Thongs n' Things

Ipanama Beach, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Copacabana, caipirinhas, beach volleyball, beautiful bodies, thongs – all define the glamour of Rio de Janeiro. It’s about 7 a.m. and I’m just off the overnight (four) flights from Galapagos to Rio de Janeiro, where I am privileged to be spending a day, before immersing myself in various Brazilian forests for the most hectic two weeks of my journey. My hotel room isn’t ready, in fact they really weren’t very helpful at all, so I am taking an early morning wander on Ipanema beach in heavy shoes and long trousers while everyone else sports speedos and thongs (spot the Englishman!). There’s a big however, however, just because one can wear a thong, doesn’t necessarily mean one should! 

Ipanema panorama

Having been brought up on some of the world’s great beaches (Scarborough, Perranporth) I feel that I know a thing or two about beach life, but some of the sights here surprise even my seasoned eye. It’s not a fable, ladies really do play beach volleyball here, under the palm trees, wearing thongs. Most of the rest of the people around, including the blokes, probably shouldn’t and contrive to slightly put me off my delayed breakfast.

  

Bikini brollies

Backed by a busy six-lane road (why do they always do that to beaches?), then apartment blocks and hotels, with a spectacular granite spire at one end, this sweeping beach of beautiful white sand with the texture of demerara sugar is a perfect stage for people-watching. Here, not only should you sport the body beautiful here, but you must be seen to be building the body beautiful. Everyone, everywhere, is exercising in some way (except me), including open-air, on-the-beach, iron-pumping gyms, beach football and volleyball, surfing (on rubbish surf) and runners, lots and lots of lycra-clad runners and power walkers.

As I stroll along the prom, feeling overwhelmed but trying to look cool, I am startled by a loud roar immediately behind me. I turn half-expecting a wild animal, to see a runner dressed in an early ‘80s green tracksuit. Every 50 steps or so he lets out a wild roar and no-one seems to bat an eye-lid. Later, in the same place I believe I hear the piercing whistle of a steam train. Fooled again; the high-pitched hoot is bursting from a lycra-clad lad marching military-style at speed, straight arms swinging and, on each exhalation, emitting a shrill, steam whistle. I watch in disbelief as he disappears into the distant throng – no-one else seems to notice.


I reach the far end of the beach, where I stop for a fresh coconut juice straight from the nut. I clamber up a small rocky peninsula to gain height for photos and, embarrassingly, bother people to take a pic of me with my camera. Looking down there are several highly-bronzed, middle-aged men in speedos, standing like statues with hands clasped behind their backs. Their heads are raised and their eyes are closed. They stand, unmoving, for ages. Eventually, I deduce that they are sun-bathing vertically, although I can’t fathom why.

My one aim on my day in Rio is to pay a visit to Pao de Azucar (SugarLoaf Mountain), which starred in the James Bond film Moonraker (the one where metal-mouthed Jaws eats through the cable car cable!). For once on this trip it’s sunny, albeit slightly hazy. I take a ride on the engineering miracle that is the Pao de Azucar cable car, which rises to the heavens in two stages, with a stop off halfway on a lower granite outcrop. The views here are excellent and there are various surprisingly classy bars, cafes, shops and historical presentations of the history of this engineering miracle. OK, there are loads of people, but it never feels crowded and I even find a back path through some peaceful, shady gardens, clinging to the mountain side. The second part of the ride up is really spectacular. As the cable car departs the station, the mountain drops away precipitously, leaving me breathless and ever-so-slightly unnerved. It climbs rapidly and steeply to the narrow crown of Pao de Azucar.

The pinnacle-top vistas are unique. The geography of my location is mirrored several-fold as far as the eye can see; rocky spires, hundreds of metres high, pierce the sky. Forest creeps up their flanks as far as it dare until the gradient becomes too steep and smooth for living things to gain a foot- or root-hold. These isolated pinnacles are strung together by patches of forest and ribbons of curvaceous white sand – including Ipanema and Copacabana, the tower block back-drop defying the perceived lack of space for between 6 and 13 million closely-packed people (depending on which website you source your figures from!). One of the most dramatic peaks is Corcovado – home to the emblematic statue of Christ watching over the city. The Atlantic Ocean here is deep blue and studded with green-topped islands, begging exploration. Swooping through these perspectives are large birds of prey, using the mountain-side breezes for lift – it’s unusual to look down on such animals from above. The Pao de Azucar guards one side of the pinched mouth that forms the entrance to the enormous natural harbour. Colonial era forts at one time literally guarded the entrance and remain as reminders of a Portuguese past.

I make a relaxed return to sea level, halting briefly halfway for another leisurely wander. At the end of the wire trip I take a taxi back to my hotel. Not only does the driver fleece me, he drives like the maniac chimera of Jenson Button and Dick Dastardly of the '70s children’s TV programme, Wacky Races (I suppose I must me Muttley!). I arrive unscathed, feeling several years older and with less hair.

I say goodbye to vibrant Rio, its poorly-thought through thongs and James Bond cable cars, and prepare myself for the next few days exploring the restoration of the once-great Atlantic Rainforest.

Island Lives

Dear Chasing the Sun reader, I thought I should bring your attention to a funky new feature on this blog. Please note the picture of the cake with the map (kindly provided by my work colleagues on my last day  at work before setting off to chase the sun) on the right hand side your screen. Click on the cake to be taken to an interactive google map of my journey so far. I hope you like it. If you have any comments, then please let me know. And thanks for staying with me!

Lost again, this time on Mark’s bike! I have ended up at the back-end of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz – the main settlement of the Galapagos Islands and the focus of much that happens here. This gives me cause to pause for thought about the place and the people who live here.

The town has grown rapidly over the past 30 years or so from a couple of thousand people to over 20,000 today. Until recently, there was no permanent population on these islands; permanent residents are either in-comers or their recent descendants. They arrive mainly as economic migrants from Ecuador’s mainland and are here to try and improve their and their family’s lives in one of the richest parts of the country.

A small fishing industry provides another livelihood option for some islanders

Local economic wealth is built firmly on the foundations of the island’s natural wealth. The iconic animals, fascinating environment and scientific tradition attract approaching 200,000 tourists per year, up from around 2,000 in the 1960s. This is a high-end tourism destination for, mainly wealthy North Americans and Europeans. This weekend, however, is a national public holiday so there are many mainland Ecuadorians here for the beaches, taking advantage of the much cheaper internal flights available to nationals. The crime rate here is very low, which must be due to the plethora of police in sparkling, new trucks generally not doing very much. Occasionally they ‘race’ down the main street at 15 miles per hour, lights flashing to pull someone over for no obvious reason.

The influx of tourists and economic migrants inevitably creates pressure on the environment, as highlighted briefly in previous blogs. I am also interested in how the people who find themselves here, either temporarily or permanently, interact in this unlikely promised land. I have been told that there is no culture here and that residents are only interested in extracting money and don’t care about their fragile environment. There is some of that too, but opening one’s eyes, you can see the germination of an interesting mix of (the inevitable) western culture, religion, and the sense of place derived proudly from its natural wonders.

It is obvious that the further you move from the sea-front the poorer the housing becomes. Expensive hotels, shops and restaurants give way increasingly to shacks of plastic and wood in a few hundred metres, finally merging into skeletal tracks through the bush delimiting a new area being prepared for the expansion of Puerto Ayora, ceded by the national park for this purpose.

The town’s architecture is an eclectic collection of low-rise buildings in various stages of construction or destruction, from the Gaudi-esque to the Birmingham multi-storey. Giant public sculptures exaggerate the scale of even the giant tortoise and many shop-fronts, walls and footpaths are decorated with islands iconography. This illustrates, evidently, at least some awareness of the local environment and of its value – the flagship species – particularly t-shirts with various plays on the word ‘booby’ , coral reef life and Charles Darwin.






Who does this remind you of?

Yes, Darwin, Victorian, one of the greatest minds ever and, here at least, the world's first rock-and-roll scientist! In Galapagos he is the supreme icon; eponymous streets and buildings are everywhere, his name appears on restaurant menus and, despite his impact on the way humanity perceives itself and religion, here he is given almost god-like status in some displays, while in others he is portrayed as the beret wearing Che Guavara – Evolution Revolution!

And this?

Alongside all this are lots of churches – mostly small and quite non-descript and appearing on almost every street. They appear to be mostly Seventh Day Adventists. I don’t profess to know much about this branch of christianity (or any other to be honest), but it lives cheek by jowl with the Darwin – Galapagos – Evolution reality that exists here. I wonder what Christian fundamentalists from North America in particular would make of this apparent acceptance by society of both in the home of evolution.

I’m an optimist and, after only a week in the Galapagos, I can see a germinal environmental awareness allied to an appreciation of the basis for tourism, which is the mainstay of the islanders' existence. The constant, international, environmental spotlight on the islands adds a third dimension. There is a government strategy for the Galapagos Islands to become completely sustainable by 2060. I would love to be able to come back in 50 years (at the age of 94), with a long, white beard, to see if it really has.

Island Life

This is a public information announcement. Some of the previous blogs, namely Quito and Costa Rica, which did not include pictures due to slow internet upload speeds at the time, have now been updated with the images and normal service has been resumed (for the moment).

I was within a reptile’s scaly skin thickness of planting my foot on the bloomin’ thing! Black rock, black iguana – big, black iguana – it’s about a metre long and it’s a good job it flinched or I might have dropped over the edge of a basalt cliff!

Marine iguana panorama

This is the first time I’ve spent more than two nights in one place on the entire trip so far. It feels quite civilised to be able to unpack my bag and sort my increasingly ragged clothes onto shelves and hangers. I occupy my time, when I’m not with colleagues and new friends, by writing the blog or my journal or going on a mini-expedition. And that is what I’m doing now. I’m exploring the coastline east of the Charles Darwin Research Station where I am staying. There’s no-one else around and I’ll spend the next couple of hours alone. Still no chance of getting lost for once as the sea is to the right of me, so it should be on the left to find my way home.

Marine iguanas' meeting

The remarkable marine iguana is unique to the Galapagos and is recognizable from its close relation the land iguana by its typically black colouration, although older, bigger specimens tend to show some faded colour, with longer toes and a generally more robust appearance. The marine versions are almost invisible on the black lava rocks, but highly visible when sunbathing on the white sand beaches. As well as sitting on rocks and sand they also lie, for hours, comatose on paths and roads, forcing you to walk/ cycle/ drive around (or over!) them. As you get close, they shoot salt water from their nostrils, like two miniature water pistols, sometimes hitting your lower leg! They also occur in large groups, huddled together on the rocks in an almost intimidating manner, making it difficult to pick a way through, all snorting in unison, like miniature Las Vegas fountains.

The basalt rock on which they live, and against which waves hurl them when they are in the sea, was once incandescent, liquid lava streaming from a fiery mountain. On cooling, the young rock contracted and cracked creating irregular, polygonal joints - weak spots the wearing actions of weather and sea. Often, through the cracks, dark, eerie, hollow voids – lava tubes – are visible, creating a subterranean honeycomb through the island’s mass. As the lava solidified gas bubbles became trapped, which now shatter as the rock weathers to produce tiny, razor-sharp, serrated teeth to shred your flip-flops and anything else less tough than a marine iguanas skin. Together these features produce the geological mayhem we see today. Crabs supply the only splashes of colour. I am used to the drab crabs of Scarborough rock pools, I guess they are dressed in camouflage, but here they are patterned with orange, red and yellow and sitting on black rocks exposed to whoever, or whatever, cares to be looking. I guess they are not readily predated by anything around here.

Crabs!

The other famous reptilian inhabitants of these islands are those meat pies on legs, the giant tortoises. Galapagos is the only place in the world, apart from the Seychelles – another tropical archipelago, where giant tortoises exist. There are several versions of the standard model in the Galapagos and Lonesome George at the tortoise and iguana breeding centre in Puerto Ayora, is the last of his kind. He was non-plussed with his celebrity status the morning I popped by; I guess he was too shy to come out of his shell! On one rainy occasion in the highlands when Mark, the research station’s restoration ecology expert, was taking me to some forest restoration field sites near the Rancho Promicias, we tip-toed past several of these giants as they sat in the track. They went into self-preservation mode, retracting their heads and limbs and in so-doing expelling air from their lungs and simultaneously emitting a wheezy, screeching noise that, if it were several decibels louder, could be confused for the terrifying noises made by Raquel Welch’s dinosaur friends. The Ranchos Promicias promotes itself to tourists as a tortoise farm, but they don’t actually farm tortoises. What they have done is adapt some low grade farmland by removing hedges and fences allowing wild tortoises to wander in to feed on the succulent grass and wallow in the pond. Gradually, natural vegetation is returning to this once farmed area, while tourists flock here to see the tortoises creating more income than the original farm created.

Wild giant tortoise (the one on the left!)

SBS-style eco-tourism

In terms of animals, few places can compete with North Seymour Island, famed for its bird life. To the north of Baltra, which is to the north of Santa Cruz, this island was created by ocean floor uplift rather than directly by volcanism. I am visiting the island as part of an organised tour – the only way to get there as part of a multi-national group (USA, Argentina, China, Netherlands, Ecuador, England/ Yorkshire (me), France and Korea). We are disgorged from our mother ship into a smaller rigid-inflatable to ferry us to the intimidating, rocky shore. There is no formal boat landing area, instead the driver steers the boat onto the rocks and tries to keep it there with the motor pushing as we scramble over the rising and falling nose onto land. Quite precarious, but no-one dies! Our expert guide has his work cut out herding cats and ensuring we don’t stray from the narrow marked path.

The wildlife is spectacular and very tame. I watch the people watching the wildlife as they clamber around, top-heavy with camera lenses that cost more than my car. I had not realized that the human body was capable of contorting into such shapes as photographers attempt to capture an image of the inside of a blue-footed booby’s eye. It is the frigate bird breeding season – they’re the ones where the male has the inflatable orange throat sack to attract a mate. Apparently frigate birds do not have water-proof feathers, so they specialise in picking fish from the surface of the sea with their bills, or bothering boobies until they give up their catch. The swell on the east coast of the small island creates nicely formed waves crashing onto jagged basalt rocks. It is here where the sea lions, including impossibly cute youngsters, are playing. Our guide gets upset when someone calls them seals.  If you know the difference, then answers on a postcard please, because I'm afraid I switched off at this stage. Just as we are leaving, a sea lion decides it hasn’t had enough attention and heads straight for us. When it is within easy clicking range for those of us without a metre-long lense, it stops, lies down and works hard at photogenic cuteness.

Frigate bird

Poseur!

On leaving North Seymour we head for a picturesque, white sand beach to snorkel. The back of the beach is out of bounds as this is a turtle nesting area. I don my swimming goggles and swim out (snorkeling gear is too heavy to cart around for two months!). The choppy water is murky with sediment. I’m aware of the potential for sharks hiding in the gloom, when I spot a large, dark shadow ahead of me. For a split second – well you can imagine – it came closer and assumed the shape of a large turtle – at least a metre long, which I follow until it gets bored of me.


Animal life is spectacular in the Galapagos, but not all of it. An invasion of pigs, goats, rats, cats and donkeys over the centuries has severely-altered and depleted the unique, natural ecology of many islands. On one of my gut-busting cycle rides through the humid zone’s farming area, instead of watching the scenery I spend most of my time manouvering through the remnants of giant rats, flattened on the road like contemporary fossils. These introduced mammals have been the focus for sustained and expensive control measures on many islands (see Galapagos National Park website). One particular success story is Project Isabella, on Isabella Island, where the removal of these animals, largely by hunting and poisoning, has allowed the natural vegetation to recover and bird populations to increase. This is part of an ongoing effort to restore the natural ecology of parts of the Galapagos.

Increasingly, during my stay in the Galapagos, I am intrigued by the role of people here - the good, the bad and the ugly. And, to paraphrase David Attenborough, that will be the subject of my next blog.

Fieldwork in the Fog

It’s perverse. I expected hot, dry, supposedly arid, tropical islands in baking equatorial sunshine, but I find myself dripping wet in cool fog and drizzle high on an extinct Galapagos volcano! After recent meteorological experience, maybe I should change the name of this blog to Chasing the Cloud.

Galapagos has two seasons largely at the mercy of the ocean currents that interact around the islands. They are known as the hot season and the cool, or garúa (mist) season. The mist is caused by the cool ocean currents that dominate at this time of year that cool the overlying air. Warmer tropical air sits above this layer and a temperature inversion is created. Where the two layers meet, moisture in the form of clouds is precipitated out at an altitude of a few hundred metres. Guess what altitude we are at.

I am assisting the Galapagos natural scientist, Mandy – Mark’s wife – as she carries out vegetation mapping for her PhD studies. We are bushwhacking through dense, damp undergrowth close to the Media Luna – a small, but prominent old crater in the Santa Cruz Highlands. She’s the expert plant ecologist and I’m the chap who fills in the record sheets while asking searching questions about the local ecology, climate, island-life, etc. Like Mark, Mandy is from Australia, and they are returning to Australia in a month’s time to start a new life after many years in the islands. Mandy is resourceful; on realizing she has forgotten her surveying pole and measuring tape, she fashions a pole with her machete from a three-metre-long, straightish, dead tree branch, and a seven-metre measuring tape from a piece of string she finds in her bag. We mark this every 25cm with duct tape using a piece of standard A4 paper, which, apparently, is 25cm long!

Mandy in her element

Mandy is researching the vegetation of the highlands in relation to old aerial/ satellite photography to determine the rates of change caused by introduced species. Ultimately this will assist planning for the management of invasive plant species.

About 97% of the islands belong to the Galapagos Islands National Park, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We are in the national park, but on the edge of a large concession to farmland, which occupies a large area of the damper uplands on the island. The demarcation between the two is marked – a barbed wire perimeter fence separates the wild land from the farmed. From the other side of the fence an audience of cows watches us through the mist – the whole scene reminds me of an autumn day back home. I guess we’re the most excitement they’ve had for a while.

Our audience

Cuban Cedar is an introduced tree species with its excellent timber qualities giving it an economic value. Where Mandy and I are working in the national park, it is being controlled to prevent it from dominating the original vegetation. Invasive species are much more of a problem here than in the drier lowlands; the problem being that eventually they take-over/ eat/ infect the native vegetation reducing the number of native species of plants and animals that have evolved together over aeons, increasing the risk of extinction.

Why is this important? There are many reasons: if a species disappears, so does its unique genetic library – something that could be valuable to people in the form of potential medicines, genes for improving commercially important species that we used for all kinds of things (medicine, food, materials, to name three); reducing the number of species may reduce the ability of the environment to recover from a serious disturbance – which is of particular importance to islands subject to the rigours of a harsh climate, fire, and volcanic eruptions – this environmental resilience is important to people because it helps to mitigate against soil erosion, reduced water supply and moderation of the local climate, for example; also, to lose a unique, flagship species that hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the islands simply to look at, could have direct economic consequences.

Standing, but dead, Cuban cedar

In the national park Cuban Cedar is controlled by hacking the trunk with a machete/ axe just above ground level and applying tree-killing herbicide. The dead trees remain standing for years, clothed in straggling mosses and ferns and, silhouetted in the mist, appear like a scene from a horror film. As my imagination starts to overtake me, from somewhere in the green kaleidoscope that has temporarily swallowed her, Mandy yells out the Latin name of another plant for me to scribble down, jolting me back to reality and forcing me to focus on trying to be professional again.

What did you say Mandy?

Every now and then, the mist lifts enough for us to see across the coastal plain to Puerto Ayora on the coast, several kilometres to the south. There are four main ecological zones defined in the Galapagos and strongly affected by altitude and orientation. They are the coastal, dry, transitional and humid zones, recognizable largely by their vegetation (see images), and forming well-defined concentric rings around a volcanic centre.

One day, on an almost expeditionary, 30-plus mile bike-ride, I head inland from the coast and up-hill. The zonation is obvious to anyone who cares to look – and it helps extract your mind from the effort of the up-hill exertion. Initially, in the coastal zone, I notice plants such as the saltbush and mangrove, which appears to relish growing in harsh, black lava rock. After a couple of minutes of cycling over flat terrain, the dry zone is dominated aesthetically by the Opuntia tree cactus – a species of cactus that is found nowhere else on the planet. The vegetation is thorny and practically impenetrable to all but a determined Galapagos bulldozer – the giant tortoise. As the flanks of the volcano are reached and the pedalling starts to get harder with the steepening slope, the equatorial sun beats down turning my head red almost instantly, and I emerge from the dry zone into the transitional zone. This is characterised by the disappearance of tree cacti, a generally greener, lusher appearance and taller trees with epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) and a profusion of herbaceous vegetation. After 40 minutes or so of up-hill pedalling, lungs bursting and soaked in perspiration, I reach the humid zone where everything appears one or other shade of green and is generally dripping with moisture (or at least it was when I was there). Here we find the Galapagos guava, Galapagos coffee, a variety of mosses, ferns and fungus. The air is, thankfully, cooler, with a refreshing breeze and a fine mist. I stop at a small shack for a sugary drink and rest before the long descent, unfortunately slow and tedious due to the puncture I have acquired a puncture!

Up-hill struggle in flip-flops!

Mandy and I are working in the humid zone, in a Scalesia forest. Scalesia, also known as the giant daisy tree, is found nowhere else on the planet. It is generally a smallish tree with a rounded, umbrella-shaped canopy. There are two species; one is almost extinct, the other – the type I am leaning on – is more widespread. Naturally, these forests typify the vegetation of the damp highlands, but are under threat from invasive species. One of the worst invasive plant species is Mora – an attractive, white-stemmed blackberry with fruits that taste identical to the UK blackberry that is threatening to engulf my garden back home. The Mora is highly invasive and produces thousands of seeds per plant, which are spread by birds. It is rapidly taking over large tracts of forest as it forms dense stands smothering understorey plant species, including the next generation of native trees. Using current techniques it is very difficult, if not impossible, to control. Mandy’s husband, Mark, believes that the only effective way to control it is through the introduction of a bio-control agent – a disease or insect that selectively will only attack this introduced plant. However, introducing such a thing to the Galapagos is mired in politics leading to Mark’s current frustration, meanwhile the problem only intensifies – watch this space!

Scalesia forest

Mandy’s last transect of the day is through a dense stand of the spiny Mora. She is forced to wield her trusty machete, which she does with the skill of a surgeon’s scalpel, although I stand at a safe distance, just in case.

After the final transect, we are finished for the day. Mandy invites me back to her and Mark’s house in Puerto Ayora for a cup of tea. Marks provides it – and it’s the best cup of tea since the Ty-Phoo experience I had in the US Army Corp of Engineers Office back in Florida, made by Michael, the Lieutenant Colonel. Mark takes me on a tour of their interesting house. There is not a right angle in it. There are two spiral stair-cases; one on the inside and one on the outside – like it was inspired by the DNA double helix. All the internal walls are curved. The third floor offers a roof patio where we stopped for some more restoration chit-chat. Mark relaxes in his hammock and I sip the tea. The view over the town to the picturesque port is pleasant and the sea breeze is cooling. For the first time on this journey I feel quite relaxed having spent a day, in a small way, contributing to Darwin's legacy.

Breakfast with the Darwins

Excitement buzzes like a swarm of bees through the plane as we near our destination, after a drawn-out stopover in Ecuador’s Guayaquil airport. The plane is packed with a broad selection of nationalities, including many Eucadorians too. Peeking through scant holes in the cloud blanket, the first of the Galapagas Islands comes into sight – everyone cranes their necks for a better view. I’m in an aisle seat, so give up trying.

I first became aware of these extraordinary islands in the late 1970s during the original showing of David Attenborough’s landmark Life on Earth series. The breathless naturalist captured me completely with his captivating illustration of Darwin’s revolutionary work on evolution and the role of these islands in changing humanity’s view of itself. I never thought I would ever get the chance to visit them but I now have the means, thanks to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, and a good reason.

The unique biology of these arid islands arises from their oceanic volcanic origins and their thousand kilometres distance from the South American continent, from which they have always been isolated. Until only very recently in history, the only animal and plant species that occurred there were those that had floated, flown or blown there from across the sea, then evolving rapidly into new species to fill the ecological spaces that were available, ultimately creating a unique take on island life.

Literal interpretation of a Galapagos Islands wall map

The plane lands on the sparsely vegetated, small desert island of Baltra. The island hosted a US Air Force base during the Second World War and beyond, so this infrastructure was adapted for civilian use after the military departed (you can still see the concrete foundations of the buildings among the dry vegetation). There is a lot of rigmarole about checking tourists’ bags for unexpected or undeclared plant or animal material in case more invasive species are inadvertently introduced. I’m not convinced that this is too effective given that the golden retriever, which is supposed to be sniffing our neatly lined up bags for biological contraband before we can collect them, is more interested in playing with a tennis ball!

This unique natural wonder is now threatened from two main directions: rampant ,invasive, exotic species of animals and plants, introduced by deliberately or inadvertently by humans, which consume or outcompete the native wildlife; and development as the population of the islands and the number of visitors continues to expand mercilessly. At the time of Attenborough’s programme there were around 10,000 visitors; there are now around 200,000 all needing food, water, somewhere to sleep, trinkets to buy, waste disposal and means of getting around. The islands’ ecology has not evolved to cope with such pressures and in many instances is suffering. I am in the islands for a few days to try and understand these pressures and what is being done to restore the ecological damage. (I will expand on this more in the next couple of blogs.)

The dog has finally done its job and, bags collected, we get on a bus for a short journey to the “canal” - a narrow sea channel between Baltra and the main island of Santa Cruz. Here we catch a five-minute ferry ride, with our bags stacked precariously on top of the ferry waiting to topple into the drink, then unload and into taxis and buses for the 42km ride south over the extinct volcano which forms the island to Puerto Ayora – the main population centre of the Galapagos Islands.

Santa Cruz Island from the north - note small volcanic cones on the flanks of the main volcano

My taxi driver takes me through the small town as far as he can to the gates of the national park, beyond which cars aren’t allowed. I then have to trundle my enormous bag for about a mile to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where I am staying for the next few nights.

My accommodation is self-catering and rather on its own, surrounded by national park vegetation. I am only a stone’s through from the sea and can smell it and hear it as I lie there over the next few nights trying to ignore it and go to sleep; welcoming it in the morning as I awake. My room-mates are two little geckos pre-occupied with chasing each other, chirping and eating bugs.

I have arranged to meet up briefly with Mark – Australian – and the restoration ecology co-ordinator at the Charles Darwin Research Station. He is to be my mentor, guide and victim of my incessant questions for the duration of my stay here. We sink a couple of beers and then, pushing his bike, he gives me a brief tour of Puerto Ayora, showing me where to buy food and the like. Walking back in the blackness over a rough lava track in flip-flops, I’m trying to make sense of it all. It’s quite disorientating, this travel thing, suddenly getting whisked from one environment to a completely different one, in different time zones while desperately trying to act normal at the other end, and make sense of your own senses, notwithstanding all the fascinating information that you are bombarded with.

The next morning I rise and fix a simple breakfast, which I eat on my balcony, overlooking a coastal area of the national park. With a few seconds I am joined by three small, sparrow-sized birds keen to share my breakfast. They’re fearless and, over the next few days of getting to know me, will try and drink my coffee and pinch a sandwich from my hand. They are Darwin’s Finches. I wonder if they showed him more respect.

Quito Bonito

Our plane appears about to land on a city street as the roof-tops reach up to meet us but, just as the collision appears inevitable, we are over an airfield and wheels touch tarmac. Quito airport is actually in the city – the “new” city that is; whereas I have only 24 hours here so I am staying overnight in the heart of the Centro Historico  I am staying the night in the Centro Historico – the old colonial heart of this mountain city, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Quito is the second highest capital city in Latin America at 2,850 metres. It’s surrounded by high volcanoes and, like that Yorkshire city Sheffield, is built on hills. The altitude and the hills means that you feel constantly out of breath, even just typing this blog!

I drop my bags in my windowless and stained carpeted room and head out to absorb some history. Quito is the 2011 American Capital of Culture and there appears to be a great deal of renovation and regeneration going on – a never-ending task I feel, like painting Scotland’s Forth Rail Bridge. Everywhere you turn another colonial period piece of architecture fills your vision.

I wander, enveloped in the sights, sounds and smells of another place, with no firm agenda other than to gain some height to get a panorama of the pan-tile roofs. The city is dominated by churches, particularly the somewhat overpowering Basilica – maybe that is its purpose. I don’t know whether to feel uneasy or reassured by the astounding number of police and security guards on every street corner. I opt to stay around where the people are. There appears to be far too many people of both genders walking tiny dogs on long leads, which are dressed with fancy collars and wearing funky t-shirts - what's all that about then? In a small, green park area I am almost mugged by two tiny boys carrying wooden boxes containing shoe-cleaning gear. They keep pointing to my shoes saying they are dirty. My Spanish is too poor to explain that that dull waxed finish is how it is supposed to be. Just behind them, too mustachioed, elderly gents are watching the scene, chuckling to themselves knowingly.

I ascend the recently re-built steps towards the Virgen de Quito – an enormous statue atop a hill – and suddenly, there is no traffic, nor tourists, nor police. I climb higher to where the steps are still incomplete and take my photographs. On the descent an unsavoury drunken/ drugged type is coming up towards me. Oh blimey! I puff out my chest and try and look hard. As I walk past he asks me to stop in drawling Spanish, I just say no and scarper down the steps. He just carries on up. Maybe I’m just paranoid!

Quito's Historic City

I head back to my room without a view for the night, stopping briefly for an unappetising meal in the Quito equivalent of McDonalds. There are lots of tiny old ladies leaving the centre, dressed in hats, dark jackets and long, dark skirts. They have black boots on too. They are bent double, struggling up the hills, with large cardboard boxes full of god-only-knows strung to their back. I wonder what life is like for them.

Dusk falls

Volcano Mania

The guide books say to arrive at the crater of the Poas Volcano in Volcan Poas National Park before ten o’clock in the morning. Predictably that’s when the cloud shroud descends, turning this corner of Costa Rica into Cornwall and spoiling the views of the 2,600 metre-high mountain.

So Dan and I set off early in the Jimmy. He’s an Irish lad who is staying at the same excellent bed and breakfast place (the Hotel La Rosa de America) as me in Alajuela. We soon leave the town behind and, for once, follow relatively good road signage uphill along winding roads, through small colourful villages and farmland. On the lower slopes that famous Costa Rican coffee is grown. Further up, the scenery becomes more Alpine in nature – meadows, conifers and, gorse (!) – in flower and last seen in Cornwall.

Costa Rican coffee plantation on lower slopes of the Poas Volcano

We enter the national park and are parked by a particularly fastidious female attendant who demands millimetre and angular perfection of my Jimmy manouvering. It looks like we have got here before the cloud shroud – it’s just not that sunny – the typical green season story.

This is the most popular national park in Costa Rica due to its proximity to San Jose and is one of the few, if not the only, volcanoes where you can drive virtually to the summit, although to reach the edge requires a 10 minute walk along, well, less a path and more a motorway. After a few steps of walking we are both gasping and realize that we are being affected by the thinner air at this altitude. So we slow down – hard to do as our excitement drives us to move quickly to see a bubbling, seething volcanic crater. We can hear it, we can smell and, as we arrive at the threshold to the gates of hell, we see … thick fog! Not cloud. Just fog. Apparently it’s being belched out by the volcano itself, which is a very small consolation. We take the obligatory pictures of an empty grey canvas anyway and decide to discover a bit more of the park.

On the edge of a volcanic crater erupting nothing more exciting than mist!

There is a guided trail through the cloud forest to a lake in an extinct crater so we explore. It’s a nice enough view, but there are rather too many other people around to make it special.

Lake in another crater - the one we climb down to

Bromeliads

We wander further along the perfect, pink, concrete path, photographing cloud forest plants when we notice a barely distinguishable track off the into the bush, down the almost precipitous cliff to the crater lake. Dan asks if we should explore down it, half expecting me to decline. I say yes of course, so off we go. It’s steep, very steep, and muddy and slippery. Rotten branch hand-holds give way sending us skidding into the next tree, we slide on our backsides, put feet through decayed logs, but eventually we make the edge of the lake. Rather exhilarated and very filthy. The lake is roughly circular and hemmed in by precipitous crater walls covered in dense green vegetation - the type we have just wrestled through.

Going down

After hanging around for a few minutes – yet more photos of the intrepid duo – we look for the trail back up. The cloud forest appears to have absorbed it back into pristine vegetation. We search for half an hour retracing our steps, trying dead-ends, but all to no avail. The only option is just to aim uphill and go for it – we are already stinking and muddy so, what the hell!

The gradient dictates scrambling on all fours holding onto anything that doesn’t give way. Moss-covered holes in tree roots look like perfect tarantula or snake habitats – and guess where the only hand-holds are? We emerge back at the concrete path at the top of the hill in once piece, sweaty and dirty but unmolested by wildlife. Dan’s clean, white t-shirt and bag look like the start of a Persil washing powder advert. I half expect his Mum to come around the corner with a washing machine!

Going up (and ready for cake)

We feel like we’ve achieved something – I don’t know what exactly, but it’s a good feeling that deserves celebration with some decent coffee and cake, which we find in the park visitor centre. Whilst consuming our self-congratulatory fare, I hear two English voices behind me. These are the first voices of home that I have heard for over two weeks, so I turn around to meet Lee and Hannah. They’d beaten the pre-volcano cloud shroud rush by ensuring a taxi dropped them at the park gates at six thirty in the morning. The park opens at eight, and it was raining, and there was no shelter. Still they were the first in the park. Unfortunately the crater was filled with its self-generated mist screen even then.

The next day I fly out of Costa Rica, heading for the Galapagos Islands via Quito. I have seen some great work and met some dedicated-beyond-the-call-of-duty people in Costa Rica, as well as exorcised a few personal ghosts. It is a fantastically beautiful country with a well-marketed and resourced environmental conservation movement. The work of Dan and others in restoring their degraded landscapes and showing what can be done by just doing it is a valuable lesson for the world.