Galapagos Dreams

We have met many people so far who have an opinion about the Galapagos Islands. Those who went, gave us a raving review. Those who didn't, found the islands way to expensive. We decided to check it out for ourselves and attempted to rub it in everybody's face by booking a relatively cheap last-minute trip.

Relatively cheap food: sea lion meat on the airplane

After a 1000km flight from Guayaquil, we arrived at Puerto Ayora on the main island of Santa Cruz. We immediately left our hotel and went looking for a tour. 10 meters later, a tour organisation offered us a cheap last-minute trip departing early the next morning. It would be an 8-day cruise on a luxury yacht going around a dozen of islands, combined with a two-day trip to the Island of Isabela.

Thrilled with our success, we celebrated New Year's eve at the port. The Galapagos inhabitants turned out to be true pyro-maniacs, lighting up fireworks in the middle of streets and squares, creating loud explosions left and right and throwing fire crackers at our feet. The evening climaxed however with the official fireworks at midnight, which left the crowd gasping in awe and applauding with delight.

Our boat, the majestic "Guantanamera", was a big yacht with a cozy upper deck and a professional crew. The afternoons were spent lazing in the breeze, listening to music, writing and reading as we sailed from one magnificent island to another. Almost each island was packed with extra-ordinary animals that weren't afraid of us and happily posed in front of our lenses. Those same animals were the subjects of "the origin of species", Darwin's masterpiece that changed our vision on nature and evolution.

The following photos show the homo sapiens on the islands:

After five days, the cooling system of our yacht broke down and we had to continue the trip on a first class luxury yacht, the Yolita II. Happy about this major upgrade, we continued the trip and snorkeled away.

We snorkled away...

... from the Yolita II.

Writing about everything we saw, learned and experienced would be impossible, so we have decided to leave an (incomplete) shortlist of some of the animals we saw up close:
Sea-lion, seal, pinguin, land and marine iguana, albatros, blue-footed boobie, dolphin, whale, whaleshark, huge land and marine tortoise, Darwin's finch, lava-lizard, white-finned shark, sting-ray, millions of tropical fish and thousands of birds.

As a picture says more than a thousand words, please enjoy some of the shots we made around the islands of Galapagos. We will upload some more pictures later on Flickr.

Needless to say, the Galapagos islands were another highlight of the trip. We obviously became a part of the group of travellers that will provide others with a raving review. Indeed, this once-in-a-lifetime experience is very expensive, but it's like buying Belgian chocolate: definitely worth every cent!

Dimitri & Graham