A Postscript

I posted cards in an official yellow post box in the main street on October 24^th, after our final lunch in Puerto Ayora and just before we boarded the boat for Isabela. My guide book had stated that post could take between one and four weeks to be delivered, if at all! I decided to check this out at $2.25 (about £1.50) a time for stamps. Well – the one to my husband has just arrived (still faster than the Beagle’s communications with home I suppose) – the rest of the family are still waiting for their cards!

PPS. Tonight I chatted for a few minutes to the great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin – Dr Sarah Darwin (and, I found out, an ex-colleague of Karen’s at the NHM) who was giving a lecture at the National Museum in Cardiff (for Cesagen).  She has just returned from a year long trip in a tea clipper in the wake of Darwin’s Beagle voyage, accompanied by her family and all the personnel required to make a documentary series, The Future of Species, for Dutch TV. Sarah, a geneticist who has researched the evolution of the Galapagos tomato, showed a genuine interest in our trip and praised the achievement of Jess, Eleri, Becky and Charlotte.

If you feed them…

…they will come.

After seeing such a different selection of flora and fauna it is easy to forget how wonderful our own native species are.  In response to Becky’s last post about the lack of birdlife on these islands, then I can only refer to “Field of Dreams” – there’s one for your Media Studies!

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We might be lacking in reptiles on this island, but we make up for them with their relatives, the birds.