Ecuador Galapagos Travels

This was, by far, our favorite hotel. Everything was exceptionally clean, the rooms were lovely, the AC was perfect, & the staff was friendly & helpful. We loved that we could take our breakfast outdoors. The patio & area by the pool & bar was lovely, & Denzel, the bartender, was the best. It was clear how much pride he took in his work & he made our evenings a lot of fun.

Although we were pleased to have AC, this was probably our least favorite hotel, although I can't entirely say why we felt that way. The location was great -- very convenient to shops & restaurants & the pier -- & the rooms were spacious. My room had an amazing view. The manager was surprisingly gruff when guests were asking for towels for the day. Although I was able to get some for the day, the manager refused to give them to other guests, saying that the tour boats were obligated to provide them -- but they did not. The to-go breakfast was also inedible & a lot of the baked items & breads were stale at the regular breakfast. I also ended up with ants in my toothpaste....

A great team & great service. Nice bar, too. We were definitely glad that we stayed here & not the lodge that was another two hours upstream. Although we had been encouraged to stay for 3 nights, I'm glad we only stayed two because I'm not convinced we would have seen much that was new with another day (& it was HOT & buggy). The food was decent.

Nice hotel, but nothing special. Not in a particularly interesting area, but it felt safe. The hotel does not have AC, which was fine in my room since my window didn't face the main street, but it was a problem for my daughter, whose room faced a busy street. Breakfast was good, though, & the service was great.

Not one of our best dinners. Decent, but not impressive. In retrospect, we should have planned more of our own meals, especially since I was traveling with people who were good at doing that.

I've already covered how we didn't do the experience that had been planned for us on this day & went to Papallacta instead of returning to Quito. I'm giving this portion of the day just 2 stars because the hotel arrangements for this evening frustrated me. One place in my detailed travel plan stated that we were going to be staying at a hotel at the airport on the evening between Yasuní & San Cristóbal. I didn't notice, however, that the actual hotel planned for this evening was in Quito. With an early morning flight, we saw no reason to be in Quito for the night, so I ended up paying an extra $300 to stay out at the airport. The travel document shouldn't have contradicted itself. That still bugs me. And even if we had gone into Quito for the afternoon (& dinner), staying near the airport made much more sense for this evening between the two major portions of our trip.

We did not need this activity. By the end, we were too tired to do a 90-minute round trip for a meal. Plus, the restaurants that had been picked for us were not up to the standards the foodies in my group had in mind. Fortunately, Sebastian was able to allow us to eat wherever we chose & applied the money I had already paid to the meal we chose to have in the hotel at the airport. I very much appreciated Sebastian's willingness to modify activities and, when possible, to apply funds for one activity to another activity. That was definitely concierge-level service.

Charles Darwin Station gets 5 stars, but the speedboat gets 1 star. I'm not sure there was any other way to get from San Cristóbal to Santa Cruz, however. It's a really long & grueling boat ride -- choppy, lots of fumes, cramped -- especially if you have someone with you who's prone to seasickness. The drive into the highlands was lovely, though, & it was fun seeing the Giant Tortoises. The food at the farm was also very good. Aside from the boat ride, my only complaints about the day were that breakfast wasn't really figured into a day that started very early (because the to-go breakfast was a thin slice of cheese between two small pieces of toast) & the day ended too soon. It seemed like there could have been recommendations for what to do in the afternoon (although we loved Santa Cruz a lot & found lots of interesting art shops to visit).

I'm not sure we did all these things this day & I don't know if we went to Tijeretas Hill at all. All I'm sure we did was snorkel & that was probably at La Lobería. The Interpretation Center was a definite waste of time, but the snorkeling was excellent. Our guide in San Cristóbal was Esteban & I would definitely say that he was the one guide that did not impress us. I understand that he had recently returned to work from a serious motorcycle accident, & he has my deepest sympathy for his injury, but it's odd to pair a guide who walks with a cane with a traveler who has emphasized how active & busy a trip she wants. We definitely had to slow our walking pace down for Esteban. In addition, Esteban was the only one of our guides throughout the trip who really struggled with English. We would ask him a question, & he would answer a completely different question. He did not seem to know as much about flora, fauna, and Ecuadorian history as, say, Francisco or Marcelo (our favorite guides).

All the drivers were great & right on time. They were also patient about waiting for us when they needed to do so. They were extremely helpful. Sometimes, though, we didn't really need car transportation in the Galápagos. We were happy to do a 5- or 10-minute walk on our own. We had traveled light so we could also easily do a half-mile walk with our luggage. If you're going to hike for 2.5 miles, you don't need a car for the .5-mile walk to where the hike starts.

The kayak trip was great. The walk out to the kayaks was lovely, too, although we should have been informed that we'd be walking probably 5-6 miles in total because, once again, some of us did not have the right shoes on for the distance. We saw a lot of birds, fish, & sea turtles & Tortuga Beach was a lovely place to kayak. I would give that activity 5 stars. We were less satisfied with the afternoon snorkel trip. The visibility & what we were able to see during the snorkeling was great, but the trip itself was not entirely great. First, there were too many people in the group (15) so the boat felt crowded, & too many of them had never snorkeled & weren't even capable swimmers. There was only one guide in the water & it was impossible for him to manage 15 people with varying abilities in choppy water. I've never been kicked while snorkeling so many times in my life. Plus, the guide didn't provide enough information as to where we would go once we were in the water, so everyone was a bit confused. There was also a weird occurrence when we got off the boat. Someone from the agency came to pick up our gear, but we didn't have any gear from a dive shop. All we had was what was on the boat & those snorkel masks were annoyingly cheap (no valves, poor fit) & we didn't even have flippers, which definitely would have been nice to have. Also, the hike to the lava formation was nice & the formations themselves were beautiful, but that spot was way too crowded for any swimming or snorkeling. We ended up at the bar along the way.

This day was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We loved that there was a place where the divers in our party could dive but where those of us who could only snorkel could snorkel. The divers loved that they got two dives, thought they had a great dive master, & enjoyed what they could see (including sharks!). We all saw sea turtles, lots of colorful fish, &, of course, the ubiquitous sea lions. It was also great that we got outfitted the day before so we were prepared with well-fitting gear for the dive & snorkel trip. The young people also loved the chance to swim to the beach & have a little beach time. My daughter is an avid sheller & loved the shells she could find (but accepted that she couldn't keep them).

I'm going to use this space to address internal flights & our replacement activity for July 29th. First off, I was grateful that Alvaro took care of making the internal reservations, but I wish I had given him information about our seating preferences on airplanes. Also, it became clear that our afternoon activity was really something we'd already done -- i.e., a visit to Old Town with a food tour. Fortunately, Francisco recommended a replacement activity -- a trip out to Papallacta & the young people loved that. I know they love hot springs & massages, but I didn't know there was an option for that near Quito. Along the way, Francisco also gave the young foodies a chance to try some type of cane sugar cocktail & they enjoyed that a lot. My favorite part of the outing was the absolutely lovely 2.5-mile hike behind the Papallacta hot springs. I've already recommended Papallacta to my sister, who travels to Ecuador a lot, because her husband loves hot springs & massages. The kids loved the price on the massages.

The whole Yasuní experience was fantastic. We had two wonderful guides, Marcelo & Lucas (sp?), who worked hard to make sure we saw as much wildlife as possible. One highlight of the Yasuní trip was the sunrise bird-watching & the skill the guides had at finding birds, knowing what they were, & making sure we saw them. The canoe ride where we saw caimans & several species of monkeys was the other highlight, but we also enjoyed our visit to the women's cultural center. It was interesting to learn about the work the women are doing & aspects of Quechua culture, & the small shop was a terrific place to get small souvenirs. We all tried cooked palm larva (not as bad as beetles). I strongly recommend bringing along someone who is willing to eat raw palm larva, as that will entertain everyone. We had thought we were going to do something in the village at 4:30 am on our last day, but the guides didn't seem enthused & we were tired because the sunrise bird watch had been really early, so we skipped that. The lodge & the food were basically what we expected -- not luxurious, but fine. And the staff was incredible.

This day was a little confusing. The day turned out great, but it was another day when I wasn't sure what the options were or how to choose between them. The butterfly garden & bird sanctuary were amazing & fun. The drive out to Mindo was lovely. I thought we were going to go tubing, but we ended up zip lining at the recommendation of our guide & I guess that was okay. At first, I thought we would have time for both, but that didn't work out. We should not have tried to squeeze in the chocolate factory, as we didn't really have time for the tour. Instead, the guide suggested that we use the $40 allotted to purchase chocolate & souvenirs. Since I didn't know what else to do, we did that, but I wasn't really happy spending $40 that way. And since we did the upgraded zip line, I had to spend $40 there. I would have preferred the $40 to be applied to the zip lining (which was great, even though it was not, as billed, a way to see birds or wildlife). I also want to mention that Francisco was a fabulous guide. The young people in my group especially loved him. He was fun, funny, knowledgeable, made great suggestions, & recommended little add-ons (especially opportunities for my young foodies to try local foods) that were great. His English was outstanding, too. Since we had basically done the post-Yasuni afternoon on our first day, he also gave us a great recommendation for that afternoon -- Papallacta.

We enjoyed the view of the city & the ride up in the cable car. This is one activity, though, where we would have benefited from having more information. Alvaro made it sound as if it was an easy hike. It was, but only because we barely hiked, as we weren't prepared for the altitude or the distance. I would have liked to have hiked farther, but since Alvaro made it sound as if it was a short hike (which it definitely didn't need to be), I didn't have my walking sticks with me, & the kids didn't have the right shoes. In addition, had I thought about the altitude, I would have asked for this activity to be scheduled for day 2 to give us a chance to adjust to the altitude. Once we finished the hike, it didn't make sense for us to go to the park (which didn't look terribly interesting when I finally googled it) because we needed to eat. So we ended up going to Old Town, which was great -- a nice lunch, a tour of the churches (the Basilica was stunning), and then an artisan market. I needed to have looked at activities in more detail before I left for the trip, but that was hard to do. Overall, I would say that I asked Alvaro various times how long activities would take & when we would start & finish the day, & I didn't get enough information from him to be helpful. Also, on this day, I had asked Alvaro to make reservations at a specific restaurant & discovered that he hadn't done it -- & that he hadn't done so for subsequent evenings, either. That turned out not to matter much, but it did bother me that he said he would do that & didn't.