Swimming amongst turtles´ heads!

When people tell you that you´ll absolutely love a book, film or place and praise it to high heaven then more often than not the expectation outweighs the actual experience and you end up disappointed, so when Matt D (friend from NAS) started using "best" this and "-est" that about the Galapagos Islands, I hoped this was not the case ´cos he´s a cool, laidback guy and doesn´t exaggerate. Happily the islands surpassed all my hopes and while Bec might describe it as "one of the highlights" I´ll state that it´s the best place I´ve ever visited it and I continually sat in awe of how close I was to the amazing wildlife and was astounded by my surroundings. I felt like I used to at the end of holidays when I did when I was a kid when we left, ´cos if we ever do go back (and I doubt it), then I can´t see that there will still be sand on the "main" road on Isabella island.

As Si said in his comments, each island is totally different. Anyone can visit, Tracy, even reprebates like me, but 97% of the islands are national park and you have to have an official guide with you - ours one day was an ex footballer who had played for Ecquador. Isabella island has 5 volcanoes and one of them, Negara, has the 2nd largest crater in the world but the other (in Tanzania) isn´t active. Pic 10 shows the crater about 25km in diameter and its last eruption was 2005, we saw a giant tortoise with scorch marks!!

The tour company was excellent, and we had a fantastic time. When we were on our own though 2 days after everyone had left we went to a beach that we had to ourselves. I was looking out to sea when I saw something pop its head above water, then another and another. They were turtles about 5 metres from the shore, so we watched for about 10 mins and then put our snorkel gear on and swam with them for another 20 mins, they were still there when we left much later. After the snorkelling while Bec was reading I kept saying "There´s one and another. There´s loads." The commentary wasn´t exactly David Attenborough but Bec humoured me with a few "Yes, darling I know."s I was transfixed for nearly an hour repeating myself over and over just watching them swim around.

I´ve put another pic of a blue footed boobie on as its the slickest bird there is. It just stands there looking cool and the females swoon after him, when it dives for fish it folds its wings away and darts like an arrow straight down into the ocean. I could have watched these and the pelicans, diving and swirling around forever.

Pic 1 - turtles
2 - Blue footed boobie, or Amar as we started to call them
3 - Negara´s volcanic landscape
4 - Frigate bird bay on San Christobal
5 - Bec at 4
6 - Baby seals, only days old, on Isla Lobos
7 - A yawning tortoise
8 - Land iguana
9 - Just off Santa Fe. There´s a sea lion resting on the rocks too.
10 - Negara´s crater
11 - Isabella is so perfect alchohol grows on trees(!)
12 - Sea lions are everywhere. Sometimes you have to avoid them walking down the streets. This guy was sunbathing next to 2 blokes then got up to check out 2 French girls.
13 - Pelican
14 - Tortuga bay on Santa Cruz island and some of the others from our tour party
15 - Tortuga bay again.