We had a bit of a rocky start to the Galapagos trip today. We had no trouble getting out of the parking lot at 5:30, the caretaker Diego, was true to his word and was awake in time to unlock the gate for us. But getting our ride to the airport was a bit more problematic. First we got into the wrong taxi - one just stopped and asked us if we were going to the airport. It took us 100 yards to realize that this was just a random request from an alert cabbie, not our designated ride. So we got out and waited some more. We had a number of further offers but now we knew that the correct answer was no. The appointed time, 5:45am, came and went and still no sign of the correct taxi. So we called the travel agent emergency number. Eventually discovering that the driver was waiting on the corner of Almagro and Pinto not Almagro and Pinta. That seems like a pretty basic mistake, particularly since we had given the street number in Almagro as well as the intersection. But ... we got to the airport, onto the plane and out to the Galapagos Islands.
The airport at Baltra was a bit of a mad house. Lots of tourists trying to get through formalities and collect their bags. They tell us this is the low season and that in high season there are 4 to 5 times as many people landing each day. I don't think I would want to be apart of that.
It's only a short bus ride to the harbor and our boat. There we were met by half a dozen sea lions lounging on the seats in the harbor bus shelter, and they paid no attention to the 30 or so tourists that piled out of the bus. We will discover soon that this is the typical reaction of local wild life to tourists - indifference.
Our boat - The Angelito I - had just been through its annual refit and clean up so is newly painted and looks in good shape. After a bit of a lecture on the do's and dont's of the boat we head off to North Seymour Island.
The afternoon was more than a bit of a surprise, maybe because I did not really know what I expected from the Galapagos. Birds (pelicans, blue footed boobies, herons, and a pair of mating red eyed gulls), sea lions, terrestrial iguanas, beautiful crabs, the occasional marine iguana - all of them completely oblivious to our walking among them. And the landscape, maybe even more of a surprise than the animals; desolate lava fields with very sparse or poor vegetation. The boat is relaxing and the crew seem friendly and keen to help without being overly intrusive - it seems like this is going be a fun week.
