San Cristobal - The Great Reunion

The Galapagos islands are a top destination for tourists, nature lovers, and scientists alike. I am ever so grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to spend time on one of these beautiful and unique islands. Furthermore, San Cristobal Island will forever be even more special considering it was the place where my parents and I reunited after months of living apart. I was coming from Medellin, and they were coming from the United States. A very beautiful meeting place indeed.

I arrived on the island first, as my parents were still out at sea headed towards the island. I had a lovely first day. I wasn’t planning on doing too much other than eating well and relaxing on the beach. However, I ended up meeting a lovely girl my age, who was from Germany, and we spent the entire day together. It was her last day on the island and my first day. She showed me some of her favorite places and we ate some yummy snacks and jumped in the ocean. Very very lovely. It turns out she will also be traveling to Medellin in the near future so I have no doubts that we will meet up again and it will be my turn to show her around.

My parents arrived on my second day. My dad told me that they were at a museum close by and I took off running, literally. I received some strange looks on the way and a couple wrong turns but I made it. I wasn’t sure exactly where they were in the museum, but eventually I saw my parents’ besties and knew I was in the right place. It was such a lovely moment. We exchanged hugs and my parents briefly introduced me to the people they had shared so much time with at sea as they had all been expecting my arrival.

From that moment on, we shared some incredible experiences together in San Cristobal such as:

• Turtle Island Death Hike

• Red and Blue Footed Booby Island and Sparkly Sand

• My Very Forward Suitor

• Scuba Dives - Losing People, Sharks, and Bodies Swaying Like Soft Coral

Let us begin with the Turtle Island Death Hike

We decided to go on a tour to see some of the ginormous endemic species of tortoise that exist only in this area of the Galapagos. We were prepared to hike a couple of hours inland to try and see them. However, none of us were expecting the heat, which to be honest I'm not sure why it caught us all by surprise, considering we were just about directly on top of the equator, but nonetheless, we all nearly melted. First of all, our guide was a bit interesting. We arrived on the turtle island and our guide was sharing a lot of information with us as we stood beneath the burning sun for about thirty minutes before even starting the hike. Once we began, we noticed the landscape change a bit as we went inland from the shore. We noticed various species of birds and plants. However, the island in general seemed to be pretty barren overall, which is understandable considering the climate in the area. We began seeing some rock-hard turtle poop that had been cooked by the sun and we knew we were getting closer to the turtles. Eventually, we saw a couple of juveniles and a couple of big grown adults too. After the 2-hour mark walking inland, our guide (at this point he had shed nearly all of his clothes lol), asked if we would like to continue to the lagoon or head back. The answer was a unanimous decision to go back. So, we turned around and headed towards the beach. Not long after turning around… our guide paused. He had lost the path. At this point, everyone was soaking with sweat, thirsty, and a bit cranky. So, we wandered around trying to find the path for a good thirty minutes. Meanwhile we were thinking about how we would survive on the island if need be. Fortunately, these scenarios were only hypothetical as we had found the path once again. Once we reached the beach, we immediately walked into the sea to cool off and wave to the boat to come pick us up. Quite the experience in the end.

Booby Island

This adventure followed the death hike adventure. We recovered from the death hike and ate a nice refreshing lunch and headed to see the boobies. Some decided to opt out of this hike as the death hike had demolished their will to go on.

The survivors arrived at a beautiful island with sparkly sand and a home to both the blue and red footed boobies as well as other various species of marine birds. The sand was so incredible, it looked like diamonds. We saw many boobies shortly after starting the hike. We even saw a blue footed booby who was taking care of its chick that appeared to have been very recently hatched.

This was a more reasonable hike; the terrain was fairly barren and dry with some desert plants and trees.

Red footed boobies like to have their nests in trees while the blue boobies prefer the ground in the shade. An interesting difference.

This hike was very pleasant and rewarding. We saw exactly what we had come for and the view was spectacular.

My Suitor and My 3 Sets of Parents

I would like to begin by mentioning that on this trip, I had three different sets of parents. My parents, and two other lovely couples that are very good friends with my parents. There was one moment when I went to the beach with my parents, and I decided to lay in the sun for a moment as they sat in the shade. In this brief moment of being separated, Teddy appeared. He was walking the beach and striking up conversations with many, and I happened to be one of these people in his path. Fortunately, he seemed to be a genuinely good guy, very easy to chat with, passionate, funny, and appreciative of mother nature, and a very proud citizen of the island. We chatted for a little while before I decided to join my parents as I could feel their watchful eyes hovering over me.

The next day, to my surprise, Teddy happened to be the sea man on our tour. So, he was on the boat all day long with my three sets of parents and I. I sat on the front part of the boat to enjoy the view as we were heading off towards our dive sites for the day and Teddy decided to join me. There is photographic evidence of his suiting behaviors. He would move increasingly closer, his laughter became louder, and his intentions became clearer. I did enjoy his company; however, he was a bit forward about his desire to marry a pale woman from the USA. I told him that I hope that he finds someone like that for him. Knowing all three sets of my parents were closely observing definitely created an interesting vibe.

The day after that, yet again, Teddy was on the boat with us all day. Once again, he would come and find me and strike up conversation whenever he and I had the free time. In the end, he was a very nice guy with some interesting stories to tell about his life on the island and everything he has seen.

Scuba Dives and Missing People

Of course, as a scuba diver visiting the Galapagos, one must dive. My father and I booked two dives around Kicker Rock. There were 5 other divers as well that joined us on the tour and they were from Israel and maybe one from Europe, I can't remember. Anyways, the idea was to dive with hammerhead sharks. We split into two different dive groups, did our buoyancy checks, and got ourselves ready to go. My dad and I were with two young Israeli girls. We jumped in and descended. Shortly after arriving at the bottom, we noticed an incredibly strong current, lots of marine debris creating terrible visibility, and we noticed that one of the two Israeli girls wan an absolutely terrible scuba diver. We tried swimming around the big rock for a little while, in hopes of seeing something, however eventually we needed to grab on some rocks and stay put as the current was absolutely relentless. The terrible diver girly was ascending and descending and we would lose sight of her every so often. We tried to communicate to her to stay close. At one point during the dive, we crossed paths with the other dive group, and then we realized we had lost the girl from our dive. We were now only 3 divers and the dive master. Typically, in this type of situation you stay down and look for one minute before returning to the surface without a safety stop and continuing to search for the missing person on the surface. However, this is not what we did. We continued diving.. I was very concerned that the girl had descended too far and was chillin at the bottom of the ocean without realizing how far she was, nor where her dive group was. We finished our dive, however, including the safety stop. Once we arrived at the surface we looked around and realized she had joined the other dive group and finished her dive with them. Fortunately, she was safe. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst dive of my entire life.

Round 2. Same dive group, same location, different side of the rock. We were hoping for the best as we descended. Fortunately, the visibility was completely different on this side of the rock. It seemed like a completely different ocean. We descended upon a very gigantic bait ball. Honestly, I thought it was a rock at first until we got a bit closer and noticed it was a school of fish. The current was still quite strong, but it didn't matter that much. We saw multiple Galapagos reef sharks. The bad diver girly again was ascending and descending and taking photos, but at least we could keep an eye on her this time. We huddled inside the bait ball for a moment, which was a little spooky as I kept imagining a big shark charging through trying to hunt some fish and finding us in the middle of the bait ball instead. This was truly a lovely dive overall; our dive master was fun, and we saw beautiful corals and Galapagos sharks. After about 50 minutes or so, the bad diver girly suddenly ascended to the surface with no warning nor safety stop, so the rest of us ascended slowly behind her, completing our safety stop. This dive definitely made up for the previous one, and I believe we all surfaced quite satisfied with what we had seen.

Overall, the good times, good food (and awesome juice), great adventures with family and friends on San Cristobal were wonderful. Amazing memories for sure. Memories none of us will forget.