We're Back on Line.

12-30-11 GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR: I have pix and insightful analysis [?] of our trip, and I'll also tell you what we did. I'll post one day at a time, to build the suspense-like a TV serial. Anyway, It would be a massive up-load to try to do it in one shot.

12-23-11 ISLA SANTA CRUZ, GALAPAGOS: We had an airport delay of about two hours this morning in Guayaquil, but everyone dealt fairly well. Eventually we landed at Baltra, went through customs and baggage inspection and started on our journey to Santa Cruz harbor by bussing across the island over the highlands to Ayora, a city of 20,000 on the south side of Santa Cruz, home to the Charles Darwin Research Station that is charged with protecting the tortoises.

The vegetation on the island changes with every hundred meters of elevation, going from dry to lush. Ayora is also home to souvenir shops, bars, restaurants, galleries, hotels, dive shops and the harbor where our boat, Estrella del Mar, was waiting. After settling in, we did the Darwin Station and then some of us did a lot of shopping. Before we saw all the tees, we saw sally-lightfoot crabs, sea lions, marine iguanas, tortoises, land iguanas, lizards, finches, pelicans, cactus, in flower, and, of course, dozens of the tortoises at the preserve.


Sea lions are everywhere. They're like deer. They climb up on anything to sun bathe and warm up. Any dock, boat, rock or town square is fine with them.

The marine iguanas are almost as ubiquitous as the sea lions, soaking up rays everywhere. We hardly ever actually saw them in the ocean. They vary in color and size from island to island.

Sally Lightfoot Crabs are also omnipresent, on every near-shore rock.

The Galapagos tortoise gets as bigger than a wheelbarrow and lives 150 years.

The land iguana is rarer than the marine iguana. We saw none in the wild. This one is from the Santa Cruz reserve.

Cactus in bloom, being explored by a cactus finch.