Welcome to Quito
Merry Christmas! This year Jenn wanted to tick another ‘bucket list’ trip off the list so we decided to take an early Christmas vacation to the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. The kids’ school break for the holidays started on Dec. 16th and goes all the way to January 6th, so we pulled them out a few days early in order to align our travel days with the sailing dates of the &Beyond Galapagos Explorer. (Jenn was on a mailing list from the expedition company &Beyond since spending some time at Phinda during our trip to Africa last year, she heard about the Galapagos expedition yacht that way.) We would spend about 7 days on the boat after traveling there via Miami & Quito, Ecuador – and back in time for Christmas day!
We started with a long travel day – an early Saturday 8am flight to Miami followed by about an 8 hour layover before boarding the flight to Quito, where we arrived and were greeted by our local guide, Esteban, around 11pm local time (only 1 hour behind Bermuda). Our hotel, Mama Chuchara, was a further 40 minute shuttle from the airport through some rain and fog. After being welcomed at the hotel with some warm apple cider and refreshing face towels, heads were firmly meeting pillows for the night.
Esteban had a busy day planned for us for our only day in Quito. After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we drove to the Intinan equator museum, for a little fun with the fact that we were literally on the equator (as evidenced by the GPS coordinates on our phones and watches)! We went to Paccari chocolate for a presentation & sampling of their world award-winning chocolate, plus we ‘sort of’ got to make our own truffles – we watched the presenter mix ingredients together and we formed them into balls (or a snowman in Jenn’s case) – but they were still delicious and mostly eaten before we left the place! Ceviche is a very popular dish in this part of the world, and for lunch we saw how to make some at the Cafe Plaza Grande as part of a delicious meal, capped off by some fresh made-at-the-table gelato! The rest of the afternoon found us touring nearby Independence Plaza and the super-ornate Church of the Society of Jesus, before heading back to the hotel for a nap and a somewhat fancy dinner in the hotel restaurant (where there were no other people at all… so great service)!
Monday would be our first day on the boat! Esteban shuttled us to the airport after breakfast, we had a mid-morning flight from Quito into the Galapagos islands, about a 2-hour flight. As soon as we disembarked the plane, we were directed to the airport’s VIP lounge where we met our guide for the week, Franklin! The airport is located on Baltra Island, and the Galapagos Explorer was waiting for us just off shore – only about a 5 minute shuttle drive away. After boarding, the cruise director, Ana, gave us a tour of the yacht before we unpacked our bags prior to lunch and officially getting our holiday underway!
It’s a Sailor’s Life for Me
A bit about the boat: the all-new 124-foot yacht was put into operation by &Beyond just 6 months ago, and has 6 rooms / suites designed for 12 guests spread over three of the four decks. The bottom deck had three guest rooms; the main deck housed the Dining room, interior lounge, and a small exterior deck area at the stern (where we would embark & disembark from); the third deck had a large outdoor bar area and the top deck was a big lounging area with a hot tub! We lived in the three rooms on the bottom deck so we had that level all to ourselves, which was great, and we each had our own bathroom too (the water level portholes in the showers were fun)! There were only four other guests on board (who all had some affiliation with &Beyond), so the service was amazing and there was never an issue finding a place to chill. Every day we would all meet in the lounge with Franklin for a ‘debrief’ of the day and to discuss the itinerary for the next one. Meals were typically in the Dining room – a few lunches were outside by the bar – and the bar was usually our destination at the end of the day’s activities for a drink and some snacks before dinner.
While on the subject of food, everything on the boat was top-notch. Breakfast was typically a spread of the typical delicious help-yourself pastries, fruit, yogurt etc. with table service so we would have beautifully-plated eggs to order, most days they had a daily special like pancakes on offer as well. Lunches and dinners were typically three-course affairs but weren’t massive meals (nor were they small!). Various types of ceviche, soups, and dishes involving plantains, chicken, or fish were often served in different ways and were all amazing. Sometimes more exotic ingredients like octopus tentacles or lobster would appear – while the kids were very good at trying new things, some unfamiliar ingredients were taken in stride and others were not! Only complaint would be – as always – not enough chocolate at dessert! 😉 There were always snacks and drinks available (drinks were even offered from a small cooler in the dinghy transporting us back to the big boat after snorkeling or hiking on a nearby island, even if the ride was only 5 minutes!), but the best snacks were usually in the bar near the end of the day, when our bartender Adrian would have things like empanadas and plantain chips with some kind of awesome sauce or dip on offer. We would indulge while sipping a G&T or wine and the kids a fancy frozen mocktail. Life was good.
And before I dive in to our daily adventures – there were several things we would see most days that we would come to enjoy as part of the fabric of the Galapagos experience. The islands we visited were typically grey or brown volcanic rock, with rough boulder-adorned coastlines framing beaches ranging from fine white sand with black flecks, to coarse ground-up sea shells, to a fine greenish brown sand that reminded me of brown sugar. We arrived at the end of the annual long dry season, so while most islands were covered with trees beyond the beach, the trees didn’t have leaves, with few exceptions. Being near the equator, the weather was typically warm (say 24-27°C) with a cool breeze, and we didn’t get any noticeable rain on our trip. It was also quite easy to get sunburned, as we learned quickly!
In terms of animals, it was very bird-forward! Most places we went we saw lots of Boobies (blue or red-footed, or the Nazca variety), Frigates, Petrels, Gulls, and Finches among many others. On land we found Sea Lions in most places (so friendly!), marine & land Iguanas, Lava Lizards, and near the coast we’d see a couple types of crabs. Underwater adventures had us spotting different types of rays (some were quite big), sharks (Galapagos, white-tipped reef), and a few turtles, among several varieties of fish like Angelfish, Parrotfish, Puffers, and Sargeant Majors to name a few. Noted there wasn’t much coral reef, but rather mostly underwater boulders from the many volcanoes that formed the terrain.
Our Itinerary Route
Anyway – back to our first day on the boat. After lunch was our first nature hike on North Seymour island, a short sail north of Baltra island where the airport was located. (We did a ‘dry landing’ – they pull the dinghy up right to a landing spot on the shoreline where we get off without getting wet – as opposed to other excursions where a ‘wet landing’ is required and we jump out in shallow water on a beach for example.) Here we enjoyed our first experience seeing boobies! (Whose?) Ok, not those kind, but rather the blue-footed bird kind of boobies, as well as other birds as mentioned above. We also spotted some marine iguanas and some crabs, and later on we encountered our first sea lions, chilling on the rocks / beach.
The first night brought our longest overnight sail of the trip, about a 9-hour journey to San Cristobal island. (Side note: I’m happy to report there was no sea-sickness for me or any of us throughout the trip, something I was slightly concerned about heading in – no drugs required either!) The next day was a busy day – starting at Punta Pitt in the northeast with a hike and a quick snorkel (didn’t see any sharks… this time!). That water felt chilly (22°C / 72°F)! The boat sailed in the afternoon, we went by ‘Kicker Rock‘ to nearby Lobos Island for another snorkel (found some rays this time) then a hike. We started our nightly sail with a few-hour long ‘pit stop’ in the harbour of Galapagos’ capital city of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. (‘Twas not for pleasure, however, as our A/C wasn’t working on our first night so this stop was so they could go to the city to find parts and a tech to fix the problem, which it eventually was.)
The next morning we found ourselves at the north end of Espanola Island, in Gardner Bay. We went for a kayak excursion first, then I went for a snorkel without the fam, who went instead for a dinghy ride, then we hit the white-sand beach nearby for a close encounter with some very chill sea lions (we didn’t touch them but we were that close)! After a BBQ lunch on deck by the bar, we sailed in the afternoon to Punta Suarez on the west end of the island for a hike for our only sighting of some albatross birds and a cool ‘blowhole’ in the rocks where waves shoot water about 75 feet in the air!
Dolphins!
One of our most memorable encounters happened the next day at our next stop, Floreana Island. Jenn and I started the day with a hike at Punta Cormorant (the kids wanted to sleep in); we saw a few flamingoes, plus a beach that we learned is typically home to nesting sea turtles in the early part of the year (we were sadly too early for baby turtles). However, after reuniting with the kids on the boat, our guide Franklin spotted a pod of dolphins nearby – we all rushed to get our snorkeling gear and pile into the dinghy, and soon found ourselves among them in the water! It was so amazing – the dolphins were playfully speeding beside the dinghy once we caught up to them, practically within arms’ reach. We stopped to jump out for a swim when we were surrounded, they were now casually gliding along in big groups for us to admire, along with a few sharks as well! So awesome. Once they passed us we’d get in the dinghy and catch back up, then jump out again (we did this twice more). After our exciting morning, we sailed over to Post Office Bay to leave a few postcards before hiking down into a giant pitch black lava tube and ultimately going for a dip in freezing cold water while inside! Ok, we had flashlights but still! Cool experience (pun intended 😉 ). We finished off our day with a kayak to visit a few sea lions and turtles at Baroness Bay.
A short overnight sail brought us to Santa Cruz island, where Jenn and Josh would head out for a day of diving around Mosquera island while Ryley and I stayed with our shipmates for ‘tortoise day’! Our first stop was the Charles Darwin Research Station and Fausto Llerena Breeding Center to learn a bit about the efforts to help the local tortoise population to thrive. We later headed to the highlands and stopped at El Trapiche ecological farm for a tour and to sample some sugar cane and coffee (and maybe a little moonshine!) before seeing some wild tortoises and having some lunch at the neraby El Chato Ecological Reserve. We also got to walk through another impressive lava tube, though this one was fully lit and did not have any freezing cold water!
Meanwhile, as Ryley and I were getting our tortoise fix, Jenn & Josh were scouting out some new underwater friends. (Josh had his earned his PADI certification during summer camps this and last year, but we didn’t want him to go alone, so earlier this year Jenn stepped up and earned her certification as well so she could go along too!) Some highlights of their diving day were spotting various types of sharks (like hammerheads), huge rays, and some turtles to name a few! After our separate adventures, we all reunited late afternoon in the main town on Santa Cruz, Puerto Ayora, for a quick scout of the shopping scene; we’d return to town after dinner on the boat for some souvenirs.
Jenn’s Little Buddy
Ovenight, the boat relocated to the northwest side of the island for our next excursion to find some land iguanas while hiking on Cerro Dragon (Dragon Hill). A relaxing sail to Bartolome island after lunch brought us another major highlight of the trip – penguins! They weren’t there in huge numbers, but during a snorkel session, Jenn and I were able to swim alongside one paddling at an easy pace (and not zooming away) – fully ticking the box on her list to ‘swim with a penguin’. We would go back in the dinghy after drying off to find a few more that were willing to pose for our cameras. We even got a rare shot of a penguin with a crab and a cactus in the same frame! Later on we went onshore to do the Summit Trail, a wooden path with many stairs leading to the top of the island – the reward being an amazing view over Sullivan Bay and Pinnacle Rock. Franklin was hoping for a nice sunset but I think we used them all up on many of the previous evenings!
On the last full day of our vacation, the final island we would visit was Genovesa Island, about a 6 hour sail north from Bartolome. The boat anchored in Great Darwin Bay, which is the top of the cone of an ancient volcano – the way in is a relatively narrow section where the cone edge is eroded. We took our final two hikes of the trip – one wet landing on a beach and one dry landing later via the Prince Philip Steps – and saw our first short-eared owl, along with the usual suspects! We also went on our final snorkel of the trip – we found some sleepy sea lions on the rocks that we were hoping would come swim with us, with no luck.
One last overnight sail brought us back to North Seymour Island, close to the airport. After breakfast we took a quick spin around the nearby Daphne major island before reaching our final destination back at the airport on Baltra for the inevitable goodbyes to the amazing crew and our fellow guests.
All that was left to do now was to race home to beat Santa! Luckily all went to plan – flight back to Quito from the Galapagos, overnight in a nearby hotel (the EB Hotel Quito, which was quite lovely), then a super early shuttle (4am!) to catch a 6:30am flight to Miami… then another dreaded 7+ hour layover before ultimately arriving home in Bermuda (via a half-empty plane) at 10pm on Christmas eve… Made it!
Another amazing trip in the books!
