South America May 2011 - Galapagos

Last May we went to the Galapagos Island, Ecuador and Peru.  The trip was organised for us by Trailfinders using packages from GAP Adventures the service from both companies was excellent and I thoroughly recommend them. As to the holiday, well it was absolutely stunning and if you have to sell your Granny to go then do it you won't be disappointed.

Firstly the Galapagos. We spent 10 days on the Queen Beatrix. She was a catamaran that took 16 guests all in twin en-suite cabins that were very comfortable. The advice from Trailfinders was to go on a boat of around this size and I am sure they were right. The days on the boat were very full, getting up at about 6.30 each day. We went snorkelling one or twice and also had one or two shore excursions each day. Our guide Walter was from the National Park Authority and was absolutely excellent he gave a briefing and short talk each evening on what we were going to see or had seen.

One thing I must stress that what you see underwater is just as interesting as what is on shore so you must be prepared to snorkel if you are not going to miss at lot. I swim like a  brick but had no problems. At the end of this article there is a link to download a PDF of our itinerary.

The boat would move to a new place overnight and sometimes at lunchtime, so very little time was lost from our activities. So what did we see: underwater we swam with sea lions, penguins, turtles, rays, and countless different types on fish including the occasional white tip reef shark mostly small and not scary.

On land we saw both land and marine iguanas, lizards, snakes, blue footer boobies, albatross, frigate birds, finches, mocking birds, hawks, to name but a few everything was so unconcerned about us you could get very close. In fact you had to be careful you did not tread on the iguanas and the young sea lions would nibble you sandals if on land and your fins if in the water.

I have put together a few clips from the trip.I have not got a fancy underwater camera or a special housing. I have a Panasonic Lumix compact camera and bought a plastic bag to put it in that made it waterproof down to 5 metres. If you want more if on this click HERE.

I have also put some pictures in my gallery click the link to see them. GALLERY

I have put further information with each image,  you get if you view the large version but you don't see it in the slideshow

Click for our itinerary. ITINERARY

In Ecuador we stayed in Quito for a few days and did a bit of sightseeing and took trips out to Cotapaxi and Otavalo market, both well worth going to. It was a blizzard when we got up to 4,600 metres, but we are softies and went in a landcruiser.  The market was huge and we did our souvenir shopping there. Quito is well worth looking at especially the "Inglesia de la Compania de Jusus" Outside not much to look at but inside probably the most stunning building I have ever seen. Unfortunately no photos.

I have also done a page with our diary on it click to view. DIARY

This is getting a bit long so I will do a separate post for Peru.