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Destination Spotlight: Galapagos Islands
Philly_Girl realized a travel dream on her trip to the Galapagos. Not that she's difficult to please: she claims to have "never met a culture I didn't like." Her vivid journals, sweeping the Americas and Europe, are sufficient proof.
From Dreaming of the Galapagos
"It's 5:30am and a beautiful day in the Galapagos. Rise and shine!" Our tour leader's voice wafted over the speaker system, rousing us for our visit to Espanola Island. We set foot on the pristine white beach at Gardner Bay an hour later. It might have been because this was the first stop on our trip, but we instantly fell in love with the island. We were greeted by sea lions lolling about on the beach and mockingbirds searching for water. We saw the famous cactus finch, marine iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs, ruddy turnstones, yellow warblers, oyster catchers, and our first sea turtle.
We were stunned that the animals let us stand so close to them. Many of the sea lions had just had babies (some within hours of our landing), and it was fun to watch the baby sea lions learning how to walk and bleating for their moms. We walked along the beach for about 2 hours before our guide called us back to the boat. After a quick break, we prepared for our first snorkel.
I didn't expect to enjoy snorkeling so much, but that changed after we snorkeled with the sea turtles. We planned to swim through a lava inlet, past a series of bays, to a small cove where the turtles lived. When we reached the inlet, I dipped a finger into the ice-cold water—59 degrees, according to our guide. We swam purposefully through a maze of lava, and when we reached the end, it was just as our guide had described.
We arrived at the small cove, only 40 feet across, and immediately saw that it was a good day for sea turtles. We swam around the outer edge slowly, in a counterclockwise direction, and saw more than 50 turtles that were very curious about our arrival. They swam alongside us and beneath us, seeming to fly through the water as we watched. The only sound we heard was the occasional "sigh" that each turtle made as it came up for air.
We circled the turtles three times before our guide signaled that it was time to leave. I could have stayed for hours, watching the turtles glide through the water, easily evading each other and us. It was truly a bit of Galapagos magic.
