A slice of paradise pie

Before arriving in the Galapagos, I suffered from an insomnia brought on by a hysteria which overtook me as soon as I purchased my plane ticket.

I couldn´t sleep. I was terrified that my plane ticket from Quito was perhaps illegitmate, that I would in some way miss my flight, or that, upon arriving in the Galapagos, I would find that all the animals had left.
Was there truly a world in which little old me could sit down and eat a slice of Galapagos pie?
Oh, friends, there was. And it tasted of the salty sea - that is, delicious.

The morning after I arrived in Santa Cruz, I took a stroll through town and saw, within an hour, perhaps fifteen different species lolling about. The animals in the Galapagos are all delightfully lazy. You can get within an arm's length of them and they only eye you and your camera with disdain.

Of the three islands I visited, my favorite was San Cristobal. Unlike Isabella, which is surrounded by endless beaches and sugary sand but lacks activities, and Santa Cruz which had my favorite beach but suffered, in my opinion, from a serious defiency in sea lions, San Cristobal is just the right mix of sleepy Ecuadorian island and beautiful beaches.

And, best of all, San Cristobal possesses the largest population of sea lions. Thousands of large, lazy sea lions roll around on the park benches midday, wheezing with irritation if you come too close. They have hacking coughs and they leave their children to waddle all over the beach unattended, bleating for their mother's milk. They're amazing, irascible animals, and behave more like homeless people than wildlife.

I also did my first scuba dive in the Galapagos, and now I'm an addict. During my stay, I did six dives in total. The one thing I really wanted to see while diving was hammerhead sharks. And guess what? Just in case you didn't hate me enough already, on my last day diving in the Galápagos, I saw both hammerhead sharks and an enormous mola mola. I'm a lucky gel, I am.

I'll keep this brag post short and sweet. Suffice it to say that that the Galapagos are the highlight of my trip so far and that everyone in the whole wide world ought to go there and behold the austere beauty of the magestic baby sea lion. 

Don't it break yer wittle heart?