The day before the trip to the Galapagos Islands, we stayed at a hotel called Le Parc. The design and architecture was stunning.

That evening we met Estevan our GAP representative who explained the details of the flight and cruise.

The next morning after a very nice breakfast, we met the group and headed for the airport.

We were amazed at how well organized GAP was, we got hustled through the airport and in no time at all we were on the "Tame" airplane and on our way to the Baltra Island of the Galapagos, via Guayaquil.

The plane ride was uneventful except for the spraying of the overhead compartments and passengers with a sickly sweet smelling substance similar to a product called RAID that is used in Canada. There was no information given ahead of time. A mother sitting in the seat ahead of us was wise to cover her baby's head while this took place.

The first photo is of Baltra Island / Santa Cruz from the air. Details & location of the islands can be seen at : See map: http://www.ecuadorexplorer.com/html/galapagos_interactive_map.html

We landed in the airport and were greeted by the happy, smiling face of Carlos. He explained that we were late and needed to get our luggage as quickly as possible so that we could get on board the Queen Beatriz.

After we had gathered the group and gathered the luggage, we waited for the ferry that would take us across to Santa Cruz Island. There were many island inhabitants waiting for the same ferry and we felt like cattle being herded onto this vessel.

After a five minute transfer were were put on a bus and traveled ~45 minutes to the town of Puerto Ayora where our catamaran "Queen Beatriz" was moored.

The trip was very interesting and the photos of various trees etc were taken from the bus as it headed towards Puerto Ayora population ~ 12,000. I was somewhat dismayed to see all the litter on the sides of the road and streets.

Carlos got us safely aboard the dinghy and within minutes we were boarding the beautiful Queen Beatriz, also known as GAP Adventurer VI.

Elizabeth our, tour Director welcomed us aboard and began her orientation. We were ~ 2 hours late so we had a safety drill, intro to the crew, and a quick but delicious lunch then boarded our pangas / dinghy's for the Charles Darwin Research station in Puerto Ayora.


A few interesting tidbits:

The Lava gull is endemic to the islands and is the world’s rarest gull … only ~ 400 pairs (according to Lonely Planet)

I believe the heron is the lava heron, endemic to the Galapagos islands. They are now recognizing a separate species called the striated heron which is closely related to the lava heron. ID can be tricky as the breast is not always well striated.

The Galapagos Mocking bird is similar but different from the mockingbirds we have seen in the Caribbean, and more importantly, they allowed us to get close and did not fly away!