Lovely, now that I have your attention I'd like to talk to you about the Galapagos. More like show you. Because I took 1000000 pictures. So feel free to close this (and my subsequent posts about the Galapagos) if you're not interested in a million AWESOME animal photos. I understand not everyone thinks they're as cool as I do.
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| Sunset from our boat, the Encantada |
Anywho, the Galapagos are a series of islands formed by volcanoes off the coast of Ecuador. The first islands are at least 8 million years old, and could be significantly older. The oldest islands have since fallen under the sea. The newest islands (Isabella and Fernandina) in the west are still errupting. The Nazca tectonic plate is moving southeast, subducting the South American plate. This is pushing up the Andes as well as creating the Galapagos. Sometimes, plumes punch through the mantle, creating underwater volcanoes. These are what created the Galapagos. As the islands move east with the plate, they move off of the hot spots, stop growing, and begin eroding. And new islands start to form over the hot spots. My mom and I were on a boat that took us six days around the western (or baby) islands.
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| Isla Santa Cruz |
The Spanish discovered the islands in 1535 when a group trying to reach Peru were blown off course. The lack of freshwater on the islands was off-putting and the islands were used as a pit stop for whalers and pirates for years after that. They would use the tortoises as a source of fresh protein because they could keep them live on the ship until it was time for them to become dinner.
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| Don't eat me please! |
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| Turtle soup!? NO! |
Darwin came to the Galapagos in 1835. He spent about five weeks. Originally, he geeked out about the volcanoes and rock formations on the islands, but noticed that the finches varied on the different islands. He ended up only directly observing a few of the fourteen species that were discovered. He also noticed differences in the shells of the tortoises.
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| What up homie? |
From the time that the islands became a national park in 1959, the Galapagos were used for a variety of things. The US had a naval base on one of the islands during WWII, and Ecuador considered selling the islands to alleviate financial issues. Tourism began in the '50's and the Ecuadorian government started protections of the islands soon after. Unfortunately, this was met with some resistance because the Galapagos could be such a lucrative fishing/farming location. Apparently as recently as the 2000's, there have been conflicts between the locals and park officials. And tortoise kidnappings. Poor tortoises.
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| I'm a big fan of clean energy! |
Currently, the majority of the islands are protected by the Ecuadorian government. They regulate the boats that travel the islands, providing them with strict schedules and carefully monitoring the amount of time and number of people that visit a set of specified locations. Each boat has to have an approved naturalist guide that is in charge of enforcing the regulations to protect the boat.
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Our boat anchored off of Isla Santa Cruz
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I was on a boat with an interesting mix of people. One of the french ladies seemed confused and unaware who's finches the guide was so excited to show us. A couple of the others appeared very annoyed that we had to stick to a schedule. Personally, it was really nice to be in an ecologically important place that felt like it was being more than halfway protected. In Laos, we went on a trek in a 'national park.' The guide said they used to be able to do seven day treks, but they can only do three days now because so much of the 'park' has been sold to Chinese rubber tree plantations. Please, protect cool earth things even if it is a moderate inconvenience to me.
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| Munching in the shade |
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| A little guy zooming around in the sun |
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| Tortoises like to eat low hanging succulents, so here in the Galapagos, the cactui have evolved to grow into a tree not a bush! |
The introduction of cats, dogs, rats, ants, goats and a variety of other animals/plants from the sailors and their ships has done significant damage to the populations native to the islands. For example, land tortoises had no natural predators prior to these arrivals. Their populations decreased nearly to extinction because of human hunting, food competition, and threats to nests and young. Because these threats are very difficult to remove, tortoises have been bred in captivity at breeding stations on the Galapagos. (Excitingly, wild babies were found in recent years. Hooray!)
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| Walking on Santa Cruz, we found a herd of goats. Our guide was upset, but there are only so many rangers taking care of the all the islands. It takes a lot of time and money to find and get rid of these guys. |
The boat trip left on Tuesday and dropped us back off on Sunday morning. We bought our tickets out to the Galapagos for Monday morning. This gave us an evening to hang out in Puerto Ayora, the biggest town on the Galapagos. Puerto Ayora is a cute little town that provides access to the Charles Darwin Research Station and Breeding Center and Tortuga Beach. All locations in the National Park close at 6pm, so we didn't have a chance to see Tortuga Beach, but we heard its quite nice. Puerto Ayora is a great place to go to look for last minute boat trips for a discount. Additionally, it is a great base to do your own land-based trips if that is how you choose to see the Galapagos.
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| On our way over to Puerto Ayora |
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| Begging for fish! Pelicans and sea lions |
The Darwin Research Station is not-for-profit organization dedicated to education and conservation in the Galapagos. We met a Colombian undergraduate doing his research on an invasive species of fly that kills newborn finches. The researchers feed and raise the chicks until they can be released on the islands. Can you imagine? Doing your biology research on the ACTUAL Galapagos? So cool. They also breed tortoises, and they employ about 90% Ecuadorians.
This is their website if you want to check it out. It was fun to get to wander around but holy balls it's hot on islands on the equator in the sun.
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| Hissssssssssss |
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| Awkward turtle? |
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| They're kinda cute! |
