Standing, dripping wet from snorkelling, a pair of flippers in my hand I watch two big sea lions perform a perfectly synchronised dive, leaping out, curving round and then slicing back into the water like hot knives through butter. They are metres from me, and less than a metre from some other people who are still in the water. This, I think, is something very like paradise.
I will back track a little. Our final huzzah for our epic journey, has always been the Galapagos Islands. We booked the tour over a year ago and imagined ourselves stepping out of the sea, surrounded by giant turtles and dolphins - and more or less straight onto our flight home.
A crazy fantasy. Except, of course, we do arrive back in Quito one evening - and fly the next morning. And judging from the way this trip has started, the turtles and dolphins image might not be that far fetched.
After taking the flight out to Dan Christobel Island, and refreshing ourselves with lunch, our group, all of whom are easy to talk to and lively company, makes its way to the Interpretation Centre' to learn more of the history of the islands.
We have walked a few metres before we see the sea, an impossible blue and impossibly calm. We have not quite finished gasping in awe when our guide points out the wild life.
The rocks at the shore are literally covered in crabs. A deep red in colour they are large and scuttling, some with a sea anemone or similar creature apparently living on their backs. Nestling ominously among the grey rocks a grey octopus inches its way towards them, then ventures up onto the rock, stretching out a tentacle towards its prey. The crabs scuttle out of reach at the last minute.
Like a statue on the rocks a small grey sea lizard sits, alert, head up, watching for food.
A small heron like bird lands on the rocks, dips his beak in and brings it up carrying a small, struggling fish.
The smooth wet head of a sea lion appears and then disappears, moving with incredible grace and speed through the water. On the rocks his counterparts laze in the sunshine, waving one idle flipper as if to fan themselves.
Casually, an enormous pelican swoops over our heads and lands on a rock, gazing intently into the water.
We are all hanging over the railings, agog. Our guide has to physically wake us up to persuade us to move away from the harbour side, and walk to the centre.
Somewhat dazed, everyone continues, commenting to each other on how easy it was to see the animals, how unafraid they were, and how beautiful.
The interpretation centre tells a different story. The Galapagos Islands have not always been such a paradise. They have a chequered history. Everybody knows the Darwin story, but not so much the increase of man's exploitation of the resources, the whalers who nearly destroyed all the sea life, the settlers who drove the giant tortoises to extinction, the unsuitable viruses, strains, seeds and species accidentally transferred to the islands by trade boats. Then there were the convict colonies, tending, it seems, to either extreme, the harsh and unspeakably cruel camps, closer in nature to concentration camps, which led to rebellion, punished by the prisoners being made to build what is now known as 'the wall of tears' - and the idealistic young men who tried to build a utopia, offering prisoners redemption and ending up either bankrupt or murdered. Not to mention the mysterious deaths on Floreana, back in the 1950's, which read like an Agatha Christie novel, and involve passion, jealousy, affairs and the mysterious deaths of one player after another. No one yet knows what happened.
Thankfully someone, at some point, saw sense. Now the islands are protected, the animals are not only safe but seem somehow to have forgotten mankind's terrible treatment of their ancestors, and view man not as predator or as competitor for food.
Hence the fact that we can snorkel next to seals, can watch them turning somersaults deep in the water, as if they knew they were being watched and would like to show off. We can swim through huge shoals of blue and silver fish, and past the watchful eye of feeding pelicans, then climb out and be treated to a sea lion acrobatic display.
Wet, cold and blissful, we wander back to the hotel, go out for dinner, and fall into bed.
Galapagos, known as the 'enchanted islands', truly are both enchanted and enchanting. All the more so for their apparent wholesale forgiveness of mankind for his previous misdeeds.
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