Quito at Night

As we flew over the Andes mountains of northern South America a beautiful vista of twinkling lights awaited us as Quito spread its border like a welcoming blanket.

Making Chocolate

We made a pre-lunch visit to Minka Chocolate where we participated in a chocolate making class. Tom and I have made chocolate before, but this time we did a much tastier and decidedly prettier job! \240We learned that some of the best cacao is grown in Ecuador, but the secret is truly in the manufacturing method. After cacao beans are harvested, they are fermented in the white flesh of the fruit for about a week, then cleaned, dried and roasted to remove the shell. The nibs of chocolate that are left are then ground into a thick paste called cacao mass or cacao liquor, to release the cacao butter to make it smooth. Afterwards, the mixture is refined by adding sugar and other flavors and then undergoes a process called conching, where the mixture is heated for days to improve texture, reduce acidity and accent the flavor. Finally, the chocolate is cooled and reheated to create a small, shiny texture that will snap when pressure is applied. We finished with a decadent hot chocolate!

Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus

Constitution of this baroque style church began in 1605 Ana continued till 1765. The exterior of the church is carved from volcanic stone while the interior is overlaid in gold leaf.

A Day in the Old Quito City

We wandered the streets of old town Quito marveling at the colorful displays of grains and fruit in the shops. Being Sunday, many of the shops were closed, but there were plenty of street vendors! The temperature was a cool 65 and was very pleasant and we enjoyed the town! The town is very safe, with police officers strolling amongst the town people. Most of the churches were busy holding mass throughout the day, but we caught a glimpse of the Winged Virgin Mary of Quito on top of a hill. The original winged virgin is only 5 ft tall, made of wood and encased in jewels and precious metals. She resides in the Cathedral of San Francisco.

Quito, Ecuador

At 9176 feet elevation in the Andes, the capital city of Equador is surprisingly modern. After an early breakfast, we traveled to the teleferico tram that took us up to an overlook at the top of Pichincha Volcano (which last erupted in 1999). Well we almost made we almost made it to the top! We made it to 13,800 feet, but opted to skip the final 2000 ft uphill hike to the very top at 15,600 feet. Our Florida sea-level lungs were aching!!

The Orchid Garden

Over 4200 species of orchids grow in Ecuador, accounting for 25% of all species in the world! Many species are endemic to Ecuador with 1700 found no where else in the world! And Mindo, in the cloud forest, is one of the hot spots for orchids! We toured a private garden with hundreds of orchids. The lovely owner told us their names and characteristics ( all in Spanish which we did not understand) but we enjoyed her excitement \240and the fruits of her labors!

Ecuadorian Arabica Coffee

Ecuador produces excellent arabica coffee in the lower highlands on the sides of the Andes. Of course we had to taste a few varieties! We had to get some caffeine in us for the 2 hours of winding mountain road that we traveled to get to the cloud forest town of Mindo.

The Cloud Forest and Butterfly Garden

This beautiful garden is home to 25 species of butterflies and many delicious (at least to the butterflies) flowers and plants. \240But this was just a tiny example of the 4000 - 5000 species found throughout Ecuador! \240While wandering among these voluminous insects, we were able to view 3 of the 4-stage life cycle of butterflies (egg, caterpillar, pupae, butterfly). \240We didn’t see any eggs as they were carefully sequestered to protect the hatching. We did see many magnificent Blue Morpho butterflies, but they were seldom still enough to photograph. \240The Blue Morpho is a large butterfly with striking iridescent blue wings. \240Fortunately , we caught one taking a rest and got some good photos. We also saw a butterfly with translucent wings! Overall this was a wonderful treat during our visit to Mindo!

Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands straddle the equator in the Pacific ocean about 600 miles off the shore of Ecuador, who claims them. They occupy a land mass half as large as Hawaii. The most famous visitor to the islands was Charles Darwin who, in 1835, spent 5 weeks of his 5 year journey aboard the HMS Beagle, chronicling the diversity of life on the islands.

The Galápagos formed as independent shelf volcanos, many of which eventually merged together forming larger islands. Because it had never been attached to any continent, and the distance to other continents is so great, the life forms that made it to the islands via floating logs or seaweed or by air eventually evolved to become endemic species found no where else in the world.

The M/Y Grace

Our ship for the week, M/Y Grace, was built in 1928 as the M/Y Monaco. In WWII, it was requisitioned by the British Royal Navy and was used as an anti-submarine patrol vessel. After the war it returned to private ownership and had several owners and renovations. In 1956, it was gifted by Aristotle Onassis to Princess Grace and Prince Ranier as a wedding present.

Santa Cruz Island - Bachus Beach

After landing on Baltra Island, we sailed a short distance to Bachus Beach for our first introduction to Galapagos fauna - in this case Sally lightfoot crabs and American flamingos! The island’s white beaches are made from eroded coral with sharp, black lava outcroppings reaching into turquoise water. \240The island got its name from the US Navy which beached 2 barges on the island during WWII. Fast forward to today and the Spanish word for barges was shortened to be bachus. The bright orange and blue Sally crab is a stunning site on the black lava rocks. They are the most common crab in the Galapagos and we will surely see them again. But Wow - what a picture! And then we saw the flamingos! There are around 500 flamingos in the Galapagos and the four we watched were spectacular! \240The island is also a nesting ground for sea turtles and we saw many mounds that we thought to be nests. But our guide, Hernman, mentioned that the Galapagos has thousands of turtle nests each year so they don’t bother to mark them.

Genovesa Island - Prince Phillips Steps

Described as ‘the birding island’, we started our hike early (6:30am) to catch the birds being most active (and to take advantage of cooler temperatures). Upon climbing up about 35 steps hewn into the rock, we were immediately confronted with Red Footed Boobies, Nazca Boobies, and Great Frigate Birds - the males displaying the huge, puffed up, red throat that the species OSS known for. S ome of the Nazca Boobies were busy displaying mating rituals and some were already on the nest of 1 or 2 eggs. We caught 1 couple in the ‘act’! \240

We’re at the start of the rainy season, and the birds are getting busy! We discovered that the brightness of the beak and feet of the Boobies indicates a good breeding male, and for the Great Frigate Birds, it’s all about the size (of the throat pouch). Red Footed Boobies are gray -brown birds with … you guessed it … bright red webbed feet! But we were fortunate to see a rare one with white plumage. Apparently only 7% of the population have this white gene.

Sunset and Sea Lions- Darwin’s Bay

We returned to Genovesa Island in the late afternoon for a stroll along the beach and some spectacular sunset pictures. \240We saw lots of sea lions basking on the beach in the late afternoon sun. We also got a rare treat to see a just-born baby sea lion just a few minutes old! We saw many of the same birds that we’d seen on the morning walk, but they were bathed in golden light making their colors more vibrant!

Santiago Island - Puerto Egars

We traveled overnight to awake at a new island with new wildlife. On our way to shore we spotted our first Blue-Footed Boobies! The blue of their feet is determined by their diet. The more algae to they add to their fish diet, the more turquoise their feet. And the brighter the feet, the more ladies!

Isabela Island

Today was spent at Isabela Island. It’s the largest of the Galápagos Islands. If you look at a map, it’s the island that looks like a sea horse. Today, we were at the mouth of the seahorse in the morning and at the stomach section in the afternoon. \240We took several panga rides along the cliffs in the morning and afternoon and saw marine iguanas ( I got a good video of one jumping into the sea and swimming) \240flightless cormorants, sea turtles, sea lions, golden rays, and penguins (I got a good video of these two!)

Snorkeling Pics

We’ve mostly seen Pacific Green Sea Turles while snorkeling. They are the primary turtles who nests in the Galapagos and they lay thousands of nests on these islands. The males can be distinguished by their long tail. They have can grow to be quite massive but are graceful underwater!

Isabela island

We dingied ashore to the mangrove to walk through the poison apple grove ( all the parts of the gorgeous tree from roots, to the trunk, leaves, and fruit are poisonous to humans) in search of giant Galápagos tortoises. We found several small ones and a couple of huge ones. (Galapagos tortoises enjoy the poison apple fruit and tolerate it well. Some believe they eat them to rid themselves of intestinal parasites.

Interspersed between the tortoises were huge golden land iguanas. These guys are larger than the marine iguanas this year, being well fed on vegetation. \240Hermit crabs scrambled along the sand between all these massive creatures completely disinterested in these huge reptiles that could have smashed them into sand themselves!

Isabela Island - Puerto Villamil

The only settlement on the largest island in the Galápagos, about 3500 people, live here. That is because there is no source of fresh water on the island. The towns needs are met by desalination machines.

In the middle of the town is a brackish pond where 7 flamingos live. We grab some great pics against the overcast sky!

It’s off to the Galápagos tortoise breeding center at Villamil. We were fortunate to tour on feeding day. (They only feed them on M-W-F due to their slow metabolism). The center maintains about 20 breeding pairs. The eggs, once laid, are collected and artificially incubated. Giant Tortoises lay 8-16 eggs, much fewer than the 80-100 eggs that sea turtles lay. Turtle gender is determined by the temperature of incubation. In the wild, this is controlled by the heat of the sand and or location of the beach. However, with the incubator, the breeding center can control the counts of each sex. In the wild, turtle hatchlings live in the underground nest for up to a month, surviving on food and water stored in their bodies. The center replicates this process. \240Once the hatchling is ready to come out of the nest, the center carefully numbers their shell to indicate the species and the island they came from. The turtles then go into a nursery pen and are moved to larger pens as they grow. When they are about 5 years old, and are large enough to be safe from predators, they are released back into the wild on the island they came from.

When we got back to the dock to catch our dingy back to the ship, we watched these wild sea lions showing off. Here they are climbing up the steps to another dock … and the people on the dock don’t appear to notice!

Santa Cruz - Puerto Aroyo

Our last afternoon was spent in Santa Cruz, home of the second largest city in the Galapagos with 22,000 people. We traveled to the highlands to view domed shelled giant tortoises in the wild. They were everywhere! Our guide, Diego, mentioned there were about 4000 on the island now, but before the 1700s when whalers and explorers started coming to the islands, there were over 50,000!

We’re left Santa Cruz to start our 3 flights home this morning. But not before we got a few more pics!