Hey there my Steemit friends! I'm so excited to bring you along with me on my first "Travel Pro Adventure" post for the Galapagos. After spending almost a month in Guayaquil Ecuador dealing with all sorts of business I was bursting at the seems to get outside and have some fun. So I bought myself a plane ticket to the Galapagos!
Not a bad idea I must say so myself. After all, this place is a nature mecca and an incredible place to go hiking and be out-side with the animals of the Galapagos. I flew into the Island of San Cristobal with plans on taking a ferry boat to neighboring Island of Santa Cruz, but after a few days here I realized there was plenty to do and see and I didn't feel like doing three plus hours on a boat in somewhat rough seas, then back, as this is where I had to fly out from.
I spent the entire ten days in San Cristobal and made a great "Travel Pro Deal" at Hotel Grand Insular Pariaso for an unheard of twenty dollars a night! That was a fantastic deal for the Galapagos where everything is more expensive than mainland Ecuador. There will certainly be a "Travel Pro Hotel" post about this place so you know where to stay if you ever make it here.
As mentioned in a previous post the internet on the entire set of islands is awful, so that just gave me more reason to spend time exploring the outdoors. I certainly did a lot of that. So much so I ended up with about 1,000 photos! Everyday was a new adventure. I probably hiked over 40 kilometers in the short time I was there and saw so much wildlife at some moments I felt like I was living in a zoo!
This is one of the first adventures I had on the island and was a great way to introduce myself to some of the main species of wildlife. On this hike we see sea lions, iguanas, frigate birds, and the famous blue footed boobie! I certainly got to practice my wildlife photography skills. I certainly don't claim to be a pro at that; maybe an amateur at best.
We start this adventure at our hotel and take a half an hour walk to the beginning of the trail. I'll show you the way to Playa Loberia (Sea Lion Beach), have a look around, and meet some friendly sea lions. We'll also see some unexpected activities on the way to the beach in this part one of "Hiking the Southern Coast of San Cristobal Island Galapagos!" Now come along and let's go!
This happy fellow is who we'll meet at the end of part one, but for now he makes for a great photo to the intro of this post!
We walk down the main street and find the first sign. We turn left and walk past this school's playground.
At the end of this street we see another sign directing us where to go. So far we are very pleased with how the signs are placed. We turn right and can see that we are heading to the coast.
What is this big truck doing here? We've heard so much about how the islands are an international heritage and are to be protected. There isn't suppose to be any industrial mining or digging up of the earth or anything. They make such a big deal about protecting the environment. I'm very surprised to see this, and then we see what is just ahead.
Holy smokes! So much for keeping every bit of the Galapagos pristine. I later asked a local what this was all about commenting on how such a big deal is made to preserve the natural environment. She said that this is the only place on the island were they have this mining going on.
She explained to me because the price of importing building materials is so expensive from the mainland this site is for the production of concrete and other building materials made from the earth. I was told that none of what is produced here is for export and it's all used in the Galapagos for the locals.
I suppose that makes sense as the people living in the Galapagos have a right to reasonably priced building materials. They already pay about double for food. However with all the talk about preservation you'd think the government would just subsidize the importation of building materials rather than destroy this chunk of land.
If you look closely that's the single runway of the airport off in the distance.
This looks like a runway for an airplane too!
Looks like we made it to the start of the trail.
We sign in with this guy here, so if we don't make it out I suppose they'll know to come looking for us.
So I guess we'll go to the left!
We get our first taste of the Galapagos coastal landscape. The entire set of islands were created by volcanoes. The coast line is full of the volcanic black rocks. We later learn the pretty much every coastline in the Galapagos has a similar look with these rocks everywhere.
We continue down the path and get our fist glimpse of "Playa Loberia" Sea Lion Beach. With the rocks all around it doesn't look too inviting for a swim. This is said to be where the largest population of sea lions resides, by the looks of it most of them must be out hunting fish or something.
There are certainly a few sea lions around including this guy I captured on film shortly after coming out of the water. Get ready for some Travel Pro videos. I even start talking on camera too! I'm getting better at that. Kind of intimidating at first, but I've got myself an intro and closing to my videos and got a lot smoother as the week progressed. If you follow along with my Galapagos post you'll get to know the Travel Pro on camera! However this video here is just of the sea lion. Next post I start blabbing away!
Thanks for coming along! Until next time -Dan "World Travel Pro!"
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