First day in Galapagos


Saturday, February 16

We awoke at 3:30 AM on Friday morning and called for our Lyft to the airport at 4:00.  The car was supposed to be there in 8 minutes.  About 12 minutes after we called I got a phone call from the Lyft driver asking me to cancel the call because he had another passenger and he couldn’t make it.  I’ve never had anything like that happen before.  We drove to the airport, parked in long-term parking, and met the rest of the family there. 




The trip to Guayaquil was long and tedious but uneventful, and we checked into the Guayaquil Hilton for the night.  This morning we flew to Baltra, one of the Galapagos Islands, and entered the country at Seymour Airport!

 

We went through the equivalent of entering a country, with passport control, special visas (which National Geographic had obtained for us) and x-rays of our luggage.  The weather is hot and humid; our group took buses to the Zodiac landing where we were ferried to the ship.  



Our first encounter with wildlife who have no fears as they have no predators was at the dock where a seal was dozing under the ramp: 



We have five staterooms immediately adjacent to one another, and we settled in and had multiple orientations and a lovely buffet lunch, while the boat moved to Santa Cruz Island.  In the late afternoon we had our first excursion which took the form of those which will happen every day.  We were broken into groups of about 14 people and went ashore with a naturalist in a Zodiac.  The shore hike, at Las Bachas, a beach area with abundant wildlife was just our family of nine, with about 6 or 8 others and the naturalist.  It was a great introduction, with pelicans:
  


Marine iguanas:
  


And the beautiful crabs here:
  



Exhausted after the long two days, some of us had the energy to swim; the old folks went back to the ship for a shower, and we then had the Captain’s cocktail party and a lovely dinner.  All slept well after that!



Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 18, 2019 at 6:16 AM

    Great photos Victor! Sounds like a wonderful beginning

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 18, 2019 at 6:17 AM

    Sent a comment Victor - its from me - Carol Goldsmith - I see it went in as unknown.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rwa442February 18, 2019 at 6:57 AM

    Thanks for blogging! Looks to be a wonderful family event! Great photos of those colorful crabs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LizFebruary 18, 2019 at 11:35 AM

    Wow!! You provide such wonderful opportunities for your family. Would you consider adopting me? ;-). Seriously, it sounds like an amazing trip and to be able to share it with your family makes it all the more special. I agree that the crabs are incredible!! Have fun and travel safely.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ralph P. LockeFebruary 18, 2019 at 7:18 PM

    Wow, glad you were able to get to the airport in time! Fascinating that the wildlife there have no predators. Great photos! Is all the food shipped onto the islands? I assume that the whole place is a wildlife refuge--am I wrong?

    ReplyDelete

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