Tortoise Porn

I would like to give a shout out to Active South America and Galakiwi. This has been my second trip with Active and they have exceeded every expectation thus far with their partnership with Galakiwi.

In no particular order, the food, accommodation, GUIDES, activities, etc.... are fantastic.

By the end of each day, we are all so incredibly amazed by the work involved to put all this together and how happy we are to be in this group with this company.

The second shout out is to our guide, Pablo. Our whole group swears, that when Pablo is around, magic just seems to happen for our group. 

Please check out his page on the Galakiwi site here

Leaving the quietest island today to head to Isla Isabela.
But first we had to explore just a little bit more.
After breakfast, we headed down the trail called La Loboria.
I got to chat with Ivan along the way and nerd out about books and photography lol.

The walk was wonderful, and the spot we stopped at over looked the bay and a Sea Lion colony. Some Sea Lions were all tanning, but there were a handful that were body surfing or being very playful in the water.
**Note: These are Sea Lions, not Seals. 
Although the Latin name 'Pinniped' means "Fin Footed"; the Seal Lions are: 
1 - Louder 
2 - Less fur 
3 - Are more social and like to live in large colonies.
4 - Have flaps for outer ears

In the water, a large group of Sea Lions is called a "Raft". Lol, just a little useless knowledge for the day :P

Tough life

The Sea Lions were very playful on our morning walk on the beach

Marine Iguanas

Usually I have seen broken glass, but in Floreana, whole wine bottles is good enough? LOL

One of my favorites.
Shows the lava flow and the beautiful landscape, 
we hung out here for a while and watched the wildlife <3 <3

The view of our beach walk.
The Canon didn't have a break, poor thing :P

Random goat skull in the vegetation. Interesting? I think so ;)

Sally Lightfoot Crab

No matter where you go, the Sea Lions will be around ^_^

This guy nibbled on Karla's toe a little, haha

Around 11am, Pablo was able to herd all of us cats onto the boat for our 2.5 hour ride to Isabela. This time, we were all prepared and had a great sleep the whole way. We did get up once to view a small bird inhabited island, trolled our boat around it to view the Frigits, Boobies, and Marine Iguanas hanging around.

Boobies!

Arriving at Isabela Island, we stayed in a beautiful small town called "Puerto Villamil". Our hotel "La Laguna" overlooked a lagoon with one lone Flamingo. 

Our rooms in this hotel were a bit cramped for Tanya and I, but as long as we have a place to sleep, it's all good!

We were given a couple hours to ourselves after lunch, then Pablo took us to the Giant Tortoise Breeding Centre not far from town.

Pablo previously worked at this breeding centre in the 90's and was able to do some pretty amazing things to help bring the population up and bring them back into the wild.

To prevent rats, goats or other animals from getting to Tortoise eggs in the wild, he (and his team) went out in search of nests to be able to bring the hundreds of eggs carefully back to the Conservation Centre for incubation. This increased the odds of their survival for sure!

Each section housed a different age group of tortoises... From months old, to decades old, to a few  suspected centurions...

Aaaaaand then we came along to this lovely pair all ready to give us a show of how Giant Tortoises make babies.

I was unable to get video, so watch the BBC version here! 

FYI, the male tortoise penis is IN the tail and the females will store the sperm to up to a year! :0

Viewer Discretion Advised

Babies!

HAHA, this guy is out cold

Peek-A-Boo

"Yo, Gringo, lemme out"

The Wall of Tears was next on our list of sight seeing, and a unique site of the archipelago.

This wall was built by prisoners in the 1940's and 1950's under extreme harsh conditions... this lava rock wall claimed the lives of thousands of people.

The wall was put up, and taken down. Then ordered to put up, and taken down again. 

No point in the wall really, just something to keep the prisoners busy.

Ouch. Not a cool piece of history that is for sure.

It has been a busy day and everyone needed some alone time, a few of the group went walking along the beach.

I wanted to walk around the town and see what Puerto Villamil was all about.

The trekker of the day is my awesome roomie Tanya Miller!

She is 40 years old, grew up in an underground house in Spokane, and is the VP at NEXT IT 

(aka Computer nerd - Siri is going down!)

She has cycled across Iowa 12 times while being a part of RAGBRAI which is a week long ride with about 15000 riders. 

OMG! She is hardcore.

Her next vacation spot she would like to visit is Patagonia ^_^

Bacán day

FYI - Bacán means "fantastic"
We are all attempting to learn a new word every day :P

Leaving the wonderful San Cristobal today to head to Floreana Island. Floreana is very isolated and a nice place to relax with out the business of... anything.

Haha, NOT the boat we took, but one that moored in the harbour of San Cristobal

Boarded the boat and travelled 2.5 hours and not many of us were feeling so hot from all the movement. 

I laid down on the floor and slept to keep my stomach from doing anything unwanted, and everyone else tried to do as little as possible. You aren't a pussy to take sea sickness pills haha, beats puking in the ocean lol.

Sea Sickness - is a condition caused by the rocking motion of the craft. The real cause is in the brain, which receives conflicting signals: while the eyes show a world that is still, our body, and in particular the equilibrium sensors located in our ears, send signals of a moving environment. This discordance causes the mind to send to the whole body a general alarm signal, in order to stop all activities, in particular the most complex of all: the digestion process

Thank you Wikipedia. LOL

Chilling out.

About an hour in, we are woken up by the boat slowing down. Dolphins were spotted and were heading our way.

Sure enough, the came in and played around our boat for the next 1/2 hour.

One of the best experiences I have seen in my life so far. Nothing beats the sounds the dolphins make and the joyful dance they do in the water!

I tried to take some pictures at first, but it was getting to wet up top. So I switched to the GoPro so I could put the camera closer to the water for some stunning video! Click HERE to watch =)

Arriving at Floreana Island (population 230), we went for a snorkel close to the shore and got to see some amazing Sea Turtles up really really close. Even did some garbage duty and pulled some old snorkels from the reef, haha go me!

Once on the island, were again greeted with many Sea Lions and Marine Iguanas milling around lol.

Just a normal day here in Galapagos. **love** Not to mention, watching the blue footed boobies dive bombing into the water. Hehehe, that is fun to watch.

Our lovely hotel was so close to the beach that I felt like we could stay here for weeks! We shovelled down lunch like we hadn't eaten in days, then took off to the Pirate Caves.

When the Pirates were active on the island, they carved out caves in the highlands close to the only fresh water spring on the island. The caves there were quite unique, but the carved human head we found was pretty cool!

The view from the highlands

Ivan and Karla doing what they do best!

Tom presenting the "Thinker" up by the Pirate Caves

Being creative and working on our projects

The Giant Tortoises have had a hard time on this island (as well as the other islands) over the last 4 centuries due to human hunting and poaching, so there is a conservation for them with a wonderful large location for 30+ of these amazing creatures to live in a safe and controlled environment.

Arrived back to the hotel right in time for sunset.
Barb + Tom busted out a couple bottles of wine and Pete got the rum going, so we all sat down on the beach and had a wonderful hour together watching the sun leave us for another evening.

Our visitor while sitting on the beach.
She arrived, saw us, and then disappeared back into the waves.

A beautiful little lady who was sitting near us, we went to her family owned restaurant for dinner.

Karla and Ivan set up our evening photo critique so the projector faced the ceiling, we all got to lay on mattresses and view the photos like a really fun Imax movie :P

The photo I really enjoyed from today, was the picture above with the little girl. <3 <3

Once everyone was in bed, Tanya and I set up our cameras on white lawn chairs and did some night photography with our head lamps lol.

Again, we are all pretty exhausted and didn't attempt to stay up too late. The crashing sounds of the waves near our rooms was the perfect way to put us to sleep! <3 <3

Painting with Light

The trekker of the day is Tom Beck, he is 71 years old and is the President/CEO of Unico USA.

His next travel location would like to be Vietnam.

He has 26 foster siblings! His parents were pretty amazing people ^_^

Tom is a very active guy and between him and Tanya, they nerd out with their "fitbit" pedometers everyday to see who did more steps/stairs. LOL