During the early hours of this morning the boat moved to the north of the island called San Cristobal, to a spot called Point Pitt. As promised Mauricio woke us at 5.30 am to the mind-sticking tune of Billy Joel's Piano Man) for a 6.00 am departure to the Island. Among many of the restrictions on tourism to the Galapagos is that access to the islands is only permitted between the hours of 6am - 6 pm and our early trip was designed to allow us 2 hours on the i...

Day 3 at the Galapagos. Early this morning while we were sleeping the boat we headed to Espanola (Island) with plans for this morning at Point Suarez and in the afternoon on the beach at Gardner Bay...We made a quick getaway after breakfast in an attempt to get onto the island ahead of other groups from boats moored nearby (see pic) and a big group coming in on a day trip. A dry landing onto shore with a very rocky walk for about 2.5 hours ahead of us. The first...

Well here I am, first full day in, on or should I say around the Galapagos? As promised, the boat shifted during the night and we awoke to find ourselves quite close to the Island of Sante Fe. I was aware that the engines started at 4 am and that we were moving, but to tell you the truth the, what was very gentle, movement of the shop was not disturbing at all. As I result I had a great nights sleep and was well and truly ready for a full day of activity.....But ...

Fortunately the hotel early riser call system worked very well and Diane and I were well and truly washed, packed, checked out and a coffee down the hatch by the time our lift arrived at the hotel for the 45 min to the airport.Interestingly until about 2+ years ago, Quito's airport was in the centre of the city. As the city is in a large valley, Quito is only a few kms wide and 14+kms long. It doesn't take much imagination to work out that with more and m...