Photos from Ecuador - Part Two

Yesterday, I posted photos from the Ecuador half of my husband's and my trip to Peru and Ecuador. Today I'm posting the last of the Ecuador photos, mostly of wildlife in the Galapagos Islands. Enjoy!

First comes a sea lion montage. The second photo, or course, is not of sea lions, but is of two workers from the Discovery Channel recording underwater sea lion vocalizations.

This mother sea lion is nursing her pup, and the second photo shows a rare albino sea lion pup.

On to reptiles! The first photo is a land iguana in the process of shedding its skin, second is a lava lizard, and the third photo shows a mocking bird sitting on top of a marine iguana.

Now, the abundant bird life. The first photo is of a blue-footed booby, the iconic bird of the Galapagos Islands. Second is of a swallow-tailed gull pair and their chick. Third is of an albatross with its egg.

The bird hovering above me in the photo below is a frigate bird that stayed above our boat for awhile, tracking our progress. The next photo shows a pelican taking flight, and the third shows a Galapagos penguin.

Next up are some photos of sea life. First are some bright red Sally Lightfoot crabs, followed by two of the many types of fish we saw while snorkeling.

We also saw sea turtles, Eagle rays (not pictured) and stingrays (pictured), and even a shark (while we were on the beach--NOT in the water snorkeling).

Below is a photo of our guide snorkeling with a juvenile sea lion. This was a very special snorkeling session, because a whole group of curious sea lion youngsters cavorted all around us and stared into our masks to see what were were all about, as shown in the second photo.

On the island of Floreana, we stopped at Post Office Bay to see the impromptu Post Office (the barrel) where folks stuff post cards addressed to friends and family. The tradition is that you look through the plastic bags of post cards in there, and if you find one addressed to someone who lives near you, you should take it and hand deliver it.

Here's our group on the "flight school" cliff on the island of Espanola where sea birds learn to fly. The second photo shows a nearby blowhole. The third shows a view of Gardner Bay on San Cristobal island from an overlook. This island was our last stop, and the island from which our plane trip back to Quito began.

Back in Quito for one night before heading home, we visited the Ethnohistoric Museum of Handicrafts of Ecuador, where we were encouraged to touch the textiles, play the musical instruments, and so on. We ate our final dinner together as a group inside the museum, as shown in the last photo.

This was an amazing trip, and I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Photos from Ecuador - Part One

Last week, I shared some photos from the Peru half of my May top-of-the-bucket-list trip to Peru and Ecuador with Overseas Adventure Travel. Today and tomorrow, I'm posting photos from the Ecuador half of the trip. Enjoy!

Our first day in Ecuador was spent touring Quito. We stopped first for a music and dance performance by the Sinamune Disabled Children's Orchestra, ending with the students dancing with us.

Then we visited the French government's monument to the equator (La Mitad Del Mundo - the middle of the world), followed by a visit to the Inti Nan Museum of native cultures and their version of where the equator was (we are posed behind the marker in the second photo below). Neil's GPS said both locations were off, and the equator actually crossed the street near the museum. The shrunken head in the third photo was from the museum.

We visited Quito's central historic district next, and I caught Neil in the midst of a pigeon takeoff there.The third photo is of the front of La Compañia de Jesus, a Jesuit church built in the 1650s, with its twisted solomonic columns. We weren't allowed to take photos of its ornate interior, gilded with over seven tons of gold leaf.

These two guards are in front of the Presidential Palace. The second photo below is of a street scene in the historic district, and the third photo below is of half of our group with our local host family, who served us dinner the first night. The husband was a banker and we had an interesting discussion with him about Ecuador's adoption of the US dollar as its official currency and the economic impacts of that change.

The next day we flew to Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos Islands. We saw giant tortoises at the Primicia Ranch and the Charles Darwin Research Station there (next two photos). Then we strolled through the town of Puerto Ayora (see the third photo of me in the seaside park) before taking a launch to our ship, the Carina (fourth photo below).

The first photo shows most of our tour group in the lounge of the boat, and the second photo is of the dining area across from the lounge. The third photo shows our crew and the fourth is of the glorious sunset that evening.

I'll continue tomorrow with photos of more animals, birds, and sea creatures that we saw in the Galapagos Islands.