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Sunday, 09.06.2002: Bartholomé - Seymore - Baltra - Bachas Bay - Bartholomé
The ship bell sounded at 5-30am as a wake up call for us. We forced ourselves out of bed and got onto the zodiac at 6am to go off to Seymore on a one hour walk through loads of blue-footed boobies and frigate birds.
Seymore walk
Our final breakfast on board was already at 7am while the boat sailed back to the bay on Baltra.
At 7-45am we got onto the zodiacs for the last time, said goodbye to Charlsie and Gene and went to the landing to wait 3/4 hour for the bus. Not many had given a tip to Marcello - just 8US$ in total!
When we finally got to the airport at Baltra, we went to the desk to change our flights to Friday 14th. Our luggage arrived at 9-30am and then we had a sad goodbye to our fellow sailors, who all went back to Quito in an hour. We actually felt a lot closer to them after only 8 days then to most of the other travellers from the 15-week Kumuka trip.
Then we went off to the guides to see about getting onto another boat. On the bus we´d spoken to two Austrians who´d just got off the Pelikano and said it was a really good boat. So we found the guide and asked him. They had two spare places so we negotiated another 3,5-day trip for 210US$ each. Shortly afterwards we met some of the new Pelikano passengers and went back to the landing at Baltra on the bus. Why didn´t we leave our bags there?!
Instead of a rubber zodiac we had to board a little wooden motorboat this time to get to the Pelikano. We were a total of 16 passengers, loads of German speaking people this time. The Pelikano was a lot smaller than the Mondriaan but had a nice open bar where our guide Raphael drew a map of the afternoon landing for us!
The Pelikano
Then we were given cabin number 3 on the upper level. Very nice with open windows, a bigger bathroom with shower curtain (!) but hardly any storage space. Then it was lunchtime and we all cramped into a much smaller dining room. Instead of a buffet we got a plate full served to us. The food was definitely not as good as the Mondriaan but then this was a tourist class superior boat and not first class.
At 2pm we landed again at Bachas Bay. This time we walked to the other side and saw the great blue heron again, loads of black lava iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs and frigate birds. Raphael is a far better guide than Marcello. He kept the group together with loads of interesting information.
While the others went snorkelling in the murky water (Kirsten didn´t bother with it this time), we went back to the boat for a nice afternoon rest. Kirsten went for a shower, got soaped up and couldn´t get the shower working again! She shouted for Helen, who went to ask about the water, but it finally did work, Kirsten just wasn´t patient enough. The water pressure was a lot lower than on the Mondriaan, which had anchored in the same bay by the time with new passengers.
When the others came back at 5-15pm the cook started feeding the birds. The boat was surrounded by loads of frigate birds and pelicans. The frigate birds were flying so close to the boat you could actually reach out and touch them. Just watch the bird droppings!!!
Feeding the birds
At 6-45pm cocktails were served in the bar and the crew got introduced to us. We liked them instantly. The rest of the evening was spent with chatting to our new sailing fellows and we were able to practise our German again. The water was getting quite rough when the boat headed towards Bartholomé Island where we arrived at 11pm.
Monday, 10.06.2002: Bartholomé - Santiago
We got woken up at 6am by the two Dutch girls, Goste and Jacobien, diving from the boat into the sea! It was a cloudy morning when the others went off at 8am to the viewpoint on Bartholomé Island we´d done two days ago. We stayed on board and watched loads of boxfish by the boat.
Birds walking on the water and lots of boxfish
The sun came out when our lot were reaching the summit and we did a bit of sunbathing and reading. Wonderful relaxing! The others got back at 10am to pick us up and we went off to the sandy beach, walked through the mangroves to the other side where we saw loads of white-tipped reef sharks (about 1,5m big) swimming really close to the beach. Helen was so brave to go calf leg deep into the water and videoed them. Afterwards we went snorkelling again. It was nearly as good as it was two days ago. We´d been swimming with the penguins again.
Standing in the water full of sharks
After leaving Bartholomé Island the crew caught three large wahus (tuna type) and slaughtered them on the boat. The whole lower deck was covered in blood and we were convinced that the boat had not been outside the 2km National Park zone where fishing is not allowed. We were not impressed and knew what´s going to be on the menu for tonight.
Large wahus (tuna type) slaughtered on board
We got to James Bay at around 3-30pm and went for another walk on the lava. Unfortunately we saw a seal that had been born dead and the extremely thin and bony seal again, which was still alive! It was chasing a female seal to get some milk but the big seal, which was obviously nursing another baby seal, only barked at the little one. Horrible! But then we got cheered up by three big seal bulls, which were surfing the waves.
Dinner wasn´t really nice tonight. The wahu didn´t taste very good although it was fresh. Helen survived on veggie soup with loads of bread!
Tuesday, 11.06.2002: Santiago - Rabida - Santa Cruz
We had breakfast at 6-30am and heard that Denmark had beaten France with 2-1 so France were out of the World Cup without scoring a single point! Germany was leading 2-0 to Cameroon and should make it into the next round. England is playing Nigeria tonight and the captain assured us that we are going to have a reception to watch it.
At 7am we went to the red beach on Rabida and for a boring one hour walk over to the other side of the island. There were too many flies out to enjoy it.
We got back to the beach at 8am and put our snorkelling gear on (we dropped it there before the walk). A little sea lion came out of the water and headed straight for Angelika. "Hey, you! Come on and let´s play in the water. Hurry up!", his face was telling her. Angelika put her flippers on and said to him: "Ready! Let´s go!" and he followed her right into the water! He was such a cute little sea lion with his big dark eyes. He loved diving underneath our bellies and twisted and turned around our bodies.
We were lucky to see the big shoal of stripped saleemas again and this time we watched a big sea lion diving into them to catch loads of fish.
At 11-15 we got to the north west coast of Santa Cruz and went on a very hot walk to see the land iguanas, which apparently are very difficult to spot. Helen spotted the only one on the walk but it had its head buried in a hide it was digging so it didn´t exactly pose for us. The land iguanas are a lot bigger than the marine iguanas - about 1 metre long and their skin is sort of yellowish brown.
Walk on Santa Cruz and large land iguana
After the walk we went snorkelling along the shores. It was rather a nice cool down than great snorkelling. The current was so strong that you had to be careful not to hit the sharp lava rocks with your legs. After lunch the Pelikano drove off to Puerto Ayora. It was a very rocky ride which made us fall asleep. We got really used to it and loved the rolling movements of the boat. We got to Puerto Ayora at 5-30pm.
After dinner (dry rice and pasta for the veggies on board!) we left the boat at 8pm and went to the bar for drinks. It was great fun to play a hilarious game of table football with Goste and Jacobien - the players were all in wrong positions, some didn´t work and the rods kept coming apart! It made for good fun and we won but you could hardly call it a victory!
Everyone tried to swing a metal ring on a string to catch on a hook about three metres away. The Germans (and Helen claimed to be one too tonight) were all good. We had to give Mark and Goste a helping hand!
We got back on board the Pelikano at 11pm, sat around chatting and eating crisps, which Kirsten had discovered in one of the lockers, and the went to see Argentina vs. Sweden (1-1). The England match was shown afterwards even though they played at the same time as Arg./Sweden. Helen and Mark were the only ones who could keep their eyes open until 4-30am. It ended 0-0!
Wednesday, 12.06.2002: Puerto Ayora
We got woken up by Goste and Jacobien and later on by Mark singing "Don´t cry for me Argentina" as they were out!!! Then the American mother banged on our door several times, not hearing us shouting "come in". She opened the door and then said "Oh God!" as we were still in bed! She wanted to make sure that she and her daughter would get our room when we leave the boat today and not anybody else. Bloody hell, it was only 8am and we wanted to have a sleep-in this morning after the long football night!! Finally we gave up trying to get more sleep and got up at 8-30am.
The others had left the boat already for the inland turtle tour and the Charles Darwin Research Centre so we left them a goodbye massage on the drawing board with odd looking sharks, rays, fish etc. At 9-15am we grabbed our luggage and got a lift over to Puerto Ayora.
We checked into the Estrella del Mar hotel, dumped our stuff in the nice big room and went for breakfast. We found a lovely outdoor café with loads of home made cakes and bread and a woman who originally came from Frankfurt served us. Afterwards we looked around for some Galapagos souvenirs before relaxing on the hotels balcony overlooking the lovely clear blue water of the bay. Idyllic!
At around 1pm we went back to the lovely café and enjoyed a nice hot chocolate in the hammocks while reading our books. Angelika discovered us there and we had a laugh hearing from her that the American daughter Amy had sat in iguana shit this morning!
Christa, Katherina and Christine joined us for chocolate cake, coffee and yummy milk shakes. Unfortunately the German woman from this morning wasn´t on duty in the afternoon and the waiter who served us was extremely slow and could only take one order at a time! At 5-30pm we walked down to the peer with them to say goodbye to Mark, Amy, Ina and Mette. When we got back to our hotel we met Prue and Debbie watching TV and chatted for quite a while.
Since we didn´t get much sleep last night we went to bed early.
Thursday, 13.06.2002: Puerto Ayora
After breakfast in our favourite café we went to the Charles Darwin Research Centre and had a one hour wander around to see the breeding program for the giant turtles and land iguanas. Kirsten nearly threw up when she saw one of the giant turtles eating fresh turtle poop. Disgusting!!!
After all the fantastic and active days in the Galapagos we called it a lazy day today and even had an afternoon snooze in our cool room.
Friday, 14.06.2002: Puerto Ayora - Quito
This morning we got the bus, which took us across Santa Cruz Island to the ferry port for Baltra. We had to wait half an hour for the ferry and everyone was pushing and shoving as people weren´t waiting for passengers to get off before the others were getting on. All the bags were stored on the roof. The ferry only took 10 minutes, then there was more pushing and shoving especially to get on the bus to the airport.
Surprisingly, only Europeans were left to catch the second bus - including us. But we didn´t mind to wait for another half an hour. It gave us time to watch the pelicans flying across the channel again.
We got to the airport at 11-30am and left the Galapagos Islands at 12-45pm. We will definitely come back one day! This was certainly the highlight of our South America Tour!
Back at the Hostal Alcala in Quito we sorted out our luggage. Unfortunately we couldn´t get the mini-suite again but we didn´t really mind for the last night. Marianne was happy to get Kirsten´s walking boots, a couple of T-shirts and the bag where we had stored our fleeces in. The luggage was really heavy but we had no problem fitting things in even though we had so many souvenirs! After a quick dinner at the yummy Swiss restaurant next door we decided to go to bed early so we can get up to watch Germany vs. Paraguay at 1-30am and England vs. Denmark at 6-30am. Unfortunately we now had to go downstairs into the TV lounge to see them.
Saturday, 15.06.2002: Quito - Madrid - Hamburg
Kirsten got up at 1-15 am to watch Germany playing Paraguay. The match was quite boring but Germany managed to score in the 87th minute! Helen came down to see the second half. We went back to bed at 3-30am for a couple of hours before getting up for the England match at 6-30am. England played well and won 3-0. Afterwards we went back to bed for another snooze.
Our flight out of Quito was scheduled at 5pm, so we spent the afternoon in an internet café. We took a taxi to the airport and were relieved that we didn´t have to pay any extra money for the 16kg overweight of our luggage. Quito airport was a mess - building work and so really noisy. Our flight was delayed by an hour so we sat in the airport café and drank milkshakes while playing shitheads.
When we turned up at our gate we´d been upgraded to business class on the 12 hour flight to Madrid!!! Wow, we are really lucky at the moment with upgrades!
And how we enjoyed this luxury! We got served fresh orange juice when the economy lot didn´t get anything. Then we got the manual out to check all the functionalities of our seats. Blimey, we could really lie down!! Once up in the air the 5-course meal arrived. We got real tablecloths and warm wet hand towels to wipe our fingers! First course was canapés, then crab terrine with mussels and ham with fresh melon. We both chose saffron sole rolls, mashed potatoes with young onions, sautéed spinach and steamed carrots. We got cheddar and brie and a hot roll along with it. Helen had apple puff pastry with cream and Kirsten had chocolate and vanilla ice cream with orange sauce. 2 glasses of red wine (Alcorta 1996) and decaf coffee followed. Yum!!!
Unfortunately the movies were quite boring so we settled down with our pillows and lovely fleece blankets and went to sleep at 11pm! Helen actually wanted to stay awake for more yummy food served during the night but she slept through! At 5-30am we woke up by the bright lights and went to the loo with our brand new golden Iberia toilet bag!
Breakfast was yummy, of course! Fine herb omelette, hot brown roll, Canadian pork loin and fried bananas, fresh orange juice, fruit salad, yoghurt, butter and jam and coffee.
We landed in Madrid at 2pm Spanish time. We had 2,5 hours wait for the next flight which we spent watching Spain vs. Ireland in the airport lobby. The three TV screens were surrounded by hundreds of travellers and there was loads of loud shouting during the penalty shooting. Spain finally won.
Via Munich we finally got back to Hamburg at 10pm. Kirsten´s parents were there to bring them back home. Although we were really tired there was so much to talk and Kirsten´s parents finally left at 1am.
