Revisiting the Galapagos

No, we're not revisiting our beloved Galapagos Islands in real life, just in the blogosphere. I realized that I never really blogged much about our honeymoon. I had intended to create a whole website devoted to our trip with day by day recaps of our adventures, but like so many things, I never got around to it. Since today is officially the two year anniversary of our trip, I figured I'd share some photos and video of our most amazing adventure to "Las Islas Encantadas" or "the enchanted islands." Hold on tight, it's a long recap but totally worth the read!

We spent the first day and night of our honeymoon getting to the country of Ecuador. After a night on the mainland, we took a two hour flight that brought us to the Galapagos Islands. Our first stop was to the island of San Cristobal. It is one of the largest of the 18 islands that make up the famous archipelago. We were greeted almost immediately by our private guide, Richard. In order to protect the natural environment visitors are only allowed to enter the national parks in the Galapagos with a guide. Every guide has to be a life long resident of the Galapagos and is trained as a naturalist. Throughout the trip Richard provided us with a rich history of the islands and its people and of course all of the plants and animals we came across during our week long stay. He also took us out at night to meet with the locals and took us to places "off the itinerary" so to speak so that we could experience the Galapagos in ways that many other travelers don't get to. He was awesome. Not only did he make sure our honeymoon was perfect, but his passion for his job and his islands were obvious from the minute we met him.

Upon arriving, Richard dropped us off at our accommodations and told us it was time for our afternoon "siesta" or nap. At first, we were just anxious to get out and see things but after a few days, we began to love our siesta time. It's definitely something Americans should do more often!

The way our trip was planned, we spent a few nights on three different islands and took day trips from our land based location. Every place we stayed on our journey was fantastic and the food was to die for! Fish and fresh fruit and vegetables for every meal, even breakfast. It was so fresh and delicious because everything grown on the islands must be organic by law in order to protect the environment. All of the fish are reel caught and bought and sold daily at local markets. I've never felt so healthy at the end of a vacation as I did when we got home from our honeymoon, haha.

Our breakfast nook and view from our room

Nom, nom, nom...

After our siesta, we set off on our first hike. We explored the San Cristobal Visitors Center and learned about the history of the islands and of course, the Voyage of the HMS Beagle that brought a young Charles Darwin to the Galapagos in September of 1835. It was on that expedition that Darwin famously made observations about the distinct variations between species of finches and giant tortoises found on each island. His observations greatly influenced the development of his theory of natural selection which explained evolution and were described in his publication On the Origin of Species. So you see, this trip was not only about seeing and feeling an extraordinary natural environment, but as a young scientist it was something of a dream to see and feel all of the things Darwin experienced 175 years before our visit and know how they influenced the way we think today.

Darwin Bay where the HMS Beagle was anchored in 1835


For such a smart guy, you think they could have at least made Darwin's head a little bigger

On our way back to the hotel, we had our first encounter with the famous Galapagos sea lions. They are famous because of their complete lack of insecurity around all other animals, including humans. In fact, what's so unique about the Galapagos is that all of the animals have evolved to have very few natural predators. Because of this, nothing is afraid of you. Birds, reptiles, even fish will approach you with no fear. This allowed us to get so close to animals you could only dream about seeing up close anywhere else. It was spectacular if not somewhat unnerving at times.

Sleepy sea lions didn't even know I was there


Darwin's famous finches, about a foot away from our toes


Even the crabs couldn't care less...

We spent the follow two days exploring San Cristobal by land and by sea. We climbed the to the highest fresh water lake in the Galapagos, Laguna El Junco, located in a volcanic crater high in the lush uplands of the island. We opted for mountain bikes on the trip down from the crater which was an exhilarating way to take in the scenery as the landscape changed from rainforest to desert before our eyes. We kayaked through Darwin Bay and had encounters with sea lions, sea birds and even spotted a far off whale tale. We took a boat tour around the island, spotting rare species and stopping along the way to snorkel at Kicker Rock where we saw tropical fish, sharks and sea turtles. And of course, we had several encounters with the giant Galapagos land tortoises.

Whale fins at Kicker Rock








Notice anything funny about that sign?

Giant tortoise = giant poop.

Our next stop on our trip was Isabela Island. I think the flight over to the island was the scariest part of our whole trip. I'd take swimming with sharks over that any day!

Isabela Island was my favorite of all the islands we visited on our trip. The island is the largest island in area but has a much smaller population than the other inhabited islands. The locals are friendly and the atmosphere was so relaxing. The island itself is stunning and largely untouched and the beaches were the most spectacular beaches I've ever visited.

Isabela Island had a lot to share with us. Marine iguanas thrive on this island. These prehistoric looking iguanas are huge and like all other animals in the Galapagos, allowed us to get up close and personal with them. We also saw lots of Blue Footed Boobie birds, reef sharks, sea turtles and Galapagos penguins, the only penguins that live in warm weather climate.

While on Isabela, we visited the highlands where Richard took us deep within the National Park to a volcanic crater. Locals had set up a series of ropes and ladders that took you deep into the crater. It was really amazing to rappel deep into the earth like that and it was so exciting to go somewhere that few tourists get to visit.

When we got back to our hotel, we found wine and chocolates waiting for us and the best meal of the trip ready for our hungry bellies. Later that night, Richard took us out to meet his friends who all welcomed us in with Caipirnhas (pronounced Kai-Pee-Reen-Yas) in hand. Caipirnha is a popular mixed drink in South America and as we found out, Ecuadorians like the make them strong! We had a blast that night but I'm pretty sure I may have had one too many Caipirnhas because I was hurting the next day, especially during the long boat ride from Isabela to the island of Santa Cruz where we would wrap up our week long adventure in the Galapagos.

Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Galapagos and is the most inhabited. Of all the islands, this one was the busiest and most touristy so we only spent one night, our last in the Galapagos, on this island. Upon our arrival at our hotel, we were greeted by Norman, a one-winged pelican that frequented the pool area and lived off scraps from the kitchen. He was quite a sight and made sure you knew he ruled the pool.

We had a day to spend on Santa Cruz island so we toured the Charles Darwin Research Station, visited the organic coffee bean farms and stocked up on provisions to bring back home with us, explored a huge lava tube which was formed many years ago by volcanic activity on the island, and of course, saw more amazing wildlife along the way.

Coffee beans


Heading into the lava tube


Siesta time for the land iguana

And then, well before we were ready to leave, it was time to head back to the mainland. We said our final goodbyes to Richard and boarded our flight back to Quito, the capitol city of Ecuador.

We had decided during the planning stages of our trip to spend an extra day in Quito before coming home. I'm glad we did this but if I could go back and repeat the trip, I would have planned this day ahead of our trip to the Galapagos. Quito is a city rich in history and culture, but it is so vastly different from the Galapagos that the experience of being in a big unfamiliar city, where very few people speak English and there's no Richard in sight, was a little disorienting to say the least. We managed to make the most of it though and toured what we could on foot, amazed by the architecture, especially some of the old churches.

We also managed to find our way to the Teleferico, a gondola that took us high into the mountains. We hiked around for awhile but it wasn't long before we felt the effects of the 13,500 ft elevation. Still, the views were spectacular, even through the fog.

And then... It was time. So we headed home. Married, exhausted and happily swimming in memories of the best vacation ever. The end.

Sea lion lovers.

Two Years!

Today marks our two year wedding anniversary. Any guesses on how we'll be spending it? If you said a quick trip to Home Depot, followed by some take out and a late night of work at the house, you'll likely be right. Oh well. I guess our celebrations will just have to be post-poned for now. Maybe we'll go big for Three.

Hurricane Irene

Last weekend, Connecticut took a direct hit from Hurricane Irene. We actually lucked out a little because by the time she actually made landfall here, she had been downgraded to a tropical depression. Still, we got a ton of rain and sustained winds and since we didn't really know exactly what we could expect from the storm, we took as many precautions as possible. We spent the day before the storm battening down the hatches at the new house. We covered the wide open garage doors with plywood, tied down parts of the structure with metal straps (literally called "hurricane straps"), put up temporary gutters to slow down runoff from the roof, reinforced our silt fences and added drainage pipes and hay bales to help reduce the effects of the major rainfall we were about to receive. Whatever we did seemed to work because the house came through the storm without an issue. The hillside behind our house took the biggest hit because it is still just bare soil. Thankfully the silt fences held up so we just have to push it all back up the hill.

There is still a lot of flooding in many coastal and low-lying areas in the state. Many trees fell during the storm, taking power lines with them. We lost power for a few days but consider ourselves lucky as there are many others in CT that are still without power, including my parents. Word on the street is that in some areas the power won't be restored until next week. One unfortunate side effect from this storm that will directly impact our building project is that the utility company was scheduled (previous to Irene) to come put in our utility pole this week. With all the issues with the power lines and many residential homes with existing lines needing attention, I imagine it will be some time before we see them. Bummer. Still, it could be worse. Below are a few short videos I took on my iPhone as we headed over to the house on the day of the storm to access the damage. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get any more hurricanes this year!