Else what's a heaven for?

What they don't tell you about the Galapagos is that they are the best islands for newbie naturalists evuh, bc there's only a limited number of species there. Hurrah! 'course, if you ever go anywhere else, you're fucked, bc there's nowhere else in the world the animals will sit there and just look at you while you take 58426142 pictures of them. (I know - I actually had to have someone copy photos from a disc to a USB drive because I ran out of space.) And I'm a terrible naturalist: I literally couldn't tell my boss the amateur herpetologist what color land iguanas are. Yellow? Orange? Green? who knows. I feel so embarrassed when I hang out with people who buy field guides to places they're driving through.

Monday we flew to Baltra and boarded the boat. In the afternoon, we walked up Cerro Dragon. All of us were frantic during the landing to get our cameras out so we could photograph the Sally Lightfoot crab on a rock. My mother wisely said, "Relax, there'll be more." She was right of course: by the end of the trip, I could barely be convinced to take my point & shoot out of my pocket unless they were really prettily arranged crabs. Fascinating or adorable animals to photograph are in no short supply there. We saw ground finches, a mockingbird, and the first of many yellow warblers, a bird so brilliantly hued, I could positively identify it on every island. Even the locusts stand still long enough to be photographed.

We'd debated whether to book our tour with Tauck or National Geographic; in the end, the latter didn't have a 3-person cabin available, so we booked with Tauck. I teasingly whined from the time we booked to my mother that Tauck didn't have an on-call photography expert or scuba diving. I was somewhat assuaged that at least Tauck had 8 naturalists on board. What I didn't know was that every tour has naturalists, bc park rules require trained supervision. However, as Evil English said, there are naturalists and there are naturalists. I adored Vanessa, Pablo, and Eddie. I could ask any of them any question on any natural history topic and they had an answer. I asked Vanessa about a fish I saw and she could name three candidates based on my meager description. Pablo was equally at home discussing geology or identifying birds that had just flapped past. And I still can't figure out how Eddie took such amazing pictures underwater. They keep up on the latest developments too: apparently they found a pink iguana they believe to be the missing link between marine and land iguanas, although I'm still puzzled what Pablo meant about the two nests they found in Lonesome George's enclosure several months ago.

Tuesday we walked up to a viewpoint where we could see Pinnacle Rock. It also happens to be Stephen Maturin spots the French ship in the movie Master & Commander. Gorgeous.

The first of our three snorkels was around Pinnacle Rock and ranks as my best underwater experience ever. Even at wading depth, there was a multitude of fish. I saw two white-tipped reef sharks as I swam out, exactly where the naturalists said they'd be. Several sea lions - maybe 3? - swam right past and around me, ignoring me. That actually kinda freaked me out: I was by myself (my mother was keeping my father company) and it's their home and they come from behind and what if I accidentally pissed one off and it bit me?

Right near the eponymous rock was an area with large rocks and reef? and the best moment ever. I was watching little sparkles in the water - I later found out they were plankton - amidst the school of fish. There's something so pleasing about the simultaneous motion of fish. Suddenly, I watched a PENGUIN chase the fish. A PENGUIN!!! I could watch them for hours, which is good, bc my camera ran out of battery long before I got to the PENGUINS.

That was a golden sand beach; in the afternoon we went to a black sand beach on James Island. We were told we'd see green sea turtles and indeed, I saw two, getting close enough for a few pictures. I also saw a greyish ray and more fish. Coming back to shore to look for my mum, I saw that she'd never got in bc she was too busy taking pictures of the sea lion babies on the beach. so ky00t.

The ky00t continued with our afternoon walk. I liked the black rocky shore and the photogenic piles of marine lizards. Juvenile Sally Lightfoot crabs are the best bc they are so brilliantly red and blue colored. And then we got to the fur "seals", which are the most adorable creatures ever. Anyone who can look at those big eyes and puppy dog face and kill it for profit is a monster.

Our last snorkel was the so-called "deep water snorkel", meaning they were dropping from the pangas at the edge of a wall, in hopes of spotting pelagics. What I liked best was that we were swimming together as a small bunch, so I got to join my new friends in the water. My new friends, who were better at spotting animals - I jokingly called the children at the front of the group my beaters - so I got to see video a marine iguana feeding underwater and a 9' (tip to tip, not length) manta ray. Priceless.

I fell asleep during Vanessa's pre-lunch Darwin lecture and when I woke, the ship was rocking. It was so bad, I decided to take sea sickness medication and couldn't bear the smell of lunch. I went down to our cabin to sleep for 3 hours, waking just in time for our afternoon walk. Seymour Norte was our stop to see blue-footed boobies and both varieties of frigate bird. Despite white puffy baby birds and birds that floated overhead so you could take pictures of them in flight with a p&S, I felt listless. I blamed it on my coffee detox in talking to my mom - she suggested a vacation is a terrible time to give up one's vices, but when's a good time really? We argued - but then a few hours later, she commented that sea sickness meds make her drowsy. oops. I felt icky for the next 24 hours, so I refused to take any more, even when she yelled at me.

I didn't care for Santa Cruz Island at all. After 2.5 days of seeing wild animals, going to a farm where the great tortoises cross - well, mostly sit - wasn't as thrilling as it could be. The funniest moment was when we got to the demonstration gazebo. After several days conditioning not to touch anything, I assumed the naturalists would stop me from climbing inside the tortoise carapace, so I frantically shucked Wellies and jacket and scrambled in for a picture. And then after the naturalist was done talking, each of the children was invited to do it, with the 8yo climbing all the way in.

The Finch Bay Hotel in Puerta Ayora was very elegant and I enjoyed the lunch. The Charles Darwin Research Station was a disappointment. Yes, they do good work, but the enclosures make it like a zoo. We also didn't go to the refuge my parents went to last time, where they care for domesticated giant tortoises that have outlived their owners, so I never got to pet one.

We were allowed to seat ourselves at the welcome dinner in Quito, but somehow I sat at a table with the only other unchilded party - two women - and a dad with his son. The tour director had someone (the smallest child) in each group get up and introduce the party, telling why they were there and what zir favorite Galapagos animal is. I'm glad he did, bc it clarified that the two women weren't a lesbian couple (which is good bc then my dad would've made anti-lesbian remarks the whole trip and then I'd punch him and that would be awkward) and that the guy wasn't a single dad. His son turned out to be very geeky - he wants to be a herpetologist or paleontologist when he grows up - so we got along just fine.

The tables were smaller on board, so we ended up sitting with a pair of grandparents and their grandson named Henry Jones, which of course had me mentally screaming "Indy!" every time I saw him. (It gets noisy in my head.)

I was originally very displeased to learn that we were going on a "family" tour, but these were the nicest, most well-behaved children I've ever seen. They all played together, which I suppose was easier bc they were mostly 10-14yo boys. At night, the TD stayed up playing "Dirty" Uno with them after dinner. At lunch one day, Henry said, "We've voted and decided that while you're an adult, you're here with your parents, so you can join our kids cult." That night during our briefing, I came to sit with them - and when I didn't immediately find a nearby seat, he kicked another boy out of a chair saying, "She's a VIP. She takes better pictures than you!"

Based on my sister's remarks from her visits, I assumed a 100-400mm lens would be pitifully undersized for this trip. Instead, it was the biggest lens by far on our tour: several of our naturalists asked me about it every time I walked past and the adults teased me about "compensating". Oh yes, this is the trip that taught me that Pongo was right about kids: there are A LOT of double entendres you can say in front of them, even 14yos. Our first night on board, we all whipped out our Canon SLRs so we could show off our shots. I guess this is what impressed Henry so. It's nice to be admitted to a club for what I did, rather than how I look etc.

Poor kid though. At lunch one day, his grandparents said something about needing a chaperone for him on a walk they couldn't handle and I volunteered. Henry just looked at me and said, "You're old enough to chaperone?? How old ARE you?" I laughingly said, "Old enough to chaperone, younger than your grandparents." His grandmother clouted him upside the head and explained you never ask a lady her age. I agreed and said that I knew he hadn't meant to be rude, which is why I was more polite to him than the last person on the trip who'd asked that question. My mother twitched a little, but I said that last time, I'd told the matron I'd tell her if she told me. As she is a dumpy 41yo, yeah. (also, I knew Henry is 10.)

I hung out with the geeky 14yo and his dad a lot on this trip, escaping to hang out with them when my parents father was driving me nuts. Also bc he was the only other adult who played Uno with the TD and the kids. The first night I joined them, his son grabbed his dad's iPhone and took pictures. I didn't pay any attention, but after the kids had been sent to bed, his dad laughed and singsonged, "My son's got a crush on you," showing me all the pictures his son had taken of me. Awww... I remember being his age and having a crush on an older boy, who happens to be from the same town as them.

Anyhow, that's a very long way of saying, the highlight of my last two days of vacation was hanging out with them. There was far too much "shopping" time (read: down time) built into the trip, although I enjoyed dickering for my newest scene t-shirt. My mum wouldn't let me bring back a stuffed blue-footed booby for my unborn nephew, alas. How can you resist something with blue feet?!?

Our TD was honest about the "interpretation center" at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno being a way of getting us out of the crew's hair. The human history stuff was new to me though: I didn't realize people were still exiling criminals to cruel prisons in the 50s. I got very cranky at the final section on "conservation" though: you can't complain about non-native species AND importing food to an island while providing incentives for people to move there. That's just bad economics.

Guayaquil turned out to be as icky as Evil English predicted. What I didn't mention in my email to my siblings was that while we were touring a church in Quito, one of the grandmothers who'd stayed outside had her earrings ripped from her ears by a thief. We were all freaked out about safety after that of course, especially those of us with large cameras around her necks, and Guayaquil is supposed to be less safe than Quito. My mum had been talking about the iguana park the whole trip, but when it was time to go, my father refused, so I never got pictures of mainland iguanas to contrast in my photobook. Instead we went to yet another market, although this one was more local than the ones in the Galapagos.

The flight home was absolutely miserable, the worst flight I've ever had, and I'm still upset about the intimate frisking groping they gave every passenger. I'd hit my limit for tolerance of my father, so my mum drove me back to my apt. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized the cleaning lady hadn't been there yet, so I walked in at 2am, already distressed by the flight and upset about the piles of work that awaited me, to discover my bed was still stripped. Fortunately, my gf was awake to cheer me up, so that even when my cleaning lady walked in at 9am, I was only a little irritated. A friend came by to take me to blessed coffee. I'd like to say I made good use of my mum's sacrifice and was productive, but with no functional computer and thoroughly exhausted, I spent the afternoon on my couch, reading about zombies. (I'd also spent <1 hour by myself in the past 10 days.) So it goes: 2 days of outstanding awesomeness is worth 5 of boredom.