My First Walk at Galapagos

By Geek Goddess on May 8, 2013 • ( 3 )

Cone volcano and…spider!

After nearly a year of waiting, and a lifetime of wishing, today I put my feet onto the Galapagos Islands for the first time. Our party of a dozen friends is listening to our guide, who is a trained naturalist and an employees of the Ecuadorian national park system. This afternoon, we are going to see tortoises. He assures us that, of all the stops we will make this week, this is the least interesting, that “it will go up from here.” While this place was interesting, the trip got better every day.

I bravely let the guys look for the hazards ahead of me

Within a couple hours, we are calling this place “Spider Island” because, well, they were everywhere. Scattered throughout the trees, tiny webs and thread of silk glisten in the sun. These are not the giant man-eating plate-sized spiders which I had been warned about, but apparently anything with eight legs is enough to traumatize some people. As our trip is during the wet season, everything is lush and green. As we walk through the grass and under trees, the guide points out small wisps of silk, cautioning us not to bother the webs. They take “leave only footprints” seriously here.

Today’s walk is a nice warm-up for the days that followed, which have rougher terrain, or steeper climbs, or entail wading through creeks. Below are pictures I capture during today. After today, we will see no spiders.

Warning: I am not a big birder or knowledgeable about bugs. I don’t know the names of plants. I just like looking!