Blogs from Galápagos, Ecuador, South America

Incredible time in the Galapagos Islands living aboard the Yate Darwin for 7 nights. We were given a lower deck cabin which we slept in for the first night, but jade felt sea sick so we slept on the upper deck for the rest of the trip. It was so beautiful sleeping under the stars in the open, feeling the motion of the boat sailing throughout the night. The only problem with sleeping up on deck is that we woke up early as the sun was up at 5am. Our days were pretty full we had breakfast onboard at 7am everyday, followed by a trek around one of the islands that we travelled to during the night. We saw so much wildlife and the animals varied from island to island. The main highlights were land iguana, ... read more

The next morning we woke up and had a delicious breakfast at the Dreamkapture hostel and then headed to the airport for our flight to the islands. Once at the airport we had to get our bags inspected and sealed for quarantine then we were allowed to board our flight. We arrived at our hostel late in the afternoon where we met Kevin and Ann-Maria the owners. After a quick introduction Kevin was kind enough to take us on a tour of the town, while in town we organised a dive trip for the following day. Later in the afternoon after changing into some shorts due to the heat we headed to the Charles Darwin Research centre, here we were able to learn about the programs that have been set up to ... read more

Day 1 of our Galapagos Cruise..... Bit of a con really... Instruction was to arrive at the hotel for a briefing at 6pm.... Which we were well in time for ... Only problem.... It started at 5pm.... So only the people who had been staying there and received their revised briefing packs early were at the briefing.... Our briefing was therefore a short heads up, we were showed to our room and that was our first impression of what we'd paid a fortune for .... Not exactly the best value for money day!!!! This was followed by the worst nights sleep we've had since the guy with the runs kept us up back in Ushuaia ..... This hotel (Hotel Sanfransisco ) is obviously used by a lot of companies with big groups and this big group ... read more

At about 6:30 I was awake and feeling good. Sarah was totally fine, the rough seas last night did not bother her at all. The boat was nestled in to Sullivan Bay, between the big island of Santiago and the small island of Bartolome. The seas were very calm. 7:00 breakfast and by 8:00 we were off to Sullivan Bay on Santiago Island. After a wet landing Victor introduced the island and as he was doing so a juvenile endemic Galapagos Hawk (endemic species) flew low over our heads and landed nearby. We got a great view of the Hawk, no more than 15 feet away. Next we walked for about two miles through a recent lava flow, from 1889. It was recent enough that it was generally devoid of life, which was pretty cool looking ... read more

Sorry, I've been amiss in making entries. Have been busy and internet is terrible here. Day 4 First day on Isabela Island, the largest in the archipelago, and one of the youngest islands, less than a million years old. Today was less boating, more driving... Got off in the harbour to drive to the Wall of Tears, a depressing prison camp where the convicts where dumped on the island and forced to build their own prison out of lava rocks. Fun. Sadly, the route was closed due to a 'tortoise incident'- a tour bus accidentally ran over one of the tortoises, so the route had just been changed to pedestrian only. So, we went to the Sierra Negra volcano crater first, a semi-active crater, and the second largest crater in the world. Isabela's an inhabited island ... read more

At 5:30am the boat engine cut off and I could see out the port window that we had arrived in Genovesa and the sun was just coming up. I went up to the uncovered deck to get a look. Everybody else was still asleep. There were thousands and thousands of birds in the sky hovering over the fairly small cliff edge. Three other boats had arrived as well and were anchored nearby, Genevieve (a large sailboat), Daphne, a first class boat we had been offered and knew this week it was a designated charter, and Comorant, what looked to be a luxury catamaran. After a few photos I went back to the room hoping to get back to sleep. No luck, 6:40 rolled around and we were getting ready for breakfast. All the meals are group ... read more

Today was a chill day. We did not wake up and get moving until 10. We went to our favorite breakfast place and dragged out a long breakfast turned lunch. Continental breakfast turned to cheeseburger turned to coffee. By 2:00 we left with the idea of going back to Tortuga Bay, but within 5 steps of leaving the restaurant the heat of the day destroyed us and we were resigned to trying not to move. That evening we picked up a free wetsuit from Betty. Wow, she is amazing - normally it would be $80 for the week. And then we had a nice last dinner in Santa Cruz with delicious freshly caught fish (likely from that morning). As much as we have loved our time in the Galapagos so far we are both extremely excited ... read more