Christmas Vacation Pt. 2 Galapagos! AKA She said yes.

Welcome to the Galapagos!

When I found out that we were moving to Ecuador to teach, the first thing I said to Shannon was “I want to go to the Galapagos Islands.” It is truly a once in a lifetime experience or even less for most people. Naturally, when it was time to plan our family vacation, we had to include a trip to the Galapagos.

A few months before they were going to come, we sat down and tried to plan out what we were going to do during our trip. Shannon, her parents, and her sisters Meagan and Caitlin all planned out flights and hotels for us. With hotels and flights filling up fast, they booked the best accommodations they could find.  I had nothing to do with the amount of work they put into all of that. We were booked and ready to go by mid-October or so.  

Dinosaurs Among Us

When the day finally came to go to the Galapagos, we arranged for transportation to pick up Shannon’s parents at their place and then come get us before going to the airport. Departure time was something awful like 4:00am so it took a bit of planning and a few cups of coffee to mobilize the troops. When Shannon, her sisters, and I went downstairs with our baggage to wait, we sat there talking for about 20 minutes before realizing that something was going wrong. We tried to get ahold of the driver to no avail and to Shannon’s parents. After a few minutes of trying, we finally spoke with them and they were just about at the airport. It was pretty much a reenactment of the scene in Home Alone where they leave the kid behind to go on vacation. They finally came back to pick us up and we were on our way.

Mind If I Sit Here?

Now if you ever go to the Galapagos know this; you may not bring any food, drink, seeds, or ideas of contamination whatsoever. There is a whole line that you have to go through to ensure that. After that line, you get in a line to pay a fee to enter the Galapagos, then you go through security. It’s basically everything you could hate about airport travel + three new lines, + a need for fluency in a language that you aren’t fluent. Not fun.

We eventually made our way onto our plane and through a relatively uneventful flight when we arrived in Baltra, the airport island of the Galapagos. After getting our bags, we went through

Anyone Hungry?

another line to pay a national park fee to enter the island since pretty much the whole set of islands are considered protected natural parks. After all of that, we found the woman who Shannon and I work with who was arranging our activities for us. She took us on a ferry where we saw our first sea lion chilling on a buoy lazily as we rolled past. Then she whisked us off to a few trucks that were waiting to take us to our hotel. On the way across the island we saw some wild Galapagos Tourtises which is freaking cool. Finally seeing something that you’ve read about as a child for your whole life is truly surreal.  Seeing them was like looking at dinosaurs. They were giant, slow, and old.

Blue Footed Boobies!

When we finally got to our hotel…we were unimpressed. In fact, I was so unimpressed with the hotel, I have no problem using the specific name as a warning to those who may at some point in their lives travel there. DO NOT STAY AT THE CARLIZA HOTEL. The owner was rude, required full payment cash up front, and offered us no help or advice about the area. When we went to check into our two rooms, we noticed the strong stench of urine, a lack of towels, no shower curtains, and unclean rooms complete with the trash in the cans from the last visitors. When we went to shower, there was no hot water and you could look out of the window in the shower and wave hello to the people hanging out on the common outside rooftop area. “What’s up? I’m naked. How are you? Enjoying your vacation?” It was a disaster.

After deciding that we had to quickly leave the hotel and go explore, we found the island of Santa

Snorkeling Time

Cruz to be full of charm, great local restaurants, and friendly people. Our guide took us to a great little lunch spot overlooking the water and then to the Charles Darwin Research Center where we got a full tour of the facilities and got to see hundreds of Galapagos Tortoises hanging out. We saw tiny babies the size of an orange, and giants the size of small sedans. Well..maybe not that big, but closer to a Smart Car.

That night after dinner, Shannon’s sisters distracted her while we all met up with a few of our co-workers, one of whom is a semi-professional photographer.  We gave some excuse and set off to scout the location that I was going to be proposing to Shannon. The previous night I had done the old-school and proper thing to do and asked her parents for their blessing and they obliged. Her sisters, through countless hours, text, email, and shared pictures helped me design a nice ring to be made for Shannon and at this point everything worked out and I had everyone’s permission and the ring. It was going to happen the next night.

Lava Lizards and Iguanas
Everywhere!

Anyway, the gentlemen and I went out to scout our two possible locations, picked our some angles for photos, and came up with a plan. We quickly hurried back to the restaurant to have a beer with the ladies and then retired for the night.

The next morning, in a haze of disappointment at our rooms and the grogginess that follows no sleep, we were awakened by Shannon’s dad knocking on our door and telling us to evacuate like we were sailors asleep during the first wave of Pearl Harbor attacks. We were luckily not going to be staying at this hellhole any longer.

We were picked up from breakfast and taken away to adventure on a private yacht. Let me tell you, 

there are worse things in this world than being saved from an unfortunate situation by a private yacht and water that looked like Listerine with its brilliant blue green sheen.

We set off for our day’s adventure not exactly knowing what was ahead of us. After a short ride on

Private Yachts...No Big Deal

our boat, we were all set for a day of snorkeling. We saw Blue Footed Boobies, Marine Iguanas, more sea lions, some beautiful fish, coral, pelicans, sharks, iridescent neon colored crabs, and a slew of other animals. It was absolutely incredible.

At one point, while snorkeling close to a rock ledge, a few sea lions swam up to us and were playing fetch and tag. It’s hard to explain, but the sea lions were hitting this cork looking thing towards us with their noses and when we would hit it back they would swim in circles around us and hit it back to us again. It was amazing how much they acted like dogs. All of the animals were so friendly and open to humans. I suppose they never had any reason to fear them, so they would just lounge on park benches, or hang out near the fisherman’s wharf looking for scraps. It was unbelievable. After growing up in NJ, I’m used to seeing fat dirty pigeons dare you to get near to them or squirrels scampering around you. I never could have imagined so many exotic and unique

Meagan and Cait Waiting to Celebrate

animals just hanging out and living their lives in the middle of a town the way that they did. Midway through the day, we were fed some fresh ceviche and ate like kings as we recharged for our next dive. After we were done snorkeling and cruising around the islands in our yacht, we went to a private beach island area and wandered around for a while checking out some more amazing wildlife and hanging out. Then, it was time to return to the new and improved hotel.

Nap Time...Unless Anyone is Up for
a Belly Rub...?

Quick aside, the hotel we moved to was called the Palace Suites. It was close to everything, clean, new, and most importantly everyone there truly made us feel like we were home. If you ever stay in the Galapagos, please go to the Palace Suites. They will take good care of you.

When we got back to the hotel, Shannon’s parents and sisters were “too tired to go out” as previously arranged by me so Shannon and I went out to dinner. We were taken by our island driver who met us at the hotel and we went to the dock. We got on a little boat to head to an island because the restaurant we were going to could only be reached by boat. I had arranged for flowers and champagne ahead of time, and Shannon’s family’s transportation was arranged to leave 15 minutes after ours. When we got to the island, we walked down a little boardwalk area to a nice

Don't Mind Me

beach bar and conveniently ran into our friends who were staying on the island. We had a drink with them and they left to go about their evening plans. When we were done with our drink I proposed to Shannon in a private cove area and went to the restaurant to join her family for a celebratory dinner. It would have been really awkward if she had said no due to the involvement of so many people in the planning stages but luckily, and obviously by now, she said yes.  We all shared an amazing dinner

Beautiful

at the restaurant overlooking the aquamarine water and even saw a giant tortoise, a sea lion, and a shark frolic by as we ate. It was definitely a night I’m never going to forget.

The next day we were taken by yacht again to a new island where we went on a day tour hike and saw some flamingos hanging out in a lagoon, some new tortoise hatcheries, and some really cool and interesting wildlife. We had another fantastic dinner and went back to the hotel to recharge after a long day.

Hanging Out On Our Private
Island

One thing I can say about the Galapagos is that it is the most unique place I’ve ever been to. The coast is vibrant, bright, and full of colorful and unique animals that you couldn’t see anywhere else in the world. The mainland is a mixture of spiky plants, dry dessert like land, and lush green rain forest. It was a short visit but nonetheless one of the most incredible and memorable vacations I’ve ever been on.