Flying out of Quito at the break of dawn was really beautiful and permitted my only view of the city. It is built on the sides of a volcano and at 10,000 feew altitude it is the second highest capital city in the world. La Paz Bolivia is the highest. I didn't feel the altitude but Carolyn felt quite light headed.Our flight to the Galapagos had us flying Quito – Guyaquil, short stop and on to the islands….sounds fine…..OMG! We were conc...

After chucking our bags, mine small, Carolyn's huge – into the 'princess suite’ and realizing that the two bags combined took up 100 % of the floor space, we were beckoned to our first of many briefings. It was these briefings that I had read about on Galapagos blogs and forums that scared me about signing up for 8 days. Seems like there was going to be a lot of planned events, lots of rules and not much debate or free time. Not the greate...