Tag: Galapagos
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Galapagos Adventure: Epilogue
The Galapagos Islands have a reputation for being fascinating and unique and for very good reason. Even though this trip was carefully organized, scheduled, and chaperoned, it still felt like an adventure in a remote part of the world that has been minimally touched by the human existence. Even normally mundane activities like transportation became exciting because it involved a pickup truck in the jungle, or an open-air bus on a gravel road, or a fast boat in the open water. This seems like a good time to acknowledge the wonderful hospitality of Red Mangrove, who made this trip really…
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Galapagos Adventure: Days 6 – 8
The final two days of my trip were a bonus of the Travelzoo package. They were completely open and unscheduled and I spent a lot of my time hiking, taking the water taxi, and visiting local beaches for swimming and snorkeling. One of the popular local spots is Tortuga Bay, an inlet that is home to a lot of protected wildlife but also has very calm waters for swimming; the waves were so small that it felt more like a lake than a bay. It’s one hell of a trek to get there though. From the lodge, the hike takes…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 5
The next morning, a few of us went out in search of more wildlife. We found half a dozen flamingos in a small pond and then visited the breeding center on Isabela, whose logo is quite exceptional (see below). Tortoises are bred at the center and released into the wild when they have reached a certain maturity. The center also serves as a hospital; injured animals found in the wild are rehabilitated and eventually released. This trip turned out to be an unexpected delight because we arrived at the center just at feeding time. The younger tortoises (less than eight…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 4
After getting dressed and packing, we went back to Lelia’s for breakfast, which included blue eggs, coffee, papaya, granola, yogurt, bread, and guava marmalade; all the food came from crops and farms on Floreana. Looking back, the two meals at Lelia’s were quietly some of my favorite memories from the trip. Even though the family didn’t speak English, they were incredibly gracious and the food was excellent. It was a very different and satisfying experience to enjoy varied, healthy, and delicious foods that came from farms only a few miles away in a place with barely more than a hundred…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 3
The first stops in the morning were various natural formations created by magma from ancient volcanic explosions. There are two very large craters, “Los Gemelos” (“The Twins”), which are collapsed lava chambers that have since been overrun by jungle growth and animals. We walked through one of the underground lava tunnels, which was carved out many years ago by sideways-traveling magma. The next stop was a private reserve that serves as home to many free-roaming giant tortoises. Like the iguanas and the seals back at the lodge, the tortoises made fantastic photographic subjects, mainly due to their lack of velocity.…
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Galapagos Adventure: Days 1 and 2
Due to how the flights are scheduled, traveling from the west coast of the United States to Galapagos (or vice versa) will result in a long layover in Ecuador. I left San Francisco at the crack of dawn and flew all day, first to Miami, then to Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. By the time I made it out of the airport and to my hotel (which was included as part of the Travelzoo package), it was about 9:00 in the evening and I was exhausted, even though I did nothing all day except sit in chairs and stand…
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Galapagos Adventure: Prologue
About a month and a half ago, as I was removing various undesirables from my diet, I was skimming over my weekly Travelzoo email when I came across the following: $1459 — Galapagos Islands 7-Night Land Package, Save $690 http://www.travelzoo.com/top20/63788138-1426683 Source: Red Mangrove Galapagos & Ecuador Lodges The Galapagos Islands have been on my travel bucket list for a while and lately I’ve started treating Travelzoo deals as an electronic message from fate, a digital sign pointing to a distant land I’ve been meaning to visit. For the most part, my desire to visit the places on my list is…
