Couple more words about Galapagos islands.

You have to pay more than $500 in order to get there from Quito: $400 flight ticket, $100 island entrance and $10 more for mystery stuff. Spend several hours of flight and you are on the islands. The only thing I knew about the place were biology classes in my high school. In particular, that was the place where Darwin made his expeditions on Beagle ship. He observed birds here and created his theory of evolution. First, I came to Baltra island and then made it to Saint Cruse and finally I went to Isabela island.

Isabela is the place where palms are unusually green and the sky is especially blue… That’s the place where roads are sandy… The place, where kids play on those roads since cars are vary rare… The place where you can dive among giant turtles, seals, penguins and even sharks… The place where you can sit on a beach and watch huge lizard next to you… The place, where big unfamiliar birds fly in the sky like frigates furrow the sea…  The place where all the locals know each other since there are only 4 families on the island. So after one day everybody already knows you… Isabela is the place where you can climb a volcano and reach the clouds… The place where you can lay in a hammock, listen to the ocean and watch the stars… That’s the Place…

Among the clouds at the top of Chico Volcano.



Waiting fot the scarlet sails.


I lived on the roof of this bar. I’m kinda lucky for the roofs :)


The view from my bed.


I spend lots of time here watching stars, listening to the ocean, drinking beer and thinking about life :)


Sea lion. 3 seconds later I was running away from it :)


Found something :)


What a meat steak! :)



This turtle is 150 years old I guess:). Probably it saw Darwin itself :). There were thousands of turtles previously but most of them were killed by pirates. They took them on their ships and used them as a canned goods since a turtle could live one year without any food. Another interesting point is the fact that the grandpas of the current locals killed thousands of turtles too. However, nowadays their nephews try to recover the population… Simply, they fix the mistakes of their ancestors….

One amazing story about penguins impressed me very much. These unusual birds are disappearing and there’s a simple reason for that… When one penguin dies, his or her couple doesn’t look for another partner. The second penguin simply thinks that the first one went somewhere and waits until it’s back in order to make new penguins… So many penguins are left without progeny. They just stand on cliffs and watch at the sea… and wait… That’s what I call loyalty.

P.S. I often caught myself with a children' smile on Isabela…