If you've read this blog, you know I love to travel. I think it's one of the best things someone can do for themselves other than staying in shape/eating well. I just returned from The Galapagos, and similar to Kili, there were a lot of things I found out there which weren't readily available in the articles on the Internet or guidebooks I read. Here's my findings and thoughts which I thought I'd share.
1) Cruise vs Day trips: There are two main ways to see the islands - cruise or land-based trip. This you'll find on every website and article. There are pros and cons to each way as with everything. We decided to do a land-based trip since Marc gets sea sick and one set of our friends had a bad experience on a cruise with lots of waves, bad weather, water coming in their room portholes, etc. Anyway, since some of you might be tempted to do both (shorter cruise with some land based stuff) it's worth mentioning here.
1a) Cruise caveat: If you are doing a shorter cruise, be very wary of what is offered, there are several "cruise tours" which offer very little since your arrival and departure day usually do not include tours. Hotels are very reasonable in Puerto Ayora and food is reasonable as well. This town is very safe and easy to navigate so I would argue you don't really need a tour to see Santa Cruz. Several locations like the Charles Darwin center, Tortuga Bay Beach, and Las Grietas do not have any fee to attend and are easy to visit on your own. Could you benefit from a guide giving you some info? Sure, but if you're doing lots of day tours (which is what I'm going to recommend below) you'll have lots of info on the islands and animals. Key take away - if your cruise goes to several islands that's a good sign, but if days in Puerto Ayora are included, it might not be worth the price -- proceed with caution and do the math (if you're price sensitive that is). I'd say hotels are $40-$80 a night and meals will vary - breakfast and lunch will be ~$5 each and dinners will be ~$20.
2) Flights & Fees: It's pretty expensive to get to the Galapagos from Ecuador (via Quito or Guayaquil). From NYC I was able to get to Quito with one quick layover for $550 and it was $475 to get to Quito to Santa Cruz (Baltra airport). Yikes. Build that additional cost into your trip budget. Some longer/nicer cruises cover the flights (and that's why this is #2 vs #1) - be sure to check what's include and what isn't. Also, there's $100 and $10 per person in taxes and tourist charges. Finally, to get from the airport to Puerto Ayora, the taxi is $15-$20 each way. Include those fees as well. If you were thinking Galapagos is a cheap trip (or is easy to get to!), you might want to reconsider and also build enough travel time into both ends of your trip to see what you want to see. I did Friday to Sunday and it was tight to squeeze everything in.
3) Hotels: Once you've got an idea or direction of travel you can start narrowing down what to do and where to stay. I will share what we did and you can take what you want from that. We originally thought we'd stay at Puerto Ayora for a few days and then move to Isabela and finally Floreana. When we arrived in Puerto Ayora we decided to scrap that plan and remain in Puerto Ayora and do day trips. There's a number of reasonable hotels in PA and we thought our week would be maximized with day trips rather than traveling with luggage, finding new hotels and ferries. Not all hotels include AC, which can be a must for some people. We used booking.com and found lots of options available.
4) Day tripping (if going that route): There is a lot to see in the Galapagos. What you should spend time on will completely depend on what you value - animals, birds, scenery, activities, snorkling, diving, etc. We like to do a little bit of everything (except diving) so that's what we did. I read that the further you are from the Galapagos the more you'll pay for your trip, so we planned only hotels (which we subsequently cancelled when we decided to remain on Puerto Ayora, thanks booking.com for free cancellations). What I found was this was true, but not exorbitantly so... more on that later by tour. Most tours start around 7 or 8am and end around 5 or 6pm.
4a) Travel agencies: On our arrival day we walked all over the little town asking each Travel Agent what they were offering, when and at what price. What we found is that several tours only go 1-2 times per week and others are offered daily. My guidebooks and reading instructed me to find tours offering Level 2 or 3 guides, however, this did not prove differentiate anything as all companies claimed they had Level 2 guides. My best advice here is to map out what you want to see, find a Travel Agent who speaks good English and gives you the lowest price and book everything with that agency, insisting on a further "bulk" discount. You have no guarantee that it will be good, but I'm here to tell you if you are doing day trips your quality of guide will likely vary daily (ours were phenomenal all the way to meh) and that won't matter where you book, because you'll be aggregated with everyone else from other agencies. When everyone on your day trip compares what they paid, you'll feel better if you didn't overpay.
5) Islands: (in the order we did them not by priority)
5a) Santa Fe: This island is newly open to tourists. We saw a gazillion sea lions AND we swam with them which was a trip highlight. The numbers and colors of the fish could not be surpassed.
Review: Strongly recommend. This is in spite of a "meh" guide. There was so much to see that we thrilled with this trip.
Cost: you can do a 1/2 day trip for $35 or $45. We did a 3/4 day for $60 which included more snorkeling (locations and time).
5b) Seymour Norte: This island is AWESOME. It had countless baby sea lions playing when we arrived and lots of land iguanas as well. This is known as bird paradise. We saw lots of blue footed boobies and even more impressive, frigate birds. Snorkeling was very good with many colorful fish and number of Galapagos and white-tipped sharks. This island has been heavily visited by tourists and as a result, you can only go one or two times a week. Book this trip early as it can supposedly sell out.
Review: Strongly recommend.
Cost: We paid $150 each which included the trip there/back, lunch, snorkel stuff, and guided tour. Some people paid up to $180 if they'd booked it at other agencies.
Review: Recommend if you want to see the view. Otherwise skip it.
Cost: We paid $160 - most expensive trip. Others paid $180 or $200 if booked from the US.
5d) Santa Cruz: We stayed put and visited some of the island's attractions, Tortuga Bay Beach, and Las Grietas. Both are free and easily accessible. Las Grietas involves taking a water taxi from the main pier and walking for 20ish minutes (no taxi/bike ability available). It was pretty but extremely crowded. Tortuga Bay was stunning. The sand here is like flour and is incredible. It's a 30ish minute walk (cannot take a taxi or bike as the walk is on a path) from town so doing early/late is best to avoid the extremely hot weather during the peak of the day. We did the Darwin Center after our 3/4 day tour to Santa Fe, also worth doing for 1-2 hours. The rest of Santa Cruz we did on our way out of town. We had a flight at 1:30pm so our tour agency set us up with a driver to take us to El Chato Tortoise Reserve, lava tunnels and Los Gemelos, which were all nice.
Review: Tortuga Bay Beach = Strongly recommend, Las Grietas = could take it or leave it, Darwin Center = recommend, El Chato = recommend, Los Gemelos = sure, why not
Cost = Free! Unless you get a guide to walk you around, then I'm not sure what you pay
5e) Isabela: Options for Isabela are a single or multi-day tours. A single day tour will take you to Puerto Villamil and on two days you can do the port plus Sierra Negra the oldest/highest volcano and second largest volcanic crater in the world. That latter trip involves a four hour hike in the insane heat, so we decided to pass and do a day trip. Here's some things I wish I knew about that: 1) you're going to go to Isabela for the day, but lots of people go there for longer. Your boat will be used to shlep these people taking the "ferry" and all their luggage will be on board. It will be insanely crowded and is a long trip (2 hours). People got physically sick on both directions. It was a trip-low light. Arrival on the island was a hallelujah moment for our boat. We saw flamingos, lots of penguins, tons of turtles and iguanas. I spent a full hour swimming with sea turtles (a number of them this time) which was again incredible.
Review: Tricky one. The tour was good, but the ride was incredibly rough and packed.
Cost: We paid $80, but some people paid $100 or $120 (yikes).
6) Quito: I would be remiss without mentioning my day and a half spent in Quito. I was prepared for the worst since someone on one of my tours was robbed in front of many people, but if you take savvy traveler precautions, you'll be fine. These precautions include not carrying a purse/bag, taking taxis at night and being aware of your surroundings. I felt pretty safe and I walked around all day Saturday on my own. I took the free walking tour around old town which was beautiful and had great historical stories and lore. I then jumped on the Quito hop-on-hop off bus tour to see broader Quito. I spent some time exploring La Basilica del Voto Nacional which is gorgeous and the 30 meter statue of the Virgin of Quito atop a hill in the city. Definitely worth a day visit.
6a) Zazu: We had a phenomenal meal there at Zazu which featured a seven course tasting menu for $60 and a four course for $38. Each menu had different plates, so we ordered both. Unlike most places, this $60 and $38 was inclusive of tax and tip (22%) which made it even more of an incredible deal. This food was exceptional and the price was also amazing. Service was terrific and nearby chatty patrons were also five stars. Can't recommend this place enough
I hope this has been helpful. Please get in touch if you'd like any other specifics.
Till next time! Thanks for reading.
Liz
