very simple

Tuesday brought us to one of the few islands in the Galapagos that is inhabited by humans, Santa Cruz. 97% of the Galapagos is a national park, and the remaining 3%, including Santa Cruz and San Cristobal (where our airplane landed) is home to approximately 30,000 Galapagenos. Our day took us to the Charles Darwin research station, a local private school that Lindblad helps fund, and a protected giant land turtle migration route in the highlands. No pictures of the school, as I feel a bit odd posting pictures of other people’s children on here, but the Darwin research station is the local home to approximately 80 scientists who study the flora and fauna of the islands. It also functions as a giant rescue site, helping to recover local animal populations that would otherwise have gone extinct. It was also, until he died last year, the home of the most famous giant turtle, Lonesome George. The current most famous resident is Diego, who was repatriated from the San Diego zoo, after it was discovered that he was only one of a handful of living male turtles of his particular sub-species. The center also cultivates local native plant species to distribute to local residents to assist in replacing invasive species that had previously been brought to the island.

The afternoon took us to the highlands which are much wetter and greener, and the place to see giant turtles in their native habitat.

On Monday, we were at Floreana island, with a morning for snorkeling (and as such, no pictures yet). In the afternoon, we went for Zodiac rides around the island looking for extremely rare Floreana Mockingbirds, which we didn’t find. We did find, however, an extremely out-of-place (and skinny) Juan Fernandez fur seal, from Juan Fernandez island off the coast of Chile, who had clearly gotten lost somewhere and found a resting place on the island. Our naturalist guide for the afternoon, Carlos, actually flipped out at the sighting, because there have only been 3 or 4 ever seen on the islands, and this is the first one he’s encountered. So that was exciting. Other sightings on Monday included swallow-tailed herons, galapagos great egrets, lava herons, and, as always, sea lions.

We also made a stop at an inlet called Post Office Bay, which is a traditional spot for leaving postcards. The tradition involves new visitors looking through the cards that have been left previously and, if they find an address that is near their home, promising to hand deliver the card when they return to civilization. Unfortunately, there was nothing near NYC, so I didn’t get to take anything with me.

Day 2 took us to espanola island, which is one of the richest areas for bird life in the galapagos. In the morning we went snorkeling, which will be a separate photo update, as any photos I managed to take were with a disposable underwater camera that I have to get developed. The walk here involved a surface almost entirely composed of lava boulders, which was not the easiest surface to walk on, but it was totally worth it. Animals include marine iguanas, albatrosses, galapagos doves, swallow-tailed gulls, galapagos hawks, lots of boobies (nazca and blue-footed), and, of course, sea lions.

The only way I’m going to be able to do this with any sense of organization is going to be to break these entries up by day. So…after spending the day flying to Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Friday August 16th, we actually made our way to the Galapagos (and our floating home, the Lindblad/National Geographic Endeavour) on Saturday. The morning was consumed with flying to San Cristobal, transferring to the boat, and figuring out our rooms and whatnot, but by Saturday afternoon, we were sent on our first disembarkation, a short hike at Cerro Brujo (on San Cristobal) and checking out the beach. This would the last day for a few days that we would see any humans other than those traveling with us.

This was quite possibly one of the best trips I’ve ever been on, and I had an excellent time both on and off the boat. Also, a word of warning. I took over 2000 pictures on this trip. I am making a very serious effort to whittle each day’s batch down to the few that are the best and/or representative of what we saw. I do have a habit of taking 20 pictures of the same thing, so I promise to not post everything. But there will be a lot of sea lions (and other animals repeated on other days). Because they were everywhere.

Last night my group at work had our “summer fun” event, which involved sailing around lower manhattan and seeing the statue of liberty up close. Good timing, as it was lovely last night, and we’re expecting thunderstorms all day today. Last night also marked the last day of my engagement, and now I’m officially unemployed for the month. In September, I start back up as a permanent employee at the same company I’ve been contractor-ing at since last year. Right now I’m set to enjoy a full month off, with my brother coming home on Friday night for two weeks, and then I head off to the Galapagos mid-month. Yay!

Pics get a bit repetitive, but I couldn’t choose just one!

In anticipation of my trip to the Galapagos in August, I went to B&H today and picked up a new wide angle (11-16) camera lens. Anyone who knows photography knows B&H, as it’s pretty much the biggest photography supply retailer in the country. It’s always an experience to go there, with the controlled chaos, and the tourists, and the crowds, and the fact that it’s in kind of a no-man’s-land on 9th avenue in Manhattan. As a bonus, it’s owned and almost entirely operated by members of the Orthodox/Hasidic Jewish community, so they’re closed on Saturdays and all major and minor jewish holidays, making it incredibly convenient for anyone who has a Monday thru Friday job. But I totally love it and pretty much won’t shop anywhere else for photo equipment (bonus tip – if you actually need to know when some obscure jewish holiday is, the calendar on their website is very handy!).

In any event, one of the upsides of visiting a store in the somewhat dodgy neighborhood near madison square garden is the plethora of older buildings and signs. Nothing glossy to see here!

Had to take a little work trip to Atlanta Wednesday and Thursday. No actual photos of Atlanta proper, given that I was in windowless conference rooms in a suburban office park, but this should give you a sense of the excitement of my trip.

This photo was actually taken on Tuesday night. It was me setting my alarm clock for 3:30am so that I could catch a car to the airport for my 7am flight. Yes, I hit snooze when it went off.

My hotel room at the end of the day. The hotel had clearly been recently renovated, and they did a pretty nice job. It was an all-suite Hyatt, and I had a living room and a bedroom (bigger than many NYC apartments!). Too bad I didn’t get to really enjoy it with just crashing for one night.

And finally, this was what the jetway looked like about 5 minutes before we were supposed to board the plane to head back to New York. Not promising. The plane actually showed up a few minutes later. The most fun part (meaning not fun) was that it was a completely full flight, so even though I had packed a completely compliant carry-on, by the time my group got called for boarding, it had to be gate-checked together with the bags of a bunch of other passengers. And unlike every other time I’ve ever had to gate-check a bag, they actually sent them all to baggage claim, where they were the very last bags off the plane. Annoying.

This weekend Grand Central Terminal had a special event where they brought in vintage trains from around the country – some still run on special tourist trips, and some are just collectors items, but there were quite a few different classic pullman cars, from lounges, to dining cars, to sleepers. One of the women who was hosting the Wisconsin train couldn’t get over how many people remarked that the bathroom was bigger than in some NYC apartments.

Anyway, these were shot in relatively low light at a high ISO, and then I ran them through a preset vintage film filter to give what I hope is a period-appropriate skew to the images. Descriptions are in the popups when you click on the thumbnails.

Back in the dark days before blogging was a widespread “thing”, and well before there were smartphones and tablets and other machines with the type of portability that allowed for being brought along on bicycle trips through europe, there was a thing called “writing” in “journals”.

Cleaning out all of my shelves yesterday, I found my travel journal from my bike trip through France and Switzerland back in 1999. There was one guy on the trip who would periodically check his email – by tracking down an internet cafe and paying for 20 minutes of use once every couple of days.

Another classic – the clock in the middle of grand central station.