The coolest place on Earth!

Hey Everyone,

We returned from our week in the Galapagos Islands yesterday and what a week it was! It will definitely be a highlight of our trip and a hard week to top.

We were on board the "Yate Floreana", which was a medium sized yacht built for 16 passengers. Our 14 fellow travelers were all great people from all over the world (the US, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and Italy). The captain and crew were also great! The chef was very accommodating of Shaina's gluten intolerance (she often had french fries for breakfast in place of bread!) and Shaina and the Captain were partners for cards (and are the current champions of the boat!).

Our guide (Victor) was an Ecuadorian and has been a scuba dive master and Galapagos National Park guide for 20 years and really knew his stuff, which further enhanced our experience.

Now on to the good stuff.....what did we do and what did we see?? A normal day in the Galapagos had us waking up at 6:45 for a 7:00am breakfast. After breakfast we would prepare for the day's adventures. Normally, we would go for a hike on one of the islands in the morning to see the landscape and wildlife on land. After our hike we would go for a snorkel (sometimes off the beach or sometimes off the zodiacs the crew used to transport us from the yacht to shore) to see what was living in the water off the coast of the islands. Then it would be back to the boat for lunch at noon, a quick commute to another site, and back in the water for the day's second snorkel. After the second snorkel we would go for another hike, and head back to the boat for dinner at 7pm. After dinner, the boat would start a long (often all night) commute to a new island for the next day! The commutes were sometimes a little wavy but luckily (and thanks to gravol) we were able to avoid sea sickness.

Our itinerary had us start at Santa Cruz Island and from there we went to Genovesa Island, the East side of Santiago Island, Chinese Hat Island, Isabela Island, Fernandina Island, the West side of Santiago Island, and then back to the airport for our flight home!

So what did we see? We were very lucky and saw almost everything we possibly could have seen on the islands and we were always amazed at how close we were able to get to all of the animals! On land we saw giant tortoises, marine iguanas, birds galore (red footed boobies, blue footed boobies, masked boobies, owls, petrels, frigate birds, hawks, pelicans, herons, finches, mocking birds, gulls, doves, flamingos and more!), lava lizards, tons of sea lions and fur seals, and even a snake!

In the water we swam with: penguins, marine iguanas, sea turtles, sea lions and fur seals (very playful), lots of cool fish, and a few sharks! From our zodiacs we also managed to see a manta ray, dolphins (very briefly), and we were lucky enough to have a close encounter with killer whales!! It was the closest our guide had ever been to killer whales in his 20 years in the Galapagos! They swam right beside and underneath our boat - very cool.

The islands themselves were also a highlight. There is no place like it! On our route we saw both old and new islands, so it was really interesting to see the difference. On the older islands, enough of the volcanic rock has eroded to make a thin layer of soil. There is more vegetation on these islands, especially in the highlands and where there is more humidity. The younger islands or where recent volcanic explosions occurred, there is a vast sea of black volcanic rock, frozen in the shape of the waves of lava. It feels like you're on the moon! The main vegetation on the newer islands is small lava cactus (a pioneer plant). On the older ones, giant cactus and palo santo trees dominate the landscape.

Our group of 16 with a Giant Tortoise

A female frigate bird with her chick

The killer whales up close and personal! (2 adults and a baby)

Swimming with a sea turtle

Swimming with penguins! (They're so fast in the water!)

Marsh imitating the sea lion

Marine iguanas sun bathing, with a sea lion in the background (her 3 day old pup was playing nearby)

We have great pics of all of the aforementioned but you will have to wait until we get home to see them all (it takes too long to upload pics here).

we had an absolutely fabulous time and would highly recommend to anyone!! (El Capitan gave us his business card if anyone is interested)

We're off to Otavalo now to see the enormous indigenous market tomorrow. Then we're heading south to the central highlands to Latacunga. From there we're going to hike around the Quilotoa loop (a lagoon inside a volcano crater) to get re-acclimatized to the altitude. Then we're going to attempt to climb the Cotopaxi volcano! We're not sure about wi-fi there, so we'll be in touch when we can!

we have a local cell number now if you need to contact us for emergencies

593 - 8 - 345 - 5633

(hopefully that's right, it should be Ecuador's country code, our area code, and our cell #)

hasta luego!

xoxo m&s