Galapagos Islands

We knew it would be a tight/long drive from Ibarra to Guayaquil but we didn’t really think that we’d arrive to the airport just a few hours before our flight without time to search for cheaper parking than the airport parking lot, but that is exactly how it went down. In my memory it was a little like us sliding into the parking lot wheels and breaks squealing and smoking and sprinting for the departure gate, but it wasn’t quite that bad. But let’s not let that shadow the point of this blog post, The Galapagos Islands.

Oh man, so where to start with the Galapagos. Talk about amazing. Each day there was like walking through a National Geographic magazine.

For me this part of our trip fulfilled a long time dream that I had planned countless spring breaks and vacations around since I was 15. Being from the land locked state of Colorado, I have always wanted to swim with sea turtles. Well within the first hour of arriving on the island of San Cristobal we saw one swimming off shore and I was so excited I couldn’t believe it. The next morning we went snorkeling at Kicker Rock and I saw more than 5 sea turtles. At one point I couldn’t believe my luck swimming just feet above one, and before I could explain what was happening, there were 5 sharks just swimming in a circle around it. Almost speechless, I looked to my left and saw a pair of sea lions headed right for me. One of them nudged my hip with his nose gave me a grin and kept on swimming.

Keep in mind we didn’t have a zoom lens but we were still able to capture so much - I’ll let the photos below speak for themselves.