the most notable thing about the galapagos for me, was the opportunity to witness a world without fear. it's quite striking and it got me extrapolating to what it might be like to live in a land where most behavior is not driven by fear. from what i saw on the islands, it would be pretty amazing, but alas, we're human and we are dangerous, so we must have our little bundles of trepidation to keep us alive and cruising intact. (and not to say that the islands are 100% idyllic...not when i learned about how the blue footed boobies let their extra booby babies die right in front of them if they have more than one chick; and when i had to avert my eyes when the frigate birds were circling, ready to pick up one of the exposed chicks for dinner...) it's a pretty harsh landscape of desert and lava flows, so you don't forget that the living ain't easy out stranded in the middle of the pacific ocean.
it was an amazing 10 days, only tarnished by the total ass-kicker of a bug that i caught on day 5 of the trip. i was 5th to catch it (damn germ-trapping boats) and it was, to put it mildly, the worst couple days i've had in a long long time. figures that i make it through a month of living in parasite-ridden peru and a month of low-budget traveling in argentina, uruguay and chile only to get obliterated on a beautiful cruise in the galapagos! i missed one full day of action, but then pulled the biggest suck-it-up move i could muster so that i could partake in the following days of fun. once you taste the sweet nectar of swimming with sea lions, you're addicted and need more immediately (that should explain the tank i will be building in my seattle apartment to house the babies that i smuggled in.)
so, yes, it's amazing. everything you've heard. the down part of keeping a place amazing and pristine is that it is a highly, highly, controlled environment. you have to be on a boat with other tourists (luckily we got on one of the smaller boats out there) and you always, always have to be accompanied by a naturalist on land. you have a three-foot wide trail that you must stay on at all times. and the routes of the boats are highly regulated, as are the visiting/snorkeling/kayaking sites, so it's common to have other boats at the same site, either leaving or waiting to follow. that type of herding is far from my style, and it was sometimes a bit disappointing. i can't complain too much because most everybody would prefer to have these islands to themselves and if they had their wish, nothing would be preserved. and i was lucky enough to be with a company that is partnered with national geographic, so there was a great focus on education and conservation.
snorkeling was my favorite time spent in the islands because that's when we had the most freedom. experienced swimmers and divers could go off to deeper waters or around rocky points and there's no telling what you would get to experience. i was swimming around a point and looked down to see a 6.5-ft white-tipped galapagos shark swim out of the darkness right underneath me. (i always said i'd be totally cool if i saw a legitimate shark -i've seen the paltry 3-ft. reef sharks in hawaii- but let me tell you the actual experience is slightly breath-taking....maybe a little pee-making... i'm not gonna lie...i had a tiny panic in my core. that sucker was big!)
during my snorkeling time (we went out three different days) i saw a million different types of tropical fish, sea turtles foraging for food, penguins darting by me like torpedoes chasing fish, groups of juvenile sea lions playing with me and with each other (at one time they were batting around the fat trunk of broccoli that a boat must have dropped and i got to catch it and toss it back to them. it was just the three of them and me having a grand time), flightless cormorants swimming to catch fish, the cousin of the man of war jelly that floated by like an air bubble at the top of the water and the tiniest, most brilliant blue fish taking shelter in the stinging tentacles streaming long below it (that one was cool for about a minute until my mom got nailed on the arm and had to get out of the water). we had one day that was pretty much all jellies all the time. that, my friends, was not fun in the slightest. my legs were covered in little red welts from all the stings. the water was solid with little squishy, see-through jelly forms. some of them were so tiny and so beautiful, but it was hard to focus on them as i was getting peppered by stings. didn't stay too long in the water that day!
good stuff, those critters. i found myself walking around peru the following week expecting to see iguanas at every turn. life is rather boring without piles of iguanas.
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