Goodbye to Galapagos

So I found out what the concert / festival thingy the other night was about. Corazones Azules apparently mark victims of traffic accidents: blue hearts are painted on highway sides wherever people die in car crashes. The theme of the concert was to encourage people to drink less before driving, use seat belts, stick to speed limits, that sort of sensible stuff. It was sponsored by the president, hence the frequent thank you speeches.

Saturday and Sunday were my last two days of diving in Galapagos, and some diving it turned out to be! On Saturday´s dive at Gordon Rocks, we came across a huge school of hammerheads; there must have been 30 sharks in total, with the largest ones being over 3m long. We also witnessed a school (more like a"ball") of thousands of smaller fish, tightly packed together in one living, moving mass. In addition, we saw a couple of groups of 4-5 eagle rays, as well as the usual cavalcade of turtles, white tips, etc. Really great dive, definitely in my top 3 ever.

Sunday took us to Cousins Rock and Bartolome, and at both sites we caught a large number of individual white tips, some sleeping, some moving around. The definite highlight was a large group of about 12 eagle rays, majestically gliding through the ocean. It felt almost like watching migrating birds, except we could actually fly along with them. As we were following the group, one particularly large individual "flew" underneath us - it must have had a wingspan well in excess of 1 meter. Just beautiful! During the surface interval between dives, I did some snorkeling on Bartolome, and again caught sight of a couple of penguins. I didn´t have my camera last time, so was really happy to get a couple of pictures this time. Unfortunately the penguins weren´t swimming, but seemed content to just stand on some rocks unmoving for at least half an hour. Hard life, they have... I bought a polo T-shirt and a DVD from the dive shop as souvenirs from what is definitely one of the best weeks of diving ever in my life.

Other than my underwater escapades, I wondered down to Playa Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay) on Saturday afternoon. The sky was dark, and it even rained a bit, but the beach was impressive. It had the kind of superfine white sand that most beaches can only dream about (and expensive camera lenses have nightmares about), and a nice vista mixing the sand with some green-leafed trees, black volcanic rocks, and perfect turquoise ocean. Part of the beach has strong waves and currents, great for surfing though not for swimming. If you cross to the other side, you have a calm little bay that is perfect for a quiet swim. To top it all off, you have dozens of gray marine iguanas to keep you company. I sat at the beach for a good hour and a half, just lost in thought and admiring the beauty of the nature.

I then grabbed dinner with Sebastien and Damien, ze Frenchman and le Belge from our dive group, respectively. Nice steaks at Garrapata (sp?), washed down with so-so Chilean white wine. Damien´s story was actually pretty frigging inspiring; I may not have done him full justice earlier by describing him as an "European Commission bureaucrat". Apparently the guy works for EC´s humanitarian mission, ECHO; an agronomist by training, he´s been involved with humanitarian and development work over the past 17 years at such lovely spots as Afghanistan, Chechenya, former Yugoslavia, Mosambique, Mali, Columbia, Sri Lanka... He´s now spent the last 7 years in Quito, ECHO´s regional office for all of South America, and is just about to move to Haiti. Great guy, great sense of humour, and definitely someone very dedicated to fulfilling their values in their everyday life. I got his number, and we´ll hopefully grab dinner again when I go to Quito toward the beginning of December.

Sunday´s dive went later, so just grabbed a quick dinner of grilled lobster at Cafe Del Mar with Damien, and thought I´d update the blog a bit before finding a place to stay in Lima (hey, better late than never). Tomorrow´s flight is at noon, so it looks like I´ll finally get a bit of sleep in the morning, unless, of course, the group of Swedish pensioners who just descended on my hotel decide to start their breakfast diskutering at 6am AGAIN. Javla svenskor!

Sunday was also Father´s Day in Finland, so dad, if you´re reading this, happy Father´s Day! Thanks for being a great role model for care-free, happy-go-lucky living-out-of-a-backpack kind of travel :-)

So, with this, I bid goodbye to Galapagos, though I definitely hope to come back one day (after Ulla learns to dive?). Time to head to new adventures in mainland South America, starting with Lima tomorrow. It will also be nice to meet up with Santeri, who I´ll be traveling together with for the next 3 weeks. Puerto Ayora out!