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.
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| Miami International Airport |
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| Miami to Quayaquil |
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Arriving in Ecuador
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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.
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| The glass elevators at the Hotel Hilton Colon |
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| 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.
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| Our first marine iguana |
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| Sally Lightfoot Crab |
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| Sea lion |
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| Zodiac transport |
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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!
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| Our Cabin #208 |
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| All ready for the Abandon Ship Safety Drill! |
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| Puerto Baquerizo |
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| The rest are Luke's photos. Sea lions were hauled out on many of the fishing boats in the harbor. |
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| The beach was littered with sandy sea lions. |
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| Luke liked this sea lion sleeping under a fishing boat. |
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| A pup asleep in the sand. |
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| 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.
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