The usual travel life cycle is ‘dream, plan, book, travel, and share’.  But when friends invited us to join them on their ‘bucket list’ Celebrity Xpedition 10-night Galapagos cruise/tour, we jumped right past the ‘dream’ and ‘plan’ stages and went straight to our local AAA office to ‘book.’  Now, granted, it was a pretty special trip and we did do some research to prepare, including buying the excellent book and DVD Galapagos:   The Islands that Changed the World and reading a TravelViews blog and a day-by-day blog,  which got us pretty excited about joining in on this adventure.   Now that we are back, I’ve uploaded our slides to my digital picture frame and am playing Amauta’s Dream Shield CD , bought at the Quito airport, as my blog-writing inspiration! 

We got off to a bit of a rough start.  Most US travelers fly through Miami to Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, and spend the night - in our case this gave our luggage time to catch up with us.  Quito is a very compact city nestled in a river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active volcano in the Andes Mountains. The population exceeds 1.5 million people, most of whom are Catholic, as evidenced by the large number of historic churches.  While visiting, street urchins in traditional Andean attire follow the tourists and show their wares - colorful scarves (2 for $5) and folk-art hand-painted on sheepskin.  These youngsters are quite bold and savvy, resulting in my bringing home a few more items than planned!

The Central Square (Plaza de La Independencia) or “old town” of Quito is located about 15 miles south of the equator. Because Quito has the “largest, best-preserved, and least-altered historic centre in Latin America”, it was declared by UNESCO as the first World Cultural Heritage Site in 1978.  During our day touring Quito, in addition to the historical plaza, we enjoyed a visit to the “middle of the world” - a monument and museum marking the location of the equator and, of course, a great photo opportunity!  Since the islands of the Galapagos straddle the equator, this was just the first of many “crossings” during our trip.

From Quito we boarded a surprisingly comfortable AeroGal plane for the 525 mile flight to Isla Baltral (Baltra or South Seymour Island) via Guayaquil.  From the Baltra airport, a bus transferred us to the dock where, 16 passengers at a time donned their life jackets and experienced the first of many Zodiac (small inflatable boats) rides to board the 94-passenger, 296-ft Celebrity Xpedition.   By the afternoon, the ship had moved to Isla North Seymour and the passengers were prepared for their first adventure. 

This cruise is not for the faint of heart (or, in my case, the “out of shape”).  Referred to as a “soft adventure”, there is certainly some rough terrain to traverse to see the most unique wildlife. 

We decided to take it slow and start with a Zodiac ride and dry landing on the island, known for its large population of frigate birds.  We also spotted our first blue-footed boobies, iguanas and sea lions and many sally lightfoot crabs along the coast.  We were warned not to waste all our “digits” as this was just a taste of what was to come. 

Our first morning we rose early and boarded the zodiacs for a circumnavigation of Kicker Rock, a 500-ft lava cone in the midst of the ocean.  When the sun hit the rock, it was a truly amazing site. 

The ship then moved to nearby San Cristobal Island and the town of Puerto Bazuerizo Moreno, stretched along a small harbor. 



From the minute we docked our Zodiac, it was apparent that sea lions ruled the town – we had to climb over them to get onto the dock and they snoozed on the back of every boat in the harbor, on the beach, and even in the town.

During lunch onboard, the ship moved to Espanola Island where our Zodiac delivered us for the “long walk” activity.  Though the walk was “high-intensity” with “medium-sized” boulders along the entire trail, it was well worth the effort.   


This was our best day for viewing wildlife, including many blue-footed boobies performing their mating dance, some parents sitting on eggs or with baby birds nestled under them.  A little farther off the paths were Nazca boobies, also known as masked boobies. Red marine iguanas, unique to this island, were massed upon the lava rock along the coast on the way to an impressive blowhole.
 

The return route took us to a shore where green turtles nested and Galapagos hawks soared above, looking for baby turtles upon which to prey.  The hawks are the only natural predator to the Galapagos endemic species.  We later learned that introduced species such as feral dogs, cats, goats, pigs, and cattle have caused serious destruction to some of the island’s natural inhabitants.  Our sandy path inland passed through the nesting spots of the waved albatross, which could be seen in the mating routines as well as sitting on their rather large eggs or tending to their not too attractive young. 



Our next visit was to Isla Barolome, a younger island with more recent volcanic activity, left us with the feeling that we’d just made a moon-landing.  The bits thrown out of the volcano, called “lava bombs,” are scattered across the barren landscape.  Our excursion involved a steep ascent up a wooden stairway to the top of Pinnacle Rock for the famous view of all the islands. On our way back to the ship, we spotted our first Galapagos penguin sitting on the island rocky ledge.  These petite birds are the only penguins found in the northern hemisphere.



During our ‘long, easy, walk’ on Isabela Island’s Urbina Bay we sited at least 10 giant land tortoises along the trail, in addition to several land iguanas.   We were amazed at how close we could get to these ancient reptiles.  In the afternoon we landed at Espinoza Point on Fernandina where we saw even more incredible volcanic scenery and learned about the “Aa” and “Pahoe-hoe” lava flows.  We walked through, amongst and around the large marine iguana colony to the shore where a Galapagos flightless cormorant was spotted. 



The next day the ship brought us to Puerto Egas, Isla Santiago (San Salvador) where our Zodiac delivered us for another “high-intensity” coastal walk. The tidal pools along James Bay were another of my favorite spots.  We saw a large variety of birds including the lava heron, brightly colored Sally Lightfoot crabs and our first view of Galapagos fur seals (which are actually sea lions), resting on the collapsed lava tubes.  Crystal-clear water allowed us to view green sea turtles, Galapagos sea lions and marine iguanas swimming and playing in the water.  The afternoon took us to Dragon Hill on Isla Santa Cruz.  As you might tell by the name, this spot is the home of many land iguanas and some interesting vegetation. 


On our last day we sailed to Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz, home to the Charles Darwin Research Station which specializes in tortoise preservation.  Lonesome George, the last member of the Pinta Island tortoises is in residence there.  We walked amongst the older tortoises and also saw the areas where the babies are being breed and sheltered.  We found it interesting that although Darwin visited 4 of the islands during his Voyage on the Beagle, neither he nor his theories of evolution are mentioned much outside of the naturalist’s discussion of the Darwin finches. 

By the time we returned to Quito, we had gotten accustomed to a routine of early rising in a new location from the previous night followed by exciting morning excursions, sailing during lunch and siesta time and another afternoon excursion via Zodiac, perhaps with a rest on a new beach.  Our ship was our “home” for a week but the adventure was in the destination.   

All photos by Pat Magrady