The Galapagos Islands

When we got to Quito we decided that it would be stupid to come all the way to Ecuador and not visit the Galapogos Islands, as we're not likely to ever come here again. It was a good decision, it's been one of the highlights of the trip.

The big attraction here is the wildlife, there are a lot of endemic spieces unique to the Islands. It's where Charles Darwin got he's inspiration for the theory of evolution. Because man hasn't been on the islands for long and there are very few predators, the animals and birds are aren't scared of us, so they let you get really close, but they aren't tame. You see them all in the wild as all the islands are one big national park.

Some of the highlights have been seeing the giant tortoises, one of them, Lonesome George is the last of his speices. They live to be 250 years old.

The Blue footed boobies are brilliant, the males just stand there in there bright blue shoes looking cool and wait for the ladies to come to them. They've spawned a whole boobie inuendo T shirt business.

The Sea Lions are on every beach. You have to watch where you stand or else you'll stand on one. They wake us up in the mornings barking. We've swam with them a couple of times, they're so cumbersome on land but in the water the're really playfull and elegant. They scared me to death the first time one swam up to me, but the secone time I was just in awe. We've took some underwater pics so hopefully they'll come out and we can put them on the blog too. This picture's of some babies.

There are tons of marine iguanas too, looking like dinasaurs. They look scarey but I think they're harmless.

We loved it so much here're we changed our flights and stayed 3 more days. We fly back to the mainland on Thursday, we'll post more pics then as the internet connection here is really bad.