I have always wanted to go to the Galapagos Islands mainly to see the unique wildlife that lived on these islands, mainly the marine iguanas as they are the only one’s in the world that swim and feed off algae on the shore and under water. I had not realised until 2 weeks before we went to the islands that they were also home to penguins – which I love almost as much. I was under strict instructions from my husband not to bring back an iguana – spoil sport ! Obviously I know that wildlife can be temperamental and that I may not see Iguanas or penguins as they maybe very shy – I just had to keep everything crossed that we would actually see the animals that I wanted to – read on to here the first day of this amazing trip.
We caught the plane from Quito in Ecuador to Guayaquil in equator at 9.45am and then onto Baltra airport in the Galapagos islands, we arrived about 12.30pm
These were the first views of Galapagos islands that we saw. I was so excited and still a little shell shocked that we were actually there.
We headed to the quay to meet the panga (small motorised rib holding about 11 people), on the quay we saw a mother sea lion breastfeeding her pup which was so cute, then we saw a marine iguana sunbathing – wow !
Ok I have seen the main reason I came to this part of the world!
There were 2 more sea lions playing in the sea and a dozen more snoozing under the small quay there we’re also 2 by the front of the quay and we had to basically walk over them to get to the panga – silly creatures.
We got on the Eclipse boat which has 28 cabins holding about 44 people. We were upgraded so instead of sharing a room with dad we had our own rooms opposite each other. I had a lovely room with a double bed, 2 porter cabin windows and nice bathroom with shower.
We then had a lovely lunch with 3 different wines, a safety briefing, getting our snorkelling kits – I had taken my short wetsuit and snorkel/mask we were then ready to go on our first walk on the islands at Las Bachas beach on Santa Cruz island.
