The bus ride from Cuyabeno to Baños was very long and very bumpy. I’d say it was quite generous to call what we were driving on a road. We arrived in the middle of the night feeling exhausted to the point where it was difficult to even go to sleep.
The last three weeks in Galapágos and Cuyabeno were incredible, but at the same time very full on. Baños was a great place to basically not do very much. We spent four and a half very lazy days here. We went to the same cafe for breakfast or lunch every day. We soaked in the hot springs, as if trying to make up for all the cold showers in Cuyabeno. To our surprise, we found the best pizzeria of our entire trip here too.
When we weren’t being lazy, we rented bicycles and cycled Ruta de las Cascadas. It was about a sixteen kilometers long ride, mostly flat or downhill alongside a road. We stopped frequently to look at the many waterfalls along this route, and sometimes took a walk to see them from up close. The finish line was Pailón del Diablo. With my limited prior research, I was astonished seeing this large, powerful waterfall. It was deafening. Impressive. And wet.
To return we picked up a camionette which drove us and our bikes back. This in itself was an experience, both the bikes and us were loaded in the back of a large van. We only had a small, wooden, not very comfortable bench to sit on, and it slightly felt like we were being smuggled somewhere, apart from the back being fully open for us to watch the traffic behind us.
Once we felt a little recharged again, we took a bus to Latacunga, our base for doing the Quilotoa Loop and Cotopaxi hike.
Quilotoa Loop, Ecuador
The Quilotoa Loop was a three day hike through Ecuadorian countryside and its small villages, finishing at a beautiful volcanic lake. It was ideal for us, as it combined my love of hiking and Nathan’s love of not sleeping in a tent whilst doing so.
We got up early, had breakfast, left our big bags in the hostel in Latacunga and ran for the bus heading to Sigchos. Luckily we made it and our first hiking day was off to a good start.
It took about half an hour before someone behind us shouted for us to stop. We looked around, and saw a couple of guys with backpacks, clearly doing the same hike. It turned out we already took a wrong turn! We got chatting, and ended up spending the entire three days together. The wrong turn was just the first of many to come. We missed tiny little inconspicuous paths branching off to the side, or took the wrong path at a fork that didn’t exist on any of our maps. Luckily, it never took us too long to realize and get back to the right place.
The first day concluded with a fairly steep uphill part. After arriving in Isinliví we were all happy to sit down, have a drink, a meal, and relax. A few of us even played Catan.
Nathan and I spent the night in a small guest house in Isinliví. The accommodation included breakfast and dinner (there was nowhere else to go out and eat here), and we spent both of these meals having a pleasant chat with a nice middle-aged German couple. The four of us were the only people staying at the guest house that night.
Day two was slightly harder, both in terms of distance and elevation gain. We reunited with our friends who were staying at a different hostel, and hiked together again.
The scenery throughout this whole trip has been beautiful, everything around us was very green with flowers growing wild. We were surrounded by mountains and valleys, and only saw very small little villages on our way. We did not bump into other hikers. Instead we occasionally met cows, sheep, donkeys, pigs, chickens, or once an adorable playful puppy.
The hostel we stayed at in Chugchilán had table tennis and a pool table. The four of us took the opportunity to play both, and quickly found out that the paddles had no grip, and the pool balls had edges. This obviously made the games more hilarious. We also saw some familiar faces here, our German friends from the previous night’s guest house. It’s a small world at the Quilotoa Loop. The nights were quite cold around here, so in the evening we enjoyed sitting by a log burner and warming up by the fire. We all had dinner and breakfast together again.
The last day of the hike was also the toughest, especially with the elevation gain of 1100m. Slow and steady, we made our way to Quilotoa Lake. And it was worth it. The volcanic crater with the turquoise waters was a beautiful reward for all our efforts. There was only a single snag – it was very windy up top, which made it freezing cold. We all rapidly decided we couldn’t spend much time here. Next to the lake was a small, wooden hut with a sign that read “cafe”. We went in and found two kids, not yet teenagers, sitting by a small fire and offering to sell us tea or coffee. We happily ordered the hot drinks and sat by the fire with them.
After warming up a little, we pressed on and walked to Quilotoa village. Nathan and I planned to stay overnight here, which we slightly came to regret, as the shower was cold (this was not what was promised) and so was the room. Quilotoa lies at 3900m above sea level.
The next day I went for a tranquil morning walk around the lake. We were both keen to get back to Latacunga though, and one bus ride later we were reunited with our bags, clean clothes and a hot shower, which made us very happy again. It’s the little things in life.
Cotopaxi, Ecuador
Our stay in Latacunga was for only one night, and we were off to hike again, this time to the Cotopaxi Refuge. Despite spending weeks in Ecuador already so far we haven’t seen the famous volcano at all. We’ve not been lucky with the weather here, which reminded me of our trip to Japan about a year ago, where we couldn’t see Mt Fuji no matter how much we tried. It was gutting! I was keen not to have the same experience here.
At the start of the drive to the Cotopaxi National Park it was looking cloudy again. For a while, we drove through thick fog, and I nearly gave up on the idea of possibly seeing anything at all. Fortunately, as if by magic at some point we drove out of and above the fog, and the clouds also parted briefly. There it was! Magnificent, tall, snow-capped and standing right in front of us. We took the opportunity and got out of the car to enjoy the view and take some photos. Finally! High up in the sky we saw many condors flying above us. The moment didn’t last very long, but that made it feel even more special.
The hike to the refuge was not easy, the air felt very thin yet again due to the high altitude. It wasn’t very long though. Once we arrived at the refuge, we attempted to press on for a while longer to visit the glacier. It was getting increasingly more snowy and slippery, and unfortunately we did not have the right shoes for this. About halfway through we turned back and went to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate at the refuge instead.
On the way back we made a brief stop at Laguna de Limpiopungo. We walked along the lake a little while, but Cotopaxi remained hidden in the clouds. Oh well.
Our driver dropped us off next to the Panamerican Highway and from there we flagged down a bus to Quito.
Quito, Ecuador
No matter where we went in Ecuador we always seemed to end up back in Quito for a few nights. It’s a real transport hub, and since we always stayed at the same hostel, by now it started to feel very familiar.
The weather has finally turned for the better when we were here, and so we spent a lot of time wandering around La Carolina park and its botanical garden. It’s easily become one of our favorite places here. We even rented a small paddle boat for a while.
Once hunger kicked in we ate at a delicious local vegan restaurant. In the late afternoon, we indulged in a rich hot chocolate, and made sure we stocked up on Paccari, our favorite chocolate brand in Ecuador. We followed this up by getting to the top of the Panecillo hill, with a beautiful clear view of all of Quito and all the surrounding volcanoes, including the elusive Cotopaxi.
After a relaxed, sunny day, we were planning to take a bus to Mindo the next morning. When we turned up at a bus terminal we were promptly informed that the bus we wanted to take no longer exists, and the next one was about six hours later. Bummer. Luckily, we weren’t the only people who made this mistake. We got immediately flagged down by another tourist, and she asked if we wanted to share a taxi with her. She even had one lined up for a good price. Left with no other choice we obviously accepted her offer and off we went.
Mindo, Ecuador
Mindo Valley is a cloud forest, a very unique ecosystem with lots of amazing plants such as prehistoric fern trees, and many animals, especially birds.
The drive to here was pleasant. It even gave me a good chance to practice my Spanish with our driver who was quite chatty. After a few hours we were dropped off in front of our guest house, and I came to love this place immediately. It was located on the edge of this small, sleepy town. It was fully made of wood. At the back there was a nice breakfast terrace, and an adjacent beautiful garden with bird feeders attracting countless hummingbirds. So far on our trip we’ve glimpsed a few of these quick little birds here and there, but never for long. Now we could just sit and watch them fly around, listening to their chirps and wings flutter for hours. I spent a good amount of time in a hammock doing exactly that. In addition to birds, the garden also housed a few squirrels and agoutis (cute little rodents, similar to a guinea pig). It all felt so relaxed.
After this lazy afternoon we grabbed an early dinner (or a very late lunch), and then decided to do a chocolate tasting tour. Yes, we love Ecuadorian chocolate. The tour was done really well, it was just the two of us and we got to see the whole artisan and also industrial process of this small local chocolate shop. A pleasant and unusual surprise was a chocolate face mask, which made my face feel silky smooth for a whole day after. And of course, we got to eat and drink chocolate too. So yummy!
Once we were done with the chocolate tour, we rushed to get changed, and joined a different type of tour – a small group night walk through the cloud forest. Apart from what felt like millions of insects, the highlights of the walk were a few tarantulas, a lizard, and an adorable little glass frog.
The next morning we headed to breakfast next to the wonderful garden. To our surprise, we heard a familiar voice exclaim “I knew it!”. It was the German couple who we made friends with at the Quilotoa loop. We joined them for breakfast and chatted about how we spent the last few days.
After breakfast Nathan and I grabbed a taxi to Tarabita, a small cable car leading to a trailhead of a few waterfall hikes. We really enjoyed the longer trail to the tallest one of them, which was a lovely walk with almost no people, and a beautiful waterfall at its end. There was another trail with multiple smaller waterfalls, but it was quite crowded and the waterfalls were not as impressive, so we decided to turn back halfway through. Just before we did, we spotted a cock-of-the-rock sitting on the cliff above us, which made me quite happy.
The other thing Mindo is known for, apart from nature, is extreme sports. I’ve been wanting to do some ziplining on this trip for ages, and this seemed like the perfect spot for it. On our way back to town we stopped at a local zipline place, and enjoyed a bit of adrenaline. Apart from ten awesome ziplines above the canopies of the valley, the final attraction was a Tarzan swing. Whilst I am very comfortable on something like a zipline, I find the feeling of freefall absolutely terrifying. Before I knew it I was in the air, and my initial utter horror swiftly turned into absolute glee once the rope was fully under tension, and I concluded I’m safe. It was so much fun! And whilst Nathan won’t outwardly admit it, I think he enjoyed it too.
By the evening we were starved and we wolfed down an absolutely giant dinner together. It was an early night, as I wanted to get up early to go bird watching. Nathan decided not to join in this activity and instead opted for more sleep. I quite liked going alone, I concluded the chances of seeing any birds together were very slim due to someone’s (*cough*) very loud voice and laugh.
I walked to the other edge of the town, to a so-called Yellow House. Here I paid a modest fee, and got a little map of the trails nearby. I spent about three hours slowly walking around, looking out for birds. I heard so many of them, but I am hopelessly bad at spotting them. I was very lucky and briefly saw a pair of toucans fly into a giant tree next to me, and a few other colorful birds I can’t possibly name. I can’t say these were the amazing bird sightings I was hoping for, I didn’t even manage to take a single photo. However, it was a very lovely, peaceful walk, and I wished I could spend a bit more time here even if it didn’t mean seeing more birds.
I rushed back to have a nice breakfast with Nathan, and we packed our bags again. Our German friends and we were all headed to Otavalo, so we decided to share a taxi together. It saved us going through Quito again, multiple buses and transferring between the different terminals.
Otavalo, Ecuador
Otavalo was only a fleeting stop for us. We spent one night here, and in the morning walked through the famous colorful market. Whilst it was definitely nice and quite large, at this point we’ve both seen quite a few of them, so we’re hard to impress.
After the market we got a taxi to a bus stop on the Panamerican Highway. Our final destination was Colombia and the first step of this journey was to take a direct bus to Tulcán.
We waited at the shabby bus stop for a while and slowly started worrying that this was yet another “this bus doesn’t exist” situation. A few locals waiting for the same bus reassured us it does. Luckily they knew what they were talking about and the bus eventually turned up.
The start of this journey was a little rough, we didn’t put our bags into the hold (Ecuadorian buses are the worst for theft of everywhere I’ve been so far) but there were also no empty seats. We stood in the aisle with all of our things, whilst trying to ensure people could still pass through, and the bus occasionally randomly breaking very hard. Fortunately a couple of ladies sitting next to us were getting off quite early, and helped us make sure we got their seats when they were leaving.
The rest of the bus journey to Tulcán was uneventful. When we finally made it to the bus terminal it was only a short taxi ride to the border. We expected to get through the Ecuadorian immigration quite quickly since we were leaving, and then wait a long time at the Colombian side. To our surprise, it was exactly the other way around. For some reason there was just one queue for entering and exiting Ecuador, and there were a lot of people looking to enter. On the other hand, there was basically no one else at the Colombian side. Our passports got stamped twice, and we found ourselves standing in Colombia.
We arrived in Quito in the early afternoon and had about two and a half days of time before we were going to head to the Galápagos. We spent the afternoon mostly lazily wandering around a park, the artisanal market and getting some hot chocolate. We knew that Ecuador produces some of the highest quality chocolate, and we were determined to find some of it whilst here.
The following morning we joined a small walking tour around Quito, which was both educational and fun. We walked through the central market with its stalls filled with fruit, herbs and spices, and various daily life items. We learned about the Ecuadorian solstice celebrations and some of its history. We tasted some delicious chocolate and tried Pajaro Azul (little blue candies filled with some pretty strong liquor). Finally the tour finished by walking through the historical centre. We followed it up by visiting the famous Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesus, also known as the golden church. As the name suggests, it was completely covered in gold, and displayed some very impressive craftsmanship. We finished the day by doing a tasting tour at Pacari, a high quality chocolate shop, where we stocked up on some incredibly addictive chocolate.
The next day we decided to take the TelefériQo, a gondola running from Quito city up to a side of the Pichincha volcano. We got slightly unlucky with the weather and unfortunately the view was mostly fog, but we still walked around a little. We decided not to do the entire hike to Rucu Pichincha, as it looked like it might start raining at any point, and that was the right decision.
Instead, we took a taxi to Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the Word) and visited the Intinan Equator Museum and also the monument dedicated to the Equator. Hilariously, both of these sites feature a line which is meant to represent the Equator and divide the north from south, despite the fact that neither one of them is located exactly at the Equator. The scientific experiments at the museum were questionable (or outright untrue) and Ciudad Mitad del Mundo felt extremely touristy and strangely artificial, but we still found the museum entertaining and enjoyed seeing the monument.
After enjoying Quito for a few days we headed back to the airport to fly to the Galápagos. I could barely contain my excitement – Galapágos is one of the places I saw in documentaries, but I never thought I’d be able to visit. And it was becoming real now!
Santa Cruz, Galápagos, Ecuador
We landed at Seymour Airport in the early afternoon. As we stepped off the plane and walked towards the arrivals hall, we immediately spotted a fairly large yellow-ish marine iguana next to us, and I squeaked in glee. Galapágos was going to be amazing! I absolutely love animals, and Galapágos was heaving with them!
Getting from the airport to Puerto Ayora (the main town on Santa Cruz, and also the place where we were going to stay for a night) took a while, and I mostly amused myself by watching the various road signs, which nearly exclusively related to iguanas and tortoises crossings instead of speed limits and intersections.
The temperature in the Galápagos was a lot more agreeable than anywhere else we’ve been so far, and for most of the time fluctuated between 18-25 degrees. Most days had some clouds either in the mornings or evenings, but it would usually be sunny during middays and early afternoons. It was often breezy, so despite the humidity, it almost never felt horrible and sticky. There were occasionally very sudden, brief, intense showers. The first of them happened as we walked into our hostel, and it was over by the time we finished checking in and wanted to go get some food.
We didn’t plan to do too much on our first day, we figured we’d just go for a walk along the coast. We were slightly surprised to learn there wasn’t much of a coastside promenade, which was a little disappointing. However, the boat pier made up for it, and we visited it multiple times this day. Why? Well, it was full of sea lions and birds, mostly pelicans. Most of the sea lions were lazily basking in the sun and sleeping. A few of the awake ones were shuffling alongside the boat platform, making the funniest of noises, and jumping in and out of water. They were very cute, and also very smelly. We didn’t know it yet, but sea lions were an unavoidable part of the Galapágos, and we would spend loads of time watching these creatures that were hilariously clumsy on land, and surprisingly fast, agile, graceful and playful in the sea.
Whilst we were observing the sea lions, I caught a glimpse of a dark shadow in the water. At first I thought it was a fish, or maybe another small sea lion, but I quickly came to realize it was actually a shark! A small baby black tip reef shark just swam past us! I couldn’t believe our luck, seeing a shark on our first day, right off the pier. Imagine my utter surprise, when later that evening on the same pier I saw tens of them. They were all small, kept to one specific part of the pier, and swam around as if it was the most normal, everyday thing. And it turned out that that’s exactly what it was. I loved the pier and went to visit it every evening whilst we were at Santa Cruz. We walked around the town and saw loads more sea lions, birds, small marine iguanas, lava lizards and crabs. As the cherry on top, more unusually than baby back tips, I also spotted a lone ray swimming next to the pier on the first night. I was truly in heaven here.
On day two our main objective was moving onto the next island, San Cristóbal. We were planning to return to and spend more time on Santa Cruz towards the end of our trip. The ferry was at 2pm, and since we needed to check out at 10am, we had a few hours to kill. We wandered to the Charles Darwin Research Station, and afterwards went to see the giant tortoises that are kept in a centre right next to it. It was the first of our multiple encounters with the most famous inhabitant of Galapágos (the one the islands get their name from), and we both loved it. We spent a good chunk of time watching these gentle giants slowly walk around, eat, drink and sometimes curiously look at us. They were incredible, and every time one of them extended their neck and looked directly in my eyes, I couldn’t stop thinking they looked an awful lot like E.T. I didn’t want to leave, it was almost like I was scared I might not see them again. But the ferry time drew closer, and finally I did find myself back at the pier, watching the sea lions again.
San Cristóbal, Galápagos, Ecuador
The ferry ride was rough. I was mostly annoyed by constantly being thrown around like a rag doll, but Nathan’s motion sickness made for a much worse experience. I could tell that he’s spending all of his energy on trying not to be sick, and I honestly felt a bit worried about him. We were both happy when the two hours were over without any incidents.
San Cristóbal was a lot more like what we expected, with a nice long walk along the coast. There were also multiple large areas fenced off for sea lions, which got especially full of them at night. The areas smelled a lot like sea lions (kind of like a wet dog) but they also provided nearly infinite entertainment. It was fascinating to watch them, and the symphony of barking, groaning, growling, honking and roaring was genuinely hilarious to listen to.
We decided to spend our first full day at San Cristóbal by walking around to various beaches and snorkeling. The beaches were very beautiful, and we spent some time just feeling the sand between our toes, and watching the waves. We finally visited Muelle Tijeretas, a famous snorkeling spot. This was the first time Nathan and I snorkeled together and we both found it challenging for different reasons – whilst Nathan doesn’t really love water and anything connected to it, I thought it was very cold and by the end of it came out shaking. We both enjoyed the experience though, Nathan actually seemed quite relaxed, and I managed to warm up in the sun afterwards, so it all worked out! We saw a few colorful fish and I was genuinely surprised by the numerous parrot fish swimming around. There were a few playful sea lions, and even a marine iguana swimming in the distance.
Feeling freezing cold became a theme every time I was in the water – snorkeling or diving, wetsuit(s) or not. I just loved marine life more than I hated the cold. And I really, really hate the cold. It was still worth it.
The following day was my first big diving day. Kicker Rock! Everyone I spoke to absolutely raved about it, so I was very excited, despite the somewhat horrifying price tag. I layered up multiple wetsuits, and put on loads of weight to compensate. However, once we got into the water, none of it mattered. We did a mini test dive just before Kicker Rock, and within one minute I already spotted a stingray and concluded that that’s what I care about and want to focus on.
The marine life at Kicker Rock was incredible. Whilst I didn’t think this was the most colorful dive with pretty little fishes and corals everywhere, there were a few larger schools of fish around. But the beauty here was the larger marine life. We saw countless turtles swimming about. There were beautiful manta rays, being as graceful and nonchalant as always. We spotted a few white and black tip sharks in the distance. And most importantly – oh, so many hammerheads! Finally! These creatures have eluded me at every opportunity until now, and I’ve been hoping to dive with them for so many years now. I could hardly believe it’s finally happening. I was so mesmerized I even forgot I was cold for a while. They were just so magnificent, and seeing them in person was every bit as magical as I always imagined it would be.
Nathan and I visited Kicker Rock again a day later as part of a 360 tour. 360 was a boat tour around the whole of San Cristóbal. It started by snorkeling in a small lagoon called Rosa Blanca. The water there was somewhat murky, but we still saw quite a few turtles and even a few white tip reef sharks.
When we reached Punta Pitt, we stayed in the boat and watched the birds. Their numbers were incredible, from a distance they almost seemed like thousands and thousands of bats. There were many species, most interestingly the blue and red footed boobies. Unfortunately, it was quite far and it was really hard to see them well. Not to mention that the stationary boat bobbing up and down basically made Nathan feel like he was going to be sick, so he couldn’t wait for us to get moving again. When we did we sailed to Bahía Sardina.
On our way to the beach we saw dolphins. And I don’t mean we saw two or three briefly – I mean an absolutely giant pod, easily 200+ strong, swimming alongside our boat, and jumping all around. We all really wanted to get in the water, but unfortunately there are strict rules about where this is and isn’t allowed in the Galápagos. Instead our captain circled around, making waves, which the dolphins absolutely loved and kept playing with. Prior to this I’ve only ever seen dolphins once or twice in my life, and it was always a very brief, far away encounter – I didn’t even know the pods could get this big. Both Nathan and I absolutely adored them, and we agreed this was a truly unique experience.
As we arrived at the beach, there were multiple very large black tip reef sharks swimming around our boat, but unfortunately they didn’t linger once they realized we’re there to stay. I have to admit I found myself ever so slightly scared when thinking of jumping in to snorkel with them, as irrational as it is given I have no issue diving with them. I find diving a lot less intimidating, perhaps because I have complete freedom of movement when doing so and it feels like we’re both on the same “level”.
We had a tasty lunch on the boat, and then a chance to spend some time in whatever way we wanted near the beach. A few people took a nap on the boat and a few went snorkeling. Nathan jumped at the opportunity to stand on solid ground again, and took a walk along the beach. I split my time between snorkeling and walking with him. The sun was out, and it was a lovely day for both. There were loads of turtles and fish swimming around.
The ultimate stop was Kicker Rock. On our way there, we passed Cerro Brujo (Witch’s Hill) and saw its interesting rock formations and many birds again. Once we got to Kicker Rock, it became quite obvious that this was not a calm water day, and it was going to be a challenging snorkel. That was bad news for someone like Nathan, and therefore by extension that worried me too. The apprehension on his face was more than obvious, but reluctantly he did jump in!
From this point on, our account of the experience diverges wildly. If you ask me, this was the most amazing place to snorkel ever. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a hammerhead along with one of our guides. We saw an insane amount of turtles (even more than I saw diving), at some point I could count more than 10 of them next to me at the same time. And for a few beautiful minutes a school of eagle rays swam right under and next to us. I couldn’t believe we could see them so close whilst snorkeling! Incredible! I wished I could dive in instead and follow them into the deep, but it was still a magical moment.
Nathan’s description of snorkeling at Kicker Rock was “this was like my worst nightmare and I expected to be blown away and stranded in the open sea”. He did later admit the turtles were amazing, but unfortunately it turned out he was too busy surviving to see the eagle rays. I felt a little sad that this wasn’t a moment we shared, and knowing that whilst water (and marine life) will remain my passion, an experience like this will continue being a cause of primal fear for him.
After the 360 tour, I’ve decided to join a tour to Española island the day after. Nathan gave this one a pass, as it included a very long boat ride which he just about had enough of, and was happy to just spend his day going for a run and then relaxing after.
It took slightly over two hours to get to Española. Once we arrived, we took a walk around the island. We watched various birds from up close. I especially loved the waved albatrosses and the blue footed boobies everywhere around us. We spotted a Galapágos hawk in the distance too.
Española wasn’t just famous for birds, it also has a very large population of very uniquely colored iguanas. Unlike most iguanas that are simply soot black, the iguanas here have a reddish pattern, and they turn bright green, blue and red around Christmas, which is why they are often called Christmas iguanas. There were many of them, big and small, basking on the lava rocks. It looked like they all came for a big meeting to discuss something mighty important. And the lava lizards on this island were something to behold too, they ran around in abundance and were some of the largest ones among all.
In the afternoon, half of the tour went snorkeling and the other one diving – I was obviously in the second group, as I’ll take any chance I can get to dive. It was nice, but not nearly as exciting as Kicker Rock. We saw lots of fishes, turtles, ventured into a short cave (which made me feel slightly claustrophobic, I don’t really like diving in caves, wrecks and other crevices). We spent a lot of time playing with the curious sea lions since many of them swam around us the entire time. I wrapped myself into a big towel afterwards, and dozed off as we went back to San Cristóbal.
After all the tours and activities in the previous days, we decided to have a lazy morning and spend the afternoon taking a slow walk to La Lobería beach, sitting there, enjoying the nice weather and watching birds and sea lions. The evening was also lazy, and we walked to Playa Punta Carola to watch the sunset. We finished the day by enjoying some poke and cocktails at dinner.
For our final day at San Cristóbal, we hired a taxi to take us on a highlands tour, a common itinerary which includes visiting the only sweetwater lake El Junco, the tortoise reserve La Galapaguera, and finally a beautiful beach Puerto Chino with its crystalline blue water and white sands. We timed it such that we would arrive at La Galapaguera during feeding time, and therefore could enjoy watching the tortoises go crazy (as much as a tortoise does) for all the elephant’s ear leaves around them. Unlike on Santa Cruz where the tortoises are kept away from people by waist height stone walls, in La Galapaguera the tortoises roamed free and could wander onto the visitor trail. Many of them did so – in fact a small group of them kind of charged at us, probably assuming we have more leaves (which we didn’t). La Galapaguera was a lovely way to see these beautiful animals again.
Once our highlands tour finished, we took the ferry back to Santa Cruz. I decided to buy Nathan some motion sickness medication and convinced him to take them, which made the journey a little more pleasant. I’ve even caught him sleeping for a while, something I’ve never seen happen in a moving vehicle before. The flipside was that it made him feel very drowsy for the rest of the afternoon, so we took it easy and watched some TV, had a nice dinner and went to bed early that evening.
Santa Cruz, Galápagos, Ecuador
We planned to spend the rest of our remaining time on Santa Cruz, as the ferries have been a very exhausting experience. We chose another day at the beach, this time at Tortuga Bay. This turned out to be our favorite beach in all of Galapágos – the long-ish walk to it was really nice and led through a forest, and then another beautiful beach. Once we arrived, we realized that there was actually some shade thanks to the mangrove trees, a welcome change from every other beach. At this point, despite our best efforts with the sunscreen, we were both sporting various sunburnt areas (mainly from snorkeling), and therefore really appreciated the shade.
We rented a kayak and paddled around the bay. We briefly spotted a small shark, and at one point a large turtle swam right under us. Truthfully, I was hoping for slightly more wildlife encounters, but regardless it was still a very relaxing and peaceful activity.
I also realized that the water in the bay was actually significantly warmer than anywhere else. I decided to take this unusual opportunity and get in. I was finally able to enjoy a nice, long swim without feeling freezing cold, and that made me very happy. I love swimming!
I was planning to do some more diving, and dedicated the next day to this. I went to Gordon Rocks. Similar to Kicker Rock, this was an incredible spot. The conditions were slightly harsher, there was much more of a drift and the dive was a lot deeper. However, we saw turtles, a few white tips and hammerheads on our first dive already.
Once we surfaced and waited between our dives, we also got somewhat lucky and noticed a giant fin next to our boat. At first we thought it was a shark, but quickly we came to realize it was the wrong shape. Instead, it was a massive sunfish! Yet again this was a moment when everyone wanted to jump right in, but we were told not to. Such a rare opportunity, just passing us by! We watched the fin get further and further away from the boat, with a bitter feeling of longing, and hoping we would see it again on the next dive. We didn’t. Such is life.
Our second dive was even better than the first one, and we saw large schools of hammerheads and golden rays – at some point both at the same time. I couldn’t decide which way to look, it was overwhelming in the most positive way possible. It’s easy to say I left Gordon Rocks feeling very happy that day.
With our remaining time on Santa Cruz we hoped to book one more tour (they were fun and interesting, but oh so expensive). There was still one more Galapágos inhabitant I wanted to meet, the Galápagos Penguin. Because of this, we considered Bartolomé and Isabela. Bartolomé sounded fun, but was prohibitively expensive, and chances of seeing penguins were actually higher on Isabela. But Nathan was quite reluctant about the choice of Isabela, the ferry journey was notoriously one of the roughest. We also realized that a day tour to Isabela would cost us more than simply going there, staying for the two nights, and doing all the activities there ourselves. After some thinking (and possibly some puppy eyes from me too) he agreed to changing our plans and staying on Isabela instead.
Isabela, Galápagos, Ecuador
We took an early ferry to Isabela, with Nathan being very thankful for the motion sickness medication. We thought we’d have a fairly lazy day, but we actually managed to pack in loads!
We visited the flamingo lagoon first. Whilst there were only a few flamingos, they were quite close to us, and it was really fun to watch them dig their curved beaks into the bottom of the lagoon, and look for little crustaceans.
Once we felt we spent a sufficient amount of time with the flamingos we rented bicycles. We cycled to El Muro de las Lágrimas (Wall of Tears), the stark reminder of Galapágos’s dark past as a penal colony. The cycling path led alongside a long beach, many mangroves, and a forest. There were loads of huge marine iguanas on the path.
The main highlight, however, was Camino de las Tortugas – yet another area where giant tortoises roamed completely free. At first I was worried we wouldn’t see any, but that was a very irrational fear. There were loads of them, some directly next to the path, some a little walk away. By the end we didn’t even take pictures anymore, we just enjoyed slowly cycling past, observing them observing us.
The next day we had a bit of free time in the morning. We went snorkeling at Concha de Perla, a small protected lagoon near where we lived. Even Nathan found this quite relaxing. Later we strolled to the flamingo lagoon again since it was really close and we wondered if there may be more flamingos today – there weren’t. We followed it up by going to a little viewpoint at the beach. We didn’t think it was going to be spectacular in any way, but we were slightly killing time until our tour to Tintoreras island. To our surprise, this was the perfect spot to watch blue footed boobies. There were loads of them just below us, and more and more kept flying in. Since Nathan skipped the Española tour, this was the first time he’s seen them up close, which made him very happy.
The tour to Tintoreras started with some snorkeling. As usual we saw many turtles, a few white tip sharks, a very playful sea lion, and even a stingray. After our snorkel we took a walk on the island. The highlight was seeing seven or eight white tip sharks sleeping in a little cove we walked past. The island was full of marine iguanas and crabs too. However, the truly best part of the tour was in the end. We sailed by loads of blue footed boobies, followed by a small colony of penguins. We spent some time watching these cute birds from our boat. The Galapágos Penguins are the second smallest species of penguin on Earth, so I felt very fortunate to only be a few meters away from them. Taking pictures on a bobbing boat was still a challenge though.
Our ultimate day on the Galápagos was quite scattered – we had to take a ferry back from Isabela to Santa Cruz, then had a few hours to kill. After some food, we even did a bit of souvenir shopping. We then walked back to the tortoise centre one last time to say goodbye. Finally, we took a taxi, a boat and a bus back to the airport.
Leaving Galápagos was bittersweet. It’s been the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to, why were we leaving? When people discovered Galapágos they called it Enchanted Islands and I wholeheartedly agree. But I also felt strangely content. We have seen and done so much here. I felt we made the most of our time in this magical place. And I would love to return one day.
Quito, Ecuador
Our time back in Quito was brief and lazy. When we arrived we had dinner in the most incredible vegan restaurant near our hostel. After a long sleep, we went to get our clothes washed (which always brings a surprising amount of joy when traveling) and visited the Museum of the City. And then we patiently waited for a night bus to Cuyabeno, conveniently leaving from our hostel.
The night bus ride was long and bumpy. We both got moderate amounts of interrupted sleep. We arrived at a bridge from which we were going to be picked up by a boat. We used the brief bit of time before our guide arrived to brush our teeth and change our clothes. And then we met our guide for the next few days, Victor.
Cuyabeno, Ecuador
Victor gave us a brief introduction to Cuyabeno, a rainforest reserve in Ecuadorian’s Amazon. He then ushered us into a long but narrow motor boat. He strongly advised us not to wear sneakers, but opt for flip-flops or sandals. We were given a large, sturdy, rubber poncho and told that it would be our best friend for the next few days, and we were not to leave the lodge without it. And Victor knew what he was talking about.
The boat ride to the eco lodge we were staying at took about two hours. It started really well, Victor pointed out a few birds to us, and looked out for wildlife around us. It was astounding how he was able to spot the smallest monkeys from very far away, I could barely even see them. The ride was refreshing after the long bus, and exciting too.
About half an hour in, the rain started. We all put on our big ponchos. The more time passed, the less wildlife we saw, and the more we all tried to curl up into a big ball. It turns out the rainforest is a well deserved name. It became really clear why sneakers were the wrong footwear – our feet were not only completely soaked, but actually submerged in a layer of water, and our boat driver occasionally had to throw the water out with a small bucket.
Once we arrived at the Dolphin Lodge, we had an incredible lunch. Ecuador loves soup as a starter for lunch, and I just can’t agree with this approach to lunch more. In this instance we had the most unusual popcorn soup. It was delicious. The food at our lodge was consistently amazing throughout the rest of our trip.
The lodge definitely felt like a jungle lodge. There was no phone signal and a “no WiFi” sign next to the kitchen. We were officially offline. There were also no power sockets in our rooms, just a single charging station by the kitchen which you could use during the day. The power and lights went out at ten every evening, and most people would just go to sleep. Our phones have quickly turned into a simple camera. And occasionally a flashlight. It was refreshing to actually have conversations with people where they paid attention and didn’t get distracted. We spent our free time talking and playing board games. And I loved it.
After lunch we had a bit of time to wind down. I went to the deck by the river, lied in a hammock, and hoped I’d see some of the pink river dolphins the lodge is named after. They either didn’t come, or I missed them when I dozed off whilst watching little butterflies land on my toes. Either way, I felt very relaxed.
We were told that the space behind the lodge’s kitchen was apparently a home to a medium sized caiman. We went to have a look, but couldn’t see anything. And just as we were about to walk away, I noticed it swimming towards us from behind a tree! It was about 1.5m long. It came very close to the boardwalk which we stood on (sufficiently far suspended). I couldn’t believe that it just lives there, right by us. It seemed very dinosaur-like, and had very sinister looking eyes. It moved slowly, as if conserving its energy.
In the evening we took the boat to Laguna Grande. On our way we passed by some distant wooly monkeys. They have a relatively small frame but are very hairy, giving a much larger impression, with a very fluffy tail. Right next to the laguna’s edge we spotted a few river dolphins for the first time. The river was dark and murky, it gets its color from the many tree leaves. The river dolphins don’t jump, they just come up to breathe. The opportunity to see them is therefore brief, and often not very clear. It was still a very exciting experience though.
Laguna Grande was an opportunity to go for a swim. The water here was reasonably warm, and had the same dark color as the river. We were promised there were no piranhas or caimans here. A few of us jumped in for a brief swim. I was happy I did as this turned out to be the warmest day we’d have. We were meant to watch the sunset, but instead the rain started again. We all knew the drill and put on our ponchos. On the way back Victor used his flashlight to spot nocturnal animals. We only saw one, a small but cute boa in one of the trees.
We had dinner, played a few games, and all headed to bed before ten. The lights actually went out slightly earlier, which caused a small panic because we weren’t quite ready and didn’t know where anything was – but we managed to find one of our phones for a flashlight. The next few days, we were better prepared. We fell asleep to the sounds of the rain, just like most nights in here.
The mornings started early at the lodge, with breakfast at half past seven. Once fed, we were all given a big pair of rubber boots. Our group of five and Victor then rowed a canoe alongside the bank of the river. As usual it started raining again about halfway through. Once we reached our destination, we were going to walk back through the jungle. We quickly found out that if you lose sight of the group, it’s nearly impossible to find them again if they don’t call out to you. The jungle is dense!
The big rubber boots provided a lot of comfort as we were wading through all the mud and water. Or at least at the beginning they did. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know was that there would definitely come a time where the water would go above our knees. This happened at a slightly different time for everyone, but no one was spared. Nathan was already not a huge fan of the constant rain, but having boots full of water definitely made him even less happy. At first I felt the same way, but over time I decided to just embrace this. It wasn’t really cold, so it didn’t matter that we were all soaked. In fact I felt like I rediscovered the child in me, and it kind of made me laugh, and enjoy the rain and mud again.
In the afternoon we spent some time making chocolate together. In my life I went to various chocolate making workshops, but this was the first time I actually saw and participated in the full process, from roasting the beans, taking them out of the shell, grinding them, and heating them up into a paste. It smelled delicious. We ate the warm chocolate with bananas, and kept a bit of the cocoa powder for a cup of hot chocolate later.
In the evening we went back to Laguna Grande to watch the sunset. Nathan and I had a running joke about this already, and indeed there was no sunset to watch. Once it was dark, we went for a short night time walk through the jungle. We saw various spiders and a few small frogs. We all really liked watching leafcutter ants. But perhaps surprisingly the most interesting thing ended up being a cordyceps we saw growing inside a bug. Nathan and I have been obsessed with Last of Us (both game and series) for a while now, and we both thought this was just the coolest and creepiest thing at the same time.
The next day we were going to visit a small local Siona community living close to the lodge. Whilst we were waiting for our boat, we watched a snake trying to devour a frog right on the pier.
The boat ride to the community wasn’t too rainy. We walked around the village a little, and saw a few of the buildings and also animals – a very playful puppy, lots of small baby chickens, a few parrots and most importantly Pepa. Pepa was a capybara! It was very friendly, and extremely interested in grass. It looked like a ginormous guinea pig, and was very sweet.
We spent a bit of time with the local shaman. He shared a drink with us – alcohol made of tree bark, which tasted somewhat similar to whiskey. We also smelled something similar to perfume – I have to admit I forgot what healing properties this had already. He also showed us the drink used for ayahuasca rituals, and spoke to us about them. However, the best was yet to come. He asked if anyone in the group had any ailments – the shaman was going to help by using one of the local plants. We were warned it would temporarily cause a rash. To my surprise, after a moment of silence, Nathan volunteered his shoulder/neck pain. He was told to take off his shirt. I can only describe what followed as the shaman smacking his back and neck with a tropical nettle. The result was certainly a rash – his whole back was covered in it! This was obviously quite hilarious from my perspective. We all had a chance to try this nettle on our hand afterwards, and honestly it was kind of painful. I still wonder if Nathan would have volunteered had he tried it first. I instead chose to participate in a cleansing ritual, a much more pleasant and meditative few minutes.
Once we left the shaman, we were entrusted to one of the girls from the community. She was going to show us how to make casaba, a type of yuca flatbread. We watched her harvest the yuca. I never realized it was basically a small tree, with a giant potato-like root. She then planted a few branches back, and told us it would grow back in a few months. With her help, we peeled the yuca, cleaned it, grated it, dried it, and finally made the flatbread, which we had for lunch. It was quite a satisfying process. In the meanwhile, Victor used some achiote red paint to paint our faces with the tribal symbols. I was a bit worried the rain would make the paint run everywhere later, but luckily the weather stayed mostly good when we were outside for the rest of the day. On our way back, we saw a sloth in one of the far away canopies.
In the evening we went to Laguna Grande again. And again there was no sunset. However, on our way back we did see a cute baby caiman quite close to us, and its mama and siblings were a bit further in the mangroves too. We couldn’t see them well, but their eyes eerily reflected red at us, and we knew they were watching us too. In addition, we also saw another small boa wrapped around the tree. How Victor spotted these tiny snakes was really beyond me.
For the most part, it felt like we didn’t get very lucky with the weather until this point. It was nearly always raining, and it even got colder and colder (which unlike the rain was not common). The constant rain made it very hard to spot any animals as they were mostly hiding too. However, our last day definitely improved.
We went for an early bird watching session before breakfast. Our boat driver spotted a tiny, beautiful, orange boa. We got really lucky with the river dolphins too, and saw about three or four of them very close as they kept swimming around our boat. Everyone went quiet, and watched them come up for air with awe, it was almost like a religious experience. Victor also pointed a woodpecker, macaw and a sloth in the distance (as in binoculars needed kind of distance).
Most people from our group left after the bird watching session, but Nathan and I still had one more night here. And I was glad we did, the weather finally turned a little bit better! We spent the day canoeing to Laguna Canangueno with a new guide. This sounded great when we were booking the trip, we both like activities like this, it’s very peaceful and relaxing. I was a bit worried the rain would make it miserable, but luckily it barely rained at all.
On our way we saw a group of cute little squirrel monkeys in a tree right next to us and above us. They were very close – in fact when one of them started peeing, it didn’t miss us by too much 😀 And just when we were about to go, we also saw a group of wooly monkeys a bit further away too. Later on we also spotted some howler monkeys. Up until now, we could only hear them, so this was a welcome encounter. I was very happy we were finally seeing some wildlife, especially the squirrel monkey.
After a few hours the canoeing definitely got quite tiring. The paddles we were given were big, wooden things. And they were heavy. And after spending multiple hours sitting on the tiny, wooden seats, we could both feel our backs too. The last stretch to getting home was a struggle, and I think it’s fair to say that our guide was an absolute powerhouse and did most of the work at this point. We were both thankful for that, and quietly complained to each other about our pains.
In the evening, I joined a different group at Laguna Grande again. Nathan took a different approach and went for a nap instead. Yet again there was no sunset, but we saw another caiman before returning back, so I was satisfied with my choice.
On our final morning, the weather looked good again. I was a little sad we were leaving now – it felt like this was going to be another good day, and there was still so much to see. Nathan, however, was more than ready. Neither one of us was going to miss the rain and general humidity. The other thing we could both agree on was that we visited Cuyabeno and Galapágos in the wrong order – coming from a nice, warm place where we were basically tripping over animals to somewhere cold, rainy where you needed binoculars to see anything in the distant canopies was just a bit too jarring.
We took a boat back to the bridge. Along the way there were a few monkeys in the distance, and even a beautiful anaconda on a tree branch. At least the boat ride was fun.
Now the bad part – unfortunately a few days prior, there was a pretty serious landslide somewhere between Cuyabeno and Quito. It completely destroyed the road we were meant to be taking back, so our twelve hour bus journey was rerouted and turned into sixteen. Both Nathan and I absolutely hated the idea of this journey. The silver lining was that the new route was going through Baños de Agua Santa, a town we were thinking about visiting later anyway. In fact, the route to Baños took about as long as the route to Quito would have. This made for an easy decision, and we decided to get off the bus early, and spend a few days in Baños instead.
