Galapagos Land Tortoises

Today, Thursday, on our way to the Galapagos airport we stopped and visited the large land tortoises. The one animal we have always associated the most with the Galapagos. We had to walk up to them quietly or they will retract their heads into their shell. We flew from the Galapagos back to Guayaquil where we stay the night before our early morning flight home.

I'm not sure what we were expecting in the Galapagos. Lots of tiny wild islands full of creatures we had never seen before? In many ways it was similar to other island cruises we've taken, such as Fiji, Tahiti, and the Caribbean. Each day the ship arrives at some island where we go ashore and visit. More similar to Fiji in that the islands are devoid of any sign of civilization. We were also surprised by the frequency of water activities, we had the opportunity to snorkel most every day and on days we didn't snorkel we took zodiac rides. Sometimes we did both. The water was surprisingly warm, unusual for this time of year and apparently caused by the El Nino in the Pacific.

The islands of the Galapagos that we visited were much more desolate than we were expecting. It is an arid environment, not lush and tropical like Hawaii or the Caribbean. Many more marine creatures than land creatures. We're glad we saw both the Galapagos and Machupicchu and are ready to go home.