Day 5-7 The Galapagos Islands

Hello everyone and thank you so much for following along. We are here in Puerto Ayora, the most ´´touristy´´ part of the island. We got off the boat yesterday and as fun as the boat was, we were happy to sleep on a bed that didn't rock us to sleep. The last few days were amazing. We went on several hikes on different islands. All the islands are so cool because they are all so different. We walked around on one island, Chinese Hat, that had black hardened lava and very little shubbery. This island had a lot of crabs, marine iguanas, and birds. Another island, Bartolome, that was 80% ash and we walked up man made stairs to the top so as not to disturb the already eroding surface. At the top of this island you could see all of Galapagos. (We are going to upload photos either to facebook or webshots very soon. The interent is fast here but uploading pictures seems to be taking forever.) Another island had red sand, near Santiago, and so many sea lions we had to step over several. Its incredible how close you can get to these animals. They are not dangerous, only the bull sea lion is territorial and one we need to watch out for. So the islands themselves are so diverse and a lot of the time looked like deserts because they are still so fresh from volcanic erruptions. The island we visted, North Seymour, on the last day was covered in sea lions and birds. We saw lots of sea lion babies and baby birds. We even saw a pregnant sea lion. You could see her belly being kicked around! A couple of fun notes- on one island dana lost her shoe and had to swim out to get it. She had to race the bull sea lion! (actually he was just barking at her, still funny though) While we were snorkeling, we went snorkeling twice a day, we saw beautiful reef fish, a sting ray, and the most exciting sea turtles and a shark! Yes, we saw them up close only a few feet away. The sea turtles were very friendly and they look just as laid back as they do on Finding Nemo. The shark was a white tip reef shark that was a couple of feet long. He made a guest apperance and swam away quickly.

Needless to say the Galapagos are everything that people say and more. It was a very educational experience. Today we are going to go to La Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay). The locals have told us that is the best part of the island. We got a glimpse of it yesterday and hopefully today we´ll be able to swim. Tomorrow we are flying to Cuenca, Ecuador where we will be staying for the next 3 days.

¡Gracias a todos! Los extranamos (Thanks everybody! We miss you.)