Part 1 - Beautiful Views
we woke up to a beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky ... i put out all the wet clothes from yesterday to dry in the morning sun ...
a few days ago, one of the girls brought two sweet skin-n-bones puppies to the house to feed them to get them away from the other larger dogs. she actually fed them away from the house ... but .... they seem to find their way back here everyday :) they were here again this morning, with 2 others from their litter, and then 2 mom's showed up as well. there are no free neuter clinics here ... unfortunately!!!!!!!!!!!! .... it's so sad, these little puppies are not only underfed, ... but they are starving for attention. ...breaks my heart :(
check out those ears ... and he's in our kitchen !!!!!! ..
we were ready to take a taxi at 10:30 to head out for a long hike to a new location. it was still sunny when we got to town ... this is a good sign !!!!!!!! this is not really a 'beach', but i read it was a good snorkeling sight .... Las Tijeretas. there is a nice stone trail that leaves from the Darwin Interpretive Center .... it takes you to Cerro Tijeretas ... "Cerro" is 'hill'. it's an uphill climb, not a bad one; but we were sufficiently warm when we got there. it was still sunny!!!!!! ...the views were beautiful ...
there are supposed to be lotsa Frigit Birds up here; but we only saw this one flying way overhead ....
this is looking down on the snorkel site ...
with a walkway leading to the 'steps that you climb down to get into the water ... like i said, it's not a 'beach' ...
this is looking towards Kicker Rock ... see that little patch of sand, that 'sand doesn't meet the water' ... so it isn't a 'beach' to us, somewhere out there is a 'beach' ... we want to get there ....
so we headed out on the trail ... this was really a trail, not a walkway, ... and it was muddy from all the rains ... it was down the other side of the hill ....... we all commented on the fact that we will have to go back up this trail to get back ...
we finally arrived at that sandy spot, but as we guessed,it was no 'beach' ....
there were now NO clouds and it was hot ... a few clouds would have been welcome. but, this was the first time that i'd really felt like i was in the Galapagos! ... i mean the 'land' part of the Galapagos .... dry, barren, scrub brush, and volcanic rock with the sea out there. it was hot and i loved it ! ...i'll take this over rain anyday!
Louise and i continued on, following the path ....
we hiked for another 25min until we came to a point where we could see down the shore ....
we looked, but could not see a beach .... maybe that little spot of sand back there WAS the 'beach' ? .... so we turned around and went back to where we left Will and Laura :(
hung out at that little sandy spot for awhile and ate our sandwiches ...
many of the beaches here are made of shells and pencil sea urchins, which makes the 'sand' very coarse, i like the way it massages my feet .... this is a photo of the 'sand', the cylindrical shapes are the remains of the Pencil Sea Urchin ...
and this is what it looks like when it's living in the sea ...
i took some photos of one of the MANY Marine Iguanas that we've seen today ... they are everywhere !!!!!!!
it was so pretty out here, no people around; the waves rolling in ....
...and crashing into the rocks on shore ...
then, we trucked back up that hill in the heat of the day. Louise and i went to snorkel at Las Tijeretas; Will and Laura headed for the beach, Playa Carola.
it was a bit tricky getting in and out of the water, you had to time it, in between the waves. the water was actually quite clear, visibility was good. i snorkeled out to the opening of the cove and saw some larger fish; the usual YellowTailed SurgeonFish ...
but the middle is very deep and the fishes are too far away to see. we didn't spend much time here; but i'll come back another day and do further investigations.
as i was crawling out of the water, i came eye-to-eye with this Marine Iguana ... who didn't look any too happy to have me there ...
on the way to the beach there are a couple of beautiful Look-Out points ...
i know this photo looks very calming ....
but it is deceiving ... the waves really build up and are so forceful against those rocks ...
this is a Blue Footed Boobie flying overhead ...
you can see this very large 'man' while snorkeling below ... at first you wonder .. 'what giant is up there, looking down' ... it's Darwin, a Sea Lion, a Tortoise, and the Marine Iguana .... i'm not sure why he is going to put his thumb in his mouth ... or maybe he's hoping to hitchhike on the next boat that goes by :)
it was just a beautiful Galapagos day .....
you could even see the beach we are headed for, Playa Carola .... if you click to enlarge this photo you can see small little dots around the LightHouse ... those are all surfers ...
it was a perfect day so far .... loved it !
continued in Part 2
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