The last week has been a mess. In the end we have decided to step out of the schedule for a few days. The tour company´s sub contracted company here, Metro, left us in a plastic international hotel at the end of the airport runway out of town in Quito.
This was in place of four days in an ECO park in the Amazon rain forest. We were up out and gone within twelve hours. They are not going to waste our holiday.
I will come back to that later.
Off to the Galapagos. The flight here has many interesting points and I will get to them but I have a boat to catch in forty minutes so down to basics.
Why do people come here.
Well, having landed on one of the islands we were sent to the VIP lounge, remember this is to be the posh bit of the holiday. The way to identify the VIP hut was easy. It was the one with a door on it.
In we go, pay up lots of dollars, then we are given ice cold mint tea. It is steaming hot outside, high humidity, and we are dripping. That mint tea was great. We are sorted into our various boats, ours is the Mary Ann, and bused down to the harbour some two minutes away. The Mary Ann sits at anchor a few hundred yards off the beach. A beautiful three masted schooner just rocking gently out there.
Now this is the point. Why do people come here was my question, well.
We step off the bus and are told to wait while we are picked up by small boats to be taken out to our craft.
Over the landing stage there is a large shelter, much like a bus shelter at home.
Can we get a seat. No.
Its full with the locals and they are not going to budge. The ´locals´ are four sea lions stretched out along the benches, underneath one of the benches is a young pup. They are totally at ease, our presence means nothing to them.
By the way as cute as they are they stink to high heaven of rotting fish!!!!
We have to stand outside in the baking sun, but as I look over the edge of the pier there are iguanas sunning thenselves on the rocks. Black, green, red. All around them bright red crabs, now I know you can catch crabs anywhere in the world but they are something special here!!
Then just off the beach there are two turtles rolling around in the shallow warm sea...........
And on and on........
This is whats its all about, these creatures do not bat an eyelid at our being there, we do not harm them and they do not harm us. They are indifferent to us.
That is the wonder of it. We are at one with them, there they are just a few feet away, we walk around them, we take pictures, we chatter away amongst ourselves, we are just part of the big family.
It has gone on and on like that. Swimming with sea lions, watching pelicans feed from two feet away, and blue boobies, well, there are more boobies here than there are in The Sun in any one year!!
It is a wonderland of perhaps how life could be on this planet.
But it is that instant slap in the face of seeing these creatures from the moment you step off that aircraft. I have never in my life expirienced anything like it and the only way to make others understand what it is like is to bring them here....
But thats the rub. If we all come we will destroy what we want to see and there are signs of that happening already. Worn footpaths, mini traffic jams of people waiting to get their turn with these creatures.
Its a case of I have done it but you should not. I do not know the answer, but it is truely a wonder.
