Today we start the galapagos tour. I'm sharing the hotel room, and later the ship cabin with Andrew, an guy from Sydney. It turns out that we are the only ones who joined the tour on their own, while everyone else came with friends or family - so I'm glad to a have a guy of similar age and spirit in my room.

In the hotel (the Hilton!!!) we met our tourmates. It turned out to be a good idea to take one of the cheapest boats. I already saw myself amongst a mixture of retired people and investment bankers - but fortunately the people appear to be great. Most of them between 30 and 40, and really nice and interesting.

After a sleepless night (was too excited about the trip), we fly into Galapagos and board our boat, the "Daphne" (see pic), which is a nice 20 m boat with a spacious living room, a small and cosy restaurant and a sun deck. The cabins are tiny, and the beds are really hard, but I guess there's no free lunch. We meet our tour guide, Daniel, an Ecuadorian who lives on the Galapagos (Santa Cruz), and who seems to be a fun guy. I am so looking forward to this...