Las Islas Galápagos, part 1

I can guarantee that describing my experience at the Galapagos Islands is going to be a challenge without showing a video of my entire week stay there, but I'll try my best. Cruising around the Galapagos in an amazing boat, snorkeling and hiking every day, and seeing the most fantastic creatures can only make me want to do anything to go back. Also, I'm losing my ridiculous tan at an unflattering rate, and would like to keep looking at least semi-Ecuadorean.

I don't think I've ever been so tan.

To start our adventure, we flew directly from Quito to Isla Baltra, also known as North Seymour Island (all the islands have at least one Spanish name and one English name, which isn't confusing at all). We soon arrived at the Santa Cruz, our home in the water for 5 days. It was a gorgeous cruise with more old people than we would have preferred, but it seems it's the thing to do when you're 65 years old and retired. The food was amazing for the most part, minus the weird vegetarian mush at dinner, and I had my fair share of pan de yuca every morning at the breakfast buffet. Also, fresh cheese was provided at every meal, and who am I to turn down delicious cheese?

M/V Santa Cruz, the only boat I've ever been on

that came with chocolates on my pillow every night.

Anyway, along with our cruise we had a guide assigned to our group, who always had to be with us on the islands, by law. Our guide, Edison, was from Santa Cruz and was really knowledgable about all the ecology of the Galapagos. He brought us to all the best snorkeling places, and he seemed to be relieved to be with a group of college students rather than another group of elderly tourists.

Edison and our group in one of the Santa Cruz's pangas.

We visited five of the islands in the archipelago: Santa Cruz, Baltra, Isabela, Fernandina, and Floreana. All the islands had something different to offer, from lush highlands to underwater caves to awesome lava tunnels. My descriptions of all these amazing places only go so far, so I shall try my best to supplement with some of the hundreds of photos I took. There will definitely be more posts to come with more details, but for now, here are some teasers:

 I don't think it's possible for baby sea lions to get any cuter.

We got to go snorkeling inside this awesome cave. 

Just one of the tons of amazing beaches we got to stop by. 

Also, there are tons of sea turtle nests right behind the photographer of this picture!