Dear Everyone,
This is the start of our Ecuador/Galapagos journal. I did
this trip with Barbara in May, 1973 - - and a lot has changed since. I have a rudimentary journal of our two week
trip back then (it’s all of three pages long), but my memory of fifty years ago
is a bit foggy. I know I had to document
this trip because I was required to give a presentation about it when I
returned to 7th grade. I must
have taken a lot of Kodachrome, lost to time now. I doubt that my fellow students were particularly
interested in my slide show other than as an excuse to nap or daydream. Hopefully, my literary skills have improved
enough since that time to hold your present attention.
I think I heard about this Origins Project trip through Owen, who
must listen occasionally to Lawrence Krauss’s podcast. Anyway, I was interested because my Yale
housemate (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Elizabeth (Betsy)
Kolbert was one of the invited guests - - I couldn’t resist (also 80 degree
weather in January was a bit of a pull).
Another invitee, Frans
De Waal, a truly eminent primatologist was also on my fanboy list, but he
had to cancel due to personal reasons, to my disappointment.
Quito
We left Saturday, Jan 6 at around 5 am to get to O’Hare,
driving in snow. We were taking an
airline new to me, Copa, which is
centered in Panama City, and really had the most convenient flights to points
in South America. My Ecuadorean gastroenterologist
friend, Rogelio (Roger) Silva, recommended them. Our taxi driver took an alternate route to
O’Hare, which freaked us out a little. The flight to Panama was smooth, with a
pretty good inflight breakfast. We could see the canal (a man, a plan, Panama!)
on our flight in. We had an uneventful
four hour layover in Panama City where we had access to the lounge (crappy
food, but comfortable chairs and free WiFi), and then a flight to Quito’s Sucre
airport. Immigration and customs
went quickly, and we took a five minute hotel shuttle to the nearby Wyndham, which
had us in our room by 9:15pm. The following morning we partook of an abundant
buffet breakfast, where we met some of other group members that also had overnighted,
including Linda Falkner, Carell Jantzen, and Dave Thiessen. Dave is a retired
high school physics teacher (Deerfield HS) who now lives in the Woodstock IL
area. We also met Rob Hinton and Caroline Mercury, two former paper industry
engineers who live in the Washington state suburbs of Portland.
Jan 7
We shared a taxi with Linda, and took the 50 minute drive
into the heart of old Quito (our driver got a bit lost trying to avoid some
downtown traffic), and we were dropped off at our hotel, the Casa Gangotena. This is truly a wonderful mansion that
wouldn’t be out of place as a Venetian palazzo.
It was built about 100 years ago, and converted into a hotel in
2011. It faces one of the main squares
in Quito, with the large monastery and church of St Francisco directly on the
left. Our rooms were not ready yet, so
we went up to the lovely terrace at the top floor, where we by chance met up
with Lawrence Krauss and his wife Nancy Dahl (our fabulous trip organizer), as
well as John Dahl (microbiologist, artist, and brother of Nancy) and his wife
Deb Landon. Betsy and her husband John Kleiner (retired
English professor at Williams College) showed up a bit later (they had taken a
red eye flight from New York and were pretty tired). I had a non-alcoholic drink of cocoa
mucilage, which tastes a lot better than it sounds. We found out that some
people had a lot of difficulty getting in because their flights were abruptly
cancelled on the runway due to the 737Max door plug
blowout the previous day.
Cindy and I go to our garden fronting room which is now
ready for us, and then go out for a stroll around the old town. I find a street book vendor, and purchase a
Spanish edition of V E Schwab’s Vengeful
(Una Venganza Mortal), the second book in her Villains duology which I read in
2018. I’m hoping it helps with learning
Spanish. We walk past a street preacher in the middle of San Francisco
square. He is not afraid to use his
loudspeaker, and appears to be some kind of evangelical. I find out the next day that he is a
Pentecostal who makes a point at preaching in front of Catholic churches on
Sundays. We admire a lot of colonial architecture and buildings decorated with
condors and other Andean animals. On our
walk we have a treat that looks like ice cream but is made with fruit meringue,
or espumilla,
so it does not melt in the heat. Yum!
There is a short informational meeting in the late afternoon
with all of the Origins tourists. We get
some swag (a small bag, a luggage handle wrap, a colored pencil set and a slim
moleskin drawing pad). Everyone introduces themselves, and Lawrence and Nancy
give out the next day’s agenda. Wine and
small appetizers are also served.
Later, we head out with John and Betsy for dinner, and after
a bit of walking about find that most places are closed or will soon. We eat at
Casa Manuela, even
though we know that this is the restaurant the entire group will eat at the
next day. The servers are a bit
flummoxed by our order when I tell them that we have 80 dollars for four
people, and they should just bring us food that will cover that price. They do a good job, though. We have ceviche and llapingachos,
which are potato pancakes with squid, sausage, and quail egg. We also have our first Ecuadorean beer, Club,
which is partly fermented with rice, and tastes a lot like Coors, ugh.
Jan 8
I’m woken by the monks ringing a bell at 5 am, and again at
6. Luckily, I don’t hear any roosters!
We have breakfast in the hotel (had some sweet granadilla
fruit as well as a near constant on our voyage, pan de yuca, a cheese bun
made with cassava flour), and then go for a tour of Quito with our guides from Go Galapagos (this company also
charters the Coral I yacht we use for our tour). Our first stop is the Basilica
de Voto National. Unfortunately we
weren’t able to go in. The basilica is
still unfinished after 150 years, and superstition says that finishing it will
signal the end of the world (much like the Cubs 2016 World Series win). Of course these large religious edifices are
rarely ever ‘completely’ finished, but also the more recent Ecuadorean
governments have not been giving public money to the Catholic Church. The outside is quite interesting; however,
instead of typical gargoyles, the water spouts are hidden by representations of
local animals - - tortoises, sloths, anteaters, monkeys, iguanas, etc. The Basilica is on a hill, and we can see La Filantropica, or the ‘blender’,
which now houses the ministry of tourism.
We head south on Calle Garcia Moreno to the square that
holds the presidential palace and the archbishop’s palace. Ecuador’s mainland is self-sufficient in
agriculture. Their biggest exports are
oil, bananas (the current president is the scion of a big banana family) and
shrimp aquaculture. There are going to
be a lot of issues with oil and bananas in the future, so I hope they are
looking at other sources of foreign exchange.
Our walk down Garcia Moreno takes us to La Compania, or the
‘golden
church’, which is the church dedicated by the Jesuits. It has a lovely
external edifice. Sadly, we were not
allowed to photograph inside the church, where every single surface is covered
in gold leaf. It’s ‘only’ about 4
million dollars’ worth of gold, so today maybe not such a high relative
value. I have to think that in the 1600s
you could get a lot more bang for your buck - - that is, building a school
today could cost 1-2 million dollars easily, but back then you would probably
be pretty happy with two rooms and fifty books.
A lot of money went into the glorification of the church that maybe
(only maybe) could have been spent more wisely ensuring citizen’s welfare. Who am I kidding! Anyway, I made some smart-aleck crack
something like “if I were a Bond Villain I would want to live in this church
with my cats”, which was appreciated by my over-awed companions. The church is
built atop of lava tubes, which were used as structures for pseudo-catacombs.
The church has the remains of the first Ecuadorean saint, Mariana
de Jesus des Paredes, and also houses a lot of interesting 16th
and 17th century art, often copies made by local Quito artists. Of some renown is the painting of Hell
by Hernando de la Cruz. One woman is
being punished simply for the crime of being good looking! We remarked on what
types of punishment might be considered in the 21st century, such as
sitting for eternity in an economy class airplane seat between two overlarge
people.
Next we went into a large public building (I think the Centro
cultural metropolitan) that hosts an underutilized branch of the public
library, and some art work in an internal courtyard planted with ‘heritage’
trees. From here we head back to St
Francisco square, and go into this church, which is also gilded (although
not quite to the state of the Jesuit church).
We are allowed to photograph here.
There are also many figurines representing “the baby Jesus”, which is
the way many Ecuadoreans
celebrate their faith. In Quito
there are stores where one can buy Baby Jesus figurines dressed in all sorts of
costumes - - doctor, firefighter, etc.
After the church we went to our hotel (next door), and got
ready for our lunch time excursion into north Quito. On the way to our hotel we passed some goat
herders in the main square - - they would sell you some fresh milk!
We drive north. According
to our GoGalapagos guide, North Quito residents are richer and more industrious
than southerners, but also less community minded. There were a lot of community help groups in
the southern part of the city during the pandemic, not so much in the
‘go-getter’ regions of the city. We pass
the old
airport, which is even more constrained by geography than Chicago’s
Midway. It is now a public park. We continue north and increase elevation
until we get to the El Crater restaurant/hotel/spa. We are surrounded by clouds, but occasionally
they break apart to allow us to see into the caldera of the old volcano. There
are farms located down below. Lunch
service is slow (but better than some restaurants we go to); something we all
come to realize is a feature of feeding large group excursions in Ecuador. For lunch I have potato soup, goat stew (we
think it was actually lamb), and figs (really good) for dessert. We had lunch
with Dawn and John Edwards, from Arizona.
They have been on multiple Origins trips. We walk around outside after
lunch, and see some llamas.
On the way back to the city we stop at the Intinan
museum, which as Wikipedia states, provided amusements for credulous
tourists. There is an exhibit of alleged
shrunken heads, as well as some extremely bogus demonstrations of Coriolis
force - - if it was as strong as they pretended, nothing would probably be
alive more than a few miles off the equator.
I do see some good birds though!
We stop momentarily at the old equator monument to look at the abandoned
Union
of South American Nations building and get a few additional pictures. Geographic zero is somewhere around here! I read one of these two books about the
French geodesic survey to measure 1 degree of latitude, but I don’t recall
which. Measure
of the Earth or Latitude.
Back at the hotel Cindy and I stop at the bar before dinner
and have dirty martinis and mango margaritas, and then back to Casa Manuela for
a big group dinner. We were not allowed
to order off the menu, which makes serving a bit easier. However, Nancy says she
was not allowed to choose the limited options. They were thrust upon her by the
restaurant when she arrived and the total was less than she had prepaid for the
group (of course, they did not refund the difference). I have a Campari soda, ceviche, and a potato
dish with hearts of palm and fried plantain.
Jan 9
We need to get up at 5:15 (not the only time for an early
morning travel call) to get to Quito airport to fly Guayaquil-San
Cristobal. It’s a good thing we have
this early (9 AM) flight, because this is the day there is a large scale jail
break/insurrection in Ecuador, where one of the TV stations is held hostage by
armed thugs, and the president declares a state of emergency, curfews and the
shutdown of the 2 major airports to battle against Ecuadorian narcotraficantes allied
with Columbian and Mexican criminals. My personal opinion is that 100s of years
of history show that interdiction is a policy that does not work well against
drug use, and even though decriminalization and money spent on public awareness
and treatment is also not a great policy, it seems to have fewer bad societal
repercussions. I hope Ecuador, a pretty
peaceful country, can get out of this hole.
There were some minor events on our flight, beyond the
semi-disorganized manner that check in and security took place. Lawrence helps
move our anxious travel minds elsewhere by performing some magic tricks; I
especially like the one with the invisible deck. One Ecuadoran passenger was so
nervous on the plane that he burst his stress squeeze ball, and viscous goo got
all over several people (maybe he was running from the narcos). One of the Origins group was using air tags
which must have lost power, and she had a bit of a scare believing that her
luggage had been left in Quito.
Everything came out fine though, and we were all amused by the
performance of a trained dog in San Cristobal who ran back and forth along the
luggage looking for contraband. We paid
our $100 Galapagos entry fee, collected our bags, and took a short bus ride to
the Golden Bay Hotel. This was a nice hotel right on the beach in a
small town, Puerto
Baquerizo Moreno, which is the capital of the Galapagos that reminded me a
bit of Playa del Carmen in Cancun, or maybe Manly Beach in Sydney.
We have a supremely slow and disorganized lunch at the hotel
(Betsy and John were smart enough to forgo sitting down, ask for a sandwich and
take a walk along the beach). Afterwards
Cindy and I walk along the beach front seeing sea lions and other fauna (see
end for list). Before dinner there is an
Origins talk, first a short talk by the Charles Darwin Foundation about
some of their research and conservation efforts (one looking at tortoise
distribution on San Cristobal, another on attempting to eradicate invasive
blackberry (maybe they need to bring goats back, they seem to keep the
blackberries controlled on Isabella), and another of trying to deal with the
invasive fly Philornis
downsi, whose larva attack baby birds).
Then they gave a pitch to fund a travelling library for the islands
(there is no public library here, Origins pledged $5000 from the tour group,
which was fulfilled by the end of the trip), and then a talk by Lawrence Krauss
on error correction in science, and how everyone weighs about 0.5% less at the
equator than at the poles (about 1 pound if you weigh 170 - - mainly because
you are both further from the Earth’s center, and you are moving at greater
speed than at the poles). Then we go out
with Betsy, John, Dave Thiessen and Carell Jantzen to a nearby restaurant for
dinner. More than half of the menu is
not available (I guess those are breakfast dishes only). I’m a bit disappointed, because I wanted to
try a bolon
de verde, a big fried green plantain and cheese ball, I eventually got one
our last day at Baltra airport), the service is pretty slow, and it’s quite
loud, even though we are eating outside.
Cindy and I share a couple of kinds of ceviche. We went out to the third floor, unused
terrace of the hotel to look at the stars, but didn’t see much. Ben Baker, the
trip’s unofficial photographer went up later the same evening, and took photos
of the Magellanic Clouds.
Jan 10
The rooftop terrace is flat and quiet in the morning, so I
get my one and only chance of this trip to run through tai chi forms. I’m serenaded by yellow warblers (plentiful
and tame throughout the islands; I am not sure if they are endemic or migrants)
and ground finches. San Cristobal is one
of the few islands that actually has a spring.
The town has central plumbing (not so with Santa Cruz), and a population
of around 6000. I think the main industries
here are fishing with some farming, but tourism is becoming bigger. I have no idea how many people lived here in
1970, my guess would be under 1000. San
Cristobal’s main business in the late 1800s was a giant sugar cane plantation
After a leisurely breakfast, we drive up into the highlands
to see a tortoise
reserve. There is a population of
semi-feral older turtles (the fewer striations and more polished the tortoise’s
shell is, the older they are) which are kept for breeding purposes. We are lucky enough to be at the reserve on a
feeding day, and there are small herds of tortoises munching and gulping a
plant called elephant ear. There are also pens with tortoises ranging
from 1 to 6 years. Baby tortoises are
very cute. After 6 years old, the
tortoises are big enough to fend for themselves against introduced predators
such as cats, rats, dogs, etc., and they are released into the wild. They are trying to put the tortoises back
into areas where the animals are locally extinct. Of course, the fight against invasive species
– mammals, insects, plants, infectious diseases, is never ending.
We return to the hotel, and get onto zodiac boats to get to
our yacht, the Coral I. Our luggage is already on board. We have a buffet lunch (as all of our meals
are) and then go back to town to visit Cero
Tijeritas, or frigate bird hill. We
bypass the interpretive center, and walk up the hill to the lookout point. Afterwards we visit the nice interpretive
center detailing the geology, biology, and history of the islands. Nearby is a very modern facility run in part
by the University of North Carolina,
but we don’t have time or the connections to visit with the scientists working
there. The most knowledgeable of our
three required guides, Jonathan (the others were Willow and Diego), worked with
some of the researchers there.
On our return to the boat we go through some informationals,
mostly about emergency procedures (I think if the ship foundered at night
without electricity I would likely die), the next day’s schedule, and
distribution of snorkel gear and rental scuba suits. There is a short movie about sizing the mask
to your face, but there is only one size mask, so it hardly seems
relevant. My mask is pretty ill-fitting,
and I find on my four snorkel dives that I need to clear it about every two
minutes.
The ship is pretty small for 36 people (it is completely
full). There is a lounge that just about fits all of us, and a separate dining
area which is equally crowded and noisy at meals, especially if the ship’s
engines are running. Our ‘stateroom’ is
on the lowest deck, and barely has enough room for the bed and inadequate
storage. As expected, the bathroom is
pretty small. This is one reason why I like river barge trips more (also, barge
boats don’t typically rock about the way an ocean boat does). In fact, there is no ‘public’ washroom on the
boat, so one needs to go back to a cabin for biological purposes. The shower is
timed, and takes a cycle or two to warm up, and although the water is potable,
it’s recommended that you get water out of the purifier on the main deck. Of
course, you can always get drinks at the small bar.
The bottom deck has ten cabins. The main deck has a small Jacuzzi and the lounge/bar
in the stern, dining room aft, and two more cabins at midship (the galley is on
the other side of the boat from the cabins). The upper deck has six larger
cabins, a clothes dryer (this gets a lot of use over the next four days), and
an area where the snorkel gear and scuba suits are stored. There is a final top deck with lounge chairs,
and is an enjoyable place to spend the late afternoons, or to go star gazing at
night (it’s dark enough to see the Milky Way, but no one is familiar with the
Southern Sky).
After all of the gear is distributed we are free to wander about the boat (this takes about 5 minutes) and hang out until dinner. We stay at anchor at the small port overnight, and weigh anchor early in the morning to go north to Kicker Rock.
Jan 11
I hear every link of the anchor chain coming back on the
boat prior to our morning cruise, so I get up.
There are already some people on the top deck, and we see frigate birds,
boobies, tropic birds, etc. Then it’s
time for breakfast. Afterwards, we get onto zodiacs, and zip around Kicker Rock
a couple of times to see it close up.
This is the remains of an old volcano, eroded by time, and all that is
left is the calcined remains of a tuff cone. We go to a nearby beach for some
snorkeling. The water near the beach has
a lot of knocked about sand, limiting visibility, but about 50 feet out there
some small rock piles/ reefs with clear water, and lots of parrot fish and
other typical reef inhabitants. The coral
looks pretty healthy to me; of course, I have both limited vision and limited
knowledge.
Following the morning snorkel we are back on the yacht for
lunch, and the ship motors northward to another site off of San Cristobal. This second stop was one of the few available
for actual hiking on the islands, but the weather is rainy when we get there,
and most people (including Cindy and me) elect to stay on the boat. The weather turned nice during the hike, so I
am a bit sorry I missed it. I am not
sure exactly what was seen on the hike, but I believe they saw more boobies,
sea lions, marine iguanas, and sea turtles.
We have dinner on the ship, and then Jonathan gives a short
talk about marine iguanas, followed by a depressing recap by Betsy of the Sixth
Extinction. The natural world is
facing a lot of human caused problems including (among many) greenhouse gas
emissions causing global warming of the atmosphere and the oceans, ocean
acidification, and introduced flora and fauna.
If she were to write a new edition of the book there would be even more
dismal news. It’s time for some star gazing and more alcohol.
Jan 12
The previous evening we sailed through choppy ocean to the
island of Espanola.
We have a morning and afternoon snorkels because access is restricted on the
island due to avian flu. Too bad, since
this is the island where the waved albatross nests (however, they might not
have been on the island anyway since breeding season is usually over by
December). Instead, we take some time to motor about along the coast in the
zodiac, and see a variety of bird life nesting on the short cliffs of the
island.
The snorkel in the morning is the best that I can recall.
The water was warm and clear. We swam with sea lions, sea turtles, and reef
sharks. Boobies were diving down from
overhead to catch small fish - - and the numbers of fish were just
incredible. It was like swimming in a
giant aquarium tank. I have no reliable way to identify what I saw, but they
were many and varied.
In the afternoon we went to another site which also had
great marine life. I am amazed to watch Arnoldo
Falcoff snorkel with us. Arnoldo is
a 79 year old professional diver who lives on St Thomas VI. He routinely goes down 20-30 feet and stays
under water for a couple of minutes. Of
course, I’m wearing a scuba suit as well as an (uninflated) life jacket, but I
have trouble going down below five feet, let alone staying under water for more
than 30 seconds. I’m blaming my ill-fitting scuba mask! Later, Cindy and I
walked a beach with Jonathan, and Allan and Mamta Mertner. The Mertners live in London, and were on the
2022 Origins Greenland trip. On our
beach walk we saw lava lizards, marine iguana, tons of crabs (very tasty
according to Jonathan, but you are no longer allowed to catch them) green warbler finch,
Espanola mockingbirds,
and turtle trails.
In the evening we had dinner followed by a talk by John Dahl
about Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle. It
was a five year journey, and decidedly uncomfortable. Sometime that evening we come upon a school
of large sharks - certainly over twenty of them. They were swimming about the ship, possibly
hunting flying fish which were flipping out of the water.
Jan 13
Overnight we sailed to Floreana Island. This was the roughest sea passage of our
tour. I was glad to have some
Dramamine. We hiked on Point Cormorant. The beach here has a greenish tint due to
fragments of olivine. A short walk inland brings us to a brackish
lagoon where there is a flock of endemic flamingos, as well as a variety of
shore birds (stilts, peeps, plovers, and ducks). We also see some smooth-billed anis. The anis were brought here to eat the ticks
that infest the cattle (also brought here by humans). This did not work out; the anis are very
intelligent, and quickly learned that they could make an easier living
elsewhere. The lagoon is in danger of
drying up in the near future from the effect of global climate change, which
would lead to the extinction of the flamingo, which depends on the lagoon for
small crustaceans. Perhaps humans would
have to create new lagoon inland.
Floreana is one of the few islands with a spring, and so
there have been humans here for a while.
It was also the site of a scandalous murder in
the 1930s. However, the island has
never been a big population center.
We walk over a hill to another beach which has a good dozen
resting sea turtles, which have come ashore to possibly lay egg. Several more
can be seen mating in the surf off the beach.
In the air above us are a few frigate birds, patrolling up and down,
watching for the emergence of hatchlings (and their dinner). There is also a great blue heron walking
about on the same mission. When we go
back to the olivine landing beach we are surprised to see a lone penguin
swimming up and down the shore. What
it’s doing here so far from Isabella is anyone’s guess.
Later we go for a final snorkel off of Floreana, but prior
to that, as the ship is cruising to this area, we come upon a large pod of
dolphins. The ship circles around them
for about twenty minutes prior to continuing.
For the snorkel, we swim along a wall amidst turquoise water. There are many reef sharks, occasional sea
lions, rays, the usual (!) tropical fish, and pacific lobsters. After lunch we
go back to Floreana and have a short walk up to the ’post office’. There are many post cards here awaiting
delivery. You are supposed to go through
the cards, and if there is one to an address near your home, hand deliver it to
the recipient. I see cards for Arlington
Heights and some other suburbs, but I choose one on 57th and
Dorchester, near where Jasper lives in Hyde Park. Most cards are for the US,
but I see Austria, Australia, England, and other nations. We write some to
people we know (one got delivered to Minneapolis already!).
After dinner Lawrence gives a talk about the beginning of
the universe, with special reference to Fred Hoyle and his science fiction book
The Black Cloud.
Unfortunately this book is out of print and not available in my public library
system.
Jan 14
Another night sail brings us to Santa
Cruz. We take our final zodiac ride
to the Baltra end of
the island, and then a bus to Puerto Ayora. This town
has changed a lot in the last fifty years. It has a population in 1970 of
around 2000. The island now has more
than 12,000 inhabitants and Santa Cruz in total around 20,000. Back then it was
a small dusty backwater - - The Ecuadorian government still hadn’t figured out
what they were doing with the islands.
In the early 1970s the ecotourism movement began, and the town is now
filled with small hotels, tacky souvenir shops, restaurants, and a few
breweries. The town still lacks fresh
water, or sewerage; however. Of course,
if I were a native of Ecuador, I would want to live on these islands also - -
they are peaceful, and you can make a good income in the tourist trade. The government has tried to restrict
internal immigration to the islands, even to the extent of expelling some
‘illegals’ in 2008, but economic forces are against them. This is why the government is trying to
control the amount of tourism as much as they can, even dictating and
specifying routes that tour boats can make.
When I was here on a Lindblad tour in 1973, we could pretty much go
anywhere we wanted, and do whatever we wanted.
On the way to Puerto Ayora we stop at some farms in the
highlands that cater to tourists - - there are many wild tortoises here
(protected by the government such that wire fences don’t extend all the way to
the ground, allowing the animals free access). The farms are also located atop
of large lava tube formations which we walk through. I also spotted a whimbrel here,
as well as many cattle egrets.
Before we get to our hotel, we stop at the Charles Darwin Research
Station. I must have been here in
1973 when it was newly established. I
don’t recall much of the visit, except that the Waud family (they still have
some involvement with the Galapagos
Conservancy), with whom we were travelling, donated a large sum at that
time to tortoise conservation. Lonesome George must
also have been present in the living flesh, but at the time I don’t think
anyone realized he was the very very last of his species. In any case, we are able to see a variety of
tortoise species penned up for breeding purposes, and the preserved Lonesome
George (in a climate controlled chamber which required entry and exit through
air locks). As usual, we also see plenty
of lava lizards, prickly pear cactus (here, because of predation by tortoises
and land iguanas, that grow into trees), candelabra cactus, flycatchers,
finches, etc.
The Fiesta
hotel is at one end of town. It has
a lovely pool area, but the rooms are not as nice as what we experienced in San
Cristobal or Quito, although they at least are on dry land. Santa Cruz is not
really built to take on the thousands of tourists that pass through - - there
is no fresh water on the island, so potable water is either from rain or filtered
groundwater (the
groundwater sources appear to be contaminated).
After checking into our rooms, Cindy and I are free for
lunch, so we wander into town and eat at Frafre,
a gastropub where we have pulled pork nachos, and panko coated fried
shrimp. We rest up at the hotel, and
then we go out to the excellent Santa
Cruz microbrewery with Zachery Seaver and Andria Rabenold. Zachery is an engineer for a hydrogen fuel
company, and Andria is a middle/high school math teacher; they live in Denver
and became engaged in Cuzco a couple of days prior to this trip (they were
travelling for quite a while). Since
there is no fresh water on Santa Cruz, all of the beer is made with recovered
rain water. We enjoy white stouts, IPAs,
and other craft beers, as well as discussing recent musical trends. After the
microbrew, we join the rest of the Origins group at the El Muelle de Darwin (Darwin’s
dock) restaurant. We are seated upstairs
at a large open roofed terrace. The
ambiance is nice, but as usual, despite submitting our orders ahead of time the
food comes out in a disorganized and slow fashion.
lava lizard
Jan 15
No activities are planned for most of the day. We eat breakfast at the outdoor patio and are
entertained by extremely tame yellow warblers, which scramble about looking for
food, especially scrambled egg. Cindy and I walk about the town before it gets
too hot. We visit the next door Laguna
de las Ninfas (nymph’s lagoon) by walking along a rickety wooden
boardwalk. We do see a sea lion, but the
water is murky - - baby hammerhead sharks and other wildlife has been reported
here, but we don’t see anything. We walk
to the edge of the bay, where we see some fisherman unloading their
catches. Then, into town we buy some
little souvenirs - - a small blue footed booby and a marine iguana, they can
keep company with my 50 year old wooden Galapagos tortoise. We pass by the 7th
Day Adventist Natural History Museum without entering (I guess we are too
close-minded), and have lunch at the Galapagos
Deli.
Late in the afternoon, we all reconvene at the Research
Station where we hear a trio of talks by our guest lecturers. Betsy and John Dahl try to put some better
spin on the grim news. Betsy speaks
about some human interventions trying to prevent the worst from happening, such
as trying to keep invasive Asian carp out of Lake Michigan (the latest I have
heard is that Chicago
area pollution is keeping them out of the shipping canal - cleaning the
water may increase the chance of invasion into the lakes! On the other hand, the Illinois Dept. of
Natural Resources just recently caught 750,000
pounds of carp). John talks about
our response to pandemics.
Unfortunately, I am too cynical to believe that we can do much to
prevent the oncoming tsunami. Humans are
generally not very good long range planners, and I marvel at the things we have
occasionally gotten more-or-less right, like the Marshall plan. Lawrence gives a talk about massive
geoengineering projects, like moving Earth to Mars orbit in a few hundred
million years (I forget the exact length of time) to accommodate the sun
turning into a red giant. Of course, in
a few billion years there won’t be anything left but an empty cold universe
anyway. After the talks there is an
auction to raise money for the travelling library project. There are a couple of maps, a weekend in PEI
with Lawrence and Nancy, but the hottest item turns out to be a hand
illustrated copy of John Dahl’s book Darwin’s
Second Voyage.
Following the talks, we repair to the Nazca
restaurant, where Nancy and Lawrence were assured that they could handle our
group. Alas, a day of preparation did
not seem to help. Instead of a fixed
menu, we were told to order off the menu, and service was slow and chaotic as
usual. John and Betsy, who had an early
morning flight the next day, left before they had more than their ceviche
(which was excellent). The beef was also
exceedingly tough (as I found throughout our trip here - - stick with seafood,
chicken, or pork)
Jan 16
We originally planned to leave the Fiesta around 11 AM, but
because of the size of our group we are told by the management at 8:30 that we
should leave for the airport at 9! Several of us rush to finish packing. A
couple of people in our group had gone into town for breakfast and are not
around when we leave, but they are contacted by cell phone and get to the
airport a bit later with Nancy Dahl. It
is later speculated that we were rushed out due to something to do with the
increased military presence seen about town and at all the transfer points. We
take a bus to Punta Carrion and take the five minute ferry across the Itabaca channel. There are many Brown Noddys flying about. We take another short bus ride through the
desert-like landscape of Baltra
to the airport, which is surprisingly efficient. Baltra served as a US air force base during WW2
to help protect the Panama Canal. I
can’t imagine which was a more desolate place to serve - - Baltra, or Churchill
Manitoba. We have lunch here (I finally get that Bolon de verde), visited by
aggressively begging ground finches.
Some of the group separate here (Lawrence, Nancy, the Dahls and
the Mertners are flying to Isabela for a few days). We have some food in the
airport, shared by aggressive ground finches, and are “escorted” to our plane
by large land iguanas. They look like small dinosaurs! We then take our flight
to Guayaquil, where we and Keith Thompson say goodbye to everyone else who is
going on to Quito for their return flights.
Guayaquil
We only go from the airport to the hotel and back again, but
I can tell that Guayaquil appears to be a much more modern, vibrant and lively
city compared to Quito. There are a lot
of private security people on the street and in our hotel. We are staying at
the Sheraton, and Keith is across the street at a Wyndham hotel. We had checked our baggage for the tightly
packed flight to the mainland, so he decided to go on without us, and it turned
out his taxi driver took him to the incorrect hotel at first.
There is a large mall with a food court across the street, reachable
via an enclosed walkway. Cindy and I wander through it in the early evening,
but we don’t see anything outstanding (unlike some of the food courts in
Australia or Canada), so we go back and eat at the hotel. We chose some of our
favorite Ecuadorian food—empanadas filled with potato to share, ceviche for me
and a shrimp dish for Cindy.
Jan 17
After breakfast (where we get our last pan de yuca) in the
hotel, we do our final pack up and use the hotel shuttle back to the airport,
about 10 minutes away. We are a bit
surprised to meet up with Keith (otherwise known as Tiger) at the airport; his
earlier flight was cancelled, and now he is leaving for Panama City with us. We
all hang out in the lounge in Panama City for a few hours before we leave for
Chicago and Tiger to LA about the same time.
We have a long discussion about weight lifting for track and field
athletes, hear how he was kicked out of China and discussions of his two
satiric historical fictions (Scoundrel
and 2024,
both of which I have subsequently purchased).
Keith has some major joint replacement surgeries coming up.
Our final flight from Panama City to Chicago is uneventful,
and other than arriving in zero degree weather, we are glad to be home.
Some final thoughts
The Galapagos have changed a lot in fifty years (as I have). In 1970 Barbara and I were on a ‘big’
Lindblad tour - - the ship was probably about the size of the National
Geographic vessel we saw anchored in Santa Cruz, and I’m guessing had about
50-70 tourists. We were able to go
pretty much anywhere we wanted to, even though we did have Galapagos guides
with us then as well. I don’t think the
marine tourism was as developed then, now all of the best diving sites are well
known. There wasn’t any bird flu on the
islands (that we knew of), and we spent a lot more time walking in the
different land habitats back then. I
missed doing that, but I also remember it was extremely hot, and just our short
excursion to the Floreana post office reminded me of how miserable it can be!
The population of the islands has truly exploded; I think
there are 5X-10X more people who are permanent inhabitants over the last 50
years. If I lived in Ecuador I would want to live on the islands too. The
Ecuadorean government unsuccessfully spent many years trying to figure out what
to do with these islands until they finally hit
on ecotourism in the early 1970s (when I was last there). There were fewer than 10,000 tourists in
1973, now it is probably 250,000. I don’t think the towns are quite capable of
holding that many people. There is no sewerage
in Port Ayora, and pretty limited
solid waste disposal as well, but I saw a lot of building going on, indicative
of ever increasing habitation. The park
is well managed however, with pretty strict entry times to the different
locations. I think the $100 fee on entry
into the Galapagos is a laughable sum.
Most tourists pay much more money just to get to the islands; the Ecuadorean
government could easily double the entry fee without significantly decreasing
the number of tourists, potentially increasing park revenue from 25 million to
50 million. That could pay for a lot of
services. I don’t know what the tax
situation on food, souvenirs, hotels, etc. is, but that could probably be
increased as well.
This was a pretty interesting trip, and I enjoyed meeting
the other participants, and the evening lectures. I wish we had had more talks from our
naturalist guides, and I think it was unfortunate that our dining room was too
small for them to sit and eat with us and share their stories about the
Galapagos. Our hotels in Quito and San
Cristobal were very nice, but I would have to say that the Coral I and the
Hotel de Fiesta left a bit to be desired.
It would probably be worth it for future visitors to visit a dive shop
and obtain their own well-fitting mask to bring along. You might want to purchase a waterproof camera. Be ready for slow
restaurant service.
Bird and animal list:
I’m just listing the first appearance of each species to cut down
repetition (for instance, the sea birds were seen just about everywhere, as
were mockingbirds, ground finches, yellow warblers, etc.)
Quito airport: Blue and white
swallow, Turkey vultures. Ground doves
Intinan museum: Rufous collared
sparrow, Sparkling violetear (gigantic hummingbird!), Vermillion flycatcher
(female)
San Cristobal: sea lions, marine
iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs, lava lizard, Great Frigate birds, Striated
heron, Lava gull, Ruddy turnstone, small ground finch, yellow warbler, Elliot’s
storm petrels (white-vented petrel), Galapagos flycatcher. Yellow crowned night heron
Kicker Rock: Nazca Boobies,
blue-footed boobies, red-billed tropic birds, brown pelican
Espanola: Sooty shearwater,
swallow-tailed gull, sea turtles, green warbler finch, sharp-beaked finch,
ground finch (maybe sharp-beaked finch, but they should not be on this island),
Galapagos hawk, Espanola mockingbird (very bold, with a large bill), turtle
trails, shark school. ghost crab
Floreana: Flamingo, peeps, semipalmated
plover, white cheeked duck, black necked stilt, smooth billed ani, Franklin
gull, Great blue heron, lava heron, penguin (!), sea turtles, dolphin pods
Santa Cruz: Whimbrel, gallinule, cattle
egrets, brown noddy, super tame yellow warblers and ground finches.
I don’t know anything about fish,
but these sites might be helpful. I know
that I saw some of these!
https://ceiba.org/wp-content/uploads/Galapagos_Fish_Card_2016.pdf
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/88242473935955152/
https://www.importitall.co.za/fishcardscom-Galapagos-Islands-Marine-Life-ID-Card-ap-B009PT35ZY.html
2 comments:
This sounds like a terrific trip for you, and I quite enjoyed reading about it. My favorite photo was 119: certain you considered bringing the beast home as a pet/lawn mower. Elsewise:
1. I stopped listening to Krause/Origins as he made it too much about himself and his personal opinions/gripes. Big ego.
2. I have peripheral involvement with Friends of the Mississippi River up here trying to keep Asian Trout out of the state's waterways - barrier at Lock and Dam No. 5. Will the legislators approve the expenditure? Probably not. They are dumb. $8 MM today, or if the fish gets in, $10 MM yearly. But they can't do the math.
3. I met a bunch of Ecuadorians today, purely by accident, from Quito! They were being filmed for something, were dressed accordingly. I was surprised to learn from them that there's a big Equa community up here. They're worried about what's going on back home. Who would not be?
agreeing with Owen, very interesting. I had gotten the impression that the narcoviolence had caused the country to grind to a halt. I look forward to Betsy's account of this in the New Yorker
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