We’re anchored back at Academy Bay on Santa Cruz this morning. The boat has some maintenance work that needs to be done in port while we’re off exploring. So it’s back up to the highlands again, this time to Cerro Mesa (Table Hill).
We found a lot of small birds, but we’re actually looking for the vermillion flycatcher, one of the few things we haven’t checked off our To See list. This led us to a long hike down a path that our naturalist thought connected back to where we started, but instead we walked a long way downhill to get to a place where the path was overgrown and would need a machete to proceed. Oops. Back up the hill we go. By the time we finally got to lunch everyone was calling it the Death Walk, much to the chagrin of the naturalists. It wasn’t really all that bad a walk, but we expended a lot of energy for no results. Okay, a few Darwin finches were photographed, but our red-bodied prey avoided us.
After a barbecue lunch, the group turned to…karaoke. The highland restaurant we dined at has a little bit of everything: soccer field, pool table, pool, hammock, you name it. But we spent an extra hour or two signing karaoke. You never know what you’re going to encounter in the Galapagos.
Most of the group seemed a bit tired after our walk and declined to participate short of me forcing them to. Personally, I channeled my inner Morrison and stuck to Doors songs, much to the chagrin of the owner, who couldn’t top my reported score of 98.5. Break on through to the other side…
Don’t worry, things will pick up in our last days, as we’re scheduled to hit a couple more of my favorite places.
New Sightings: Thom singing.
