There are things you can say in Galapagos—in polite company, with complete honesty, with a straight face—that you can’t anywhere else:
“I want to see more boobies.”
“So they can touch us, but we can’t touch them?”
“Wow, these boobies are way bigger than the last ones we saw.”
And then there’s this one:
“THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”
R rolled her eyes when I said it the first time.
“Well, it is!” I pointed out.
She was unimpressed, so I tried with N.
“N, did you hear? THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”
“Very funny, Eema,” he said, in a voice that told me it was anything but.
But honestly—if you can’t say “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!” when you’re walking through a lava field, when can you?
The landscape at Tintoreras was surreal. Not only was the floor lava, but the whole area was covered in what looked a bit like porous black stalagmites, topped with white lichens. The iguanas took camouflage to a whole new level with their spiky black bodies and a bit of white on their heads. I’d be walking along when I’d detect movement from the corner of my eye, and then suddenly what I thought was a rock turned into a live iguana, just inches away.
You’d think I’d be used to spontaneous wildlife appearances by now; but in Galapagos the animals almost go out of their way to put themselves in ours. There are sea lions just lying around on the sidewalks, like dozens of drunks passed out in the street.
(We were confused about how they were getting from the water to the sidewalk until we watched one climb the stairs with his fins and feet. They are adorable when they crawl.)
We had hoped to encounter baby sea lions during our snorkelling excursions. Alas, the only ones we saw were ten metres away in a tidal pool, surrounded by rocks that made the whole thing look like a baby jail playpen. They were jumping and cavorting together while their fathers stood watch on a nearby rock, barking at anyone who got too close.
We also swam through a cloud of tiny jellyfish and over dozens of white-tipped sharks, and through narrow canals lined with green sea urchins (“Don’t touch,” our guide cautioned.)
On land, we walked to a beach where the iguanas basked in the sun. A baby sea lion was waiting on the sand for its mother to return with some food; only a few metres away we noticed a small skull, and the kids found some tiny rib bones and a spine a few feet past that. Apparently some sea lion moms don’t come back.
(“Maybe because the kids are annoying and won’t go to bed on time,” Mr. December suggested.)
Our hotel that night was exactly what we needed: one room with a king bed for the grownups, and another with four single beds for the kids. Mr. December and I went into our child-free room and lay down to relax; three minutes later, we heard a knock on the door.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I locked it. I just need the silence.” Mr. December nodded.
Moments later, as if in a horror movie, the kids emerged through the window (I didn’t know the screens slid open like that.) The first time they did it, I was exasperated. The second time, I was indignant. By the third time, it was just funny, like the signature entrance of a weird neighbour on a nineties sitcom; I could practically hear the laugh track and applause as N stepped through the window frame.
It was less amusing when he came in at three in the morning, complaining of thirst. I sent him off with a water bottle and tried to go back to sleep despite the loud music coming from a party many blocks away. Eventually I searched for my swimming earplugs and put them in: silence. I got three more hours of sleep after that.
sweet & crunchy 