GALAPAGOS PART III - STILL ON THE ENCHANTED ISLANDS: SAN CRISTOBAL
We have made it to San Cristobal, our final stop on the Galapagos before flying back to Guayaquil in Ecuador and then continuing on to Peru. This is the capital of the archipelago and has a different feel from the other two islands. Although it is smaller in size than Santa Cruz and feels much less touristy, it has a lot to offer to visitors: nice beaches, excellent waves for surfers within walking distance to town, snorkeling and diving points and, of course, abundant wildlife everywhere. Plenty of tour agencies, restaurants and souvenir shops serve the visitors, but there are much fewer tourists here, therefore there is a good mix of people. We see kids going to school in the morning in their white-brownish uniform, and also saw the local talent show with singers and dancers of different ages. Most tourists come here for a very short time, maybe a couple of days before their flight from the local airport (which is much more conveniently located and is within walking distance, while Baltra on Santa Cruz is more than an hour trip from town and the last bus leaves there in the morning so you might get stuck at the airport if your flight is later in the day), or only for a 1-2 day trip from Santa Cruz. Visitors who stay longer like us (with our 4.5 days here) are considered to be rare, and locals greatly appreciate when we tell them for how long we’re here.
San Cristobal is famous for the populous sea lion colony of a couple of hundreds that lives in the port, whose smell and noise are recognizable far in advance of actually seeing them. The noise they make is similar to goats but much louder. These are made on the one hand by the dominant male (or macho) of the group to signal that he’s strong enough to protect his females. Mothers also cry when the small ones try to drink their milk all day long and don’t let them sleep. The babies are also loud as they want to eat but can’t find their mum in the crowd – they smell the animals lying around one by one until they find the one they are looking for. People are not allowed to touch any of the sea lions, especially the little ones as that would change their smell and the mother would refuse feeding them. As a representation of cruel natural elimination on the islands, baby sea lions also need to fight for their mum`s milk with all their siblings, sometimes also with the ones from the previous birth, so much bigger ones, if they`re still on milk and haven`t become independent fishers. This way the newborn has a disadvantage compared to the older siblings, and might not survive if the mum has not enough milk for all of them. If 2 babies were born at the same time, only the stronger one can survive with the limited resources. We felt a pity for those little ones who were pushed to the end of the queue for milk, but changing the rules of nature would probably cause more harm than benefit. It’s a spectacular sight, and keeps visitors busy for a while.
The boat ride to the island was not less adventurous than the previous ones to Isabela and back, we again could not wait for the end of it along with the other passengers. Seemingly endless number of people were squeezed into a boat with even more huge suitcases and backpacks, and we seriously started worrying when one more boat taxi arrived with even more people to come on board. In the end we all managed to sit but got into the very close proximity of our neighbours. We were well prepared again for the waves: had no breakfast and took sea sickness tablet well in advance! A few minutes after leaving the port with our very heavy load the huge waves started lifting and dropping the boat, and we were grateful for all this preparation. A little later, however, a guy came down from the top deck to try to hide from the water that was pouring into his face up there and sat down on the right side of the boat. This seemed to result an unexpectedly significant unbalance of the boat, even if he was not more than about 75kg! Due to the boat getting out of its horizontal position after a bigger wave it lost its balance and arrived to about 45 degrees to its side. All who managed to fall asleep by then very quickly forgot about their fatigue, and people grabbed all they could on the boat to hold on. The captain stopped the motor and told off the passengers for moving and causing the problem, and sent the guy to the other side of the boat (in the back where he got drizzled with seawater again). No one dared to move from that moment. The ride became a bit calmer, but we all counted the minutes that separated us from the shore. We were happy to arrive 2.5 hours later to San Cristobal, and were grateful that our flight would be from this island, meaning we wouldn’t need to do this journey back.
Once on the island, our first thing was to find a place to stay. We looked up a few options the night before on TripAdvisor and went to the first we liked best due to its tranquil garden with hammocks, which looked like a great place to relax for the coming few days. Casa de Laura is a perfect place for this, so we booked and went straight to the town to look for a laundry as we had almost no clean clothes left by that point. We went to the very first place to get this done the soonest possible, and were told to come back about 5-6pm to pick up the clean clothes. That day we went to the Loberia (named after the Lobo marino, which means sea lion), a wild beach about 30 minutes’ walk away from town with a nice snorkeling area and opportunity to swim with sea lions and turtles. On the beach we saw many baby sea lions who were carefully placed on the shore to rest and wait for their mom to come back from fishing and feed them. Time passed by and we decided to wait till the sun went down which was a fantastic view.
When we arrived back to town the laundry was already closed, although according to its opening hours it should have been still open. It seems that opening hours are flexible here, as store owners go home if there aren’t many clients. As this way we had no clean clothes for the day after, we planned to go to the place the morning after just after opening and collect our stuff. To forget our sorrows, we found a nice newly opened Japanese-Ecuadorian fusion restaurant with roof terrace overlooking the port, called Midori, where we had a fantastic sushi and fish dinner (yes, I know, again not too local…but it was just as good or even better than in Itsu in the UK which was one of our favourites) and the best maracuya juice and Wi-Fi we’ve had on the island.
Despite big hopes in the morning we didn’t have much luck again with the laundry, even 1 hour after the supposed opening time the lady didn’t feel any urgency to open the store and give our clothes back! As the day started getting very hot we couldn’t wait for her any more. The plan was to walk around the island and see some other beaches, which was manageable with the clothes we had left by wearing the same as the day before, so we left and came back on the way back. The laundry was closed again… That evening we booked a snorkeling trip for the following day to Leon Dormido (also known as Kicker Rock), which is one of the best spots for seeing marine life in the archipelago. The agency is right next to the laundry so the plan was to come the following morning in dirty clothes, pick up the clean ones and quickly change before the trip starts.
Learning point: If you book a trip for the following day just before closing, you`re likely to get discounts (even without asking for it)! It turned our that without us there were only 3 people in the boat for the tour hence we got $20 off each to book quickly which still made the trip more profitable for the agency. You might get unlucky and there`s no space for the tour but unless you`re in the peak season this is unlikely.
In the morning we put on the same clothes again (I actually used my pajama t-shirt which was still the cleanest), for Szilveszter this meant the clothes that he’s been using for 3 days by then, and I creatively folded my sarong in a different way to have the impression of not wearing the same piece of clothing all the time. This sarong, by the way, proved to be one of the most useful pieces of cloth so far. It’s a 2m x 1m fabric that can be used for all sorts of purposes: we’ve used it as a dress, a long or short skirt, a beach towel or a blanket. By now, however, it would have really deserved a good wash… At arrival to the laundry it was closed again! This raised some thought about what would happen if the lady ruined our merino wool clothes and decided to close in fear of meeting us again, or if she decided to sell them as they still look relatively new. We decided that if after our return from the tour she still won’t be open we won’t get away her doorstep until we get our clothes back – after 3 days without them!
Learning point: Opening hours have informative purposes but no one takes them seriously on an island where most people come for their holidays. So take it easy, no one cares what you wear.
The trip to Leon Dormido took us first to a beautiful beach in the middle of the island San Cristobal, called Cerro Brujo, with the only residents being a few sea lions and marine iguanas. Its colours are one of the most beautiful and surrealistic turquoise and green we’ve ever seen, with the Kicker Rock in the background which is an about 150m high piece of rock standing out of the ocean. After a short walk and beach time we went to the rock itself which was abundant in birds, and was actually consisted of 3 pieces of rocks with 2 narrow channels in between. This was our snorkeling location. Being in the deep ocean we had to face a quite chilled water temperature, and having no wave breaker around, also some strong currents. The waves were lifting us a couple of meters each time so we had to be careful not to go to close to the rocks. It was slightly better to keep heads in the water to avoid sea sickness, which was a problem for each of us. The effort was, however, awarded with many turtles in the water, a few white-tip sharks, schools of beautiful fish and a group of mantra rays. The waves rapidly drained our and the other two snorkelers’ energy. Lunch was presented up in the boat but with shaken up stomachs everyone was hesitant to take it. I could still feel the ground rolling beneath my feet in the evening, hours after we had landed!
Learning point: 1) You can have a good stomach it doesn`t help you against sea sickness if the waves are huge enough to lift boats. 2) Wearing a wet suit and a life jacket for snorkeling are not shameful against the sun at the Equator, and to help you save energy and stay above sea level in heavy waves.
In the afternoon the best imaginable present waited for us, the laundry was open and we got back our clothes clean. We felt like kings to wear clean t-shirts!
In the last few days we also visited a local hairdresser’s just around the corner. The whole family gathered around in the saloon and we quickly became part of them while Szilveszter’s head was getting ready. The communication in Spanish was a little one-sided from the lady’s husband and I (with my improving but still limited Spanish which is mainly built on my French skills), but I must have looked like I understood everything as he was talking for a long time... and very fast... We managed to have a conversation anyways with Szilveszter’s translation from time to time. We again got some honest feedback (just like earlier from a local taxi driver) that if we are not on honeymoon (which is the 1st question normally), and we have been married for almost 2 years, how is it possible that we don’t have kids yet?! He had a few comments after this surprise which he found very funny himself but we both just smiled as we didn’t get the joke…
Learning point: We need to come up with a story why we`re on the way and not working on a family yet... The truth is not believable in South America.
On one of our last days we also visited the local Centre de Interpretacion, which is a local museum with 3 very informative exhibitions. It explained a few of our open questions about the islands, and I think people should start their journey here to help them put into context what they see:
One explains how the local unique animals must have arrived to these islands and developed with natural adaptation to the living conditions and with elimination of those species who could not adopt.
Another area describes the history of the islands’ population which we found really interesting but shocking at the same time: After the Spaniards discovered the archipelago in 1535, there were several waves of colonization attempts, mostly with criminals from the mainland and a dictator who tried to control them, none of which attempts was successful. For three centuries there was constant exploitation of whales, tortoises and seals for their meat, oil and fur which pushed some of these species into extinction on some of the islands. These colonies brought animals and crops from the mainland and tried to raise and grow them here which had a very harmful effect on the endemic species, some of which still cause troubles today. It was sad to see how the environment was damaged over centuries for business purposes.
The third exhibition talked about the current environmental and social challenges, mostly the rapid growth of settlements on the islands and the difficulty of supplying fresh water and food to them without harming the nature. Currently most food and some of the fresh water arrive from Ecuador on boats (which takes 5 days to arrive which increases the price of the load) but more and more come from local cultivation too. We haven’t seen that there would be particularly strict controls on moving here from Ecuador, which is still lucrative for locals (e.g. we heard that a taxi driver in Guayaquil makes $300 a month, while one here can make up to $3000 thanks to tourists who can be charged horrendous prices in local terms due to them being used to very high prices for everything on the island). We were told that people from the mainland can move here if they have a contract from a local company (I guess mainly a tourism-related job which should not be very difficult to get) or if they marry someone local; which is the principal way the government tries to control the expansion of the towns this way. Inhabitants are trying to become less dependent on the mainland and produce their own food, but one might wonder what will happen to the natural habitat of animals if they extend the cultivation on more and more land. Locals are well aware that the nature brings tourists here and hence provides their revenue and livelihood, but conservationists will surely have some challenges in the near future to find the solution to these social and environmental challenges.
Learning point: Read as much as you can before visiting a new place, including its history and its flora & fauna. Also talk to locals to learn about their life and problems. This will help you gain a better understanding of the place you visit.