Log/Pic 37 Ushuaia, Argentina

So this is Ushuaia! The world's most southern town. It's a quaint little town that reminds me of Seward, Alaska. Pretty much each day here it is cold, warm, sunny and raining in its 18 hours of daylight. I imagine it's the same in the winter, without the heat and change the daylight to dark.
Boats in the bay, cold, clear, mountains in the background. Its only 650 miles from Antarctica...this is a problem for me.

Even the seagulls are cool looking!

This is a view from above looking down on the town. The mountains of Chile in the background.

This is the Spanish school where I'm taking class and these are the instructors and other students.

Hiking in Patagonia...yeah!!

Woodpecker or carpintero patagonico

Lots of cool lichen throughout the park and surrounding area. I heard there is lichen in Antarctica, I need to go find out!

Log/Pic 36 Isabela Island, Galapogos

So after a hellish three-hour boat ride on a tiny craft in the Galopogos rough seas, we arrived in the beautiful island of Isabela. The first thing I did was head to Sierra Negra on horseback. This volcano that erupted like less than two years ago, claims the 2nd largest caldera in the world. It was a very clear day in the highlands, and we could see all the way across.

I saw flamingos, pelicans, frigates, boobies, stingrays, sharks, sea lions, turtles, iquanas, eels and of course penquins. These are the 2nd smallest type of penquins. We saw them swimming, paddling on the surface in groups of 15-20, and sitting on the rocks.

After a few days I took another small boat on a terrible ride to the island of Floreana to do some snorkling at Diablo Corona (Devils Crown). We then went on to San Cristobol. The only thing I liked about this island was the enormous sea lion colony that took over most of the beach and some of the boardwalk. Oh yeah, and it was the place to go to get to Española!Within a week, I was missing Isabela. So were the two German guys I had been traveling with since Santa Cruz, and our new friends Larry and Sandy from Mexico/California. So we flew back to Isabela on a four passenger plane and had a great view of the rest of the Galopogos Islands.


Now back on our favorite island, we enjoyed more animals at the Tunnels, Los Tintoraras, and the rest of this peaceful paradise.

More bonding.

Iquana and baby sea lion.

More besos (kisses).

This huge iquana was either coming for a kiss or to fight, I couldn't tell.

I still cant tell.

I sat on some lava and watched these two go at it for like 10 minutes-3 rounds. In the background there were two more fighting. They were still going at it when i left. I dont know how many more rounds there were. I had to go check out more wildlife-plus my ass really hurt!

Log/Pic 35 Española, Galapogos

So I know I promised no more Galopogos photos, but this is Española!

Above is the masked boobie.

This is a sally light-foot crab.

The marine iguanas on this island where red and some where green. It is December but I think they are this color all year round.

see website for additional pics of Galop

This is what makes this island famous. The only nesting place for the Waved Albotrose. The baby is the fat, fury one. The babies get bigger than their mom and have to lose weight before they can fly. They can spend six months at sea and will return to this nesting place when they are six years old.

Two adult Albatros chilling. We saw probably 25 of them, one in flight from our four-hour boat trip from San Cristobol.

Here we saw dozens of Blue-footed boobies. This one was performing the ritual mating dance.

These two were doing their famous march.

A Galopogos hawk. We saw two males and a female.

Red-beaked tropic bird in flight.

Me bonding with a baby sea lion. Can't touch the wildlife, but I didn't read anything about kisses!

Log/Pic 34 Isla Plaza, Galapagos

So yesterday I went to Plaza Island and had the greatest interaction with sea lions. We saw one, then two, then three, then four, then five, and then eight or nine by the time we came to the islands tip. This was obviously where they hung out. They were above us, below us, in and out of the caves, and all around us.

I took the advice of a local and instead of just looking at them, I decided to get a little goofy and play.
I was rolling and spinning and swimming like them.
It worked! They were all over me, shooting towards my face then turning at the last second. They were above, below, and on the side of me. They even chased after us.
The more I played, the more active they were and the longer they stayed.
Two of the 3three of us had yellow fins. They chewed and nibbled on both of our fins.
They are so graceful.
Our fins look just like theirs.
A couple of babies joined in on the fun.
This one had cute puppy-dog eyes.
When my scuba buddy was running out of air in all the excitement-the only reason playtime ended-this little one waved goodbye.

Log/Pic 33 North Seymore Island/ Gordon Rocks

So this is the dive boat I work on-the DIOS ME GUIE (God is my guide). Tito is the captain and Jabinero,on deck, is the 1st mate.
This is what most people come to see.
Eel
Eagle rays
Sharptail (snake) eel
close-ups of whitetips
There was 35 in this group-mating season ya know!
These are...
Manta rays

O.K. I promise these are the last underwater photos I blog-unless I see a whale shark!!

Log/Pic 32 The Highlands, Galapogos

So I knew I said I wasn't going to blog for awhile, but today was a day off of diving and I had the coolest experience with the giant Galopagos tortoises. This couple in town invited me to their farm in the highlands and they had these monsters everywhere.
These eight in this small pond became 17 before I headed back to the farm. I returned only because the sun was going down. On my way back there were three more on their way to submerge for the night.
I layed down on my belly and watched this one for a long time. I think Imight have even sang to it-o.k. I did.
As each one lathargically slid into the water, bubbles came out from under them and the ducks would feed in the stirred up moss.
Alright, I really liked this one.
This one ate flowers.
This one posed for the camera.
It's obvious why the first people named them based on their resemblance to elephants.
Up until around thirty, their age can be determined by the rings within each shute.
The tortoises make a hissing noise when first approached. They also make a kind of mooing sound at times. My favorite was just sitting there in silence and listening to them breathe.