Penguins on the equator? Swimming with marine iguanas, turtles and sea lions? Getting up close and personal with blue-footed boobies?
It all happens right here in one of the world’s unique places where birds, reptiles and other animals have no fear of humans. Here are a few highlights.
Days 1 to 3: I join the 27 people on the Harvard Alumni Association Travel tour in Quito.
We visit a rose plantation: Ecuador is one of the world’s largest rose growers/exporters. This plantation produces and ships 340,000 roses a month, double that figure for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Days.
Day 4: We take the one-hour flight from Quito to San Cristobal Island, permanently colonized only 150 years ago.
Here we board the 100-passenger MV Galapagos Explorer II, our home for the next week, and ready for the “up close and personal” encounters with the animals which have attracted us to the Galapagos.
Day 5: Today is the day of the blue-footed boobies on Espanola Island.
“They really do have bright blue feet,” exclaims one of the group. Indeed they do, and the brighter the blue, the more attractive to a mate as they are shown off in a high-stepping strut.
Half the world’s breeding pairs live on the Galapagos Islands. We see quite a few sitting on their nests, covering the eggs with their large webbed feet.
About the size of a large goose, the booby is an exceptional diver – plunging from up to 25 m above the ocean with 1.5 m wingspread tightly folded.
Day 6: In the afternoon we go ashore on the red sand beach of Rabida Island to visit a group of pelicans nesting in the bushes. We stand only centimetres away, typical of how close we get to most of the wild (actually quite tame) life.
These creatures have never learned to fear people. And our groups of about a dozen visitors, each led by a local naturalist, don’t seem to stress them.
One study checked their corticosterone to measure their stress levels and found no increase in stress caused by the proximity of the tourists.
After our hike, we snorkel and swim, frolicking in the shore break with a couple of sea lion pups who just want to play.
Day 8: We swim and snorkel with penguins, turtles and white-tipped sharks.
Day 9: Fernandina Island is home to the largest concentration of marine iguanas, hundreds of them sunning themselves on the rocky terrain during the day. These prehistoric-looking spiny reptiles pay scant attention to us.
Day 12: We fly to Guayaquil, back on the mainland and Ecuador’s largest city with a population of four million. We visit a downtown park, home of some 400 land iguanas that we are allowed to pet, something forbidden on the Galapagos.
And so we return home, where once again the wild animals really are wild.
Former Sunshine Coast resident Mike Grenby teaches journalism at Bond University, on Australia’s Gold Coast.
