Here's a recipe for making a great vacation. First pour in a good amount of wild places, you can't add too much. Then you should place a few megaspoons of plants and animals in the middle to stir the excitement. A tome of learning is also an important but tricky ingredient. Too much will make you sick and too little will cause you to go away from the table hungry. An important spice is time, a week is good, two weeks are even better. It takes that long for the flavors to brew and to relax the tensions that could give the mixture a bitter flavor. Never forget one of the most crucially important ingredients, camaraderie. The best kind has a generous amount of kindred spirits. During consumption sprinkle in components you've never experienced before. Make sure that the lack of comfort never, ever contaminates the mixture, or you'll have to add more ingredients. Try it, it seems to work every time.
So having consumed this mix for six days, we find ourselves having a really good time, like today for example. During breakfast we anchored at Isla Ildefonso and were soon on Zodiac tours exploring this volcanic mass that looked like it was made of a giant gob of cookie dough, smashed flat on top. It was frosted by the efforts of thousands of brown pelicans, blue-footed and brown boobies, and cormorants.
Bird activity was intense. Pelicans carried nesting material, while those at the nests arranged the furniture. Two and then three peregrine falcons dove from high perches ripping through the air at high speed like jet fighters. They shot passed our Zodiacs, two cutting off into a paired upward climb. In the sea just north of the island, a thousand birds plunge-dove on schools of fish being pushed up by tuna.
There were the quiet times with new friends. The photo above shows people goofin' around with a boat, having fun like kids at a summer camp. We poked into caves and laughed at the near miss from a booby's squirt. Enough time has passed so cares have slipped away like diving dolphins.
After lunch we cruised over to the peninsula to explore a canyon our staff has been to only once before. We hiked up a flat wash past ironwood and palo blanco trees and wound our way between steep canyon walls with narrow ridges. About two miles up the canyon the most energetic hikers came to a slot canyon whose walls could be touched at the same time with both hands. Soon we were back to the comfort of our ship and on to other adventures.
