Absolutely Galápagos

by David Fletcher

  The Nature-seekers disembarked the bus, and in due course, after he’d been woken up or had found his trousers, the chief distiller appeared, and then a couple of his distracted operatives joined him. One of them then fed lengths of sugar cane into the antediluvian press – while it was being turned by the other – to illustrate how the cane juice, essential for the distilling process, was produced. Following this the head honcho led the Nature-seekers past the lavatory block to show them where this juice was then taken. It was, of course, poured into that galvanised tank, and there it sat fermenting until it took on the appearance of what could have been a blend of brown Windsor soup and congealed cappuccino.

  Brian was not impressed. He was even less impressed when the Nature-seekers were shown a further galvanised tank beyond the first which, with some piping, was meant to be the distillery’s essential distillation plant, but which looked more like its essentially obsolete plant. Indeed Brian was beginning to suspect that this eco distillery had gone completely eco and had abandoned its distillation activities entirely, to minimise its impact on the environment to zero. But then two trays arrived, and on these trays were lots of small glasses and a pair of rather interesting bottles, and Brian was about to be proved wrong yet again.

  One bottle contained neat aqua vitae; the other contained this same spirit but flavoured with anis. Both were delicious – at eleven o’clock in the morning. So too was the fortified cane juice and the spirit-fortified coffee served on the ‘bandstand’. So that when it was time to leave this scruffiest of eco distilleries, Brian was convinced that all distillers are a boon to mankind and that late-morning snifters not only have the capacity to improve one’s personal wellbeing but also the potential to promote world peace and to bring to an end all poverty and suffering around the globe. And he hadn’t even drunk that much more than anybody else…

  Lunch proved something of an anti-climax. It was on another tortoise-accessorised farm, although this one had no lava tunnels but just a large and busy restaurant. In Brian’s mind, the food was OK, but only OK. And it was now also thunderingly hot. So he was very relieved indeed when it was announced that the bus would now be taking him and his fellow Nature-seekers back to the Beluga, or at least back to Puerto Ayora. There they would be offered some time to explore – or locate – Puerto Ayora’s subtle charms, but instead they would make a unanimous decision to be ferried back to their boat. It seemed that all of them had decided that they had already sampled quite enough of Santa Cruz and had no desire to add its badly groomed capital to its list of ‘points of questionable interest’. No, all they wanted to do was what Brian wanted to do, which was to get back on board their floating haven, and in due course check its reprovisioning by visiting its bar.

  Well, a due course later, and the checking had been completed, after which it became apparent that Pedro, in preparing the Nature-seekers’ dinner, had attempted to utilise the entire reprovisioning of his larder. The meal was enormous. In fact, it was so large that at Brian and Sandra’s table, it left hardly any room at all for any mealtime conversation. Horace did make a vain attempt to initiate some sort of discussion, and he did this by inviting all those around the table to consider all sorts of ‘useless people’. And the useless people he had in mind were all those who inhabit the pages of glossy magazines, and fashion magazines and Sunday magazines in particular, and who can offer the world nothing other than a very good reason never to buy these magazines or even to open their pages. They included, of course, models, ‘famous people’, not so famous people, celebrity-tagged nonentities and a whole range of lobotomy jobs, the majority of whom have intellects even less substantial than their fashionably insubstantial frames. Well, what Horace had in mind was how to employ these people in something that was even marginally useful. However, all he established, with a small contribution from Delia, was a new name for them and a new collective noun for a whole group of them. Yes, for the eight Nature-seekers seated around the table, a gathering of these two-dimensional, good-for-nothing stick insects would henceforth be known as a ‘vacuum of imbecilebrities’. But it would remain a mystery as to what use they could ever be put other than possibly their deployment as self-stacking sandbags to alleviate the impact of floods.

  Incidentally, after the event, Brian would deny any responsibility for that sandbag suggestion. Just as he would deny snoozing through the evening’s listings and only waking up properly when it was time to deliver his evening lecture. Yes, he was now back with Sandra in their room, and he had just announced that this evening it would be the turn of Colombia. Sandra responded to this announcement with a yawn, and without even waiting for the yawn to end, Brian was into his spiel.

  ‘Mention Colombia,’ he started, ‘and most people think of drugs and if they think of anything else, then it’s guerrillas. You know, that FARC lot, that band of bastards who’ve been terrorising the country for years.’

  ‘Have you finished?’ queried Sandra.

  ‘Have I finished?!’ screeched Brian. ‘No, I have not. That was just my introduction.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Right. Well, I see you seem to be a bit… errh, moody tonight. So I’ll keep it short.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes. Well,’ stumbled Brian, ‘it just so happens that according to something called the “World’s Happiness Index”, Colombia is the happiest country in the world. Furthermore, its national rollerskating team has won the World Roller Speed Skating Championship nine times in the past twelve years. They’re a rollerskating powerhouse. And on a slightly different tack, shop mannequins in Colombia are made with enormous breasts – to reflect the country’s preoccupation with surgically enhanced boobs…’

  ‘Thank you,’ interrupted Sandra. ‘I appreciate your keeping it short…’

  ‘But I haven’t even…’

  ‘No. But I have. Now go to sleep, Brian. And remember…’

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘Remember to go to sleep. Now.’

  And with that, the day was brought to an end, a day which had included turtles, rays, sinkholes, broccoli trees, two sorts of hooch, tortoises, lots of heat – and not enough of the Beluga. Yes, it had taken a day away from the boat and away from the sea to remind Brian just how much he was enjoying the nautical aspects of this expedition and how much better they were than most aspects of a populated Santa Cruz.

  The good news was that tomorrow morning, the nautical would take over again, beginning with a visit to an island called Floreana. This is a small rugged island to the south of Santa Cruz, which, according to Darwin, had a number of attractions but no eco-hooch and definitely no imbecilebrities…

  10.

  In Puerto Ayora, the Beluga had taken on not only victuals and booze but also a new captain. Clearly, a week of driving a boat around, mostly at night, and then having to sleep during the day in a cupboard-sized cabin had taken its toll, and José must have become desperate for a normal-sized bed in a normal-sized room – and a long rest. Anyway, in his place was a guy called Guillermo, and soon after setting off for Floreana, Brian had decided that Guillermo was a bit of a boy racer.

  It had been the normal routine: let the passengers get to bed and, as soon as they had, start up the engine, weigh anchor and then set sail. However, for Guillermo that ‘set sail’ bit appeared to mean ‘engage warp factor 9’ – and then stay in warp factor 9 for the whole ruddy trip. It may, of course, have been just the state of the sea, but Brian thought not. And as he attempted to get to sleep in a boat that was constantly rolling from side to side more than it had ever rolled before, he was convinced that its excessive speed was a factor – albeit not necessarily… factor… 9. Obviously.

  Well, he did get to sleep, and he stayed asleep for most of the night, save for those odd occasions when the sea and speed together attempted to throw him from his bed. At which points he would be bemused to see that Sandra, in her bed, was sti
ll emulating Rip Van Winkle and was quite clearly unaware of the boat’s disruptive convulsions – before he then managed to fall back to sleep himself. Accordingly, despite the ‘vitality’ of the passage, Brian felt reasonably refreshed when he woke in the morning. And he certainly felt ready for Floreana.

  Now, this island has been mentioned before – as the place that hosted the very first resident of the Galápagos archipelago, one Patrick Watkins, a marooned Irish sailor. It has also been mentioned that it then hosted the first official colony of prisoners and artisans and, in due course, it welcomed to its shores one Mr Charles Darwin of On the Origin of Species fame. However, what has not been mentioned previously is that Floreana lies at the southern extremity of the archipelago and that, whilst it is not very large, it does now house a small population of humans. Somehow, one hundred or so hardy individuals eke out a living in the island’s one and only town, a place called Puerto Velasco Ibarra. And if these guys are ever in need of a day out, then they can always take the one and only road out of town up to Cerro Pajas, the top of the volcanic cone from which the island is formed. At 640 metres, it is understandably the island’s highest point, and here, thought Brian, they must sometimes sit and contemplate what a very odd life they all live. Or maybe they just sit in Puerto Velasco Ibarra, and contemplate what might have happened fourteen billion years ago before the Big Bang. Who could tell? Brian certainly couldn’t. No more than he could have predicted the subject of (the live) Darwin’s first lecture as he and all the Nature-seekers arrived on a Floreana beach.

  Yes. Ablutions and breakfast had all been dealt with, and the Beluga’s two pangas had delivered their cargo to a sandy beach near Punta Comorán (or Comorant Point) for a fairly straightforward wet landing. After which, Darwin was keen to apprise the Nature-seekers of some of the history of Floreana! This didn’t include a reference to Patrick Watkins, but inevitably it included a reference to Charles Darwin, and to an event which happened sixteen years before Mr Darwin arrived, and which was rather less laudable than his purely scientific visitation. Because it seems that in 1819, a gentleman by the name of Thomas Chappel, who was the helmsman of a Nantucket whaling ship and a prize dickhead, set fire to the island as a prank. What was then Charles Island was a popular stopping-off point for whalers, who used it to collect fresh water and fresh supplies of plants and meat. And if they were prize dickheads they could set fire to the place. Better still, if it was the dry season, the fire would get out of control, and smoke would still be visible on the horizon even after a full day’s sailing away from the island in search of a new crop of whales. So that when, many years later, a sailor who had been the cabin boy on Chappel’s ship revisited the island, he found a ‘black wasteland’. Vegetation had still to make a substantial comeback, and it is thought that certain of the species of both flora and fauna on the island never made a comeback at all. Which did make Brian think that in the very unlikely event that there is a hell, that Mr Chappel should now be inhabiting one of its more unpleasant neighbourhoods, having initially been assured that he will only ever be rehoused somewhere better when the whole of hell freezes over.

  Well, the good news was that (most) things did eventually recover on Floreana, and it was now time for the Nature-seekers to observe this for themselves, and first of all by leaving the beach and then following a trail over an isthmus. Now, this isthmus formed a link between the landmass which was Floreana itself and the excrescence of Cormorant Point which was situated on its north coast. It also, incidentally, formed in Brian’s mind a happy recollection of Terry Allen’s wonderful ‘X-Mas on the Isthmus’, a song that includes any number of inspired lyrics, not least among them such gems as, ‘Ah, there’s something about X-Mas, That brings me to tears, Snowmen an’ chestnuts, An’ roastin’ reindeers’.

  However, that is to stray off the point. And the point is that the Nature-seekers, by taking the isthmus trail, had soon arrived at a lookout point that gave them a panoramic view of a large saltwater lagoon and a flock of flamingos. They were actually Caribbean flamingos – or Phoenicopterus ruber, a bird named after the remarkable phoenix, that mythical bird that consumed itself by fire only to rise again from the ashes. Well, no such incendiary displays apparent here, but just a group of ‘living flames’ feeding in the brackish water and possibly wondering whether there might be an easier way to feed than constantly bending down and straining tiny invertebrates from the water and the mud. Or maybe they were trying to remember how many of their kind lived on the whole of the Galápagos archipelago, to which the answer is fewer than 500 individuals. And the majority of these are on other islands. Floreana’s complement may be as few as forty.

  Darwin had provided this information, just as he was now providing a lead further along the trail that took the Nature-seekers to the other side of the isthmus and to another beach. This one was called White Sand Beach, for reasons which will not be explained, and it proved to be a highlight of the day. In the first place it was covered in turtle tracks, due to the fact that the sand dunes behind it are a popular nesting site for these creatures. And in the second place the surf was ‘infested’ with sharks. They were only modest-sized reef sharks, but they all appeared to have ingested an overdose of Ecstasy, and were all racing backwards and forwards through the shallow water as if their lives depended on it. Which, of course, they did. Because they were all chasing and catching fish. It certainly constituted an amazing display, and not surprisingly, Brian and all his fellow Nature-seekers soon became completely transfixed. And then it got better. There were turtles in the water as well and then some rays.

  These were stingrays. They have the same flattened bodies as the spotted eagle rays, and the same long narrow tails. They can swim at quite a speed, but they spend much of their time hidden just under the sand, waiting for their prey. This can be a bit of a problem, because they have a very effective defensive sting at the base of their tail which, if inadvertently trodden on by a member of Homo sapiens, can inflict on that member a rather nasty wound. This fact was not unimportant, and this was because the Nature-seekers were to return to the beach on which they had first landed and from there they were to engage in some snorkelling, having first waded through some shallows that were known to be a hotspot for stingrays and hence for stingray stings.

  Nobody bottled out. And nobody came to any grief. All that happened was that more fish and more turtles were encountered in the water, and certain of the snorkelers were so invigorated by their excursion that they willingly accepted the challenge of a snorkel around Corona del Diablo, or to give it its English name, the ‘Devil’s Crown’.

  The Nature-seekers had returned to the Beluga, and it was now time to take the more foolhardy amongst them (including Brian) to what was an eroded volcano crater situated in the open ocean just to the north of Cormorant Point. It is very eroded. So that what can be observed is just a ring of jagged rocks poking out of the water, and as the foolhardy few approached it, a somewhat restless sea surrounding it. In fact, Darwin had let it be known that although this was reckoned to be one of the best snorkelling sites in the Galápagos – if not the best of all – it was ranked as ‘moderate to difficult’. This was because of its open-sea position and the consequent strength of the currents that rushed through it and around it.

  Well, maybe some of Brian’s invigoration from his earlier snorkel was now wearing off, and with the size of the swell around the crown, there was every chance that it would wear off completely before he got in the water, with the result that he would feel like a first-rate plonker. There was only one thing to do. As soon as the panga had been parked and Darwin had given the go-ahead, Brian went over the side. Immediately he could appreciate the turbulence of the water, the depth and deep-blue colour of the water – and the presence beneath him of a not insubstantial hammerhead shark. For a few seconds at least, there was just Brian and this magnificent creature, and whilst for the creature those very few seconds might mean nothing, for Bri
an they would mean everything. They would constitute the single, most sharply defined, highest highpoint of this whole Galápagos adventure, and they might even go down as one of the most thrilling episodes of his entire life.

  The shark swam off and by the time the other Nature-seekers were in the water it had gone. So Brian felt very privileged and a little concerned that the rest of this snorkel might prove to be something of an anti-climax. However, he need not have worried. The waters were full of turtles, rays and fish, and when the Nature-seekers’ progress around the crown brought them to within the crater, there were more fish than ever. In fact, Brian became so captivated by the sights around him, which included a veritable carpet of fish, that he became distracted as well. Until such time, that is, as his forward progress through the water had completely lost its forward element. He was obviously swimming against a current that was easily equal to his own puny efforts and he was going nowhere, which is why everybody else was already climbing back on board the panga, something he would now do after he’d let the current take him to within its reach.

  Pow! What an experience. And what an appetite generator. Brian felt he would have little trouble coping with Pedro’s normal oversized offering. Indeed, much less trouble than Sandra would have in convincing him not to go on about hammerhead sharks for the whole of their lunch. After all, she reminded him, his table companions had just so much tolerance, and what’s more, there were now other things to consider. Like, for example, what he would write on his postcard…

  Yes, the next destination for the Nature-seekers would be Post Office Bay, a wet-landing site just down the coast from Cormorant Point, and famous for not much other than its… post box. This originated in the time of whalers and it is no more than a ‘post barrel’ on the top of a… ‘post post’. In this, one is encouraged to leave a postcard (on which will be one’s home address) – having first searched through all the postcards within the barrel in order to find any that have addresses located close to one’s own. If one finds any of these, one is then bound to deliver them when one gets back to one’s home country, and in the same way, the postcard one has left may be delivered by somebody else who then visits the barrel in the coming days, weeks or months. Oh, and it is customary to write a note or a greeting on the card as well as one’s address.