Galapagos

Recently Jemma and I returned from two weeks in the Galapagos Islands, which was just amazing. We did an 8 day cruise and then stayed with a friend of Jemma's on Isabella Island for a few days. We went a bit crazy with photos of animals: this is just a select few! (Sea lions appear a few times, I think they were my favourite)

The hermanas

Pelican

Nasca boobies

Red-footed booby

A gull, probably a Galapagos Gull, that's how most things were named

Bartolome Island - note the sunken volcano crater

Turtle sandwich: it's difficult to get the full picture from this photo, but in this lagoon we found about seven male turtles swimming around waiting for their turn with the one female. 'Gang rape' is the term that came to mind.

Our boat, The Fragata. Great crew and the best chef in all Galapagos!

On many of the islands there was little to no plant life because they were just rocks. This one had beautiful red plants and many cactus.

Loads of iguanas... these are land iguanas.

Our boat was usually accompanied by frigate birds (these are the ones who puff up their necks, photo later.)

Fish market at Santa Cruz... note the pelicans and sea lion looking for scraps

Baby tortoises at the Charles Darwin centre

Giant tortoises at the centre, being kept for breeding purposes. This is where we saw Lonely George, the last surviving tortoise from one of the islands (can't remember which one). We also saw lots of these guys wandering around on Isabella island.

Jemma impersonating an iguana

Baby albatross - hilarious. And this was a really big bird! I think the adults have a wingspan of up to 3 metres... they were huge!

Red and green iguana

The coastline where the albatrosses were. This is what the young ones have to leap off when they learn to fly.

Blue-footed booby

Sea lions would often hang out on the back of the boat.

These red crabs were everywhere

A collection of underwater life

Salt flats

The 'post office'

Just one of the many spectacular sunsets as viewed from the boat

Sunset on the beach in Isabella

Flamingos in Isabella

Our guide, Manuel

A land iguana and a marine iguana together... quite unusual. Apparently they were originally the same species but evolved to be based on land or sea.

The aforementioned frigate bird, with his chest puffed up like a balloon.