Saying Goodbye To The Galapagos

The Giant Land Tortoise

On the Thursday morning, just two days after Nate had spent some hours being rescued off the Sierra Negra Volcano, eventually by helicopter, we took the fast boat back to Santa Cruz Island. Before we left, everyones bags are checked for more bugs and seeds and the like. The boat ride back across only takes two hours but its pretty bumpy. When we returned to Santa Cruz, we spent one more night in the Charles Darwin Foundation. We still had to do the inventory of all our equipment, as most of our gear would end up staying on the island. It didn't take long. The rest of the time we spent checking out Puerto Ayora again. Looking in from time to time on Lonesome George. Mostly we just rested and ate.

The following day we packed up all our stuff and left Santa Cruz for the journey back home. The bus back to the ferry. The short ride back across to Baltra Island and then a further bus to the airport. They once again checked all our bags, before we once again took off, for our ride back to mainland Ecuador. Two and a half hours later, I was back in my room in Quito. Nate and Marco stayed two nights in the capital. I showed them around town, before they eventually left for the United States. I don't know if I will ever see them two again.

I will always have such amazing memories of the Galapagos. I hope one day I will get to return there - although I doubt it will be paid for, or under the same circumstances. I will never look back upon that trip with despair, as I fear Marco and Nate certainly felt towards the end. I only have happy thoughts about that place. For sure, some of the work was tough, a lttle dangerous and agonisingly exhausting. Together, we had battled with rocky lava, mountains of ash, poisonous apples, slasher vegetation, a loopy horse and food poisoning. Being a volcanologist, is tough. If any of us had doubts about that before, none of us did by the end. Yet for me, it was an incredible experience. Not just for the volcanoes and the work that we were doing out there but for everything. The scenery, the wildlife, the people we met. On one of our first nights, we had had dinner with a scientist called Godfrey Merlon. He's an Englishman, with a strong, fairly posh accent and who had been living on the Galapagos for many years. He had written many a book on this part of the world. It was fascinating listening to this guy talk about the work he was doing. He had been partly responsible for making sure planes sprayed insect repellent before they landed on the islands. He was now working to change the lights on boats to a specific type, as apparently certain boat lights attract insects which get transferred from one island to another and ruin the ecosystem. Just put into google the words Galapagos and Godfrey and his name will pop up.

I remember the first time I saw the giant land tortoises, and Lonesome George, or when I snorkelled with playful seals. The time our boat crew stuggled to bring in the giant Tuna fish they were trying to reel. The food the chef cooked on that boat. The scenery and the wildlife. The time I listened to my Ipod (stairway to heaven by Led Zepplin) while sitting up on the deck of the sailing vessel watching the sun set and thinking life doesn't get too much better. I remember that horse ride. The Sierra Negra Volcano and all the sweating and bleeding for our work. The heat and the flies. The penguins and the turtles. The pain and despair, the joy and enchantment. The Galapagos - I remember thinking that it was all worth it in the end. I remember it all.

Charles Darwin came to these islands for just 5 weeks and left with the theory of evolution. Not bad, I'll give him that!!! I had been here for approximately two fifths of that time and so I thought I should come up with something at least two fifths as great as that, lets be honest - simple theory. And so my scientific, yet equally philosophical discovery is just this...................................

"If there really is a heaven in this world or beyond - I now know where the stairway begins".