The Galapagos Islands

Bananas and chocolate, banana juice, fried bananas, banana and soup, roast banana, chili and banana, banana ice cream, banana and fish, dried bananas..................its like a scene from Forest Gump. These are my favourate fruit and they are everywhere. YUMMY!

Katie and myself have just returned from two weeks on the Galapagos Islands. But just before I get into that part of our trip let me tell you about a crazy train ride we took called ´Narvis del Diablo´ the Devils Nose recommended to us by Grasshopper. Basically we rode on the roof of the train a great way to see the scenery. The last part of the 6 hr train ride takes you down some crazily steep track. Holding our beers in one hand and the roof of the train in the other we derailed not once but 4 times. No one was hurt but we were held up for an hr while the workers repaired the track by hand and somehow managed to lift the train back on the track. The locals must think we are bloody stupid for all these tourists to be sitting on top of this dangerous train ride but they seem to have fun waving as we passed through there towns!

The Galapagos Islands will forever be a highlight of my life. This place is ridiculous, wildlife everywhere and the freaking thing is that none of it is scared of us. We took an 8 day boat cruise which visited two or three islands each day. Each island was unique in some way. Some of the highlights for me included the giant tortoises, 250 plus kilos walking slowly though the cactus forests. Probably aged 150 - 200 years old. Has witnessed his family members almost be wiped out to extinction by passing sailors and pirates whom would use his family for fresh meat. These guys can last a year with no food or water so would find themselves in the bottom of a sailing ships, stuck on there back for months on end until coming to there bloody death. Some of the more unco-ordinated (Hirsch and Clarky) tortoises full backwards while making love only to come to their death a year later unable to move from their awkward position. Doesn´t natural selection suck - damn you Charles Darwin, damn you!

We also got to witness albatrosses mating. These guys are amazing in the air but struggle on land. Woddle to find there life long partner. Clap their beaks together, look around then dual each other other with their beaks like two musketeers. Katie and myself sat a metre away from this. A truly breath taking experience. The frigate birds were cool with the males puffing up there red neck balloon to impress the chicks. We saw most of the land animals that makes this place so unique over the two weeks. You actually get quite lazy - if an animal is more than 3 metres away its not worth looking at. If we were not exploring the islands Katie and myself would go snorkeling from our boat regularly playing with sea lion pups and females and seeing turtles, sharks, rays and hundreds of species of fish.

I was surprised to find the terrestrial environment fairly harsh with catus dominating the plants. Did make for an interesting nudy shot though! No jokes about pricks boys, you´ll have to be more creative than that. The underwater environment was a different story. Wow, the two currents of the area make for some awesome underwater viewing which I saw while diving this place. On one of my dives I saw 3 species of Morays eels, 6 hammerhead sharks (a real highlight of my diving career), white tip reef sharks, two large Galapagos sharks (I swam up to them wondering why the dive master didn´t follow only to find out later that they feed on sea lions!), a manta ray, cow ray, a group of eagle rays and green turtle. Heaven to say the least.

Not ones to rest we continued to suck this country for all she is worth as after the Galapagos we did a two day tramp in Cajas national park. I´ve seen the Andes by foot and by bus but to actually camp out is a whole new Andean experience. The below freezing conditions were quickly forgotten by the stars in the clear sky and the location. A new habitat for us on this walk was the cloud forest which grows between 2800 - 3400 metres but only found near the equator for the ideal humid conditions. Navigation is tricky when the cloud comes in thick and after being a little missed place for an hour we were back on track.