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As nature intended
No matter what expectations you have when you visit the Galapagos Islands, the reality will surpass them. Corinne Hitching gets personal with the residents.
‘Quick, quick, the dolphins are here’ shouted Franklin, our guide, shortly after dinner one evening. Leaping to our feet we followed him out onto deck and into the inky blackness of a Pacific night in the Galápagos. How was I going to see dolphins, I wondered, when I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face?
‘Hurry’ said a disembodied voice somewhere in front of me, urging me to clutch at the railings beside me and brace myself against the movement of the Beluga, which pitched and rolled as she travelled at around 15 knots heading north towards the equator. I felt Franklin’s hands steering me towards the bow where I thankfully clutched onto the rail and peered out in the blackness. ‘Where?’ I said, beginning to think Franklin must have X-ray vision. ‘Down there,’ he said, forcing my head down to look beyond my feet.
And then suddenly I saw what all the fuss was about. Surfing on our bow wave were a dozen or more bottle-nosed dolphins glowing wondrously in the plankton-rich seas, which because of the purity of the water become bioluminescent. Plunging and weaving inches from the bow of the Beluga, these dolphins had an unearthly green glow that was simply breathtaking.
Highlights on a trip to the Galápagos are many and it is difficult, if not impossible, to single out just a few. Everyone instinctively knows this is a special place to visit, but only when you get there do you realise quite how different and amazing it really is.
The wildlife here acts differently to anywhere else you have ever been or will ever go in your life, and the land on which they live is a collection of volcanic islands and sections of sea floor that have been formed by the movement of tectonic plates, meaning the islands have never been connected to a mainland.
This is the place where Charles Darwin spent five weeks 166 years ago while on a voyage of discovery which culminated in the publication of On the Origin of the Species – the theory of natural selection that polarised the scientists of the day.
Little has changed in the intervening years. Except for lines of short posts marking out the tourist paths, the land is just as it would have been when Darwin stepped ashore. The wildlife go about their business with an arrogance gained from knowing they were there first, and the tourists that visit must fit in around them.
Even on those few islands that have been colonised, the area permitted for habitation is severely limited, ensuring that over 95% of the landmass is free from humans, whether tourist of inhabitant.
The only blot on the volcanic landscape is the introduction of a variety of animals that came with human life. Goats, dogs, cats, pigs, donkeys and rats have been brought to the islands, and all have been allowed to venture out into the islands and rob the endemic wildlife of their natural habitat. A big clean up campaign has been in operation for some years now with great success, meaning many islands have been rid of all imported species and are back to how nature intended.
Wildlife photography in the Galápagos takes on a whole new dimension. Leave your big lenses at home, because here you can get up close and personal with every living creature.
Birds are particularly tame. Mockingbirds, sit on your shoulder waiting for a chance to steal some water from your water bottle (although it’s forbidden to let them have fresh water so as not to alter their natural diet), and flycatchers take flies off tourists – a useful bird to have along! In fact, Darwin himself commented that a gun was superfluous, ‘for with the muzzle of one, I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree,’ he later said.
I travelled with Angermeyer on the Beluga, an elegant 110-foot motorised yacht that sleeps 16 people and 8 crew. Franklin was our excellent Ecuadorian naturalist guide who had his own brand of humour and in-depth knowledge of things like the life cycle of the medium ground finch (which sounded like a type of coffee to me), the sex life of barnacles and the currents and winds that affect the islands – and provided the first truly understandable account of El Nino and its effects that I’d ever heard!
With Franklin educating and entertaining us, we moved from island to island over the course of a week, escorted by frigate birds and dolphins while on the move and welcomed by pelicans and sealions whenever we stopped.
On Española we had to pick our way through a marauding pack of marine iguanas before finding ourselves in the middle of a waved albatross landing strip. These giants of birds with 8 foot wingspans are so much more suited to the sky than land that they seem to have severe trouble landing.
The airstrip was in full-time use with albatross attempting to land. Others sat motionless on their nests, only giving us a passing glance, or waddling towards the cliff edge where they would launch themselves into the abyss and resume their natural gracefulness.
The waved albatross performs one of the most spectacular courting rituals in the bird world with an assortment of displays that encompasses clacking bills, whistles and a romantic sort of fencing match with its intended mate, which starts with open bills and finishes with a dance of neck swerves.
The blue-footed booby is another treat of the Galápagos, not just because it is rare but because it is highly entertaining. With their exquisite turquoise blue feet, these birds dance the amazing ‘booby two-step’ as part of their courtship display - lifting feet high before face-to-face skypointing with wings outstretched, accompanied by a whistle form the male and a honk from the female.
The courtship of the frigate birds is another of those amazing sights that you generally only get to see in such close detail on a David Attenborough wildlife special. The males have amazing red pouches on their chests that they puff up while perching with wings outstretched in the hope of attracting a female. Bushes abound with what looks like red balloons, while the females fly above checking out the talent. Once they spot a likely looking lad they land close by and look on with apparent indifference as the male flutters his feathers and proudly displays his red pouch.
Visiting the bachelor sealion pad on South Plaza was yet another high of the trip. Here you can watch great bulls lumber up an almost sheer rock face while they keep up a continuous honking – presumably telling the rest of the boys that he’s home and to get the beers out. Some of them displayed vicious-looking cuts where they had fought for, and lost, their harem to a bigger and tougher bull. But for all the noise and bluster, these animals didn’t give us a second look, other than stopping to pose just long enough for a posse of photographers to run off a couple of shots.
On Floreana, a beautiful island with white sandy beaches and turquoise seas,
which anywhere else in the world would be built up with villas, hotels and restaurants, you find the post office – a collection of roughly hewn planks making a post box into which you ‘mail’ your postcards and messages. But don’t expect immediate delivery, the idea is for tourists to personally hand deliver any that are close to home!
The marine life around the islands is superb and the thrill of swimming with sealions makes you feel like an extra in a wildlife film. These agile creatures seemed to relish human presence in the water, swimming around us and peering into our masks as if wondering what on earth these weird animals were, that flapped around in such an ungainly manner.
Stingrays swarmed in the shallows like a cloud, and the fish were a rainbow of colour in all shapes and sizes from shoals of the beautiful and oddly named Moorish idol to the amazing pufferfish which allows itself to be picked up for closer inspection.
I can also boast of having swum in shark infested waters as at one point I was swimming above at least seven reef sharks as they patrolled the rocky outlets! Despite my earlier unease at such a possibility, I ended up actually wishing to see more sharks and was disappointed that I didn’t get to see a hammerhead.
Our one and only encounter with other human beings was at the Charles Darwin Research Centre on Santa Cruz, which has an ongoing programme of raising giant tortoises to a size where they can be put back onto their home islands. As each island has its own sub-species of giant tortoise, the eggs and hatchlings are kept separate to ensure the purity of each sub-species.
The star attraction of the Centre is undoubtedly Lonesome George – the only surviving giant tortoise from Pinta Island. George is already over 100 years old, and the Centre hopes to keep part of his lineage alive by housing him with two females from Wolf Island – the nearest and closest to his own sub-species. However, so far Lonesome George has showed no interest in the two hapless females!
In stark contrast to every other island, the highlands of Santa Cruz are damp and lush with an abundance of evergreen trees and plants such as moss, liverwort, bromeliad and vines, and also one of the main haunts of the giant tortoise.
Our hunt for these beasts took place in the pouring rain, following behind our guide who rampaged through the rain forest with a machete, chopping away at overhanging branches as if in a hurry to catch up with these slowest creatures on earth!
If Santa Cruz offers a wide variety of terrain and wildlife, then the Isla Bartolomé is the direct opposite. Geologically speaking the island is quite young, and certainly some of the lava formations look as if they have only stopped flowing, but this volcanic island had an eerie moon-like quality where virtually nothing grows. Wooden steps have been built to help the tourists climb to the peak where they are rewarded with a spectacular view. Little wildlife exists on the island, however, although it is home to a small family of Galápagos penguins – in itself a rarity to see these creatures so far north.
I was almost in tears as I left the Beluga for the last time and looked with envy at the next group who stood patiently waiting for Franklin to begin his unique blend of charm, comedy and education.
The dolphins are not the only things to glow in these enchanted islands and Darwin was not the only person to be bewitched by them. Every tourist must surely leave with an inner contentment, born of having been privy to courting boobies, albatross and frigate birds, swimming with sealions and sharks, as well as having been able to see life as nature intended.
© Corinne Hitching, 2002
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