The Galapagos Islands are truly an amazing place – tons of wildlife, but simply unafraid of people. Here are our tips for getting there, having an authentic experience, and not overpaying!

1. Fly through Quito. It’s a much safer city than Guayaquil and there are actually things to do there (unlike Guayaquil). Even in Quito you have to be careful though, FYI.
2. Book last-minute, unless you’re visiting between June and August (due to it being the high season, with school and summer vacations in the US and Europe).
3. You can either book last-minute in Quito or in Santa Cruz (flight would be to “Baltra”, then).
4. There are two types of tours: speedboat, and cruise ship. We did speedboat tours – they’re usually cheaper than the cruises, and you stay in hotels on the different islands (which is kind of cool, you can see different restaurants and bars).
5. The standard tour goes to about 8 different islands, including the 4 populated ones. These can range from 4 days to 8 or 10. 8 or 10 days is probably too long for just those islands.
6. A good “cheap” price target should probably be between $120-$140 per day, all meals and hotels included. Expect to pay more to rent snorkel gear, but not much.
7. There are lots of other beautiful islands, like Bartolome. They don’t get included on the standard tours; if you go for a much longer cruise (10+ days), it might be included on your cruise (expect this to be a bit pricier, though).
8. If you think you might like it and can budget for it, plan your flights so that you spend 3-5 extra days on Santa Cruz after your tour. You can jump onto one or two all-day tours that are really cool and worthwhile. Again, price between $120-$140 per day for these. A lot of them (like Bartolome) start really early – think 5 am pickup, because it’s a 4-hour boat trip, and the marina is an hour’s drive from the town.

Want to see some of our Galapagos photos? Check them out here.

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We spent some time in Galapagos, as you know. This gives you a by-the-numbers view of our experience; check out our Galapagos posts for the stories, and if you want to read more about our travels in Ecuador, read our Ecuadorian posts.

• Days on the islands: 30
• Days at the volunteer station: 17
• Days with cold showers: 19
• Days with hot showers: 10
• German words learned: 5
• Trees felled: 23
• Blackberry bushes cut: 627
• Mosquito bites received: 134
• Blackberry bushes cut per bite received: 4.7
• Rats seen: 5
• Mice seen: 2
• Wild pigs heard: 3
• Spiders seen: 10
• Endemic trees planted: 15
• Books read: 8
• Days spent in Wellington rubber boots: 17
• Islands seen: 9
• Sea lions seen: 312
• Crabs seen: 72
• Penguins seen: 3
• Birds seen: 27
• Iguanas seen: 78
• Dolphins seen: 4
• Tortoises seen: 267
• Times we caught a “runaway” tortoise: 1
• How long he had been running: 4 months
• How far he got: 20 kilometers

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As you know, we spent a month living and volunteering on the galapagos islands. It was a really interesting experience, and we learned a ton, about natural selection, conservation living and work, and how to chop mora (blackberries)! We lived in the cloudforest zone of the islands (no, I didn’t know that they had one either), and our best gear was protective. What was it?

• Dry bags. These were AWESOME! Even though we were in the super-humid cloud forest for a month, the dry bags kept mold and mildew from piling up on our clothing and gear. If you spend more than a week in a rainforest, bring dry bags to store all your stuff.
  We each brought two dry bags with us on the trip (GraniteGear AirVent Reduction DryBlocs that we bought at REI), and picked up one more each in Quito. They held our winter clothes, our summer clothes that we weren’t wearing at Jatun Sacha, and our reserve meds and toiletries.
• Travel hats (by Tilley and Columbia). We used these every day in the cloudforest. They were great to keep the bugs and the rain off of our heads, and to provide a support for our facenets when we wore them (which was almost every day for the final two weeks). When we weren’t at the station, they were great protection from the sun!
• Bugspray.We cannot say enough about this. We put it on 5 or 6 times per day:
  1. In the morning before we got dressed
  2. Right before the morning work started (8am)
  3. At our juice break (10am)
  4. On our way to lunch (12pm)
  5. Right before afternoon work (2pm)
  6. After showering (afternoon, when work was done) (4:30pm)

  If we missed an area, it was really bad (e.g., on Monday of the last week, stef didn’t cover her wrists, and got about 15 bites in the morning work session). Needless to say, everyone at Jatun Sacha loved OFF and DEET.

So that’s what helped us most in the galapagos. We were a bit surprised, but it worked out really well!

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Our month in Galapagos can be described as a month in the rainforest/jungle, with a few three-day breaks of island tours.

Stef explained this dichotomy really well in her post Galapagos: Beauty and the Beasts (note that I´m riffing on her use of Beauty and Beasts…)

We spent four weeks (four- and five-day weeks) working on a farm in the San Cristobal highlands. While there, we:

• cut down blackberry bushes and small trees (with machetes), large trees (with a chainsaw)
• built a 50-foot wooden walking path
• built a set of stairs
• cleaned 40 pairs of rubber “Wellington” walking boots
• dug a bunch of deep post holes (without a post-hole digger)
• pulled a couple of hundred oranges off of trees
• squeezed those oranges to make juice
• were bitten by several thousand mosquitos
• spent all of our time walking around in hideously uncomfortable rubber Wellington boots, covered in bugspray

We learned a lot, had some real fun, met some really cool people (Ceasar, Hernan, and the Socken family for starters), and walked around in a LOT of mud. These photos are of that side of the Galapagos. If you want to see the pure beauty of the Galapagos, check out our posts on the islands and on the animals. You’ll see roasting pigs, bonfires, crazy showers and sinks. Of course there is lots of mud! And you’ll see the Huntsman spider (the size of your hand) who adopted us and guarded our bedpost every night – at least, that’s what we chose to believe…

See what I mean by the pictures…

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Obviously the island of the Galapgos are beautiful, but the native species (both flora and fauna) make it interesting. We put together sets of photos of the different animals for you to check out. Keep in mind, I didn’t have a big (telephoto) lens when shooting these pictures – the animals really were that close!
Click on each picture to see more of that animal…

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Stef and I lived on the Galapagos for a month, and were lucky enough to visit 7 or 8 of the 15 or so islands in the archipelago. You know them as the inspiration for Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, but they have a checkered past. As different islands were colonized, different individuals seized and lost power. Now it’s different of course, as 97% of the archipelago is protected Ecuadorian national park, and tourism drives the economy. I would like to show you five islands today – the four islands with human settlements and Bartolome, the most picturesque of the islands (based on the number of Galapagueran calendars that begin with it).

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Well, we have been in the Galapagos for about 3.5 weeks and I have to say, it is as amazing as everyone says. The wildlife on land and in the sea is pretty phenomenal- and the animals are unafraid of people, so they will swim or walk right up to you. So far we´ve seen giant turtles (absolutely amazing- our guide said that the giant turtles of the Galapagos were Steven Spielberg´s inspiration for ET- which makes me like ET more), blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, lava gulls, flamingos (so cool!), Galapagos penguins (the only tropical penguins), dolphins, sharks, angel fish, sea lions, yellow finches, sally lightfoot crabs, and chocolate chip sea stars.

We´ve also seen giant spiders (the size of dessert plates), black rats, fire ants and mosquitos that will swarm you if you aren´t doused in DEET. Ah yes, there are two sides to the Galapagos- the gorgeous beaches, snorkeling and wildlife that you see when you do the tours and the more challenging conditions and work of conservation and returning the islands to their original state.

I never knew that so many invasive species of plants and animals had been introduced to the Galapagos- but the impact is unmistakable. Jatun Sacha, the volunteer station where we are working, is located on an old farm that has been taken over by mora (blackberry bushes) and maracuya (passion fruit trees). These plants choke out the endemic plants on the island, eliminating food sources for many of the animals. Since the Galapagos is a tiny system in which the impact of changes to the plants and animals are easily seen, it is very clear what a strong and negative impact these invasive species have on the plants and animals here.

In addition, the animals and insects that have been introduced to the islands through human contact (black rats and fire ants to n ame two) are predators of the animals. They also make life on the volunteer station interesting- nothing like chasing off rats at night to keep you alert! And Matt has learned a lot about moving giant spiders out of our room without hurting them (blowing on them works quite well).

• Matt adds: Check out Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams to learn more about the fragility of island ecology and how difficult it is to conserve island-based species. (Yes, he wrote The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and Last Chance to See is pretty humorous, but he wrote it with an accomplished zoologist – it does explain these dynamics really well)

We´ve felt very fortunate to see so much more of the islands and the work that goes into conserving these beautiful places- and to have a very personal sense of the commitment and work that it entails. Nothing like cutting down mora bushes with a machete (a large portion of the work that is needed here) to remind you of how hard reforestation is!

Matt has pictures to post of both our tours (a day trip around San Cristobal, and a 4 day cruise of the four inhabited islands- San Cristobal, Isabela, Floreana, and Santa Cruz ) and our work on the volunteer station. So keep an eye out for sea lions and giant spiders!

In terms of travel plans, we are shifting things around a bit to allow for more time to travel in mainland Ecuador before our visa runs out. So we will be in the Galapagos for another 2 weeks, then head back to Quito, Ecuador and begin traveling south to Riobamba and Cuenca before landing in Arequipa, Peru. There is so much to see and it just seems like more and more places appeal to us as we travel! All in all, a good problem to have.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and emails- we love hearing from you! Keep them coming- and just remember, we´d love to have visitors!!

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Hey everyone,

By now we will have landed on the galapagos for our volunteer program. We´re really excited about it – we´ll be working on the Jatun Sacha foundation station on san cristobal island for all of August and September.

This was coordinated by GVI.

Our internet access will be really limited, so if you don´t hear from us before October, that´s why. Please keep reading and commenting though – we´ll update you when we can!

Thanks
-Stef & Matt

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