explorers

Day 11. March 18, 2011: Santiago and Bartolome Bartolome We woke up @ 6 AM in order to get in the pangas to go on a Penguin hunt. You can tell from the picture that we look a little haggard at this point (Anne to Steve: I think I look great!) The Galapagos Penguin is endemic and is the only species of Penguin that lives in the northern hemisphere. We stayed close to shore and wound up seeing a couple of them in the water and then another one on the shore in the rocks. Williams told us that the turtles would be coming during the night to lay eggs and would be back in the water when we did our panga tour. Steve saw sand flying on one of the beaches. It turned out to ... read more

Day 9. March 16, 2011: Diving at North Seymour and Black Turtle Cove, Santa Cruz Diving at North Seymour Island We got up at 6:30 AM for breakfast and the dive boat was supposed to pick us up at 7:30, but it didn’t show up until 9. The rest of the group left at 7:45 to go to shore at Bachas Beach. We sat on the covered deck, and watched a Galapagos shark swim round and round the boat. Anne's jellyfish stung arm was looking pretty mangled at this point. There were lots of round welts and blood caught inside some of the bumps. It was so swollen she couldn't move her wrist very well. She asked Williams if this was normal and he said “No, you might want to go into town and see a ... read more

Day 7. March 14, 2011: Espanola Island Punta Suarez, Espanola After we ate breakfast, we departed at 8:15 am for Punta Suarez, Espanola. Also known as the giant Albatross International Airport. Unfortunately, there were wintering (summering?) in Peru, so we just went up to the “runway” overlooking the ocean. This was a half mile loop. We were met by sea lions playing by the jetty, and we saw lots of marine iguanas. The marine iguanas are also very colorful now since it was mating season. They were grey with green and red highlights. We saw some digging in the ground preparing nests. We also saw a Galapagos hawk, Galapagos Mockingbird, lots of finches, boobies, and swallow tail gulls. There were two Galapagos Dove eggs underneath a rock right in the middle of the trail. Back on ... read more

Day 5. March 12, 2011: to the Galapagos Islands and our boat Quito Departure We got up early to head to the airport for our 8:30 am flight to Baltra in the Galapagos. We already had our $10 visitor cards, so we had to go around and get our luggage scanned and get a tag that would allow us to check it to the Galapagos. We were on TAME Flight 191. It made a stop in Guayaquil, and due to the tsunami the previous evening, there were lots of people caught in transit, so we waited almost two hours to get the plane full, then headed out to Baltra. Baltra, Galapagos Islands Arrival We landed at the airport to find that it was all outdoors and somewhat open to the elements. The exception being some low ... read more

Day 3. March 10, 2011: Old Town Quito Breakfast We got another leisurely start this morning. Steve thinks it was even later like 10 AM! It was awesome because we never get to sleep in. Plaza de La Independencia We did a quick walk through the Plaza de La Independencia, as Anne wanted to take a look "at" the Government Palace since we didn’t really look yesterday. Anne's library based guide book that she checked out from the League City library was a few years old, and it said we couldn’t go in it. We saw people up on the terrace, so we asked the guard if we could go in. He pointed to the opposite end of the building. So, we walked around and got in a short line. We were not sure exactly what ... read more