Galapagos

After checking out all of the ruins in Peru, we were ready for some wildlife watching in the Galapagos. The Galapagos were not originally on our itinerary; however, every person we talked to who had been there, raved about their experience. In the end, we decided it would be silly to miss it if we were already so close. It would cost us a month of our travel budget but those are the choices you have to make sometimes!

We did things pretty off the cuff: we took a night bus from Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador and arrived at 4:30am. We went immediately to the airport and asked about flights to Galapagos for that morning. We were told we would have to fly standby. This involved us sitting and waiting in a line for a few hours. No problem! We are really good at waiting. We made it on the 9:30am flight and arrived in Puerto Ayora, a main city in the Galapagos a few hours later. It couldn't have been any more seamless.

Our first destination was the beautiful restaurant pictured below. It is owned by my friend Monica's niece, Cynthia. She put us in touch when she learned we were thinking about the Galapagos!

It's always fun to meet up with people and I'm pretty sure not many people have a friend of a friend living in the Galapagos. They treated us to dinner the first night and we pretty much found a reason to eat there nearly every day thereafter. They had excellent gelatto! Below is a photo of me with Monica's niece and daughter, Martina. Thanks for putting us in contact, Monica!

After that, we took a walk around the town and thought about sitting on a bench on the pier. We soon learned just how fearless the animals of Galapagos are. They have no instinctual fear of humans. The bench pictured below was taken and she had no plans to move!

As usual, we got really lucky in the Galapagos. We checked out a couple of travel agencies before settling on a 5 day first class cruise aboard a 16 passenger ship called the Millennium. We got a heck of a deal on it- about 70% off the price they advertise online. Awesome!

With the cruise being such a deal, we didn't expect much from the Millennium. You can imagine our happy surprise when THIS was the main indoor hangout area. It was so nice!

We were also expecting bunkbeds. Instead, we had nice comfy beds. I think they were a bit wider than normal single beds so you don't rock out of bed in the middle of the night. We had an attached private bath and a full sized tub (which we didn't use because fresh water is at a premium in Galapagos).

As an added bonus, our room also had a small private balcony.

Heading upstairs, this was the outdoor hangout area.

Tim was a fan!

Days on the ship were filled with activities but it was a good pace. We also had a good amount of downtime. Our guide, Sam, a level III naturalist, was in charge of teaching us about the islands and keeping us on the paths. He is the guy next to me in the photo below.

A typical day involved breakfast, a ride in a dingy to an island for a hike and animal spotting. We snorkeled pretty much every day as well. We would then cruise to second location after lunch for more hiking, snorkeling, or looking for sharks and rays from the dingys. My favorite part was that after every snorkel, the crew had lemonade and snacks waiting for us! If the water was really cold, we got hot chocolate!

The sand color of the beached varied from island to island.

At this one, it was red!
There were beautiful views everywhere we went. The highlight of the cruise had to be the snorkeling. For some reason, parrotfish were really attracted to Tim's blue snorkeling fins and would literally sit on his feet. We also encountered rays, sharks, sea lions and penguins! We have an underwater camera that we can't wait to develop!

We encountered many sea lions. This particular mama sea lion was nursing her baby.

More great landscapes. This place was called "Chinese Hat" because of its shape.

Even while we were cruising, we had close contact with wildlife. One day, we had about 15 frigate birds riding the air currents above our boat. They eventually landed and hitched a ride. It was pretty cool!

The following photos show the beautiful landscapes and creatures we encountered during the cruise.

This iguana was eating a prickly pear flower.

Here's a hawk, the predator highest on the food chain here. Nobody messes with the hawk. Nobody.

Here is Tim, hanging with the sea lions at the beach in a place called Santa Fe. This place was great for snorkeling! We had sea lions swimming right next to us and putting their faces right up to your mask. Some were even chewing on Tim's flippers. They love to play.

All in all, our Galapagos cruise was excellent. Perhaps the best part was the group we were with! Our guide said it was the youngest group he'd ever guided. Our group was almost completely people our age and everyone got along great! It didn't matter who you sat with for a meal, the conversation was always great.

Since we spent about two weeks in the Galapagos and this only covers 6 days, I will let Tim tell you all about the other cool stuff we saw and did. There's a lot more!