The Galapagos National Park service announced today  =that those who can't visit the Galapagos just now can still have a great opportunity to "see" what this World Heritage site is all about is, thanks to the alliance of the Galapagos National Park Service, the Charles Darwin Foundation and Google, which for the first time in Ecuador will capture all kinds of 360 degree images along trails.   

Park rangers accompanied Google and Darwin Station staff to several visitor sites and seascapes on the islands of San Cristobal,  Santa Cruz and Isabela, where they captured three types of images for the project  - closed environments, terrestrial visitor sites and the seabed.   A tour of the Sierra Negra crater Isabela (the 2^nd largest volcanic caldera in the world - and often in the clouds…), the North Seymour visitor trail (habitat of bird species such as blue-footed boobies and frigate) and the tortoise breeding centre in San Cristobal.  

CNH Tours hopes that this will improve the quality and reliability of interisland air service.   EMETEBE, no doubt experienced in what it takes to run this business in Galapagos, is considered a bit non-chalant in the way it deals with clients, likely because it has had very little competition.

Mario Villalta, head of Conservation and Marine Ecosystems at the Park Service, notes that this project originated with the "Zero Anchors" project, which tested various systems and materials for five systems subsequently installed in Bartholome Island.  After one and a half of use, they proved the effectiveness of these with a significant recovery of the seabed.

Through this initiative, the Park Service is promoting lower impact tourism in the archipelago, aimed at improving the quality of this activity while reducing the impacts caused by traditional mooring system (anchor and chain).  One can imagine the impact on the sea floor from dropping anchors, and chains dragging on the bottom, every day all year long, in different places.   The new system will result in only a tiny fraction of sea floor impact compared to before.

The Park Service has plans to install a total of 70 fixed anchor systems at 10 sites the marine reserve over the next while.   An added benefit will be "no more noise" from an anchor being dropped or raised in the middle of the night.     Keep an eye out for an anchoring buoy near you!

Genovesa burning up off Las Bachas beach.  Photo credit:  Ivan Lopez, Wreck Bay Diving

A group of 13 rangers, with the support of local fire department, had intensified the search in the morning, expanding the search area.   On top that, a National Park boat searched shorelines nearby. 

78 year old Mr. Berman, a British-Israeli national was reported missing by the tour operator who had sold him a trip to Isabela Island, which was scheduled to depart at 14h00 on Satureday - but Mr. Berman did not show up. Staff of the hotel where he was staying confirmed that on Saturday, Mr. Berman had left the hotel indicating he was going to Las Grietas, and intended on returning for the trip to Isabela.   The hotel surveillance cameras confirm that at 10:28 he left the hotel with a small backpack and a camera.  It was based on this information, that the Park proceeded to organize the search party.

Unfortunately, accidents do happen.  Mr. Berman was smart in having informed the hotel of his plans - otherwise, the park would not have known where to search.   The trail to Las Grietas is fairly well marked, but it's not inconceivable that someone could take a wrong turn and lose their bearings.  Heading off on unknown trails on your own is not recommended for exactly this reason.    One supposes that Mr. Berman was in good shape and confident in his ability to do the 1.5 mile / 2 km, trail - which does go over moderately rough terrain from time to time, and which is used quite regularly by locals, particularly on a weekend.   Still, one would have expected a person to have survived a little more than 24 hours in this area.  We suppose that Mr. Berman must have suffered some sort of malaise.  

Off the trail hiking in Galapagos is notoriously difficult.   Vegetation is dense, the ground can be very uneven on ancient lava flows, and a lot of plants have thorns.   Being on the equator, the sun doesn't quite help finding north and south.    A very good friend of CNH Tours and an experienced naturalist guide recently recounted his harrowing tale just in February, having lost   bearings when accompanying a scientist in the field.  It took them all day to find their way out.    Tourist and locals are reported lost fairly frequently.  Sometimes they make it back, sometimes their remains are found much later. 

Trail to Las Grietas:  Dense scrbby vegetation and lava rocks

Scuba diving - day trips:    5 in Santa Cruz, 8 in San Cristobal, and 2 for Villamil on Isabela. 

Bay tours:  4 in Santa Cruz, 6 in San Cristobal and 6 in Villamil.

CNH Tours is always very pleased to see the government authorities establishing order in the tourism sector of Galapagos.    While cruise ship tourism has been highly regulated for many years, land based tourism has been a bit of a free for all.   Until the mid to late 1990's, the vast majority of visitors to Galapagos did a cruise ship visit, leaving only a very small land based sector.   But as demand grew and as the government kept a lid on the expansion on the number of cruise ships allowed to operate in the islands (over environmental conservation and visitor experience quality concerns), and as cruise ship prices rose, there has been a very rapid expansion of land based visitors to the islands.    This happened before the authorities could implement any measures to control the proliferation and quality of services. 

Yesterday's announcement is part of the effort to ensure that visitors to Galapagos will be well taken care of, that safety measures are in place and that all service providers operate from the same, level playing field.    This complements the Ministry of Tourism's OK Galapagos campaign, which provides the "OK Galapagos" label to all tourism service providers that operate according to regulations.    CNH Tours always encourages visitors to patronize legal and licensed service providers in Galapagos (e.g. hotels, bay tours, inter-island transport operators) to ensure that the tourism industry in the islands grows in a sustainable, safe way.

Though touted as an improvement to travel to and from the islands, having recently used the airport 2 weeks ago, CNH Tours is sorely disappointed in the overall look and layout.  While the previous airport was indeed reaching its limit in terms of passenger capacity (it was built a good 20 years ago, when there were just 4-5 flights a week arriving to Baltra, and now there are up to 6 a day...), it was at least built with mostly local materials, and fit right into the landscape as best an airport terminal could.

The new behemoth is at least 4 times the height of the old one, and built with large white panels, and filled with pipes and wiring - looking more like an manufacturing plant out of a Monty Python cartoon, than an airport terminal (at least when we saw it in early March - perhaps some aesthetic touches still remained to be completed).  It is even equippred with sprinklers in case there are fires - dangling from the rafters above - but frankly, beyond the Panama hats many visitors are donning, one is hard pressed to find any flammable material in sight.  And another thing - despite having an area of about 3 football fields, the toilets are tiny!

Oh well, such is progress we suppose.   To add insult to injury, visitors will have to pay a $26 tax to use the airport.  This will be automatically added to the price of your plane ticket (if bought after April 4th - otherwise you will be charged at the check-in counter). 

Old Baltra Airport below - built with local and natural materials - lava rocks, wood... a realy homey feeling!

This new fee will serve to ensure the maintenance of the town's main landing docks, where tourists disembark from cruise ships, day tours and inter-island trips.  The docks also serve as moorage for smaller fishing boats and other working vessels.  

It is not clear how visitors will be expected to pay - whether this will be incorporated into cruise prices, or other transport service prices, or if you'll have to pay $20 in cash upon arrival.   Only time will tell. 

The rates are $20 for foreigners, $10 for Ecuadorians and $2 for Galapagos residents if on a day tour or a cruise, and $5 for foreigners, $2 for Ecuadorians and $1 for Galapagos residents if just using the docks for inter-island transport, or work related purposes.  

Though we understand the need to have users pay for the upkeep of facilities, CNH Tours is starting to wonder over how far this will go.  The Park fee is $100, the tourist card fee is $10, there is a new aiport tax of $24 in Quito...  We suggest that the Galapagos authorities arrange for the unification of Galapagos related taxes and fees so that visitors do not feel they are being asked, every time they move, to pay yet another tax.   This will have (and may already have had) and dampening effect on visitation to the islands.  

CNH Tours has been following Ecuadorian politics (in no great depth admittedly, but following nonetheless - and we're sure some of our friends in the islands will disagree with us!) since 1998, when we first moved to Galapagos.   During our first four years there, we got to see at least 5 presidents (at one point, there were 3 joint presidents!), many ministers of the environment, massive inflation, a run on the banks and the abandonment of the national currency for the US$.  The 3-4 years after we left in 2002, the Galapagos National Park Service had a revolving door directorship, with 13 directors or interim directors in 3 years.  

Since Correa came along in 2007, things have calmed down tremendously, both in the country and in Galapagos.   One of the first moves we took note of under the Correa administration was the ending of fuel subsidy cheating for cruise ships.   Fuel in Galapagos was subsidized, but this was for fishing boats.   Under the lax regimes prior to Correa, many ships somehow managed to get access to fishing boat fuel subsidies - essentially resulting in the poor taxpayers of Ecuador subsidizing profits of the ship owners, and lower cruise prices for international visitors.   No more - and that's a good thing.  

The new constitution of Ecuador also removed the "Provincial" status for Galapagos.  This small territory, with a population of under 30,000, had the same constitutional status as other mainland provinces, with populations of up to 3 million people.  This had led to completely warped politics in the islands, with plenty of destructive in-fighting amongst small minded politicians, who exploited various interest groups to make a name for themselves.   Things have been quiet in the islands over the past several years - that's good for local residents and good for visitors.  Galapagos is now managed by a governing council, comprised of national administration and local representatives.  This seems to be working. 

CNH Tours had the pleasure to have known the minister of environment under Correa, Marcel Aguiñaga, who was a tough cookie and did her job well.  She was a colleague of ours ' when we worked at the Charles Darwin Research Station, she was the legal advisor with the Galapagos National Park Service.  She resigned from her ministerial post last November to present herself as a candidate for the National Assembly in this election - and we note that she was duly elected. 

Correa has invested a good deal of the country's oil revenues in infrastructure and services (sometimes via massive advance selling of oil to China).  Roads have been built, teachers hired.  In Galapagos, a modern hospital will be built for the first time.  All this isn't to say that Correa is perfect - his relationship with the press is worrying - he has bullied owners of newspapers and television stations into submission, or forced them to sell their businesses.   It is ironic that while his administration has brought in measures to ensure that government is more transparent on the one hand, he is making life more difficult for the press to verify that.  

But given the choice between Correa and the previous administrations we've known to have run Ecuador, we will stand with Correa.  He has been better for Ecuadorians in general, and better for Galapagos.