Galapagos!!!
Last spring we got a bit crazy and booked, what's referred to as, an "Expedition Cruise" to the Galapagos Islands. This is a cruise where you leave the ship multiple times a day to visit places of interest.
The Galapagos Islands are a part of Ecuador and it was an ugly trip getting there: up at 3:30 AM to catch a flight from Palm Springs to Dallas then another flight from Dallas to Miami and finally a flight from Miami to Quito, Ecuador. We arrived at our hotel in Quito just at the strike of midnight on New Year's Eve.
Picture below is the plane landing in Dallas.
Quito is the capitol city of Ecuador. It is over 9,000 feet above sea level and is surrounded by active volcanoes. We didn't have the time to see any of the active ones - next time - but there is an ancient inactive volcano just out of town that we visited.
Here is a view of the caldera.
Ecuador, like it's name implies, is right on the equator.
On the one full day we had in Quito we went on a small tour with a private driver. He couldn't speak much English and we speak very little Spanish but we managed somehow to understand each other.
Here Terri is in the northern hemisphere and I am in the southern hemisphere.
At this same location the guide gave us a demonstration of how water reacts when going down a drain at the equator and then how it reacts south and north of the equator. It seemed kind of gimmicky but hard to explain never-the-less. Below is the video.
This is a mock-up of an ancient Ecuadorian grave. They buried them deep! PLUS when a husband died his wife was buried ALIVE with him - no explanation provided but no doubt to torment him through eternity.
This is the headquarters of UNASUR - the Union of South American Nations.
The evening of the day we spent in Quito we were given "free" tour of the city by Silversea (the cruise line we're going with to the Galapagos). Quito has been declared a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO.
Some shots of the city while on the tour.
Gargoyles!
The guy in the yellow sweater was not part of our group - he just joined in and listened to our guide (the guy in the suit). Terri was amused. We actually saw a lot of shady characters on this walk. There is lot of poverty and crime in this city.
Looks like rain's coming!
Our last night in Quito I ordered the typical Argentine dinner...it was pretty much all meat and I could only eat about half of it.
Our trip to the Galapagos involved flying to Guayaquil - which is the largest city in Ecuador - where we picked up some more cruisers and then we flew to the island of Baltra. Here we are landing in Baltra and our ship is the one closest to the top of the pic. It's not a big ship - only 100 passengers and about 80 crew. Actually there were only 99 passengers - more in this later.
In order to keep this main page from getting too long I'm going to create links to separate pages....