Let’s start the morning with a run
On the way back we stop at the fish market
Next it’s time for take off
That moment when the pilot greets your dad and is glad that he knows how to fly…
From sky to sea…
Dancing with the sealions
People talk about bucket lists, how you should have one and try to complete it before you pass away. I think it’s always hard to establish one, because as you get older it changes with your interests, hobbies and lifestyles. For me however there is one place I have always wanted to go, the Galapagos. I guess you know it deserves its place on your bucket list when your opinion on visiting hasn’t changed over the last ten years.
My desire to visit stems from my love of organisms, plant or animal, it’s so exciting to see a species that you’ve never seen before. I, like many, grew up watching nature documentaries with David Attenborough, Michaela Strachan and many others inspiring me, I couldn’t get enough! Also visits to natural history museums and learning about naturalists, who adventured into unexplored places to discover new species and document them. It always seemed like the perfect job.
As a biologist who studies marine biodiversity, I also had an interest to walk in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, one of the key naturalists behind the theory of evolution (the other being Alfred Russell Wallace). His expedition to the Galapagos was key in proving his theories, through the realisation of natural selection portrayed in the finches that live there. It is possible to see the unique adaptations in finch beaks that are specific to the environment that each species lives in.
All of these reasons gave Galapagos a prime seat on my bucket list, so as I woke up yesterday morning in Ecuador I had more excitement than a kid on Christmas eve. As we flew into the islands the clouds parted to show the azure ocean and small flat green islands dotted amongst it. The wind hits you hard as you step off the plane, which was pleasantly reminiscent of my home in Bodø Norway, aka the windy city.
It was all action after landing; we headed straight into the highlands of Santa Cruz, the most populated island in the Galapagos. The majority of the island is arid, with cacti and lots of trees that look like they are dying of thirst. In the highlands however there is more precipitation creating lush green forests. Our first stop was at 
some collapsed craters. They were formed from lava chambers collapsing in and were colossal in size. Along the trail we got to know some endemic and invasive species. Ecuador is famous for producing coffee but in the Galapagos there is only one native plant, the Galapagan coffee plant. However, the beans are too small to be harvested. The common blackberry and guava plant are both introduced species reeking havoc for native species. Conservation programs with the aid of tourist donations are working to reduce their impact on the island.
Next stop on the tour was to see the Galapagos tortoises. Within the Galapagos archipelago there are 15 species of tortoise. The species that we visited has a population of 3000 on Santa Cruz (species name: Chelonoidis porteri ). It is hard to imagine just how big they are before you come face to face with them. 
They are a natural curiosity and move surprisingly quickly for their weight, as well as travelling up to 18km per day. The males are much larger than the females and have a longer tail. We watched as they chowed down on guava fruits smearing it all over their faces and took sips from rancid looking green pools. Alongside the tortoises we observed plenty of bird species including: small ground finches, yellow warblers, the common gallinule (a local chicken), black-necked stilts. The finches were friendly chubby little birds they came right up to us with no fear. We watched as they darted back and forth from tree to tree and hopped across the ground.
A few birds of the Galapagos black-necked stilt Himantopus mexicanus (top left); small ground finch Geospiza fortis (top right); (bottom left); female medium ground finch Geospiza fuliginosa (bottom right)
As we arrived at our hotel for the evening, head full of the immense amount of nature that we took in, we were greeted by the locals. Most of which were having an evening siesta, with an iguana occasionally shooting salt from its nose. It’s incredible to be so close to so such a variety of animals and I look forward to the next step of this adventure.
Meet the locals Sealions, Zalophus wollebaeki and marine iguanas Amblyrhyncus cristata
The Adventure Plan Bodø-Oslo-London-Miami-Guayaquil-Galapagos islands-Miami-Buesnos Aires- San Carlos de Bariloche and back again
Every adventure needs a beginning, and ours is all about flying. Living in Northern Norway means that it’s a long way to get anywhere, but we managed to take some much needed breaks along the way!
Adventure awaits, but leaving Northern Norway with the beautiful sights of Svartisan glacier in the midnight sun was hard
As you might know the weather in Europe has been sweltering around 30 degrees celsius (the mean average temperature where I live is 5.4 degrees). Luckily for us, however, it was international ice cream day, many belated wishes to you if you missed it. Our city break in Oslo was filled with ice cream, meeting random sculptures and exploring the new realm of pokemon go.
Next stop… London. We had a brief encounter with London and the inside of an airport before heading on to Miami, a place we’d never visited before.
The air in Miami was so humid as soon as we stepped out of the airport we felt the moisture forming on our skin. The streets in their perfect straight lines are bordered with palm trees and it feels like a movie set with a perfectly manicured white sand beach and rows of white hotels reaching into the sky.
I got up early this morning for a run, knowing that it was another long-haul flight ahead of me. As I headed down to the beach I saw lots of heads bobbing around in the water, but knowing the time it surely couldn’t be other beach goers. I got closer and the heads took to the sky, it was pelicans!
The brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalise is common to the West Atlantic coast, and is much smaller than most pelican species. In Florida it is a conservation priority recently removed from the endangered species list, with their biggest threat being entanglement in fishing lines. They feed on fish and invertebrates and can often be seen diving into the oceans, sometimes too close for my liking when I’m bathing. Pelicans can be seen all year round in Florida as they don’t migrate from this region. They are not to be missed, its incredible when such a large cumbersome bird glides through the air centimetres from the surface of the ocean.
Well thats all for now I can hear the boarding call for my next flight… time to go…
lissAdventures 