Did I ever tell you how Kent and I met? Our first date, back in 2011, involved watching a wildlife documentary about the Galapagos. So, suffice to say we’ve been dreaming of the enchanted isles for a long, long time. In 2022, it was the perfect place to celebrate a milestone: a decade of wildlife adventures together! The Galapagos is one of the very best places in the world for wildlife watching.
We were nervous: would our best-laid plans work out? This would be one of our biggest adventures of all time. But experience with several failed adventures (and work abroad attempts!) during the pandemic left us almost superstitious about our prospects. Stormy weather on Hawaii‘s horizons threatened our travel plans, and unrest in neighboring Latin American nations disrupted a friend’s holiday. Right up until the final hours before our first flight, there was a distinct possibility that we wouldn’t be able to do our dream trip.
Miraculously, everything wound up working out for us with scarcely a delay! We stopped over for a couple of days in mainland Ecuador. Charming Quito was our home base, and we had a side mission: to climb a volcano! Then we headed back into the Pacific – bound for the Galapagos!
Some believe that the Galapagos are necessarily a luxury destination, reached primarily via liveaboard cruise boats. Not so! It is possible to travel there independently and inexpensively: it just takes a little bit of planning. And you don’t need to sacrifice variety, either. Using the local ferries, we traveled between three different islands! Over the course of ten days, we stayed on farms and in hostels, cooking for ourselves and walking nearly everywhere.
What you really want to know is about the ANIMALS, right? That is, after all, why we went, and that’s what I want to share with you!
The Galapagos is an absolute wonderland for animal life, on land, in the air and under the sea. We had the great privilege of seeing many iconic species. There were ancient tortoises, beautiful blue-footed boobies, adorable marine iguanas, colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs, a variety of Darwin’s finches and many more amazing creatures to see, just ambling around on our own! We also took a handful of naturalist-led snorkel tours that introduced us to massive turtles, an amazing variety of sharks and rays, cute eels, playful sea lions and even a pair of seahorses!
It was an unforgettable trip; an experience of a lifetime that stands out as one of the very best(!) of all of our adventures. Join us to discover the glorious Galapagos through its wild lives in this series of dispatches from the enchanted isles:
