You see them on the telly, you coo over photos in the 'Sundays' magazines, you glance surreptiously at guidebooks about them amongst guidebooks of more sensible and economically viable places that you are actually travelling to, but you NEVER think you will find yourself there. Never.
For me the Galapagos was one of those places.
Four years ago or so I watched (with dinner on my lap and a lump in my throat) the lush and wonderful BBC series on the Islands. It was magical. The swirling overhead photography of those volcanic outcrops bursting audaciously out of the sea, the glorious underwater footage of sealions and whales, the fabulous images of creatures weirder than imagination could create all accompanied by the honey dripped tones of Tilda Swinton (who sounded as if she was eating the islands rather than narrating a documentary about them) seemed all about a place so remote and extraordinary that I imagined I could only dream of going.
