We started off the day with a hike over lava fields on Isabella. Isabella is shaped like a sea horse and has five active volcanoes. Walking over black lava flows in Equatorial heat would give a new meaning to being hot but fortunately for us there was a sweet wind. We observed penguins, flamingos, turtles, sea lions, marine iguanas, flightless cormorants and the adorable Sally Lightfoot Crabs ( to name a few). Later we went snorkeling. Unreal! There is really n...

June 27 th The beginning of this blog entry is purely for those of my friends which enjoy "facts". I feel slightly dubious about the veracity of these after getting three different (quite) numbers on the population of Quito. However that being said here goes: • the world famous Panama hats are actually Ecuadorian. • Cayambe volcano at 5790 m above sea level is the only snow peak in the world that is on the equatorial line. • Cotopaxi volcano, at 5897 m is...

Hi! So after an hour and a half flight to Baltra Island, approximately 600 miles west over the Pacific Ocean, we disembarked and went through the formalities of entering Galapagos National Park. There is a $100 US entry fee per person. From there we took a short bus trip to catch a small ferry over the to island of Santa Cruz (there are 13 larger islands and 6 smaller islands). Of course Dwayne somehow missed the boat so that was a good laugh. It seems to ru...

Today we had a tour of Quito, Ecuador which is the capital city. It sits at 9400 'ft. Of course we learned lots of info about the city which I will forget very quickly if I don't get them down. The major industries are oil, tourism, textiles and see I have already forgotten the last one. The fun thing about the info was that they are a major exporter of roses. Yes, ladies here you can get $25 gorgeous roses for one dollar. Of course that creates a dilemma f...