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I still find it hard to believe how amazing it is here. The Galapagos Islands, actually the tips of underwater volcanoes, lie some 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Surrounded by empty sea, their complete isolation means that many of the species found on them are endemic- all the reptiles, half the birds, a third of the plants and a quarter of the fish are completely unique to the area. From ancient giant tortoises with shells rising higher than your hip lumbering through the lush swampy grass on Santa Cruz, to honking, bumbling blue-footed boobies performing waddling courtship dances among the porous rocks of Española; from the great white albatrosses soaring like gliders through the air but lurching with the rolling gait of drunken sailors on the ground, to frigate birds on North Seymour with throats like scarlet balloons, not forgetting the sharp-beaked vampire finches on Genovesa, the Galapagos Islands are like nowhere else on earth. Spanish pirates called them Las Encantadas, the Enchanted Ones, and it's not hard to see why.
The archipelago is made up of 13 large islands, 6 small ones, and over 40 islets, and there is a phenomenal diversity of landscape between them. There are white beaches where the sand is as soft as talcum powder and dimpled with the tracks of sea turtles. To reach them you take a dinghy as far as the shallows and then wade in, past young sealions rolling and lolloping in the surf. You never get used to how the animals out there have absolutely no fear of man. Forget culture shock, I think I have eco shock!
Other islands are masses of cracked grey rock spiked with scrubby bushes and cacti ten feet tall, where you ca find heaps of iguanas basking in the sun. The vegetation on Santa Cruz is so lush it looks practically Amazonian, while South Plaza is covered with fiery red heather, and the water is so clear that from the cliffs you can see shoals of yellow fish swimming twenty metres below. Off Genovesa you can snorkel in the crater of a submerged volcano while inquisitive sealions loop around you in twisting somersaults, taking the occasional sly nip at your flippers. But most striking of all is the lunar landscape of Santiago, where a mass of black lava, rippled and cracked with deep fissures and ridges of broken rock, adds 54 square miles to the island. The ancient lava has engulfed several rusty red islets which now rise like hills from the black expanse, which is porous and ropey and makes wonderful metallic crackling sounds underfoot. No two islands look alike.
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