Galapagos Trip

Dear Family and Friends,

We just returned from a week's trip to the Galapagos Islands. We have had friends return from there and tell us all about their wonderful adventures. Because it is so expensive, we knew that waiting to get residency in Ecuador would be to our advantage. As residents we receive a price break on airline tickets and park entry fees.

Last month Chuck sent out an email inviting friends to join us in a trip to the Galapagos. Larry and Linda responded that they would like to join in the adventure. Chuck found a house to rent online, so we shared a house on Santa Cruz for the week.

There is too much to share in one posting, so after pondering how to post about our trip, I have decided to divide it into this post and 3 others.... Scenery, Flora and Animals. This is the first of four posts about our trip.

Here is the first sight we saw after getting off the airplane. It is the Galapagos airport. The airport is on the island, Baltra. The airstrip was built during WWII by the USA military. It was used as a Pacific defense sight during the war. Other than the airport there is not much else on this small island, so in order to get to Santa Cruz we took a small boat.


After getting on the island, we took a taxi to the town of Puerto Ayora. This is the most populated town in the islands. The population is just under 10,000 residents. With tourists it is quite a bit more. Our taxi driver ended up being a tour guide of sorts. He took us to see a huge sink hole in the highlands of the island on our way to our destination.

Here we are in front of the sink hole.

We got settled into our house and then walked around the town. On the second or third day we took a boat tour to Floreana Island.

Here is Larry and Linda ready to head out.


When we got to Floreana Island, we went into the highlands for a great tour. We saw giant tortoises, iguanas, sea lions, many birds and beautiful scenery.

Here we all are gathered around listening to the tour guide tell us about the giant tortoises we were viewing.


Here is Tarzan Chuck leading the way.

And here we are trekking through the muddy, slippery highlands.


Linda and Chuck went snorkeling. Chuck said the fish were beautiful...big and very colorful.

Chuck doing his Lloyd Bridges impression.


Two members of our party of four were very active. Two members were more relaxed and savored the atmosphere in a more low key method.


One thing we especially all enjoyed was trying different restaurants.


This post is just an overview of our trip. The best is yet to come.

Love,
Nancy