galapagos
Written: Mar 30 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: weather
Cons: price
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| charly2000's Full Review: Galápagos Islands |
- Travel arrangements: Made four months in advance. We should have started another four months before that. We made them through Forum Travel International in (San Diego I think) They were good but we did have some travel problems in mid trip that they were unavailable to help us with.
Weather: 70s and 80s in Quito, sunny and clear. We wore shorts at night to go out to eat and I was a little chilly. Bring a pullover. 80s and 90s on the islands, very humid. There was a light rain one morning. Overall: Gorgeous
Advise: The best advise I can give is to purchase and read A Traveler's Guide to the Galapagos Islands by Barry Boyce. I also used The Galapagos Islands by Pierre Constant. If you cannot find them or just want a quickie, I will list a few things that I learned.
You can look up the description of your boat in the above book. We were on the Cruz del Sur which is a 75 footer, 16 passengers, crew of six. The book recommends this as the best size and I agree. Small enough to be intimate, yet large enough to make you feel secure about being on the open ocean.
You can leave some of your luggage at the mainland hotel while you are on the islands. There was no cost for this, even if you are not coming back to that hotel. We did it and had no problem.
Although the hotel and tour operator personnel speak English very well, the locals usually do not speak a word of English. Three out of four of us had high school Spanish, plus dictionaries and phrase books and we floundered. But, Ecuador in general is not very touristy, so the locals have not gotten tired of us westerners yet.
I forgot my luggage claim ticket on the plane after we landed in Quito. I was not allowed back on the plane to look for it and the police we not at all happy about it. Access into the airport is very limited. After showing all my identifications, inspection of the bag and me begging, I was allowed to keep it. Don't make that mistake.
Be flexible in your travel plans. Latin and South Americans just don't get all uptight like us North Americans when plans shift or change.
Bring booze on the boat. If you like your drink at night, the best way to go would be purchase hard liquor on the mainland (or islands) and mix your own with the free soda on the boat. I'm a beer drinker myself and I paid about $2.50 a bottle for tepid beer. If you want wine (which I recommend) you have to bring it yourself, none on board. Get those plastic coated boxes of wine instead of bottles. I know, that sounds horrid, but it's all about convenience.
You might want to bring some of you own style of music with you. We brought nothing because none of us are big into music, but after several days of Latin pop, you may want to hear something that matches your own taste.
Safety is not really a concern on the boat. The crew has access to you room and you just have to trust them. We had no problems. In Quito, we went out walking after dark to several nice restaurants and we never felt nervous. Ask the hotel clerks and they can steer you in the right direction. Quito is a city of 1.8 million people, so it obviously has its bad neighborhoods.
Avoid SAN airlines. We lost one whole day of our trip due to their incompetence. I will not go into detail here, but it was down right scary. They are the national version of Saeta airlines (international). Saeta is the best airline I have ever flown!
Bring lots of snacks onto the boat. Remember that you cannot take any food onto the islands. The food on the boat was good, but like the music above, you may want something familiar after a few days. Also, you are on the go all the time, so you will eat a lot.
Take a good camera with a telephoto lens. We had two simple 35mm cameras with zoom and got some good shots, but overall, I was disappointed because I missed many, many shots because the subject was just too far away. The people who were best setup had massive telephotos on one camera and another simple 35mm camera like ours. Don't bring a tripod. You are constantly on the go and only have a short time for shots. One man in our group had a unipod and it looked like the best. Your use of your cameras flash is restricted. You cannot use it on any up close photos, because it causes eye damage. Consider this when you are selecting your film.
A starmap would be a neat item to bring. Everyone is an amateur astronomer when you stand out on the deck at night, and the sky is clear. At that latitude, you will see different constellations than up North.
Overall Comments: Four of us traveled together. This trip cost two of us about $6500 total including the cash we took with us. Here are some approximate costs: Nice hotel room, $100, bottle of hard liquor, $10, Dinner at very nice Italian resturant for four with wine, $45, T-shirts in Galapagos, $12,cup of coffee anywhere, $1, taxi ride in Quito, $3.
The mainland was nicer than I thought it would be. We are thinking about going back to do some light mountain climbing on some of the local peaks that don't have snow.
Feel free to email me for any other info.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
charly2000
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Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 1 member
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