Green Galapagos

Hello and happy new year to you all!

A few of my blog followers have asked to see pictures of my recent holiday to Colombia and the Galapagos, so I thought I'd put them on here and bring a little sunshine to this cold weather.

I won't bore you with cocktails on the beach, just some vaguely green things....

Firstly, I continue my fascination with recycling bins, and how much better other countries are. Here's a lovely giant plastic bottle in Colombia and a standard 3-set in the Galapagos:

Recycling bin, Cartagena (Caroline Pankhurst)

Recycling bins, Galapagos Baltra airport (Caroline Pankhurst)

When I got back to Heathrow's new Terminal 5, I was greeted by one bin for all rubbish, and someone looking round hopefully before putting a plastic bag full of plastic bottles in it. (No photo, sorry, clearly my blog wasn't on my mind after a 24 hour journey).

In the Galapagos they're building a new airport, which they claim will be the first ecological airport in the world. Its construction is designed to minimize the impact on the terrain and ecosystem. The project will feature wind and solar power, a desalinisation plant and ocean breezes to reduce the use of air conditioning. It reminded me of our project here!

 The new Galapagos Baltra airport under construction (Caroline Pankhurst)

The Galapagos as a whole is one of the greatest examples of conservation in the world. Visitor numbers are limited, and though I was surprised at how one of the islands has loads of shops, hotels etc, most islands are still uninhabited. Walking around you see hundreds of iguanas, birds etc and they just don't run or fly away, they're not afraid. These are the pictures people were no doubt wanting to see:

Us and a giant tortoise (Caroline Pankhurst)

 A nice crab (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Fluffy baby birds (Caroline Pankhurst)

Red-chested frigate (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Blue-footed boobies (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Turtles (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Smiley iguana (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Amazing coloured scenery (Caroline Pankhurst)

 Baby sea lion (Caroline Pankhurst)

Back in Quito, I was back on my cycling and recycling hobbies - with a new Boris Bike scheme and a lovely butterfly made from old beer cans: 

Bike hire in Quito, Ecuador (Caroline Pankhurst)

Butterfly from cans (Caroline Pankhurst)

Back to reality now. This will be one of my last blogs as the project's almost finished and I'll be moving on - but more on that next time....