Monday in the Galapagos

Ecuador Galapagos BlogSpot Monday, March 28, 2011

We all went into town early this am to enjoy a traditional Ecuadorian breakfast: a plantain (type of banana) and cheese ball, potatoes in a peanut sauce, beef in sauce, and rice topped with a fried egg! Oh, I also had a yummy fresh fruit smoothie. I was stuffed!

Farryde (our local contact) set us up on a tour with Edwardo, a guide that spoke very good English. He took us up to The Highlands. We all piled into a taxi (Toyota truck!) and off we went.

Our first stop was “Los Gemelos” which are a pair of collapse or pit craters. After volcanic events of great magnitude, magma chambers are left empty, with huge lava tunnels. Over time, tectonic processes and erosion cause the volcanic roof to collapse opening up gaping craters to the outside world (copied directly from the information sign!!). These are very impressive, but hard to capture with a photo!

The forest we walked through is called a Scalesia forest. The Scalesia forest is a zone of vegetation in the range of 400-500 meters of elevation. This tree plays an important role in the island ecosystem because it collects and traps rainwater and provides a substrate for many plants such as bromelias, orchids, lichens and mosses. It is also an important habitat for eight species of Darwin finches and the famous vermillion flycatcher. (Yep, from the sign again!)

Next we drove to the lava tubes. I think we traveled about 400 meters underground where it was cool, a little damp and drippy with a few puddles. We even had to crawl for a short distance. I had muddy knees and hands from the crawl. It was a neat experience!

Our last stop was at a tortoise ranch. This is actually a giant ranch that has wild turtles roaming on it. The ranchers do not own the tortoises, they are just allowed to wander at will. We saw several of the giant reptiles and well as a young female tortoise. Back at the gathering area, a few of us crawled inside a tortoise shell for photos. It was pretty funny.

We all had a nice lunch then went back to the house to clean up. I spent the afternoon working on catching up with the blogs. Then I went into town to send what I could to Linda via the internet café. We signed up for a day tour to Floreana Island (also called Charles Island or Santa Maria Island) tomorrow. We have to meet at the tour office at 7:30 am. Ginny and I did a little grocery shopping then headed back for the evening.