I went to the Galápagos Islands in December 2013 with my parents and my sister. This page has links to all the posts I wrote about it as well as all the photos I posted. It also has links to the stuff tigerlily_blue wrote; as of this writing my sister hasn't finished all her daily commentaries so I'll add those when she does ( Read more... )

On Sunday, December 22, we awoke on the Letty for the final time. The boat was already docked in the harbor at our starting point of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal Island. Our suitcases went on to the airport ahead of us, and we went into town to see the sights, such as they are ( Read more... )

Friday night the Letty headed south toward Santa Cruz. We woke up on Saturday, December 21, to a brilliant blue sky just off of South Plaza Island, which is a very small island just to the east of Santa Cruz. We had a dry landing followed by a short trail that looped from one side of the island to the other and back again. It had a slight incline ( Read more... )

After we left Puerto Ayora the Letty headed north toward Santiago Island. When we woke up on the morning of Friday, December 20, we were just to the southeast of Santiago. However, we never actually set foot on Santiago. Instead, we spent the day snorkeling and exploring several small islands just off Santiago ( Read more... )

The Letty's itinerary is set by the National Park service, but every trip to the Galápagos has a stop in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island for two reasons. First, everybody wants to see the world famous Galápagos Tortoises and Santa Cruz is the most convenient place to do so, and second, Puerto Ayora is easily the most populous place in the islands ( Read more... )

Before I move on to the next day of my vacation diary, let's pause to talk about the people we were touring with ( Read more... )

So yesterday I mentioned Post Office Bay, where tourists are encouraged to ( Read more... )

Although I didn't know it when I woke up, Wednesday, December 18, was one of the best days I had in all of 2013. During the night the M/Y Letty had arrived at Floreana Island. Floreana is due west of Española Island where we had spent the previous day ( Read more... )

When we woke up on Tuesday morning, December 17, the Letty was near Española Island. Española is the southernmost island in the Galápagos. Punta Suárez is a at the western end, and it provided the best single hike that I took the entire trip ( Read more... )

When we woke up on Monday, December 16, we found that the M/Y Letty had moved from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno at the western tip of San Cristóbal Island to Punta Pitt on the eastern end. We took a quick panga ride into the beach, waded ashore in a 'wet landing'. After admiring the sea lions who were napping on the beach, we changed into our hiking ( Read more... )