Galapagos Cruise - Guantanamera

As we wait to board flight back to mainland Ecuador where we'll spend a night before heading to Cotopaxi tomorrow, I am still buzzing with all that we've done and all that we've seen over the last few days.

Over the 5 days: We met Edwin, our guide for the cruise, who took us to our boat the "Guantanamera" where we spent the five days navigating the various islands of the Galapagos.

Our crew were great and very friendly and the meals on board were delicious, way beyond what we had expected and restaurant quality. The boat itself was very comfortable with a deck on top with loungers to look at the stars, whale watch or catch some sun during the little bit of free time that we had in an action packed few days.

We got on really well with the other tourists on board too. In total there were 16 of us; Myself, Lou, Alan and Duffy, three girls from New Zeland Tash, Verity and Emma, Chris and Shaun from the U.S., Rotem and Golan from Israel, Ben and Alicia from the U.K., Irv and Dana from the U.S., and Jonatan from Belgium.

Every day we would do a morning and an afternoon activity and these included; exploring the volcanic islands of the Galapagos by foot to see the wildlife and incredible geographical features, going out in the dingys to explore the different inlets around the islands for all types of land and marine life, visiting tortoise breathing centres to see how the species is being protected and re populated, visiting remote beaches and swimming with playful sea lions, and some of the best snorkelling I have ever done with amazing marine life on show.

Over these extraordinary five days we were lucky enough to see; lots of sea lions, penguins, marine iguanas swimming and clinging on to rocks under the water, yellow land iguanas fighting over territory, blue footed boobies, flightless cormorants diving through the water hunting fish, all different species of tortoise, spotted eagle rays, golden rays, manta rays jumping and gliding over the water, white tipped sharks, minca whales, friget birds, finches, pelicans, flamingos, star fish, bright red crabs, various types of coral, masses of different tropical fish, and dozens of massive turtles swimming gracefully through the waters.
It was the experience of a life time. The pictures really don't do it justice but I would suggest watching David Attenborough's three part series 'Galapagos' if you want to get a real idea of what the archipelago has to offer.