After 2 weeks and 3 days, I think we can now call each other.. Experts on wild life!. We both fell in love with the Galapagos. Our first week was with a catamaran boat called "Seaman". This boat had 16 passengers and everyone was from different countries. For the first time I felt like an outsider since most of the boat were Israeli who spoke in hebrew, including a family of 6! 

One of our first visits was to the Charles Darwin Research Center. This place used to be lonesome George's home!..unfortunately we were 3 months late to visit him :(... Instead, we were able to see for the first time some giant tortoises. On our way back to catch the boat we stopped at one of the most unique places... a fish market! The reason why it is such a popular place that attracts lots of tourists is because sea lions and pelicans anxiously wait for fishermen to come back. We were able to see how one of the sea lions was waiting like a good dog to get fed, but unfortunately no one can feed the animals... So poor pelicans and sea lions they just wait and wait but they don't get any fish... 

Back on the boat we are on a schedule. Our normal day here on the boat began by the sound of the bell. They would ring the bell to a) make sure everyone was awake and b) announce breakfast was ready. Around 8 we had Galo (our naturalist guide) talk on the speaker "Hello hello hellllloooooo", and most of the time it cut off or we had a horrible microphone sound. That was everyday for one week!. Everyday we had a similar schedule: wake up early, breakfast, then hike, back to the boat for some snacks, lunch, hike , snacks and dinner. The hikes consisted of either a wet landing ( where we all had to wear flip flops because we would get wet before the hike), or a dry landing ( where it was easy to step out from the raft). The hikes were not hard at all, it was normally about 3 hrs walkng around a site as Galo explained about the island. Some islands were about the native animals. One of my favorites was Urban Bay where we were able to see land iguanas ( they are yellow!) in the wild!.. Or sometimes it was just about the formation of the lava which took all kinds of shapes.. Then we would have about an hr to do snorkeling or you had the choice of going back to the boat... But like you all know we both love snorkeling. We were always the first ones to jump in the ocean. One of my favorite moments while snorkeling was swimming with the turtles... it was absolutely awesome! Chasing down a family of turtles, I think we will never forget that moment!. After snorkeling we would get picked up with a raft from the island and then dropped off at the boat. The crew always recieved us with some hot chocolate or juice and snacks. For the afternoon it was the same routine.. hike followed by snorkeling then back to the boat!. Honestly we never had time to relax because it was always go go gooo! all the time. So if any one thinks Galapagos sounds like a relaxing holiday.. Let me break it to you it's not!... But it is sooo worth it's beautiful and so unique!.

The "Seaman" itinerary involved visiting some of the islands from the West side of Galapagos. These included one of the biggest and most populated islands called Isabella. These island had a different variety of birds and reptiles.  

One of our favorite moments in Galapagos was... with "Seaman" on our way to another island we saw a bunch of birds just shooting down to the sea.. Like if they were coming suicide lol... But no it was just an area where the currents from  the north and south combined that has a lot of fishies and the blue footed boobies (endemic birds, that look like a dove but bigger with blue feet :) )

Another thing we noticed here is that every animal is very friendly.. They don't care what species they are, they are all amigos :). You can get super close and they won't move or bite!. They literally will just pose for the cameras. We even got to experience a sea lion playing with a penguin... Yeap!... You heard me right a penguin in the equator.. How?.. Well the water is super cold in the south so they can live happily!... But no joke the sea lion thought he was the same as the penguin so he would do everything the little penguin would do. We also saw another sea lion playing with an iguana... It was soo funny the lion grabbed the tail and tossed it around in the sea. The nature here is incredible, I don't have enough words to describe how cool it is to see all the animals interact with each other. Even the birds help each other(with exception of Frigate birds, the pirates of the air), smaller birds sit on the heads of Pelicans and sea lions and feast on fish and parasites without any problems. Turtles interacting with rays and sharks, it's incredible... No wonder why Charles Darwin was soo curious!... 

On our last day with "Seaman", Phil got super sick :( again lol... Poor him!..It all started with his belly so obviously he took some tablets and we thought he would be fine for the next day.. Our day on the boat and  departure date... hmmmmm nope it got worse!..So what do you know hospital time!... But this time I was very scared because we were so far away from the nearest hospital... So the adventure began!.. We were dropped off with everyone at a port that is close to the airport.. From there we took a bus to the terminals and from there we waited to take another bus to take us to another port, where we caught the slowest ferry ever!... Then a taxi to finally get to the hospital after about 1hr later or so. So imagine poor Phil struggling to move and everything.... I seriously thought he was going to pass out and I would have to carry the bags and Phil... But luckily I grabbed the first taxi I saw and we got dropped off at the ER... After an hr and several questions( obviously me trying to translate back and forth) it turned out that he got food poisoning and was severely dehydrated:(...  So he had to be on drip for hrs. But the story doesn't end there. We hadn't booked any hotel for the night, so I had no choice than to leave Phil and look for a place to stay. Luckily while we waited at the airport I was able to look up at some hotels and the first one I remembered that's the one I booked us in. It all turned out fine at the end!... Phil got about 1,000 pills to take and they put him on a special diet for the rest of the week :( (the bad part, next cruise would have even better food, since its a posh boat lol)....

Next day, we had to move to San Cristobal island, because the day after we joined the new boat early in the morning. I went to different places to look for other options because Phil was not feeling that great.. But we had no luck!.. the only ferry available was a speed boat that leaves everyday at 2 pm  (btw that's what they called a speed boat that holds about 15 passengers, but they crammed about 25). So we had no choice than to move to the other island!. Phil described this as the worst boat ride of his life!.. We were the first ones to arrive thinking would have the best seats, but it got worse, 7 people got in, then 10 next thing you know.. We were all cramming in!..things were made much worse by very choppy seas. Half way through our trip, I looked across at Phil and his face said it all..He was not a happy camper, especially with 10 people leaning on him and a woman sleeping on him. Honestly priceless!.Three hours later we arrived and Phil looked like death but was very happy to walk on land again!. We both were.

Next day, we joined our second boat "La Pinta".This boat was by far bigger (a small cruise ship)and held about 29 passengers and 3 naturalists. We were the first passengers on board, so we had all the attention to ourselves. We got our welcome drink and then we had someone show us our room. After 2 hrs we had our first announcement, dinner was ready. We proceeded to the dinning area were we enjoyed a delicious buffet. We also got to see our group for the first time. They were mostly old people(like 65ish), and once again i was the only Mexican on board!.

This boat had a similar schedule as the last one... BUT instead of waking up to the sound of the bell this time was more "pleasant".. Xavier( the hotel manager) normally played classical music around 6:40am followed by a wake up call at 7:00 followed by more classical music for 30 min then breakfast time at 7:30.. ... I personally hated the music because I couldn't go back to sleep lol....

This boat took us to two of the most amazing islands in the east of the Galapagos: Espanola and Genovesa. Espanola was by far one of Phil's favorites. When they announced that we would be visiting Espanola, Phil had the biggest smile that went from ear to ear. Phil's dream came true!.. we were going to see albatrosses!. When we arrived we did a short hike that involved seing some blue footed boobies and Nazca boobies ( similar to blue footed boobies but these ones have grey feet, and have black around their eyes that looked like a mask) and lastly the albratosses!. We got to see them creating their nests as well as taking care of their chicks!..Seeing them fly, taking off and trying to stop was AMAZING!..and not to mention sea lions and of course marine iguanas as always. 

The other amazing island was Genovesa.. This island was in the shape of a crescent moon around an old underwater volcanic crater. This hike was one of the easiest... along a beach. Finally we got to see the last birds that we were waiting to see. The red footed boobies!(the same species as their blue footed cousins but with bright red feet!)... They are so beautiful but I think we both agreed that we just prefer the blue footed boobies. We also saw the galapagos day hunter Owl. In my opinion it's the most elegant creature. It' was so well camouflaged that our guide had difficulty spotting it!... 

That day we were able to do deep water snorkeling where they take you with a raft to do snorkeling in a random place in the middle of the sea. We were hoping to see the last animal on our list that very few get to see: that is the hammer head shark!. Mmmhh unfortunately we didn't see it. Our guide even took us to 2 different places to seek this sharks but unfortunately they were too deep to see them when snorkeling. We also learned that people that Scuba Dive come to the Galapagos Islands to swim just with the hammer head sharks!. 

In conclusion, we saw all the animals that habitat in Galapagos with exception of the hammer head sharks :(.. I guess we can leave that for next time!... Like I mentioned before we both felt in love with this place. All the unique animals, the nature and everything else, makes Galapagos one of our favorite place to visit so far!... Now we are on our way back to Quito, Ecuador to join our new group for our next  adventure into the mainland of South America!

P + Y