As I arrive in Ecuador, I have mixed feelings; I'm excited as the Galapagos Islands were always the pinnacle of the trip yet its May now which means I'll be back home this month. Time to think about where and when to book my flight home I guess - but before that, it's time to enjoy the short time I have in Ecuador.

I arrived in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador which is a city right on the equator and at around 2808 metres high, I must have already acclimatised to these heights from Bogota as I didn't suffer any altitude sickness. I got a taxi to Vibes Hostel however they were fully booked, so I checked in at the hostel opposite which was called Galapagos Hostel - it was a blessing in disguise. The hostel was run by an Ecuadorian family and they were lovely, they only spoke Spanish which was also great as I could practice. The dorm was only 4 single beds and cost $8 but that was with breakfast included; not just a normal crappy breakfast but fruit salad, eggs, fresh bread...yum. I booked myself in for 2 nights; as I arrived late on the first night I just chilled out and planned the day ahead.

The next day (my first full day in Quito) I sat down for breakfast with Carla and her friends; they were American and have lived in Ecuador for a year 'mas or menos' as part of their studying. Then I met Amy who also arrived last night, an English girl to have a bit of banter with, so that was good. After desayuno and a bit of catching up with writing my blogs, Amy and myself got a map and walked the city for the rest of the day finding all the tourist spots. I'm not particularly a city fan, it was good but just another big city; on the plus side there were plenty of restaurants and tour operators that spoke English.

I read in the Lonely Planet and they mentioned if you book last minute for the Galapagos cruises you can get some really good deals, as the boats would rather get some money for the berths than leave them empty. I visited "Happy Gringo" tour operator, the place was very professional and the tours were explained with great detail, these are definitely the people I want to book my trip from. I had two options that were leaving the next day on a 5 day tour of the Galapagos Islands and I chose a small sail boat as it looked amazing, only had 15 passengers and an excellent rated English speaking guide. It visited all the islands I was hoping for and I got 60% off the price...all food included; done, its booked. Early in the evening the owners of the hostel invited us all to learn how to cook empanadas. Empanadas are small pastry sweet or savoury snacks, similar to a mini Cornish pasties. So we learned how to cook cheese and banana filled empanadas, it was really nice of them to do this for us and gave us as many as we wanted to eat afterwards; that's probably because most of them were edible but they tasted damn good; especially the ones I made! In the evening I visited the bar in Vibes hostel and the Irish bar on the corner with Amy and a guy she met in Peru, was a pretty good night and very drunken!

Although I was pretty smashed the night before, I couldn't sleep too well, probably from the excitement of visiting the Galapagos Islands the next day. I was up early and made my way to the airport for my flight to Baltra. At the airport you have to pay $100 as an entrance fee to get on to the islands, all the costs really do add up if you want to visit Galapagos and is especially tough for your normal backpacker but for me you can't go to South America without visiting Galapagos! I flew with Tame outbound and AeroGal on the return journey, the flights are not included in the boat tour package and they are approx $500 for a return. On arrival at Isla Baltra airport, I found the guide for "Sagitta" which was our sail boats name and met all the others who will also be on the boat for the 5 day tour. The group was totally mixed with all ages and English, Danish, Israeli, Dutch, Kiwi, Canadian nationalities.

Upon boarding the Sagitta, we got introduced to the crew and were assigned our cabins, luckily as I was a lone traveller I got my own bunk bed room. The room was small but perfect for one person, the bed was so comfortable and the shower was hot and powerful...in fact I think it is probably the best room I have had all trip! During this introduction and unpacking time, the boat sailed to Isla Seymour where we would have our first trip in the last afternoon/evening. This trip was a dingy motor powered boat ride around the Isla Seymour where we spotted various birds including the blue and red footed boobies (hahaha boobies!) and a number of jumping fish, turtles and a black tipped Galapagos shark which circled the boat in a playful manner. That evening, like all evenings we had a sit down three course meal and it was a good time to get to know all the other guests better, there were some groups and couples but as a lone traveller I had to be more forward than most, as they all had their own comfort zones to hide in if needed. I immediately got along with everyone, they were a great group.

Whilst tucked up in my very comfortable bunk bed, the captain sailed us to our next destination which was Isla Genovesa - we arrived about 4am, I know this as however comfortable I was, I couldn't stay sleeping with the racket of the anchor going down. Our morning activity was a hike on the island, then snorkelling and after lunch was another hike. We arrived at the first destination for our hike; we were greeted by a large sea lion and his baby...the baby sea lion took an immediate interest in us and waddled over yapping (or whatever the wold for a sea lion's roar is)! Last night's boat trip was okay but nothing compared to today, everything here amazed me, I have never seen so many birds and all of them unique to the Galapagos, so you will not see them anywhere else in the world. The hike trail was laid out clearly and the ground rules were set out, no touching the animals, keep a distance of 2 metres, no taking anything away from the islands, no littering and stay well within the boundaries set out by the national park authorities. The rules were there to preserve what is a truly unique place for future generations to enjoy. They have done a good job in preserving the islands as the animals clearly don't see humans as any kind of threat and instead they treat us with the same curiosity as we treat them with. The trek lasted a couple of hours, we spotted various birds including the big red gobble neck bird; if you can't picture it either look at my photos or think of it as a 'gobble gobble neck' red Rogers. There were other birds like the Nasca and red footed boobies (haha bobbies) and lots of others that I can't remember the names of but were amazing to see. Even the birds are not afraid of us, in fact one decided to land and sit on John's head!! After some good bird spotting we had a dip in the sea for some more bird spotting, (this time they were wearing bikinis) before heading back out on the dingy boat that would take us to the snorkelling destination. I couldn't wait to get into the waters for my first Galagagos snorkelling experience. Well it didn't disappoint, although I didn't see any sharks - there were plenty of schools of fish, like being in a fish tank. The highlight was definitely snorkelling with sea lions and seals that would playfully swim around you if they do not feel threatened, the adult sea lions were huge on land but in the water they seemed like giants; they would swim towards you and swim around you at the last minute, truly amazing.

Back on the main sail boat and lunch was served; an amazing three course lunch, I'm certainly not going to go hungry! The late afternoon hike was reached by the dingy boat, and then we had to climb up some stairs in the rock face to reach the top, where we would see one large nest for birds. The whole island really was like a birds nest, they were everywhere different kind to birds some prey, some predators but all amazing. Here I saw a Galapagos hawk, an owl that is the only non-nocturnal bread of owls in the Galapagos and many of the same birds I have already seen but in bigger quantities.

Day three, halfway through my trip but let's not put a downer on what is going to be another spectacular day. We were now at Isla Bartelome after another night sailing to this destination and the schedule of the day was going to be; in the morning we would do the Bartelome 365 steps followed by snorkelling, then in the afternoon after lunch there was a hike at Sullivan's bay. Today we were up very early before sun rise, so we were on the Bartelome Island for about 6:15am. This island was the last large eruption to happen in Galapagos at around 100 years ago, here there was little life but the views were spectacular. Saying that I did see various reptiles, a hawk and some brightly coloured red crabs. We then headed back to the main boat for breakfast before we headed out to a nearby beach where we would snorkel from. After about 15 minutes of snorkelling I found myself alone in the deep blue, up until this point I just saw schools of fish and sea lions that are amazing but I have already experienced them; then I turned around and to my amazement there was a shark about 10 metres away swimming in my general direction. It was not in an aggressive manner and I read a lot of the Galapagos shark books on the sail boat, so was able to identify it as a white tipped reef shark and is not aggressive only when threatened. I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared because I was, my heart certainly started beating a little faster and my breathing through the snorkel increased. As the shark got closer I was able to see its size better and was in the vicinity of 2metres long and it just swam straight passed me as if I wasn't there and into the distance fading away as I tried to swim in the same direction. Get in there; my first experience of swimming with a shark and it was amazing - the only problem now I'll be looking for a bigger thrill which means bigger more dangerous sharks! Later on in the snorkelling session, I saw a turtle, stingray and various fish with the most unusual being various puffer fish, reef cornet fish and colourful starfish. That afternoon was our second hike of the day at Sullivan's Bay. This island was totally baron it was a reasonably new island with new lava flows, so nothing can grow here and if nothing can grow it cannot sustain life. I have never seen a landscape like it; there were different cinders and craters caused by the volcanoes and differences in the colour of the earth. The darker the rock/earth the newer it is, there were areas around the volcanoes where the rock has been broken down to earth and is redish in colour and is starting to show signs of supporting plant life. Then you can see where the island has had another eruption and the dark black lava flow has hardened on top of the older lava. There were a few small retiles here as they could feed of small flies and there were some life on the coastal fringes of the island, including crabs and some penguins swimming in the shores.

Day four turned out to be my favourite day and here is why...in the morning we has a hike planned at Rabida then a snorkel of the nearby beach that we would trek to, then in the afternoon there was a hike at Cerro Dragon followed by an evening cocktail with the crew to party and send us off in style. The mornings hike was the most beautiful yet; we trekked on a red sand landscape with cacti and amazing views throughout. Flamingos on this particular island are rare to see but lucky for us shortly into the hike we spotted about six flamingos resting in the shallow waters standing up resting on one leg...flamingos, tick! This island was more about the landscape but there were still plenty of iguana reptiles, birds and plants to view. The hike ended on the red sand beach, where we started our snorkelling from. I went out with Shirley and Yael as apparently I'm a good 'spotter' but as it turned out, they were the ones that spotted the first shark and alerted me. We all swam with this particular shark for a very long time, probably around 15 minutes as it circled below us; this particular shark was again a white tipped reef shark. Then we were treated by another two sharks joining in on the excitement, another white tipped reef shark followed by a Galapagos black tipped shark...and if that was not enough an adult sea lion joined in on the mix swimming amongst the sharks chasing small schools of fish. After this drama I continued snorkelling and managed to see another shark, some barracudas, many more sea lions and a pelican diving in to the water to grab a fish! The final activity of the day, Cerro Dragon was home to a large number of reptiles, mainly large land iguanas and it didn't disappoint on more than one occasion our path was blocked by a land iguana who certainly had no intention of moving to let us past, so we had to creep past slowly leaving a safe distance so the iguanas didn't feel threatened. We finished this trek as sunset was kicking in and produced the most stunning views as it set behind the cacti with the water and sail boats in the background. That evening we had our cocktails with the crew, said our thanks and had a few more drinks to bid farewell as the next day was just a short 30minute visit to sea lion and seal island for sunrise then we had to head back to Isla Baltra where the 5 day boat cruise would end.

Day five and the final day for the boat trip albeit it was only a couple of hours of the day and not the full day. We were up early to get to a small island which was full of sea lions and seals sleeping or playing in the sea. We arrived as they were waking up, so we watched the baby's feed from their mother, the young playing in the water and the Father's with the morning grump on! About 200 photos later I was back on the main sail boat and heading to Isla Baltra where we would disembark. I said my goodbyes to everyone on the boat who made my experience of the Galapagos an enjoyable one.

I had one final day to arrange for myself, so I joined Nanna and Andreas; the lovely Danish couple on their journey from Isla Baltra to Isla Santa Cruz. On the way through the highlands we stopped off to take a trek to view the giant tortoises in the wild doing errrr very little really, except chewing a blade of grass and just standing still - yet I was still in awe because as they do not have any natural predators they live for over 200 years in some cases and they are huge...they looked good for 200 years!! When we arrived at Santa Cruz town, I checked into the same hotel as Nanna and Andreas it was a bit pricey for a backpackers budget ($80 for a private room including breakfast) but then again everything on the Galapagos was expensive so it's nice to splash out once in a while. After check-in myself and Andreas went straight to a Scuba dive. The dive was supposed to be for PADI experienced divers, so it was a crash course in diving for me on the boat as I would have to control my own buoyancy and check the amount of oxygen I have left in my tank and apparently understand all their hand signals; which I have never done before. As it turned out, there were two guide divers, so one did help me out a lot especially with the buoyancy which was tricky to get it right. We did two dives, both 45 minutes long and was bloody tiring but good. I say good because I would say I saw more whilst snorkelling to be honest. One thing I did see was another shark but this time it was BIG, at least twice the size of any of the ones I have seen before on this trip.

So that's it, the Galapagos Islands have been amazing and the highlight of my trip so far, I really would recommend it to everyone - it is a must do! Next stop Costa Rica.