San Cristobal
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San Cristobal 00.53S; 089. 36W 20 -23 rd February 2013 The last few days have been a mixture of frustration and enjoyment. Bolivar (our agent) emailed us and said he would deliver our exit papers and fuel on Monday, so Suzie and I waited and waited and waited – nothing! Same on Tuesday ….. in the end the correct papers arrived early on Friday, some 3 days late. Keen to see some of the fabled Galapagos wild life, 8 of us piled into an open truck-taxi to La Loberia beach . There we had a wonderful morning swimming with the giant turtles, rays and sea lions. A sad note was a cub that had obviously been abandoned and we watched in fascination as it struggled over the rocks to reach the pack of nursing mothers, crying pitifully, only to be rejected by them all. As the tide came in we last saw it being rolled around the rocks. What was Darwin’s thesis – survival of the fittest?
We enjoyed La Loberia so much that we returned there again a few days later; this time we arrived early and had the pristine sandy beach to ourselves, excepting the sea-lions and iguanas. Later some surfers arrived to catch the waves and a National Park official carefully labelled a new turtle egg mound; the sign ‘Stop, Turtle Eggs’ might have been respected by humans, but greedy iguanas were soon to be observed hunting for any tasty morsel which their delicate sense of smell could detect. A swim at low tide was rewarding; 6 huge sea turtles, easily as large as ourselves, glided beneath us, oblivious to our presence as they grazed on the sandy bottom. We also saw large rays and myriads of brightly coloured fish. Later Robin discovered a (relatively) smallish turtle climbing laboriously up the beach into the path of a large sea iguana. Both stopped and glared at each other for several minutes before turning to retrace their steps.
By late morning Sid the tame sea lion was at it again – showing off for the locals who started to arrive by the busload. Suzie tried to get close but when he came up after her, she did not know if his intentions were honourable, so she quickly retreated. Sea-lions have bad breath and very sharp teeth!
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