This guy was approximately 200 years old A must do while you were on the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos is a day trip to visit the Highlands. The trip includes a short hike to the twin sinkholes that are several hundred feet deep. From there you hike in ancient lava tubes. I will write up our experience with the sinkholes and lava tubes in another post because the star of the show is the giant tortoises and they deserve a stage of their own. Tortoises literally fill th

The highland tour in Santa Cruz consists of three stops- the giant tortoises, lava tubes, and visiting two gigantic sink holes. The giant tortoises are the star of this tour and have their very own blog page, but lava tubes are pretty cool too! A very tall portion of the lava tube The lava tubes and sink holes are geographic evidence that the Galápagos Island formed approximately 5 million years ago from a hot spot on the Nazca Plate. The plate continues to move east today c

Largely untouched by man, the unique environment of the Galápagos Islands is where Charles Darwin conducted his research to develop the theories of Natural Selection and Evolution. It was an honor to spend the day learning with fellow researchers at the Charles Darwin research Center (then we hung out at the beach and went to the bar :)) A visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station is a must do when visiting the island of Santa Cruz. The day is an opportunity to learn abo

Our second stop on this month long adventure was a week in Puerta Ayoya on the island of Santa Cruz. We elected to stay at the Hotel Coloma located in a good area where everything was in walking distance. This is a quirky but adorable little hotel in a very good location. I was able to contact the office manager and arrange transportation directly from the Balta Airport. Because I was a bit nervous of taking the bus to the ferry to the taxi, the hotel had a driver meet me rig

Arrival in Balta- first thing you will notice is they you are o of the equator Getting to the Galapagos from Quito is no small task. Lots of moving pieces. Planes, buses, ferries, and a taxi. I’m going to write up our experience as if you were a 6 year old child because I wish someone had done this for me. Your downtown Quito hotel is about 40 minutes from Quito international airport. They recommend 3 hours early which means you leave the hotel about 4 hours early. For us tha

Representing the D in the Q Considering we fly to Maui annually, the flight to Quito was reasonably quick. Seven hours in the air with a 3 hour layover in the first class delta lounge in Atlanta. Let’s just say the mimosas were free flowing. Thanks to my churnjng game, I’m a ridiculous lounge lizard.. Before arriving in Ecuador there are some things you will need to complete. First, the Ecuador “visa”. It’s free and done online, but the language is Spanish with no option to t

Planning for the Galapagos was pretty intense. I typically like to book with people who contribute to online communities so my first contact was with Heather at CNHTours because she is a wealth of information on the trip advisor forum. Sadly, she just wasn't the right agent for me. She was really pushing the Samba as her agency has an affiliation with that boat. The Samba looked ok, and I'm sure that the Naturalist on the Samba would have been great, but the dining arrangemen