After our cruise we were fortunate enough to have three more nights in the Galapagos in the town of Puerto Baquerizo.  This is a small, sleepy port city on the island of San Cristobal.  I’d call it the unofficial capitol of sea lions. They were everywhere; in the street, on the boardwalk, on the benches, etc.  The city has built an ineffective fence to keep them out, but it seems as though the sea lions follow the saying “where there’s a will there’s a way”. Ha! The beach is covered in huge males, sleepy females, and tons of small little pups.

The males are constantly fighting over the harem leader position.  They roam their boarders making horrible noises and taking out any male who tries to butt in.  This doesn’t last long though because they have to patrol 24 hours a day they aren’t able to eat or sleep much, so their rein usually only lasts about 4 weeks.

The sea lions and their pups weren’t always cute.  In fact most of the time they were loud, stinky, snotty, and covered in flies.  I’ve decided the sounds they make are similar to a zombie vomiting (if you can imagine that).  It really is pretty unappealing…even the little baby pups have an odd guttural call when they want their mom.  Regardless, it was super fun to see them all the time and in such huge numbers!

It rained often during our time there, but when you are snorkeling it really doesn’t matter.  There were numerous beaches you could walk to that were perfect for underwater sight seeing.  The first beach we were at had one lone sea lion perusing the waters, a turtle and lots of fish. Sick of seeing picture of sea turtles yet? They were everywhere and we can’t help posting pics of them…they were such cool creatures to watch.

We weren’t seeing much else, so we decided to pack up and go to the next beach.  Here the waters weren’t as smooth as the last place and the water was churned up. This made the visibility low, but it didn’t really matter because there were sea turtles everywhere and they didn’t mind if you got close! We also saw our first swimming/diving marine iguana while we were snorkeling. What an odd sight!

Our time in the Galapagos has come to an end. WHAT A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE!!! The world is changing quickly and we feel blessed that we were able to witness these awesome creatures and islands while they were still around.  We will be back!! Colombia is our final destination before we head home for Christmas. Can’t wait : )