Near the end of our visit to see Abby and Jorge a year ago we all said let’s go to the Galapagos next year. Initially, I was of course worried about the cost, because that’s what I do best – worry. A tour of the Galapagos isn’t cheap even if you select a Budget Cruise where there are only two choices for dessert – Dramamine in liquid form or Dramamine in pill form. But the Galapagos ... the home of the Blue Footed Booby …
how cool would
that be? So Abby made some calls, Jorge
made some calls, I did some Googling, and Dean agreed with every option we
presented to him. But after I took the
time to really contemplate the pros and cons of spending thousands of dollars
on a tour of the islands, I realized that even though depleting my savings
account would be traumatic for me, witnessing Dean’s pain and anguish when he
couldn’t collect a rock specimen from a national park was more than I could
face. I made the sacrifice. For him.
And
As we
were waiting at the tour office for our ride to the boat I looked around at the
rest of our group and
noted that most of them were wearing boots, long pants,
jackets, and were carrying backpacks filled with who knows what – probably useless things like lots of water, snacks and rain gear. The four of us, on the other hand, were
wearing shorts, t-shirts, light jackets, and had one backpack and two bottles
of water between us. Abby, Jorge and I
were wearing flip flops because it was warm and we were, after all, going to be
on a boat. Dean, on the other hand was
wearing his standard tennis shoes with socks. I thought he looked as silly
as the people who were wearing boots but to his credit, he didn't look as silly as if he were wearing his alternate footwear – sandals and black socks.
The van
let us off at the beach and we walked through the fish market toward the shore
where our boat was
waiting for us. Our
guide instructed all of us to put our shoes into his dry bag so we wouldn’t
drag sand into the boat after walking through the water to reach it. He looked at our flip flops and kind of shook
his head and I knew he was thinking our feet weren’t blue but we were still boobies.
It took
an hour to get to the island and we hiked for about three hours and saw dozens
of Blue Footed Boobies, a sea lion, Frigate birds, and a rarely seen (so we were
told anyway) huge and fluffy baby Albatross waddling through the bushes.
Make sure your sound is on--and since this is a video it doesn't count toward my four photo limit.
Dang I'm a tricky little devil.
Booby feet are definitely better designed for the trail we hiked but our inappropriately-clad feet did survive our hike blister and puncture
free and once we returned to shore they even managed to get us to a bar on the
beach where we sucked down savored the delicate aroma of coconut and pineapple as we delicately sipped another piña colada.
Once again, if you would like to torture yourself with more mind-numbing vacation photos please feel free to go here.
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