The "Grand" Adventure (San Cristobal) Nov. 19~Day 1

Over the next 8 days I am going to attempt to post the days of our recent Galapagos Trip. As many of you know I hope to take each of my grandchildren on an adventure when they reach the age of 9+.  Ideally, the adventures will be a destination from my bucket list but I also realize that each of my grand-kids have their own personalities and like different things.  For Luke and me, it was a no brainer that we would both love the Galapagos Islands. As I reflect on our 10 days, it was one of the most magical times I have ever spent.  There is something special when you see things for the first time and you can see them through the eyes of a 9 year old.  We both had a blast and were quite saddened when it was time to board our zodiac and leave the Endeavor for the last time.  I hope you enjoy the posts from these very special times. The internet was so sporadic that I was unable to complete my blog on board so I'm doing it now.
    Our adventure began on Friday, November 18 as we traveled from Baltimore, lay over in Charlotte and on to Miami where we had a 6 hour wait for our 4 1/2 hour flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We arrived in Guayaquil around 10:45pm and finally got to our room at the Hotel Hilton Colon at 12 and our luggage was delivered at 1am.
 

Miami International Airport

Miami to Quayaquil

Arriving in Ecuador

Our morning began early by setting our baggage outside our door by 6, breakfast at 6:15 and boarding our bus to the airport by 7.

The glass elevators at the Hotel Hilton Colon

The lobby filled with complete strangers who became like family over the next 8 days!

The tour group that I chose to go with was the Lindblad/National Geographic Expeditions based in New York City.www.expeditions.com  I must say that they operate like a well oiled machine and I would definitely recommend them in a heart beat.  They had staff at every corner of the airport and I believe that you could not get lost if you were trying! They took care of our immigration papers,our boarding passes, our luggage and saw us through security.  The 600 miles to the Galapagos took about 2 hours on a local charter.  We landed on the tarmac on San Cristobal Island and were greeted by smiling faces, warm weather and sunshine. We had a brief time to walk into the city and explore the waterfront at Puerto Baguerizo before we were transported by zodiacs to the National Geographic Endeavor.

Our first marine iguana

Sally Lightfoot Crab

Sea lion

Zodiac transport

The National Geographic Endeavor
Our home for the next 8 days

Our schedule, once onboard, looked like this:

1100:             Welcome briefing by expedition leader Paula Tagle in lounge

1200              Abandon ship and safety drill

1230-1330   Buffet lunch served in dining room

1500             Introduction to the Galapagos natural history

1600             Disembarkation to visit Puerto Baquerizo Moreno

1900             Captain Patricio Jaramillo's welcome aboard

1930             Dinner is served

 The following photos are from onboard and our return visit to Puerto Baquerizo. Luke used my small Fuji waterproof camera and really became a pretty good photographer over the course of the week!

Our Cabin #208

All ready for the Abandon Ship Safety Drill!

Puerto Baquerizo

The rest are Luke's photos. Sea lions were hauled out on many of the fishing boats in the harbor.

The beach was littered with sandy sea lions.

Luke liked this sea lion sleeping under a fishing boat.

A pup asleep in the sand.

This was his favorite photo of the day.  You will see that he improved each day.

  We were told that our ship would weigh anchor at 2 a.m. and at precisely 2:01 I awoke to the sound of engines and water splashing past our port holes. This was a very unfamiliar feeling as I tried to get back to sleep on a swaying boat. But if nothing else, I am a good sleeper and before long I was sound asleep and all too soon we got our wake up call from Paula over the inter com in our room, breakfast at 7 a.m.

Sunday, October 23 -Luke's Belated Birthday_

Because both of my favorite little men had their birthdays in October it is becoming a little problematic on the birthday front.  Arthur's birthday is October 15 so he had his party on Saturday the 15th.  Luke had his birthday party on the 23rd even though his actual birthday is October 12th.  The kids were sick when I arrived so I kept my distance. (they had a very severe case of hand, foot and mouth) and they could hardly eat because of the blisters inside their mouths.  Finally by Friday Lily was back to her old self and by Saturday even Luke felt good enough to go to the movies to see Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life.  Lily and I went to see Storks earlier in the morning. In the evening we had planned to go to Longwood Gardens but we couldn't get tickets so we went to the Brandywine Zoo in Wilmington, De. The kids had a great time.

Luke, Lily, Colton and Mason

The Brandywine Zoo was set in a pretty part of old Wilmington but the zoo itself was really, really small. But they had a nice collection of birds and animals.

Sunday was Luke's party that was held at a trampoline park.  I was surprised at how many of his friends came from school because it was about an hour from Dover.  Many of his friends from Little School were also there.  Little School was the Day Care/ Pre-School that both Luke and Lily attended.  They both made many lasting friendships while they were there.

After the party we stopped by the ice rink to watch Colton and Mason at their hockey game. That was a real treat. They both were very good skaters and it looked like a lot of fun.

I'm not sure where we were at any time today but it was a beautiful day for October and I think we were in Maryland when we had dinner.  At least I know we were on the Chesapeake Bay and it was a lovely evening.  A perfect way to cap of Luke's 9th birthday party day!