Iguanas crossing...

Sitting on the dock...

Galápagos penguins

Okay, this is too slow with the spotty wifi in our hotel room. Will post more/better pics after I'm home!

I have nothing on my bucket list except a trip to the Galapagos Islands. That will never happen so post lots - please.

Blue feet - very cool.

Wonderful! Can't wait to see more when you get home, Sue!
Have fun!
Lynn

Thank you! It's a dream trip for me too.

Blue footed boobies!!!! I love them!

Thanks so much for posting.

My 15 year old DD has a chance to go next year with her school. It is a lot of money for us, but we are going to try to swing it. Your pics are inspiring me to keep saving.

Thanks for the photos, Sue. Just love the blue-footed boobies! Well, I love all the wildlife. Have fun!

Love the pictures and waiting for the rest! Those lounging seals!

Love your pics, I am hoping to get there one day!

Some quick impressions from our trip. We have traveled quite a bit, but never to South America. This entailed two days of travel -- day one, Boston to Miami, 2 hour layover, then Miami to Guayaquil. Day two, Guayaquil to Baltra Island, then a tiny plane (like a minivan with wings, which scared the you-know-what out of me) to Isabela Island, where we stayed for 5 nights. I do realize that the "ideal" way to see the Galapagos is on a cruise, but we didn't want to do that.

Isabela is 97% national park! and you can't explore anything without a tour guide, so we had our own tour guide (for our family of 5) every day usually from about 8 am until anywhere from 1 to 3 pm. We went snorkeling several times in different locations, went to a tortoise breeding center, climbed a volcano (more on that in a minute), hiked through some jungle-y places, etc.

What we saw: lots of tortoises on sea and land, about a million iguanas, lots of sea lions, various birds including those fun blue footed boobies, who were doing their mating dance, manta rays, golden rays, sea horses (soo cool -- touched them too!), starfish, pelicans.

Everything on the island was extremely rustic. Dirt roads, ramshackle buildings, etc. To make a dinner reservation, you show up at a restaurant at least an hour or two ahead of time and ask if you can come for dinner. In most cases, the answer would be "chicken or fish?" And that was the menu! We did visit a few places with actual menus. Our favorite was a place called The Booby Trap, owned by an American who chatted with us every time and was very informative. We ate there a few times. Everything is open air, of course, and service is leisurely.

We were careful about not drinking the water and no one got sick. In our hotel, which was considered a "boutique" hotel, to save water the shower or sink shuts off after 8 seconds (but then you can turn it on again). We got used to that quickly. We also were not allowed to flush toilet paper. THAT was interesting. It wasn't terribly hot most of the time we were there, but it was humid so everything felt sort of damp. We felt safe at all times (we never left the hotel in Guayaquil, which I guess is not the safest place) and our tour guide told us the island has no crime.

I was definitely out of my comfort zone! The first day when we had to get in that tiny plane...yikes. The second day, we rode in a speed boat for 45 min to get to another little island and it was like a very long roller coaster ride. Not very enjoyable for my DS and I who both are prone to motion sickness. (But, that was the day we saw blue footed boobies, Galápagos penguins, and sea horses!)

One day we hiked up a volcano, 2 miles up and 2 miles down. No problem -- except that it was a little rainy and and entire route was muddy as heck, so it was tense going, trying not to fall. I fell once on the way up, DD fell once on the way down, and DS fell multiple times. We were covered in stinky mud by the time we were done, AND when we got up there, the "view" was of thick fog! No craters to be seen! So that was a test of endurance for us and we were all fine but muddy and disappointed that we didn't see what we set out to see.

Some more pics...

Here's me in the rain, covered in mud, with the non-view of the volcano.

A flamingo lagoon

My DD as co pilot!

Saw lots of these guys.

Sea lion in an otherwise abandoned boat

View from our room

The sea lions let us get up pretty close.

My oldest son and friends

At the tortoise breeding center.

These are just my phone pics. If everyone isn't already bored, I'll post some better pics within the next few days. DH operates the fancy camera!

don't stop posting pics, they are so nice !! seems like a dreamy destination and a fun time for all.

I'm so glad you had a nice time! Your phone pictures are better than the "real" pictures we took, especially of the blue footed boobies. You captured the color perfectly; it would make a great paint color!

Thanks for the peek into your wonderful trip. Please do keep posting pics. Enjoy them so much.

Thanks for sharing your pic and please continue. I'd love to see more.

How sick is it that my first thought of the blue footed birds was "I hope Annie makes a design seed of the picture" because the colors are so great.

Hh, that is funny. I like the palette in the pic of the sea lion in the boat!