Rather than busking it and trying to get a late deal or DIY a trip when we were here this was the only tour we have booked in advance. We did this to make sure we got a spot and to guarantee an English speaking tour. We got our trip through Geckos because they had a 2 for 1 deal a while back (just when we were booking, which was lucky) but several other English speaking companies operate boats and tour services(intrepid and g adventures to name but two). You do have to do some kind of licensed tour as the national park in Equador is pretty strictly regulated and all boats have a set itinerary for the week.
Our tour was 6 days on the boat sailing around these amazing volcanic islands, with different walking and snorkelling activities each day. I should probably mention the food on board, which was predominately fish and tasted excellent was all caught locally (there are designated area for long line fishing, regulated by the national park). To be honest though this was very much secondary to the island themselves.
From the first landing it was easy to see why people flock to these islands, hundreds of animals with very few predators sit on the side of all of the paths. The first place we landed was surrounded by hundreds of red crabs. Rather than scuttle off these simply sat and watched as we walked past. I asked our guide if they were tasty, which he assured me they were but 10 years ago catching them and eating them was banned as they were on the brink of dying out. This ban appears to have worked wonders as we saw hundreds of them over the next week.
The islands and their animals have had a quite chequered history, after being discovered by Darwin lots of people used the islands for all sorts of sailing activities, pirates used it as a base, whalers used it as a safe harbour and people came to look at the wildlife.
Sadly the pirates and sailors dumped several different species for food (goats and pigs) on several of the islands which competed for the same food as the tortoises and iguanas and almost led to them dying out. The original visitors also took tortoises and turtles with them to eat on their long journey home.
In the last 30 years or so conservation has really taken off in the islands. The goats have been eradicated as have the pigs, although black rats (an accidental addition) still remain on the bigger islands. Tortoises and turtles have grown in number partially as part of a captive breeding program but also on their own, on a couple of the islands they are everywhere, in the roads, on the paths and in the bushes and like all the animals on the islands they weren't afraid of humans at all.
Snorkelling around the islands was also amazing, there are many different types of sea life to see, during my time there I swam with Sea lions, turtles, manta and sting rays, reef sharks, a hammer head shark and tropical fish too numerous to mention.
It was a great few days although on our tour it was a bit of a shame that no-one on our boat was particularly up for staying up after 8pm despite a well stocked bar, although it probably saved us some money and meant that we didn't put on even more weight (walks in the Galapagos are around 96% standing round taking photos and 4% actually walking). Definitely glad we guaranteed this trip early and built our itinerary around it, will definitely be something I remember for a long time.
Pictures below are some of my favourite animals, the red crabs, tortoises, marine iguanas, sea-lion and feedig time at the tortoises captive breeding program at the Darwin centre
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