The night before our trip to the Galapagos was slept with one eye open becuase we didn't take an alarm clock with us. We had a cab scheduled for early morning and were at the airport by 7:00a.m. for the flight to Guayaquil and then on to the islands. We had decided to splurge on a luxury ship, with a biologist guide and an itinerary that took in more islands than some of the other tours offered. We were met by our guide Dario along with the other 12 passengers and then whisked off to the catamaran Archipell 1, manned by 9. Every day involved a walking tour along with snorkeling at a different island.
Dario was our guide as well as being a biologist and was very passionate about his job and his heritage as an islander. Most of the island have sparse vegetation due to the volcanic make-up and several are active. The latest eruption being in 2009.
We got to see dolphins, blue-footed boobies, sea turtles, rays, a whale, flightless cormorants, frigate birds, sea lions, marine iguanas, land iguanas, great blue herons, flamingos, finches, snakes, lizards, pelicans all up close and personal.
We explored massive lava flows and lava tubes large enough to crawl into. We learned of the U.S involvement in the islands having built a landing strip on one for the protection from the Japanese in WWII. One island was bombed extensively just for practise.
In the future the gov't is going to increase the cost for foreigners to visit from $100 to $200 and decrease the number of tours allowed to lessen the impact on the animals. Ecuadorians only pay $6 for the same privilage. Those that live on these far flung isalnds pay a high cost. Most of the food has to be flown in and fresh drinking water is at a premium.
The meals we had on board for the most part were pretty good but every once in a while the cook/chef bombed bad. We didn't pay top dollar for fried rice with hot dog slices. He could really carve up a lovely centerpiece of fruit or vegetable and make it look like an animal or cocoanut tree. Being a double hull catamarand made the boat very stable and sea sickness was kept to a minimum. Some people had little patches that they put behind their ears to prevent sea sickness.
Those that wanted to snorkel had to rent a wet suit as well due to the cold waters. The islands being so young had little coral but lots of fish could be found along with sea lions and turtles to swim with.
On our last day in the islands we went to see the giant land tortoises and the large reserve set aside just for them. It is really quite impressive to see them up this close.