Galapagos Overview

New info about my trip has been added to the bottom of this page. By the end of the month I expect to be over it and ready to move back to my regular stuff. I’ve posted quite a few pictures so far, especially on Thursdays. If you’re at all interested in the Galapagos, check them out.

I was there for just over a week. In that time I learned all kinds of things. For instance, the entire atoll was made through volcanic activity which is ongoing. The hot spot is to the North of the islands, so the chain of islands can be seen to be aging as they move to the East/Southeast. When the lava first comes out, it’s black. As it ages, it turns red.

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The newest land formations have very little vegetation – sometimes nothing but mangrove and cactus. Over time, more and more vegetation takes root. The animals – particularly sea lions, sea iguana, and turtles – arrive as quickly as the plants.

The cactus is of particular interest as it is distinctive to the Galapagos. It’s prickly pear. With a trunk.

For those of you who are not familiar, the picture on the right, which I swiped from The Home Garden Blog, is what you can expect to see in the Southwest.

That’s not the way it works in the Galapagos. On those islands that have land iguana, the prickly pear grows tall, developing a trunk.

When they are still relatively young, the trunks will grow a thick layer of spines facing down. As the prickly pear gets taller, the spines fall out, leaving behind something resembling bark.

This is only true of the prickly pear that grow on islands where there are land iguana. On the ones without, the prickly pear looks much like those of us familiar with them in the USA would expect.

Mind you, they still have the thick pads you’d expect in either case. Our guide said they draw moisture out of the air. There is certainly enough humidity for it, even in the dry season.

Land Iguana showed their impact on the islands in many places, though we only saw them in two places – in the Charles Darwin Station, and hiking around Dragon Hill. Sea Iguana were another matter – showing up on the beaches everywhere we went.

Yet we saw more land iguana that lizards. The lizards, however, acted normal and ran away from us.

Likewise, we saw more blue footed boobies than finches. I made a point of trying to take a picture every time I was aware of the finches because of the connection with Darwin. This is my best shot.

I often asked the tour guides which kind of finch we spotted. The answer was always “Darwin finch.” I have my doubts, but never got close enough or knowledgeable enough to argue.

As I mentioned in several of the posts listed below, the animals were remarkably tolerant. Boobies, sea iguana, and sea lions often hung out on the paths, rarely protested our proximity, and hardly ever ran away. That alone was quite the experience.

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So far I’ve posted about:

Baltra and Santa Cruz
The Charles Darwin Station
Española
Floreana
Baltra
Dragon Hill, Rabida and Santiago

and a variety of quick little posts on things like sea lions, whales, crossing the equator and such.