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Galapagos,
4/30/00 – 5/13/00
Author: Stephanie Mills
Ok, ok! Another tardy report but really, I’ve only been back a month so it’s not THAT bad. If you all want to nag at me about something, try Indonesia. I’ve been back from there since December 1st and have yet to put pen to paper on that one. Soon, my friends, soon. But for now, here’s Quito and Galapagos.
Part 1 – Exploring Quito
Getting There
On
the evening of April 29th, I went to sleep with visions of restless
fins and snapping jaws dancing in my head, for on the morrow, barring any more
unexpected difficulties, I’d be boarding a plane for Quito, Ecuador and an
adventure to the Galapagos Islands. This had already proved to be an eventful
trip and our group hadn’t even left yet!
We had started out with a full charter made up of people that my friends
and dive buddies, Jeff and Walker, had met on various past dive trips and ended
up with a party of 10. Lot’s
of things took their toll – Saeta airlines went belly up and some didn’t
want to risk flying TAME, others had changes in circumstances during the year
and a half the trip had been planned and had to drop out, but the saddest was
Walker. He put heart and soul into
arranging the trip and got a massive sinus infection two days before. Alas,
the Third Musketeer couldn’t leave New York.
That left Jeff and I crying into our cervezas and the rest of the group
very disappointed.
I arrived at the Quito Hilton Colon with all luggage accounted for and at midnight, headed to the bar with Jeff where we polished off a carafe of really bad red wine interspersed with really good conversation. We both gazed sadly at the chair where Walker would have been sitting had he been there. Sniff. Then off to our rooms to grab some much needed sleep before we checked out the city the next day.
I don’t know what May is usually like in Quito but this Mayday dawned cloudy, rainy and slightly chilly. Two more of our group, Joe and Cindi , a very fun couple from Texas, joined Jeff and I at the Hilton and the four of us went across the street to the Parque El Ejido where there was a market in progress with tables of trash and trinkets as far as the pocketbook could see. Vendors of all ages, shapes and sizes, garbed in colorful garments were there to hock their wares. Besides the usual necklaces, earrings and bracelets (all ‘real’ jewels dontcha know), there were piles of beautiful Alpaca sweaters, intricately embroidered shirts, nicely tooled leather products and colorful mosaics. Cindi and I snapped up some gorgeous Alpaca shawls while the guys looked for big knives (don’t even ask!). Hint: never pay the first price quoted. Bartering is a way of life so don’t be afraid to try it.
After the market, we stopped for refreshments at a sidewalk café where we were accosted by street vendors, beggars and kids wanting to polish our tennis shoes. Quickly learn to say “No, gracias”. Or, if that doesn’t work after numerous times, try, “Get the heck away from me.” Seriously, this to me is all part of the charm of traveling to other countries. The sights, sounds, traditions, and foibles of everyday life are part of the whole cultural experience. Your best bet? If you have a penchant for getting irritated, lose it for the moment and enjoy all this craziness. After slaking our thirst and hunger, we wandered down Avenida Amazones ( a main drag thru Quito) for a while more and ended up at Joe and Cindi’s place, ‘La Rabida’. A small, pleasant hostal where the four of us had a wonderful dinner, including appetizers and a few bottles of wine for a little under $15 each. Hint: I’ll give a shameless plug for this place for both the ambience and the food. Next time I go to Quito, this is where I’d stay.
Touring the City
The
next day, the four of us hired a guide thru the Hilton travel office and went on
a tour of Quito. First stop
was the La Mitad Del Mundo or The Middle of the World aka the equator located
about 22km north of Quito in San Antonio. In
1736, Charles-Marie de La Condamine’s expedition did some measuring here that
showed this was indeed, the equator. There
is a large monument here that includes a viewing platform from which you can
look down at the middle of the world at people standing on the middle of the
world. Hmmm….fascinating.
You’ll find an interesting museum inside the monument with vignettes
showing the life styles of the many indigenous
tribes of the area. Joe
and Jeff also mentioned that if you pee on the equator the stream runs uphill or
something like that. All
attempts to try were thwarted by the general viewing public, much to Cindi’s
and my relief! (I TOLD you guys,
nothing is sacred in these reports!)
From here, we headed to Quito Old Town to see some of the old cathedrals with the most interesting being El Museo de San Francisco. This is a beautiful complex with a cathedral and convent and the architectural details are magnificent. If you get a good tour guide (we did) he can get you into the choir loft which is a quiet and beautiful place and one that is hard to leave. But leave we must because there was so much more to see. Just driving through the streets is a kaleidoscope of colors, interesting architecture, people bustling back and forth, the sights, sounds and smells of the markets….it’s difficult to take it all in. Here’s a shameless plug for our tour guide: Luis Martinez - cell phone: 479-102 Hint: better than going through the travel and tour offices. We took time to make ourselves presentable and went to dinner at another excellent restaurant, La Ronda, where we had some outstanding Ecuadorian dishes, drank more wine and once again, spent very few sucres for a meal like this.
By
the next day, another great couple, Cindy and Richard from Colorado, had joined
us and the six of us hired Luis to take us on another tour of the city.
We headed to El Panecillo to see La Virgen del Quito whose countenance
can be seen for miles around. Of
course, you know those virgin-types – they’re always larger than life.
From there, we headed back to the Plaza de la Independencia, a return
visit to San Francisco and then on to the Basilica del Voto Nacional where we
bolstered up our strength for a heart-stopping climb to the top of the spires.
This was accomplished by mostly outside climbing on some small, wet metal
steps many hundreds of feet above the cement plaza below. (Jeez, I hope my
parents aren’t reading this!) I
made it up to the belfry where, to celebrate, I rang the bells in random
combination and had half of Quito wondering whether to get up, eat dinner, or
run for the hills. On
our return trip, we took a shortcut through a major market where you could
purchase anything and everything including so many piles of women’s lacy
underwear that it looked like a Victoria’s Secret going-out-of-business sale.
An interesting contrast to the blue jeans, homemade soaps, sandals,
headless chickens and more ‘real’ jewels.
After another lively dinner at the La Rabida, we dragged our shopping bags (it’s a MUST to contribute to the national economy here!) back to the hotel and got ready to leave for Galapagos in the morning.
Part 2 – Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf
On to the Islands
Ok, enough of that land stuff…let’s talk diving! On the morning of May 4th, the six of us and our luggage were carted off to the airport where we stood in line to pay half a million dollars for our luggage weight overage. Jeff, a professional photographer, had to take out a second mortgage to pay for all his camera equipment. Hint: Take U.S. dollars to the airports in mostly small denominations. Wash and iron it (no laundering!) if you can because dirty, wrinkled bills are unacceptable anywhere in Quito. The Quito airport accepted charge cards for overage, but the Galapagos airport in Baltra did not. Cash only. In addition, you’ll need $100 for Galapagos park fees and another $30 for departure. I found it easier just to leave my wallet open and let people take what they need.
We joined the mass of humanity in the TAME boarding area where the general atmosphere is like racehorses at the gate. You see, there are no seat assignments so it’s first come, first overhead space and this does not make for a friendly crowd. When the doors opened, the six of us muscled our way through and headed for the plane at racewalking pace until we noticed the back door of the plane was open for boarding and NOBODY was using it. We ambled over there and boarded the plane with no broken bones, bruises or scraped knees from being knocked over on the tarmac. Evidently an achievement on our part. After a brief stop in Guayaquil where we met up with the last four members of our group, two delightful couples from Florida, Jim and Terry and Mike and Barb, we took off for Baltra and the Aggressor I.
And We’re Off
We
were met at the airport by Fernando and Walter (aka Mini-Me) who would be our
DM’s for the week and promptly shuttled off to the Aggressor I also called the
“Jesus del Gran Poder”. Typical
of an Aggressor boat, this one is roomy, well laid out and comfortable –
especially with only 10 of us. Jeff got his own cabin because Walker wasn’t
there and Cindy, who was supposed to be my roommate, brought her friend Richard
so I got my own cabin (ain’t love grand!)
We were on the top deck which was nice, but involved a lot of running up
and down the stairs to get anywhere.
This is probably a good thing when you’re eating 18 lbs. of food a day! We got our gear unpacked and set up and I took a Bonine and
slapped on the Sea Bands in preparation for a little rock and roll and we headed
out to do our checkout dive.
Moored
over a ‘boring’ location supposedly only good for checking weight, Jeff and
I slithered into our new Henderson Golds and assorted other pieces of neoprene
and dropped in to check our weights. I
wore a 5mm jumpsuit with a 3mm hooded vest and 3mm titanium gloves and was
toasty for all dives and I stay down an hour at minimum . Average water temps
were 72. Per the DM’s
recommendation, I had 18 lbs. of lead on a belt (he thought I’d need it
because my wetsuit was new) vs using my integtrated BC, and plummeted to the
bottom like a gangster in the East River. Took
4 lbs. off and went back down to finish the ‘boring’ dive during which I saw
a spotted ray, tiger snake eel, octopus, a “deadly death puffer”, humphead
parrots, schools of yellow-tail grunts and a lovely pair of threadfin
butterflies. Yep!
A real yawner.
After dinner we had a general dive briefing during which we inquired about the availability of night dives. Fernando said that although night dives were rare because it was shark feeding time, he knew of a spot or two where it would be safe. When I expressed my excitement at that possibility, Jim responded with, “What part of ‘sharks feeding at night’ didn’t you understand?” Ok, I’d maybe think about that one for awhile. We headed out for an all night steam to Isla Wolf where the excitement would really begin. At least we hoped so…..
A
big, stark rock in the middle of nowhere would be pretty descriptive of Wolf.
Remember that TV ad that said, “It’s what’s up front that
counts”? Well, here, it’s
what’s underneath that counts! We
all geared up and took the pangas to our drop spot on the SE side and right
away, the dive was interesting. Here’s
the first five minutes: huge moray eels draped over the bottom or free-swimming,
a lone hammerhead cruising by, golden phase guineafowl puffers, (2) sea turtles,
a sea lion, and to top things off, I was approached by a big, fat Galapagos
shark that came within 5 ft. of me before deciding I wasn’t all that
interesting (whew!) and it veered away.
After we surfaced, a pod of dolphins came and hung out by the boat.
And this was only dive #l?
We did a second dive on the south side of Wolf in a slightly strong current
and saw several hammerheads, (5)
sea turtles, piles of eels, the biggest trumpetfish I’ve ever seen, schools of
Galapagos grunts, and I made a new friend out of a very large, very friendly
streamer hogfish. As I was
clinging to a barnacle-covered rock, it came right up under my chin and started
weaving in and out of my arms while whacking me in the face with it’s tail.
I noticed every 
time
a little piece of barnacle would chip off from my grasp, Mr. Hog would eat it. So, I picked up a chunk in my fingers and sure enough, the
friendly fishy ate it right out of my hand.
We played a little game of tag after that and it was time for me to
surface. I was pretty excited
when I got back on the panga. Chattering
away about the things I saw on the dive while trying to tug my darn hood off.
I talked and talked and tugged and tugged until – voila!
Off it came, along with my brand new mask (which replaced the one that
got eaten by cockroaches in Indonesia, but that’s another story)
that was the cause of resistance to begin with.
I was so busy describing the dive that I’d forgotten the thing was
still on my face. Duh!
It sank to the depths and of course, this was the FIRST trip I didn’t
take a spare on. Fortunately, Cindi
had an extra and was kind enough to let me use it,
but only after I promised to guard it with my life.
The
third dive was at a site called “Landslide” and this one was really fun if
you like currents with the speed of a locomotive!
Jeff and I made our way through the surge only to find current that
seemed to come from two directions and it was strong. Jeff carries an industrial sized camera (camera grande)
and I was watching him trying to handle that and make his way along the bottom.
I was grasping on to rocks with both hands and trying to keep from
slamming against them and doing great bodily harm to myself when I noticed that
Jeff had settled himself into a little cranny with an eel twining around his
legs. Meanwhile, as I was glancing
at a Galapagos shark coming our way, I reached for my next handhold only to have
it move indignantly away. I guess
no moray appreciates being used that way!
When we finally surfaced, it was with some very sore muscles, bruises and
Jeff had a tear in his wetsuit. Now
that was an exciting dive!
We did a night dive at Wolf which was nice but nothing worth writing home about so I won’t. And then we moved to Darwin to see the thus far elusive schooling hammerheads.
We
approached Darwin’s Arch on a calm, sunny morning which made us fearful that
the water would be too warm for the Mr. Bigs and we were right, but the dive
certainly wasn’t disappointing. To
me, the abundance of life in these waters is amazing and if someone can’t
enjoy it, they’re either crazy or dead.
We did see a few lone hammerheads, a couple Galapagos, myriads of
turtles, the ever so friendly streamer hogfishes, and more eels.
The most interesting though was the spotting of a WHITE eel!
It stood out on the reef like a sore thumb and is the oddest thing to
see. I did not have my
camera, but it’s on the video and is definitely not something that’s found
in the fish ID books.
You know the kind of dive where everything just feels right? Well, my next dive was one of those. I had taken a couple more lbs. of lead off, and transferred the weights to my integrated BC, I’d settled in with the ‘layered look’ , I was comfortable with the varying conditions. Up to this point, Jeff and I had been good little boys and girls and pretty much stayed together but on this dive, I ended up solo because I was off poking around and everyone disappeared. I saw a couple leopard flounders, a huge sea turtle sitting on top of a moray, scorpionfish, a marbled ray, a big burrfish, a zebra moray and a big free-swimming green moray. On my safety stop, a Galapagos shark cruised by. The kind of dive where you come up smiling and can’t stop!
We
headed back to Wolf that night and woke to a very foggy morning.
So soupy that we had to wait to dive because the guys in the pangas
wouldn’t have been able to spot us when we surfaced.
The current, as in other dives, was fairly strong but not unmanageable
and we all went straight to the bottom to hunker down and wait for the hammers. Five big guys came my way which was pretty exciting.
Jeff and I then took off in search of other things.
I was settled down on a rock at one point right next to (2) big morays
who were looking up at me wondering why I was invading their space, when a 3rd
one swam in right between my arms and settled in with them!
Most of the creatures here are definitely not intimidated by human
presence, but then, most sea creatures don’t seem intimidated by me and I have
different scars from different encounters to prove it.
Ask a certain Titan trigger in Australia and he’ll tell you!
He’s probably still picking skull out of his teeth!
Our
last dive at Wolf was a pretty wild one – again. My adrenalin really gets to an all time high on these
kinds of dives. This one was
current and surge all the way to 67 ft. and the viz was pretty murky but the
dive was still incredible!
A few hammerheads swimming effortlessly overhead, a sea turtle being
relentlessly cleaned by a school of king angelfish, graysbys and cabrillas
hanging out in the rocks, stone scorpionfish, and my new best friends, the
streamer hogfish. The best part of this dive was the surface
interval before we took off for Cabo Marshall.
A big pod of dolphins stopped by and wanted us to come in and play so
several of us made a mad dash for our masks, fins and dreaded snorkels. Unfortunately, it’s hard to dash into a 5mm wetsuit
so I plunged in with just a bathing
suit and stopped breathing for a
minute or two. My near-death
experience from freezing alveoli was soon forgotten when the dolphins came to
play. What fun!
They are such beautiful and powerful animals. It’s hard not to fall in love with them!
After we finished boring the dolphins and they went in search of more exciting diversions, Fernando took us on a fascinating tour around Wolf. He is a trained naturalist and very knowledgeable about the Galapagos Islands and gave us an overview of the flora and fauna that was pretty interesting. We saw numerous boobies (no, not THOSE kind! The avian kind.) and several fur seals curled up on the rocks and playing in the water. We said goodbye to Wolf and Darwin and headed to Isabella with hammerhead dreams still intact.
Part 3: Dinner at 17 Feet?
e
had arrived at Isabella a predominantly wild, volcanic island and were at the
first site, ‘Cabo Marshall’. Jeff
and I were gearing up and pretty excited at the possibility of seeing
hammerheads on this dive. Me,
because I wanted the thrill and him, because he wanted a good photo. Thus far, we’d all been a little disappointed in the lack
of schooling activity of these guys.
We entered the water as a group but quickly separated and I ended up
cruising alone in search of whatever might come my way. I watched a sea turtle being cleaned, saw a
couple scorpionfish swimming from rock to rock in search of a place to hide and
ambush some unsuspecting morsel, checked
out a moray trying to snap at passing fish while a lone marbled ray glided by.
The time passed pretty quickly and I looked at my computer to see that I
had about 1100 psi left so I started looking for a good place to do a safety
stop. Fifty
feet or so in front of me, I spotted a pinnacle the top of which looked
just perfect to spend my last 5 or 10 minutes so I headed that way.
Not 2 seconds after I had gotten there, I got an unexplainable creepy
feeling and turned around to see two 10 ft. hammerheads coming my way.
Ok, I thought, as I looked around and saw nothing but fish and sea, this
is just fine. They’ll check me
out, they’ll go away. Meanwhile,
I’m looking at my air which is now down to 840 psi and wouldn’t take long to
diminish if I hyperventilate out of sheer terror.
I
made myself as small as possible and hugged the pinnacle to the point where I
probably still have perfect barnacle imprints in the neoprene, and waited for
Mean and Meaner to go away. But
that was not to be. They not only
didn’t disappear, they started circling the pinnacle and looking at me as if I
had a sign flashing ‘Fine Dining’ over my head.
Now by this time, I’m trying to maintain my resolution not to pee (or
anything else) in my new Henderson and
wondering if that gold lining is shark tooth resistant, and if the pain only
lasts a second or two after they sink in.
I’m sucking air big time now and have 320 psi left in my tank.
I HAVE to ascend pretty soon, although by now, I’m weighing the odds
that death by asphyxiation might be favorable to death by dismemberment.
Just when I’m psyching myself out to shoot for the surface, a brown
flash zooms down out of nowhere and into my mask pops a pair of big brown eyes,
attached to a long snout with whiskers. It’s
my very own knight in shining fur! A
sea lion that has come and inadvertently chased the bad guys away. I could have hugged him but he would have
none of that and left almost as quickly as he’d come.
With
200 psi left in my tank, I made the longest 17 ft. swim to the surface in
history, my eyes darting in all directions looking for the neighborhood bullies
to return only to find no panga in sight. Yikes!
I see it off in the distance, no doubt looking for me, and I pop my
safety flag up while stifling the urge to scream.
They got there quickly and I went from the water to the boat in one
smooth move. I checked to
make sure all my limbs were indeed intact and headed for the safety of the
Aggressor. What a cool
dive!!!
We took a short shore excursion to flightless cormorants, a lava heron, a marine iguana and several fur seals then had some lunch and went back in for a second dive which I won’t describe here because although it was nice, it was non eventful after the last one. Before dinner, Fernando took us on a land excursion to James Bay at Santiago Island (our dive destination for the following day) where we took a nature walk along the shore. This is definitely volcanic area and it’s really interesting to see the different lava formations not to mention the animals that live in them. We all picked our way over the rocks avoiding smushing any of the Sally Lightfoots that were running all over the place looking like some of those ‘real jewels’ in Quito. They are so pretty. Marine iguanas were everywhere. Interesting creatures with faces so ugly, even their mothers would have to decide if they loved them or not. As we strolled along, there was a deep barking coming from the water and making it’s way up onto the beach was a HUGE sea lion. Fernando informed us that it was the ‘Beachmaster’ which translated means, ‘I’m big and you’re not so get out of my way!’ Another smaller sea lion, maybe the ‘Beachmistress’ lumbered across the sand toward us but evidently didn’t have the strength to heft her/his bulk farther than 2 ft. at a time and collapsed before she reached our group. The clouds gathered at this point, and the rain set in and we made our way along the inland path back to the Aggressor and the next leg of the adventure.
Ok,
this is a good time to take a break, pour a glass of chardonnay (I mean, I’m
pouring the chardonnay. You guys can have whatever you want) and take some time to describe our topside activities,
because the next set of dives at ‘Cousins Rock’ were some of the best of the
trip and I want to keep you in
suspense for a bit more. If
you’ve been on an Aggressor before, you know it’s definitely an eat, sleep,
dive experience and this was no different.
In addition, a great group of people like the 10 we had makes the trip
even more pleasant. Surface
intervals were spent on land tours, prepping camera equipment for the next dive,
sleeping, reading, soaking in the hot tub, filling out dive logs, laying in the
sun or just staring into space.
Evenings before dinner, we gathered in the roomy salon area and discussed
the day’s diving, played board games, watched video clips and for the (3)
Palmaniacs on board – held a beaming menage-a-trois.
Ooh la la! Jeff may
have fantasized about being with two women at some time in his life, but sending
information from his Palm Pilot to Cindy and I probably wasn’t part of that
fantasy! After a day of intense diving and a delicious dinner, most of
us were crashed out by 9:00. Life
is good!
Part 4:
Kissin’ Cousins
Raise
your hand if you think a dive with 30’ viz is going to be one of the best.
Ok, I’m betting there aren’t a lot of hands up there but trust me,
there should be and this site is a good reason why.
Our panga group descended to a ledge where there were several whitetips
swimming lazily around while seal pups romped around in playful abandon.
If you swam backward into the deep blue and took a look at this dive
site, you’d notice that it was comprised of several tiers of ledges each
spilling over with strands of black coral almost as if it had been landscaped.
Every ledge was a new frontier to explore and the one that we were on
proved to be quite interesting as one seal pup chose the tail of a whitetip as
his object of affection and nipped at it mercilessly until his mother came down
to shoo him away. It was one
of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and it’s all on video thanks to Mike!
A moment worthy of ‘Funniest Home Videos’ for sure!
Everybody
went their own way after this and soon I found myself flanked by two spotted
eagle rays. Aren’t they cute?!
The three of us cruised for awhile but I wasn’t as fast, or as graceful
and they soon left me in their wake. A
few sea turtles came gliding by as I made my way to a safety stop on a ledge
about 20’ down. As I hung there watching a school of
yellow-tailed surgeonfish, a sea lion plopped down next to me and stared in my
face. I’m thinking there
must be something about masks that intrigues these guys.
I made my best seal sound while doing a somersault and he must have thought that was pretty clever because he
flipped upside down and stuck his nose in front of my camera.
What a cutie! Everybody surfaced from this dive saying,
“What an awesome dive!” We
all wanted to repeat it.
The
next dive was my 400th and if I were to script it out, I couldn’t
have done a better job! Viz
at this point was down to about 20’ but that didn’t deter us from settling
in and waiting for the hammerheads to come our way.
It was only a few minutes before 20 or so appeared out of the gloom.
They came so close that I was afraid to fire my flash for fear I’d piss
them off. I’m sure there’s nothing much worse than a pissed
off hammerhead and after my experience on the pinnacle, I wasn’t taking any
chances! Shortly after this,
a squadron of eagle rays with a few golden cowrays in tow swept in and I’m
talking 40-50 here. It was
awesome! I followed them into a school of barracuda, past a
couple sea turtles and into more rays.
We ended the dive by swimming with fur seals who came down to check us
out and play. I’m
thinking my 500th is going to have to be a Hollywood spectacle to
beat this!
We took a vote and everyone
was keen on doing this one again. First
question. Were we even at the same site?
Viz had dropped to next to nothing and the current was ripping.
I was going hand over hand along the bottom and using every bit of
strength I had to move along and I’m not a weakling by any means.
Our whole group was having a difficult time plowing through this and it
seemed to get worse by the minute. 
The
interesting thing was that an unbelievable amount of fish had started to gather
in this spot. So many that
Joe and Cindi, who were diving nearby, literally disappeared in a cloud of them!
That afternoon we did a land trip to Bartoleme which included a looooonnnnnngggg walk up to the top of a peak where we had a beautiful view of the harbor. Pick up any picture book of the Galapagos Islands and you’ll see this spot. It was stunning!
We returned to the Aggressor, donned our skins, grabbed snorkel gear and went in search of the elusive and speedy Galapagos penguins. Terri, Barb and I spotted (2) zooming by us at the speed of light and as soon as we arrived where we thought they were, they shot past us in the other direction. Fernando did find us some cute ones standing on the nearby rocks giving us a sassing for bothering them. Evidently before El Nino there were several of these creatures but now their numbers have dwindled. We returned to the Aggressor for another excellent dinner and reminisced about an outstanding day and went to rest up for our final dive day.
All
good things must come to an end and unfortunately, this is one of them.
This was to be our last ‘regular’ dive and it proved to be commando
diving at it’s best. There were
currents, surge, downcurrents…..it was great!
We didn’t see much but it sure was thrilling. Well, I thought it was.
I swear, this is the only liveaboard trip I’ve been on where I’ve
actually lost weight and gained muscle.
Kind of like a guerilla fitness camp.
During our SI, we anchored at Plaza Islands and took another interesting
land walk where we saw lots of seals frolicking in the surf, several land
iguanas, gulls, native cacti and more stunning views from the cliffs.
After this, we donned scuba equipment for a shallow dive looking for
seals. One came around to
play with the group but he didn’t bring his friends with him.
We headed back to the boat for the drudgery of cleanup and to get ready
for a trip to the Darwin Research Station in Puerto Ayora.
Fernando
did another excellent job leading this informative tour where we saw the famous
Galapagos tortoises, then wandered into the town where we ran into some folks
from the other Aggressor who had just spent a couple weeks doing a photo trip
with Chris Neubert and his wife, Brigita.
We found a pleasant café to have cervezas and swap trip stories before
we headed back to our respective Aggressors
for the Captain’s cocktail party and our last night on board.
You know…..the part that everybody hates!
The pangas, piled with bags and tired divers, made their way into the dock where our bus waited to take us to the airport. A small dinghy was tied to the dock and a sleepy sea lion popped it’s head up from inside to see what all the early morning fuss was about. We stood in line at the airport to pay another half million dollars in luggage overage and steeled ourselves for another mad dash to the plane for the trip back to Quito. Once there, everyone except for Joe and Cindi checked into the Hilton (they were heading to Otavalo for a couple days) then took off in different directions for some last minute shopping. Joe, a licensed pilot, took this opportunity to fly the friendly skies over Quito while Cindi helped Jeff and I pump more sucres into the Ecuadorian economic network. Joe and Cindi left for Otavalo and the rest of us all met up for dinner at yet another wonderful restaurant called ‘Las Redas’ that specialized in ceviche. We all drank a toast to our absent buddy Walker and spent a pleasant evening enjoying good food, good friends, and good memories. Jeff and I spent the next day wandering around Quito some more, and made a trip to the historical museum in the afternoon, had a couple cervezas and then it was time for me to fly out. The rest of our group took off the next morning leaving the adventure of the Galapagos Islands behind. It was a great trip and one that I definitely plan on repeating in the not too distant future.
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