Galapagos

Well, Quito has surprised us with its lovliness. We made it from the airport to our hotel without being robbed, mugged, or otherwise ripped off, and found we had a beautiful view out over the city to a snow-capped volcano in the distance.
Our Galapagos adventure started with an early flight from here to Puerto Ayora, a town of about 12,000 people. I was surprised to find out so many people live in this supposed wildlife wilderness! Our wildlife spotting began straight away as we saw lizards and big red crabs in the town before we'd even boarded our boat. We settled into our cabin then went on our first outing: back on land to the Charles Darwin reseach Centre, which is where they are raising baby tortoises for release back onto the islands once they're big enough to fend for themselves. We saw lots of these cute babies, then moved on to the fully grown giant land tortoises; these guys are truly huge, weighing in at 250kg!!
Back to the boat, which sailed overnight (our cabin next to the engine room meant we didn't get much sleep!) and next morning were taken by IRB to North Seymour, which had our jaws on the ground in amazement at the amount of birds and reptiles we could see: completely unfazed by our presence, sealions literally had to move out of our way as we disembarked, land iguanas wandered across the trail, enormous Frigate birds continued their mating ritual of inflating their red throat sacs, and of course we saw the famous Blue-footed Boobies, tee hee.
The afternoon was set aside for snorkelling. As soon as we hit the water, right below us was a group of about 20 eagle rays, gracefully swimming past. There were hundreds of beautiful tropical fish (water temperature was a balmy 21 degrees) and we got out of the water buzzing at this amazing experience.
Our second time into the water that afternoon was even better: a big male sealion swam right between me and Aaron, rolling on his side to check us out on the way past. We spotted a sea turtle, and followed it as it came to the surface for air. There were marine iguanas on the rocks just under the surface munching on algae. Then we saw 2 white-tipeed sharks just a few metres away! They were about 1.5 metres long, just cruising along underneath us. We were both so excited at this incredible experience, all within an hour, and didn't think it could get better until the crew served us up the best-ever Ecuadorean hot chocolate when we hopped back on board. :-)
Next morning, we started out on Bartolome Island and climbed to the summit of its volcano, looking down to the bays where some of Master & Commander was shot. Another snorkel that morning, and we found a turtle feeding, again we were able to watch for ages as it was totally disinterested in our presence. We had a bit of a beach siesta, then in the afternoon we took the IRBs to Black Turtle Cove on Santa Cruz Island, where baby sharks come for protection in the mangrove forest. Here we saw a beautiful Blue Heron, and had to manoever the boat past, because it was standing its ground! More turtles, a few fleeting sharks, another eagle ray, and pelicans divebombing around us while hunting fish. The sun was setting as we got back to the boat, and lots of Frigate birds decided to fly alongside and catch a ride. Magic.
South Plaza was first stop on day 3, a unique landscape for such a small island. On this island, the 2 seperate species of iguana (land and marine) sometimes get confused and mate. Even more rarely, this results in a baby hybrid iguana. There are only 3 of these hybrids in existence in the universe, and our guide was extremely excited when we saw one of them - 33% of the population! You can imagine his reaction when a second emerged from behind a rock! 66%!
That afternoon we sailed to Santa Fe Island and snorkelled with baby sealions, and found a local hangout for turtles: there were 7 of them milling around this one spot, and you had to be careful you didn't bump into one! This was our last full day in the islands, but we could have stayed another week, month, year - every time we put our heads under water, something amazing was waiting for us. Next morning we came back to reality in San Cristobal, the capital of the Galapagos, looked in a few naff tourist shops, and thanked our lucky stars for the brilliant journey we'd been on. People told me this would be the trip of a lifetime, and now I know why.