Day 4: Quito to Galapagos

Day 4: Quito to Galapagos

Quote of the day:  Do you think they intentionally started us off spectacularly or is it always going to be this good?

Weather:    Cool in Quito, in mid to high 70s during the day in Galapagos, cooling off slightly at night

Pics:    Volcanoes very near Quito, Yacht Eclipse, male frigate birds, blue footed boobies, finch nest, iguana, flora and fauna including paloverde tree, sea lion, sea lion pup

Up early for hotel buffet breakfast; bonus is that S&A have recovered their bag, at some expense, as LAN Ecuador refused (after they promised) to deliver bag to hotel. 

We leave for airport at 6:50am to make the 9:40 flight, which fortunately gives us 1 hour and 40  minutes to lounge at airport rather than being stuck in traffic (the airport is a longggg drive from downtown, and it will be years before anything like a highway or metro is in place to shorten the trip; this also explains why S&A's bag wasn't delivered).

A short flight to Guayaquil to pick up additional Galapagos-bound passengers for the 1 hour 40 minute flight to Baltra Airport.  After clearing Park immigration (another National Park for THB, though he’s not counting foreign parks, yet), it is a short panga (i.e., Zodiac) ride to the Eclipse. We have a very nice cabin, especially after they put the twins together into one queen size bed.

There are 37 aboard, room for 48. Doesn’t seem crowded. Most excursions start with 12 to a group (that’s what the pangas hold). Not that long to wait to get ashore. Buffet line for meals never gets too long. If you hold back a few minutes, there’s no waiting with a plate in your hand.

Buffet lunch: THB tries two salads, fresh steamed veggies, and pasta with tomato sauce (all decent) and two glasses of very sweet iced tea (all meals included, booze extra). There’s a briefing on the main points of being on the boat and in the Park, followed by a safety drill where THB and DB learn that their life jackets are moderately defective.

A short break and we get our first tour, of North Seymour Island. Can it get better than this? Up close and personal with odd looking birds (frigates, blue footed boobies), large (2-3 foot) iguanas, and a very informative naturalist leader, Daniel, who grew up on one of the Galapagos Islands.

Back aboard, THB has a beer, DB a vodka gimlet, and we take our drinks to a briefing of events for tomorrow, a welcoming Pina Colada (neither of us drink ours, THB is not a coconut fan), and a very mediocre dinner; we overhear someone telling the cruise director (not the bubbling overly cheerful sort of the Love Boat) afterwards that they need a new chef, and that’s after just one lunch and dinner…THB thinks that while it would be great to have good meals, and that is so far down the list of reasons to take this cruise.

After dinner, a stroll around decks to see the stars (very nice) and watch sea lions and sharks and a big pelican feeding on the fish attracted by the lights of the ship.

Now for a bit of gossip (backfilled with info from later in the cruise): A meets a couple in the elevator at Casa Gagnotena (it had to be A, he’s the ultimate connector!) who are also on our boat. They are gregarious, outgoing Canadians (oxymoron?) and he is also a connector, and after a while it is clear that he knows a lot about everybody on board. He also is up first, very knowledgeable about fish (don’t eat parrot fish from Hawaii or Caribbean, okay in areas with little pesticide runoff…who would every think of eating a parrot fish, they’re so exotic looking when you’re snorkeling), chased a hat down off the cliffs, and sweet-talked his way past me while we were both waiting for the coffee machine to work (it was his second time at the machine that morning, and it was only 6:15). She came down three weeks early to teach ESL in a poor part of Quito alongside a bunch of 20 somethings women.It turns out he is always first: in line for meals and excursions, ahead of the guides, and in knowledge