Before I tell you about the Galapagos Islands, I want to mention a few travel misadventures we had along the way. On this trip we had 10 flights and 16 trips thru customs/security. On one of our flights we had a medical emergency-it all turned out okay for both the guy and our connecting flight, but having an ambulance meet the plane is an interesting experience. In one airport they thought our bags were too heavy, so we repacked 15 minutes before the flight left (underwear flying everywhere). And on one of our connections our original flight was cancelled, so the gate agent crossed out our original flight and wrote a new flight in pen on the boarding pass. Uh, okay.
But the biggest misadventure happened upon our arrival into Galapagos. We missed the memo stating that you need to pay $100/person, in cash, the minute you get off the plane. Of course there are no ATM's at the airport, that would be silly. So, the Galapagos government confiscated our passports until we paid the fee. We were finally able to find an ATM, so with the $200 and the receipt below we were able to obtain our passport later that day. Good times.
Okay, back to the beautiful Galapagos Islands. The archipelago is made up of 18 main islands-we only visited 4. The islands are near the equator, and receive ocean currants that have allowed a rich variety of marine animals. The water is a beautiful shade of turquoise blue.
Our first hotel location, the Red Mangrove Aventura lodge
I'm not usually much of a bird watcher but I liked the bright colors on this yellow warbler.
The lodge that we stayed had a few resident sea lions. This little guy was chilling while we were eating breakfast.
Leave the new hotel guests alone.
We were on a tour with Red Mangrove, and they kept us busy with various adventures. On our first day we visited the giant tortoises that are only found in the Galapagos. We shimmied into the shells to see just how big and heavy they are.
These guys are HUGE-they can weigh up to 600lbs.
Now can you see the scale? They live to be about 150 years old.
I hope you like pictures of sea lions and tortoises, because I took plenty. The sea lions are just so stinking cute!
This guy was planning his escape route on his boat.
Snuggle buddies.
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