The Galapagos Islands were at the top of our priority list of detours from the South American mainland. Our expectations were correspondingly high, and they were fully fulfilled.
For a week we were on the Galapagos archipelago with the catamaran Nemo II and 11 fellow travelers, 6 crew members and a guide. We visited 7 islands and made numerous snorkel trips to experience the fascinating underwater world. We rescued huge water turtles (which did not come into the cooling water fast enough at low tide), swam with sharks (supposedly no shark incident on the Galapagos has been recorded for 30 years) and had to fight for a place at the pier where sea lions occupied the park benches. We also got the „classic animal program“: Endemic Giant Land Tortoises, Blue-footed, Red-footed and Nasca Boobies, frigate birds with their red throat sack inflated at courtship, iguanas in huge numbers, and so on and so forth. In part, we actually felt like in Jurassic Parc. Everywhere there were animals that have no fear of people and therefore are in the middle of the way and make no move to leave. At each corner whistling, dashing, muttering, hissing, blowing and crawling.
The weather was nice and tropical (the Galapagos are right on the equator), the crew and the other guests relaxed, and overall we drove almost 1,000 km, mostly at night, through the archipelago. Although we had a fully equipped sailing catamaran, unfortunately we hardly came to sailing: the Galapagos do not have strong winds and the distances to be covered are just too long to “plodding”. It was also nice not to have to worry about anything, so again a “vacation” from traveling.
With the Galapagos, the Amazon, the volcanoes and crater lakes in the Sierra and the beautiful beaches, Ecuador is undoubtedly one of our highlights in South America so far – and all in such a small country. Coming soon to Northern Ecuador and to Colombia we are looking forward, after the many wonderful “holidays” of recent times, again on adventures and offroad-driving with Shujaa. We will keep you up to date.
