My mom’s friend Pat has been traveling with Tauck for years and years. She’s been on over twenty Tauck tours in every part of the world. To see the Galapagos Islands, we joined Pat for a seven day/six night tour on the Isabella II, one of Tauck’s expeditionary yachts.
Sunday Jan 13: Guayaquil
After 2 flights and about 9 hours, Mom and I landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was just after midnight when we met a Tauck representative at baggage claim. She escorted us to the hotel, the Oro Verde. Our room was off the charts! It had 2 queen beds, a living room, and a powder room separate from the double sink bathroom. We quickly showered and crawled into bed.
Monday Jan 14: Guayaquil
We woke up to some rainy weather. It was warm out, just wet. That was to be expected at this time of year as there are really only two seasons: warm and wet or cool and dry. We ate breakfast at the hotel, in one of the salons. It was buffet style, which was cool because we were able to compare it to a traditional Swedish breakfast spread. It was pretty similar: various breads, meats, cheeses, plus eggs, fruit, etc. We wandered around the hotel for a bit, checking out the different shops inside. We learned about ‘tagua’ jewelry which closely resembles ivory. The nut of the palm tree is polished and shaped and sometimes dyed. It’s like a ‘vegetable ivory’; that’s what they called it.
Once the clouds had cleared and Pat had arrived, the three of us walked towards the river to El Malecon. We walked, we talked, and we grabbed coffee. Once we were ready for some AC, we walked back to the Oro Verde for our welcome drink. The signature drink was a rum, lemon, and passionfruit cocktail. It was perfect: very refreshing and not too sweet. For dinner, we stayed at the hotel and went to a Swiss fondue restaurant (go figure ... first dinner in Ecuador and we ate Swiss food). It was a lot of fun; I’ve always liked when you get to cook your food yourself.
Tuesday Jan 15: Isla de San Cristobal
We had to be up early to repack our suitcases and place them outside of our rooms so that the Tauck team could take them. We met the rest of the tour group for a quick reception before we headed out to the buses. At about 9am, we left for a tour of Guayaquil, which ended at the airport. We learned that while Quito functions as the political capital of Ecuador, Guayaquil is the financial capital. About 3 million people live in Quito, and about 4 million in Guayaquil.
We drove through the center of the city where the iguana park is. There are about 300 iguanas who live in Parque Seminario in downtown Guayaquil. Because people feed them, they pretty much stay put in this park. Our last stop was at the cemetery, which is all above ground similar to those in New Orleans. Here are some other random facts we learned about Ecuador along the way:
-The four natural regions of Ecuador are the Andes, the Amazon, the coastal region, and the Galapagos.
-There are about 49 types of mangos that grow in Ecuador. Yum!
-The flowers in Ecuador are beautiful. Growing roses provides work for many families, especially in the mountains.
We flew about 600 miles to Isla de San Cristobal where we met our ship, the Isabela II. After boarding the boat, we sailed to a port in San Cristobal. We then used pangas to get to shore for a walk around. We saw so many sea lions. Some were laying on the beaches and others had climbed up the beach and onto patios and sidewalks. We returned to the ship for a cocktail hour and dinner.
Wednesday Jan 16: Isla Genovesa
By the time that I woke up, we had anchored inside of Great Darwin Bay. The bay is a huge circle surrounded by Isla Genovesa. There were two other yachts in the bay with us which was not uncommon. After a quick wet suit fitting, we headed out for a morning hike up the Prince Phillip’s steps. Once we reached the top of the steep stairs, the ground was very flat. We saw plenty of red footed boobies and nazca boobies. We learned all about each species, and how to tell the difference in the genders of the birds. I don’t think I remembered enough of those facts to write them down correctly. Our Tauck naturalists knew so much about the Galapagos and the animals that inhabit the islands that sometimes it was difficult to keep up. They’re names were Cathy, Lola, and Gabriel, and they were essentially the park rangers of the islands.
We then walked down the same staircase and rode the panga back to the ship to change. We put on bathing suits and wetsuits for a deep-water snorkel. For the deep-water snorkels, we transferred from the ship to the pangas, and from the pangas straight into the water. We saw sea lions, a white tipped reef shark, a turtle, and plenty of fish. We returned to the boat for lunch and then went to a beach across the bay. We snorkeled off the beach, but the visibility was pretty poor. We took a short walk around the beach with the naturalist guides and even got to test out some BBC-style equipment that helps you hear the sounds of the birds in a specific area. It looked just like a big boom mic, but it was amazing to hear the sounds of the animals without the drone of the breeze or human chatter.
Thursday Jan 17: Isla Santiago
The water was pretty choppy in the morning around Isla Santiago and it was a bit rainy. We took a panga ride to see some wildlife on the island. This island is home to the famous Galapagos tortoises, but we didn’t see any. We just saw lots of birds and a couple of sea lions.
We changed for a snorkel trip along the coast. The current was super strong and to see lots of fish, you had to dive down at least a couple feet. A small group of us went back out in the afternoon for more snorkeling: three guests including myself plus our tour director, Taylor. The visibility was so much better, and we saw schools on schools of fish. We also spotted a few rays and one man said he saw another white tipped shark.
As a group we took a walk around Santiago. We saw the cutest, wet, little sea lion pup. He was probably 3 weeks old. We also saw a number of birds fishing, some boobies, and some pelicans. Our naturalist said that the rain brings the fish to the surface, so it’s one of the best times for the birds to fish.
Friday Jan 18: Isla Fernandina
We woke up at Isla Fernandina. We did a short hike at Punta Espinosa. We saw hundreds of marine iguanas, a few sea lions, and some sea turtles. We watched the male marine iguanas fight over rock territory. They shake their heads up and down, open their mouths, and often go head to head with one another.
We returned to the ship to change for snorkeling. In the water, we saw at least 5 sea turtles. I, personally, had four in my view at one point. It was so cool to watch them peacefully drift around.
The ship left Fernandina for Isla Isabela. Isabela used to be a handful of separate smaller islands, however as lava flowed down from the volcanoes, the islands merged into one. We anchored in Tagus Cove, where we had the chance to kayak. The waters were a bit rough, but we were thankfully moving with the current and not against it. We saw a turtle, some more sea birds, and a penguin. The penguins in the Galapagos were so cute, and about the size of the penguins in St. Kilda outside Melbourne. After returning to the ship to change, I headed out on a hike while Mom opted for a panga ride. The hike took us up about 200-300 feet where we looked down on Darwin Lake and Tagus Cove. It was a beautiful view. Both on the way up and the way down, a section of the stairs was covered by some sleeping sea lions. The naturalist said that they were likely males that hadn’t found mates, so they had been banished by the alpha males.
Saturday Jan 19: Isla Isabela
We woke up in Urbina Bay, and headed out for a hike. The weather was much more humid than the days prior. We saw 13 giant tortoises, though a couple of those may have been the same tortoise spotted twice. They are such peaceful creatures, and only sometimes were they bothered by our presence. When they felt threatened, they retracted their limbs into their shells. That movement makes a sort of hissing sound as the muscles contract inwards and lungs deflate. We also saw a handful of land iguanas. As the males mature, they develop a bright golden color.
We then sailed to Punta Vicente Roca. Isla Isabela’s shape is like a seahorse, and Punta Vicente Roca is the snout of the seahorse. The ship had an open bridge policy, so I chatted with the captain a bit as we came into anchorage. I learned that the anchor drop is normally 2x or 3x the depth of the water. And a shackle is about 28 meters. For this anchor drop, they let out 2 shackles for about 20 meters of water.
We snorkeled along the wall of the Volcano Ecuador. It was probably some of my favorite snorkeling I’ve ever done. The water was very clear and there were penguins, cormorants, sea lions, and at least two dozen pacific green sea turtles. The turtles were either sleeping on the bottom and calmly swimming around. They varied in size: big and bigger. The area is known for having the highest population of sea turtles in all of the Galapagos, so the naturalists called it ‘turtle soup’. One sea lion decided to play with me at one point. They love to keep eye contact with you as they swim in loops and circles. It was truly magical, and another tour guest caught the interaction on her GoPro camera. I tried to stay under for as long as I could, twisting around to follow the sea lion’s eye. Of course, the sea lion could hold its breath for much longer than I could.
We did some coastal exploration in the pangas that brought us along the coastline and into a huge horizontal cave where we saw some penguins and blue noddy terns fighting over some kind of food. We also saw sea lions and fur seals. The sea lions likely originated from California seals, whereas the fur seals more closely resemble the seals found in the south. Both the Galapagos sea lions and fur seals have adapted into endemic sub-species.
Sunday Jan 20: Isla Rabida
We took some pangas to Isla Rabida for a wet landing. We took a stroll along the red sand beach to a lagoon that was part salt water and part fresh water. We then had a couple beachfront options. I took out a paddle board for a while and Mom went kayaking. Amazingly, I could see the bottom of the ocean from the paddle board at certain points because the water was so crystal clear. When I returned to the beach, some snorkelers came in saying that they had seen an octopus, so our tour director and I headed out to try find it. We were unsuccessful, but it was still some great snorkeling.
After lunch and a quick nap, we headed out to Isla Santa Cruz Island which is home to Dragon Hill. Santa Cruz is the third largest island in the Galapagos. It had been raining over Santa Cruz for about 4 days prior to our arrival, so the first third of our walk was through very muddy, slippery rocks. Eventually we made it up to a beautiful panoramic view point. We saw the rest of Santa Cruz on one side and the ship on the other side. Along the walk we saw lots of land iguanas. Both the males and females were out and about because of the rain.
Monday Jan 21: Isla Santa Cruz
It was an early morning. We were off the ship before 7:30am with all of our bags packed. We took the pangas to a dock on Santa Cruz and hopped on a bus, which drove us about 45 minutes into the highlands to Santa Rosa. We arrived at El Chapo Ranch and were given boots to put on. The atmosphere sort of reminded me of the elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, although our naturalist guide clarified that the ranchers own the land and not the tortoises. We walked through knee-high grasses and explored the ranch at our leisure.
The tortoises were given the name, galapago, by the Spaniards. Later, that name was used to call the islands the Galapagos. Besides the tortoises, the ranch was home to papaya trees, guava trees, tangerine trees, tomato plants, and various grasses. The tortoises are attracted to bright colors, so when the fruits are ripe and bright, they are drawn to them. We learned that in order to get the papaya fruits from the trees, the tortoises will rock the tree back and forth until the papayas fall down.
During the rainy season, the tortoises use mud to keep the bugs away. Sometimes they get so comfortable in the mud that they fall asleep, and the next morning it can be difficult for them to move out of the mud. We also saw a bunch of butterflies and the Galapagos sunflower plants that grow in the highland region called scalesia. The trees look like giant broccoli. After we finished up at El Chapo Ranch, we took buses back down from the highlands to the Baltra airport, starting our journey home.