Beagle where there were fresh “Passion Fruit” drinks and Chocolate

Pelican looking for fish

Chip Cookies waiting for us.  Duncan told us we had 15 minutes to get ready for snorkelling, well most of us are so “knackered” only 4 went out, and we all stayed on board and chilled.  With the weather being overcast, the sea was choppy so I doubt if much would have been seen below water.  When they arrived back on board, they confirmed things were murky so we made the right decision, again!!!

We weighed anchor and headed towards Bartolome Island, observing the odd Manta Ray, a Whale, several Turtles and a few Dolphins on our way, we also enjoyed a leisurely lunch as we don’t have another activity ‘till 1430hrs when we were due to go snorkelling off a sandy beach.

Bartolome is a very bleak island, very little vegetation just looks like volcanic rock everywhere, not pretty like most of the other Islands in Galapagos but with a high peak and a light house on top.

When we arrived at the designated beach we were met by 3 Galapagos Hawks who had

Hawk eating baby turtles

discovered a Sea Turtles nest and was dining on the baby turtles, very sad but that is nature; it keeps the food chain going.

Christine and I, yes I went snorkelling this time but was the only one without a wet suit but I have to say the sea wasn’t too cold.  We stayed in for about ½ an hour, saw several kinds of fancy fish and also a small sea snake slithering along the sea bed, I managed to video it as well!

Back to the boat for a shower etc then back into the dingy for a short boat ride to see if we could spot any penguins.  It is quite funny, not only does Galapagos have the only giant tortoises in the world; they also have the smallest penguins in the world, quite a contrast, anyway we spotted several which made our day.

We were now due to walk up to the top of the mountain (mentioned above), 375 steps to

Bartolome Island

get to the top and when we arrived, we would have a good view all around.  This trip has been go, go, go, and both Christine and I were still knackered so declined to walk up; after all we have been up to Shirley Heights in Antigua many times, and we don’t think there are many better views than that, so stayed on board and enjoyed “Pina Coladas” for me and Red Wine for Christine soaking the sun that had now come out.

When everybody returned, we had our normal briefing followed by our evening meal, again very good.  This was followed by a stupid game around the table that had us all in fits of laughter.  The party eventually broke up around 2130 hrs as we have to be “up-and-at-em” for 0630hrs to view Flamingos.

Saturday 4^th May 2013

We were travelling through the night, so we all had a disturbed sleep, but we were still all up for breakfast by 07.00, I enjoy the food on the boat, as they never seem to duplicate things, we had banana pancakes today, plus bacon, toast and fruit.

Our first trip out is at 08.00 am and we are going to Santa Fé Island, we have a wet landing so no shoes until we get there. Once on the island we saw the normal Sea-lions lounging on the beach, with their babies, some were swimming.

Land Iguana

We walked all around looking at the land iguanas,  these are much bigger than the marine species, and mostly they are brown, we saw cactus that looked more like trees, a Galapagos

Opuntia Cactus

Hawk, pelicans, and frigate birds.

We returned to the boat, to be told it is snorkelling time, it was a bit of a rush, but I am so glad I went, we were swimming with the sea-lions for about half an hour, they would come up to you, and then suddenly change direction, it was brilliant, there were six or seven of them all playing with the group, fantastic. We saw lots of fish as well, but it was the sea-lions that we really enjoyed. Sadly they did not have a big enough suit for Geoff so he has missed all this fun, the water is quite cold, so he did not bother.

Back on board, we rested before lunch, after lunch we did the mating call of the blue footed boobies, and bought sticks and stones to Larry and Pamela, sadly they are leaving today, so we will miss them, as they are great fun.

Suddenly the ships bell rang, and there was a school of dolphins, followed by sea-lions, they swam with the boat, we reckon there were about 100 altogether all around the boat, it was an amazing spectacle, we watched for some time before they left.

Sheer cliffs of southern shore of South Plaza

At 14.30 pm we lined up ready to leave for the South Plaza Island, which had sheer cliffs of the southern shore, where birds nest, we saw some Shearwaters, and red billed tropic birds, at

Mother and baby doing well

one point we saw some tiny babies sitting on the nest with its Mum.  There are iguana nests scattered all over the hill, so you have to be careful where you step.  There were plenty of land iguana’s walking around, and basking in the sun.

The Opuntia cactus is a smaller version of the ones we saw in Santa Fé, but sadly they are dying out, the scientist are trying to find out why?

Back on board, Larry and Pamela prepared to leave us, which are a shame as they were great fun, and whilst we were waving farewell, a Galapagos Shark or black tipped shark, kept us amused by keep circling the boat, it was quite a big one, and it stayed for a while.

Duncan gave a spontaneous talk on the stars, and we discussed American and British Politics with Donna, and then went to bed, knowing we were not moving in the night.