TODAY we spent the first few hours of daylight walking a trail around Espanola, described by our guide Ivan as the most beautiful of the Galapagos Islands.
With 11 years’ experience, he’s qualified to make such comments about the islands just of the coast of Ecuador.Based on our three days’ cruising the archipelago, I wouldn’t disagree.
The bright turquoise sea, white coral sand beaches and surf crashing against black volcanic cliffs make for photogenic landscapes.
Add in the remarkable wildlife and you have a photographer’s paradise: marine iguanas in mating colours draped across rocks and littering the paths; sea lions that don’t even raise an eyelid as you step over them; the massive albatross struggling to get airborne, his yellow bill fixed in an eternal grin; and masked bobbies, tending to eggs and young in nests built with no acknowledgement to any human right of way implied by the trail.
It was a most memorable morning.
I’d finished our first film within a few minutes of stepping ashore, but the automatic rewind was laboured and the battery indicator flashed empty. As a precautionary measure I switched to manual focus on the power-hungry long lens, and made it successfully through another film and a half before reaching the relief of a new battery in our cabin on the boat.
The others in our party were consuming film at an even greater rate, and perhaps there’s a danger that our experience of a magical destination is entirely conditioned by the view through the lens. For me, there was a moment of near panic when I thought that I might be unable to click away with usual abandon.
The all-consuming video camera is an even greater culprit and, as with mobile phones in exclusive restaurants, should perhaps be banned on group tours. There’s the entirely credible story of the Zambezi canoe trip that ended in disaster when a client failed to realise that the hippo close-up had drifted from long-zoom to wide-angle. Reasonably enough, the beast dumped our photographer and his paddling partner into the river. No doubt the video camera has been replaced by the latest model, and he continues to experience much of life through a viewfinder.
Such concerns notwithstanding, most people are avid documenters of their holidays, partly as a personal record, but also to share some of the experience with others.
Again we could debate the extent to which such sharing is always welcomed by the recipients, but it happens nevertheless, whether through politeness or genuine interest.
Advances in technology are changing the desire to document and share in a couple of ways.
Firstly, more material is starting out in a digital form, with the boom in digital cameras and personal organisers. Secondly, it is almost as easy to publish the resulting images and text on personal Web pages, as it is to file albums and diaries on physical shelves.
There is even a pink Barbie digital camera designed for kids. And technology consultancy Jupiter recently reported that 90% of on-line adults own or regularly use a camera and over 73% of consumers expressed interest in having the capability to e-mail photos to friends and family.
Consequently, we’re recording and publishing our personal holiday experiences as never before. The audience is typically limited to friends, relatives, fellow travellers and a few Internet aficionados who are particularly adept with a search engine. But the impact on future business of such a grapevine can be significant, particularly if you also consider the influence of news groups and moderated on-line forums such as Lonely Planet’s thorn tree.
We dutifully filled out half a dozen or more customer feedback forms during our South American trip. Within the constraints of time, space and the specific questions, I endeavour to give candid feedback, in the belief that somebody is listening.
But even if the tour operators are responding to such forms, are they monitoring what their customers really think, and indeed what is being published in Internet journals and postings? In the age of on-line community, don’t underestimate the growing collective power of digital word of mouth.