Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Do space tourists know about this paradise? Both on land and sea, Joana Stichini Vilela felt like she was on another planet. There are lunar landscapes, unique species and thousands of animals who do not know what it is to fear mankind.
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More difficult than controlling kids in a candy store is babysitting tourists in the Galapagos. I never worked out if the French pensioner in our group was deaf or just hard headed. With as much talent for languages as the marine iguanas that were observing us, the Ecuadorian guide decided on the former. The monsieur was in a photographic trance and she screamed “Señor! Señooor.” Until a very long and loud “Señoooooor!” ended up in a “splosh”: a lame iguana flees, finally aware that the lense-nosed creature is not to be trusted.
To be fair, I was also about to step on one of these gladiators. Like the giant tortoise, the cormorant and sea lion “of the Galapagos”, the marine iguanas are one of the many endemic species of this secluded paradise. In other words, they only exist here. However, on these 18 islands and over 40 islets, 970 km off the coast of Ecuador, there are thousands of them. They spit, they tread on each other and interweave with the mesh of metallic mats. And with no natural predators, they have little or no fear of humans.
If it weren’t for some backpackers who we came across in our first few weeks in South America, it is likely that we would have never caught to plane to Santa Cruz – an extravagance in our low-cost adventure. In the Colombian jungle, a sweaty Swiss traveller took the trouble to fetch his digital camera. “Look.” And there were the playful sea lions, a mere half metre away. The daft grin he wore as he told us how he swam with them was the same one we had soon after our first dip on Isabela, the largest of the archipelago’s islands, and one we repeated every time we came across those bushy whiskers.
After a few days in that lost world, I started thinking about cancelling all plans for the rest of the trip. Where else could you see three sea turtles having lunch, not by candlelight but via the sunrays filtered by the sea, minutes after meeting a blue shark in an almost constant stream of colourful fish? Visions of another planet, via a simple mask and snorkel. Do space tourists know about the Galapagos? Of the rivers of lava on the island of Santiago? Of sea lion pups on the dark sands of Fernandina?
It was then that I realised how lucky I was. It was this that the first explorers saw. This is how Darwin felt. I wanted to stay there forever. Today, I can only think about going back. Even if I run the risk of bumping into a herd of deaf or hard-headed French pensioners in a photographic trance.
by Joana Stichini Vilela
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