ECUADOR, GALAPAGOS ISLANDS: FERNANDINA ISLAND - ESPINOZA POINT

 March 23, 2022, Afternoon

The last expedition of the day was a walking excursion on Fernandina Island, an island next to Isabela Island, where we had spent the morning and the previous day. Our naturalist guide Fernanda told us Fernandina is her favorite island in the Galapagos, and not just because of the similarity to her name. She was excited to show it to us.

With the good omen of a rainbow behind us, we set out in the pangas for a dry docking on Fernandina Island. Our two-hour visit there may be our favorite experience of the entire Galapagos trip, and possibly one of our favorite travel experiences of all time.

We disembarked directly from the panga onto a short length of concrete that acted like a pier. We were the second panga in, and we wondered what everyone from the first panga was taking pictures of. When we got to that spot, we saw this green marine iguana crawling out of the water.

When we were only about 10 yards farther down the trail, we started hearing gasps from those in front of us, and when we could  see what they were looking at, we gasped too. A clearing was jam-packed with completely motionless marine iguanas--hundreds of them--some unceremoniously stacked on top of others, and they didn't even bother to acknowledge our presence. 

ECUADOR: TRAVELING TO THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS AND VISITING BALTRA AND SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

 March 21, 2022

After our full day in Quito, we were ready to head to the Galapagos Islands. Our hotel in Quito was one or two blocks from the airport, and the hotel had a shuttle ready for the eight of us at 7:00 AM. There were some confusing things to do at the airport, like have our bags run through x-ray before security as well as fill out some forms in a different location of the airport. It was by no means a clear process.

The Galapagos Islands straddle the equator 563 miles west of continental Ecuador. Flights leave for the islands from Guayaquil, so we had to fly there first (45 minute flight). It was fun to see the Guayaquil LDS Temple both on landing and take-off.

The second leg of the flight, from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands, was about 1.5 hours. This map isn't to scale (the islands are MUCH smaller in relation to the continent), but it at least gives a good idea of the location and number of the islands. There are 13 major islands and more than 100 smaller islands in the chain.

Map from here

Two airports are used for tourism in the Galapagos. We landed at the one on the island of Baltra, a tiny desert island separated from the much larger island of Santa Cruz by a narrow channel. (The other airport is on the island of San Cristobal.)

We disembarked old-style down a flight of stairs wheeled up to the plane.

The airport itself is quite small.

After two long years of pandemic waiting, we were very excited to finally be on the Galapagos Islands!

NORTHEASTERN CALIFORNIA: LAVA BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

 September 6, 2020

On July 22, 2020, a thunderstorm rolled through northeastern California, and lightning strikes started several fires, including one in Lava Beds National Monument. Named the Caldwell Fire, it roared through over 83,000 acres before it was contained. The area, dense with ponderosa and lodgepole pine, had not seen fire in over 40 years.

About 70% of the park was scorched. If you do a Google image search of Lava Beds National Monument, you get photos like these that show trees and grasses growing on the perimeters of the lava beds . . .

From here

. . . and also throughout lava fields.

From here

When we turned into the park, we didn't realize what had occurred there six weeks before.