Galapagos Goodbye

With less than a month to go, and funds running low, our thoughts keep turning to home, London, friends and family, and all those things we left behind in search of action, adventure and cultures so different to our own.

Psychologically, we're almost home already, as we surf the net for job information and think about wedding plans. Cutting our trip short by two weeks, we have changed our itinerary to include a place which, at the outset, was No.1 on the list of 23 places we wanted to see before we die.

Unfortunately it was also the first to be crossed off the list, as we erroneously thought we needed thousands of pounds to get there. To end our year with a final flourish, in perhaps the ultimate of all eco-destinations, we are going to the place where the world´s scientific understanding of nature really all started. We are going to The Galapagos Islands.

Darwin´s famous "Enchanted Isles", 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, are also known as the "Islas del Fuego" (Fire Islands) due to their volcanic nature, and are a sublime evolutionary wonder. Formed by underwater eruptions, the older islands have gradually moved south eastwards to make way for new ones when the time comes for the cones to blow. Onto these barren deserts of lava rock, fragile eco-systems developed over time, giving each island its own unique flora and fauna as - incredibly, given the islands´ isolation - certain species arrived from the mainland and/or other islands in the chain.

When Darwin arrived on Isla Isabella in 1835, he wasn´t the first human visitor and he wouldn´t be the last. The islands were soon to be ravaged by the combined efforts of pirates and whaling crews who used the Galapagos as a useful base for the once fertile (now all but destroyed) Sperm Whale breeding grounds.


Amongst the damage done by those early intruders was the decimation of the Giant Tortoise population; once sailors realized they could store live tortoises upside down in the ships holds, without water, for up to a year, they became an important source of fresh meat and thus an essential victual for any ship passing through. The creatures populations were soon dramatically reduced. Other disasters included forest fires and the introduction of pigs, goats, rats and other invasive species.



The Galapagos islands is seen as a barometer for environmental changes in the wider world, and it is apt that our trip will end here. Throughout our travels, nothing has struck me more than the wonders of nature and how fast they are disappearing. From the flooding of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China to the melting snows of the Himalayas, the sights we have been lucky enough to see with our own eyes may well not be here by the time any future offspring are old enough to travel here themselves. Despite the incredible year we´ve had, there is something deeply depressing about scooting round the Earth´s natural wonders before it´s too late.


For me, nowhere are these rapid changes more devastating that under the waves. Out of sight, out of mind, the marine life and coral gardens we have witnessed this year are quite literally being driven to extinction before our very eyes. In Asia, reefs are bombed with dynamite and polluted with cyanide to provide the Far East with billions of sushi dinners. On one pristine coral reef in Borneo, there was no virtually no marine life; at Jakarta airport, we saw a shop full of shark fins of all shapes and sizes for shark fin soup.




Here in the Galapagos Islands those very sharks may well have been illegally fished from UNESCO protected waters. Like all the marine parks we´ve dived this year, the ocean here is victim to poaching on a grand scale. Abundant schools of Hammerhead sharks, for which the Galapagos are famous, are becoming less and less common - almost completely due to illegal shark finning. This has a knock on effect on the whole eco-system: without larger predatory fish to drive the smaller ones to the surface, the famous sea birds such as the Blue Footed Booby, Galapagos Penguins and red chested Frigate Birds are unable to fish for food. Land and sea are in perfect harmony.

Before coming here, I felt quite guilty for being a tourist - just another one of the many pressures on this natural environment. However, I soon realized that controlled, responsible eco-tourism is perhaps the only way these islands will generate enough money to protect themselves from serious commercial exploitation. That´s not to say that tourism is good for the Galapagos: guides are mandatory on some islands, shoes are checked for foreign soil being passed between the islands and bags are searched for fruit and seeds of invasive species. But controlled tourism certainly does less damage than illegal fishermen camping unchecked on a beach.

The Charles Darwin Research Institute tries to stem the tide by removing parasitic plants, goats, dogs and other foreign species which are already here, and to breed and reintroduce some of the ones which have almost been lost. Sadly, Lonesome George, the last of Pinza Island´s Giant Tortoises, steadfastly refuses to mate with genetically similar females; meanwhile the goats stand on the backs of his cousins to eat the last of their natural habitat.

But amongst all the doom and gloom, the Galapagos islands remains enchanted and enchanting, and are one of the most magical destinations of our year away. When Darwin´s finches come right up to you and start pecking your toes with their over-sized beaks, you realise how the greatest naturalist of all time was able to study these creatures so closely and notice their evolutionary differences during his surprisingly short stay of four weeks. Of all our activities here - from bike riding to horse riding to volcano climbing - it was, of course, the scuba diving which provided the really magic moments.

Through currents so strong they can rip your mask from your face, occasional bad visibility and mammoth Pacific surge, came big schools of White Tip Reef Sharks; Galapagos Sharks looking pretty damn tough; Green Turtles pootling about with their bulky frames; huge Eagle and Manta Rays and a spectacular school of of Mobula Rays, 40 odd strong, flying through the sea like something out of star wars. Hanging to a bare rock at 20m below, looking above at a wriggling Hammerhead Shark making its way against the tide, fills me with a huge sense of privilege that we´ve seen so many incredible things.

But I also love London. The itchy feet have been well and truly scratched, and it's time to return home. Thanks Planet Earth. You were great.

Raw Hide!!

Of all the countries we´ve visited on this trip, none is as much maligned, especially by those who have never visited, as Colombia. Government websites advise against travel, news stories focus on kidnappings and guerilla warfare and National Geographic Channel is still fond of the odd documentary about the exploits of the Medellin and Cali Cocaine Cartels of the 1980s and 90s (I should know - I worked on one less than two years ago).


That´s not to say that Colombia doesn´t play a little on its famous bad boys - the National Police Museum in Bogota is well worth a visit for its exhibition on the escape and capture of Pablo Escobar and includes such items as Pablo´s personal pager (he was the first to have one in South America - very high tec for the 1980s), his police radio for spying in on the opposition, the jacket he was shot in and even the bloodstained tile from the rooftop he was killed on.

Medellin is still a gangland city, only these days the violence is orchestrated by paramilitary groups connected to the government rather than Pablo.

As a tourist wandering through the city centre´s Botero (Colombia´s most famous artist) sculpture park, you would honestly never know these problems even existed; as a rationalist, you could easily compare them to gang problems in Philadelphia or LA, and yet that hardly stops people from visiting the USA. The reality is that Colombia is safer than ever, and as we passed through Bogota (like London in Autumn - freezing cold, a bit grey, fabulous night life and culture); Medellin (like turning up in Bradford and expecting there to be something to do) and Cali (smart, sophisticated and extremely cool) we felt that nowhere we´d seen was as moody as some of the areas of London we´ve lived in over the last few years.


Southern Colombia - in years gone by a virtual no-go area for all but the bravest traveller - has also largely opened up to tourists. It´s now safe to travel by bus (very stylish with lots of leg room) all the way from Cali to the Ecuadorian border, but the most rewarding parts of the south still require a bit more effort and long bumpy bus journeys. San Augustin - a charming little colonial town - is tucked away from the main tourist trail, but soon became my favourite place in Colombia for both scenery and culture. Here in the foothills of the Andes, Pre-Columbian civilisations left behind the only evidence of their existence in the form of dozens of carved enigmatic statues and tombs, before being invaded by the Incas at the end of the 15th century. It was also here that many of the beautiful Gold artefacts in Bogota´s Museo d´Oro were originally found.



The best way to visit these wonderful monuments, scattered as they are across kilometres of hillside, is on horseback. Seeing as the last time we´d got on horses Jonny had nearly been thrown off a cliff, he was understandably a bit nervous about the prospect but, hat´s off to him, he duly got back on the horse.

The horses provided by our guide Humberto were absolutely fantastic and even seemed to enjoy cantering up steep hillsides. Before we knew it we were galloping between the various archeological sites, only dismounting our noble steeds to gawp at some pretty explicit evidence of child sacrifice and marvel at the implicit cleverness of the imagery and craftsmanship. On top of that, the tour was conducted completely in Spanish, and we ended up translating for those who spoke less than we did - a real sign of how much our Spanish has improved in such a short space of time.

At one of the sites, a girl was reading the Mayan Calendar for people, and mine, "Red Rhythmnic Earth" apparently meant that I was often in the right place at the right time. She looked up my birth date, and the sign that corresponded to 2008 was indeed slap bang on Colombia on her printed world map. You can´t beat a bit of mysticism when you´re travelling, and I certainly felt like I was in the right place at the right time.

Glorious Mud!

As hangover cures go, I´ve always sworn by the Full English and a Bloody Mary. But after two days in Cartegena - mainly spent out on the tiles - I was in need of something approaching a miracle cure.

Cartegena is the jewel of all colonial cities. Its perfectly preserved squares and fountains, high walls and blooming balconies offer respite from the boiling heat of the day; museums and galleries document with great glee the various Spanish successes against British pirates (most famously Francis Drake) ; and a plethora of smart shops and expensive restaurants cater for Cartegena´s beautiful people. Unfortunately the tourist dollar they are seeking here is from cruise ships and wealthy South Americans, rendering much of what is good about Cartegena well out of our price range, and peppering the streets with ´living statues´and persistent hawkers, but all things considered its a lively and interesting place to spend time.


On our second night in Cartegena we found ourselves wandering around town, looking for something both fun and affordable. Seeing as we completely failed to find the party on the 20th floor of the five star hotel where all the models and pop stars were hanging out (as a fellow backpacker joyfully informed us in a loud Finchley accent the next morning: "I´m from London, yeah, and I´ve seen some wicked parties, but this was the best party I´ve ever been to in my whole life.") we headed for Via Arsenal where the clubs and bars are concentrated, only to end up in a club resembling a school disco, or as a friend more accurately put it, a ´torture-chamber´, before deciding to do what Cartegenans do best: Rum and Salsa! We spent a long night in a series of salsa joints, getting down with the locals and drinking bad mojitos until the small hours.







At 9am the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and were duly bundled onto a tour bus to Volcan Baru. Residual alcohol levels still being fairly high, I managed the one and a half hour ride out of the city in good spirits, although Jonny - squeezed between the Spanish speaking tour guides at the front - looked a bit the worse for wear. This particular volcano is renowned for its health reviving properties and, as the local myth goes, had once spouted fire and lava but was charmed by a local witchdoctor and now conveniently splurges a ready supply of soft mud in a crater about the size of a large jacuzzi. Could this be the miracle hangover cure I was looking for? Although I´d seen pictures of friends covered from head to foot in volcano mud, nothing had quite prepared me for this


We donned our oldest swimming gear and descended the stairs to the suprisingly cool mud bath which contained 30 or so Colombians, including 3 toothless male masseurs waiting to give you a good rub down. I wasn´t sure which I was more afraid of - the mud or the men - but it soon became clear that we would all have to surrender ourselves completely to this surreal experience. The bouyant mud holds you up, so rather that sinking into the crater you float on the top. Whatever position you end up in it is notoriously difficult to move, not because the mud offers that much resistance, but more for fear you´ll lose your balance and end up head first and stuck in the mud.

At this point, looking around at various people wallowing in grey matter, the last thing you expect is to see someone you recognise. So when one of the girls from our tour bus said to Jonny (fresh from his mud massage) "you seem familiar" and he said the same back, I nearly fell off my virtual `mud chair´. Not only had these two met before, but it had been on another trip in Bolivia - a full seven years previously! Obviously South America has a magnetism that keeps people coming back: who knows who we´ll meet next time, or where.



After Cartegena, we mooched up the coast to the beach resort of Taganga, stepping stone to the jungle and beaches of Parque Natural Tayrona. Taganga is a little party town as well, with giant speakers on every street corner pumping out the local rhythmns to anyone passing, and the ubiquitous Israeli travellers host Psy-trance parties that only ever start at midnight, meaning over 25s like myself can´t stand the pace and decide to go to bed early (pah! who wants to listen to trance anyway?) . But Parque Tayrona - less than an hour away - couldn´t be more different.


Strict door searching policies mean that there are absolutely no drugs or hard liquor allowed in the park - quite an achievement for Colombia. Tayrona, the park workers told us, is where Colombians come to get away from it all, and what better place for Colombia´s party loving citizens to dry out than the most beautiful stretch of coastline in the Caribbean? Over years of travel, we have seen some series beaches, but even Costa Rica or Thailand´s finest would struggle to live up to the beauty of Tayrona. Huge rocks jut out into the sea, forming perfect bays between the sands, and natural rock breakers between them form huge swimming pools, making swimming here much safer than many of the beaches in, for example, Panama or Goa. If you´re willing to sleep in a hammock or a tent, this is the place to chill out, dry out and toast yourself to a happy shade of marron. As hangover cures go, volcanoes and beaches sure beat the Bloody Mary!