Hello,

I feel like I´ve been out of communication for ages and so much has happened.

I´ve now finished my volunteering at Jatun Sacha. The experience has been amazing and I consider myself to be a fully fledged machete girl. I left the camp on Friday and have spent the weekend in port with the other volunteers. They went back to the highlands last night so now I´m on the own for the first time in 5 weeks.. it feels strange. I´ve been sharing a room since I got here so having my own bedroom last night was bizarre. I´ll be staying on San Cristobal until Wednesday and I have a room in a hostel with sky tv (so movies in English but no news) and hot water… luxury! Although I woke up this morning to rain.. it´s not meant to rain in port!

As I´ve not written for so long I have a lot to say so I'll split it up into sections

The 4 day tour!

On Thursday 27th November I started my 4 day tour of the Islands. Jatun Sacha volunteers usually use the same tour company in port for so my group was all people that I knew already from the Jatun Sacha hammocks. We got taxis into port on Wednesday night after work and had to be at the boat at 6am on Thursday. The Galapagos are trying to control the spread of plant species between islands as many of the plants are endemic to only 1 island. This meant that we all had to spend time going through our clothes removing the many seeds… this was a bit difficult as all of our clothes are covered in seeds and when they are washed the seeds don´t come off and instead just stick to the rest of your clothes. When it came down to it the bag checks at the port are completely inadequate… it seems a bit like it is just for show…. Can´t more be done to protect the Galapagos?

There were 10 people on the tour and our boat was tiny. Covered over at the front and open at the back. To start with the crew told us all to sit inside so we wouldn´t get wet. I followed this advice but pretty soon was feeling v ill and I spent the rest of that 3.5 hour boat journey in a mess of sea sickness. I don´t think I usually get sick… not nice!

The first snorkel was it Isla Champions. The water is freezing so wet suits are essential (as well as stylish and flattering!). There were loads of nice Finding Nemo fishies and the water made me feel better straight away. Next up we got back on the boat to Isla Floreana. This is a tiny island with only 80 inhabitants. We were welcomed by massive marine iguanas lazing on the pier and of course sea lions. We walked up to a local restaurant and ate then got onto a brilliant bus. It´s truck with no sides with church pews inside for benches. And then a roof rack on top for extra seats. On the way up to the highlands I travelled on a pew, but on the way back I went on the roof. It was really fun but v scary and I was glad to be able to climb off at the end…. So many things here that could never happen in the UK!

We got off the bus and trekked up into the highlands a bit to some caves. The story goes that pirates lived in the caves and that there are mysterious deaths on the island. The guide´s English was not great so I think some of the mystery of it got lost in translation. IT was a nice view though! We then visited some tortoises in the national park. These ones had really long necks so they can reach high vegetation. We sat down near them and they came over to visit. One tried to eat Monica´s show… I've got that on video... v amusing. They really don´t seem to mind having people about, they just walk wherever they want to and if you happen to be in the way then you´d better move! They make a funny hissing noise sometimes and some of the older ones sound a bit like darth vader.

The next boat ride was another couple of hours. Luckily Tina has some sea sickness pills which solved my problem for the rest of the trip. The boat took us to Isabella but on the way the most amazing thing happened… we saw dolphins!!!!! It started with just a couple following us and jumping out of the water. Then we slowed down a bit and we were surrounded… probably 100 of them all jumping and swimming alongside us getting really close. It was incredible and lasted for around 20 minutes. They are so smooth in the water and when they are flipping and showing off. I managed to get a video of one of them flipping.

Isabella is a really beautiful island. The water on the approach is turquoise and shallow and the roads in the town are made of whit e sand…. Stunning! We stayed in a hotel for the next 2 night s that had hot water……mmmmmm, so good after the cold sea water. We had dinner in the hotel. Thursday was American thanksgiving so we talked about that for quite a while for the sake of the Americans. We went around the table saying what we were all thankful for… I said sea sickness tablets… but really I´m pretty thankful for absolutely everything at the moment, including all of you at home.

On Friday we had a 3 course breakfast (v tasty) and then hiked up Volcan Sierra Negra and Volcan Chico on Isabella. The walk up was hard and extremely hot but worth it. Sierra Negra last erupted in the 1990´s some time and has a crater that is 10km across. We were lucky that the sky was clear and we could see all the way across it. After a while the clouds came up and started to flow into the crater like water… it was an amazing site and could not be caught on camera. From Sierra Negra, Volcan Chico is another couple of hours walk. The landscape radically changes from being green and luscious to being clearly recent lava flow. The rocks are black and red and pointy. There are lava tunnels where air has been trapped in a lava flow. It looks like it could be Mars. The lava fields go on for a massive area and my walking boots were essential. When we were at the top of the volcano the view was beautiful. You can see the shape of Isabella and a few other volcanoes pointing out the sea as well as Isla Ferdinanda. We also saw an enormous cloud that looked just like a killer whale (I have pics but as usual the picture upload is a nightmare!... I need some technical support….).

In the afternoon there was no recovery time…a truly action packed tour!. We got straight onto a water taxi to a small island off of Isabella. The island is covered in marine iguanas ranging from 10cm to 2m long. They were all sitting on top of each other piled up to stay warm on the black rocks. Periodically one or 2 of them projectile snot sea water from their noses. I´m sure they were aiming at me! Some of them are piled so precariously they look as they they´re going to fall off into the water but I didn´t see any fall in. Our boat was greeted to the island by a 4 in 1 show…. On the same rock a Marine Iguana, Blue Footed Boobie, Sea Lion and……. A Penguin!!!!! The 1 and only penguin I have seen! It was tiny but very sweet. On 1 side of this tiny island there is a channel about 2 m across. This channel was filled with White Tipped sharks! They are a couple of metres long and sleep in the channel as they need to be in continually moving water to keep their gills open. The channel is only about 3m deep so you can see right to the bottom. Next up was more snorkeling. I saw an enormous sting ray… about 3m across and then a sea lion played with us. The sea lions are like Labradors ina way… really keen and playful (although i´m not so keen on them now as 1 bit me… more on that later!). When you dive down in the water they dive down with you and talkto you in old drunk man language (that´s what they sound like anyway).

The next day we move out of our hotel and got the boat to Quatro Hermanos (the 4 brothers… a set of small islands) where we snorkeled again. Well actually I was in the water for about 2 seconds. I jumped in and was surrounded by jelly fish and freaked out. I don´t think they are dangerous but I did get a little sting on my neck and couldn´t cope with it. The boat took me a little way into the cave that the others were swimming in.. the walls had stripes of multicolored life… rally beautiful like gems.

Then we went on to Santa Cruz. This is the most touristy of the islands and it makes a difference because not everyone knows who you are. Isabella didn´t even have a cash machine so Santa Cruz was a big contrast. We had lunch there and thegot on a bus to the highlands where we saw amazing volcanic formations where large craters have been formed by collapsed lava tunnels. We also walked through a 300m long lava tunnel and had to crawl through the end of it. The dinner on Santa Crus was amazing! We all ad huge tuna steaks cooked on lava rocks.. the tuna was still cooking at it arrived…. The most delicious meal ever!. That night we all went out and drank too much… the next day was painful!

On Sunday morning we went to the Darwin Centre on Santa Cruz and saw Lonesome George. He is the tortoise that is over 100 years old and is thought to be the last of his species. The Darwin Centre is trying to mate him but he´s not all that interested!

Then we went on a really long walk that ended up at the most amazing, stunning beach I have ever seen. It is white sand and very wide with Marine Iguanas all over. They look black against the sand and very cool with the sea in the background. We walked along the enormous beach to the mangrove swamps where it was safer to swim as the currents weren´t bad- Here the water is shallow and warm and clear. But there are sharks!!!! That was scary but they didn´t look hungry so I stayed in.

Back on the boat we went across to Santa Fe for our last snorkel. The day was clear and bright and so was the water. I saw a lovely fish that was black with luminous blue spots and a fish with a big yellow Mohawk.. I wish I had an underwater camera! An Australian couple on the trip have a regular digital camera that can go down 10 metres…. It´s probably too late now as I don´t know how much more underwater stuff I'll be doing for the rest of my trip.

So in summary the 4 day tour was the coolest thing ever!!!! AND I think I've even managed to get some of my pics up!!!! Amazing!