Ecuador

Quito
Arrived in Quito and arranged our tour to the Galapagos. We got a great last minute deal with a luxury cruise ship for 5 days. It's still outrageously expensive, though, at USD 1,400 per person for everything (flight, boat, entry fees)....and that's close to the cheapest tour you can find.
We went to the equator one day and had fun jumping back and forth between the northern and southern hemispheres. :) We walked around the old town of Quito. Very nice churches and beautiful buildings. The street that we stayed on was a major party street from about noon to 4am....but we behaved ourselves, trying to save money since we paid so much for our little island trip.

Galapagos Islands
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galapagos_islands)
The boat we went with, The Odyssey, was really nice, and we were very impressed. A million times better than the boat we took to Columbia! There were 12 people including us on the boat, and we had our own room and bathroom (with fresh hot water). The meals were very nice too. Sort of reminded me of the cruise we took in the Bahamas, just on a smaller scale. :)
We went around to quite a few of the islands (Santa Cruz, Bartolome, Santiago, Isabela, and San Cristobal). Again, we were so lucky with the weather...it was warm and beautiful every day! We were a bit surprised, though, that it wasn't too hot. For practically being on the equator, it was definitely not the hottest place we've been to on this trip.
We did a few walks on the islands and lots of snorkeling (with a wet suit - the water was freezing). We got to see so many things! On Santiago, we walked on the volcano and lava formations. Some of the islands are bare, while others have a lot more trees and grass. It's interesting to see how the islands are transforming and life is starting to grow on the younger islands. The animals here are not afraid of you at all. They are almost curious. And the iguanas are oblivious....If you're not careful, you could step on one along the beach because they blend in with the rocks. We got to snorkel with the sea lions, turtles, and penguins. The sea lions and penguins are quite playful. They would swim all around us and come right up to our faces to get a good look at us. :)
Some of the animals we got to see on these amazing islands: flamingos, blue-footed boobies (my favourite bird :), Darwin finches, sea lions, marine iguanas, turtles, white-tipped reef shark, penguins, giant tortoises, and yellow land iguanas,

After 5 days, we got off at San Cristobal Island and spent two days there. We went scuba diving at Kicker Rock. It was amazing! We got to see turtles, Galapagos sharks, hammerhead sharks, and millions of fish. The coral was so bright and colourful. The second dive had currents so strong that it took all our strength to hold on to the coral so that we wouldn't be swept away. It was really quite scary! After diving, we went to another site, Isla Lobos, were we got to snorkel and swim with dozens of turtles and sea lions. The sea lions were very active. They were very friendly swimming with us and jumping around us in the water. The next day we went on a little hike and saw more blue-footed boobies up close! :)

The Galapagos is such a beautiful and unique place. It was such an amazing experience to stand next to these creatures!


New photos are here:
http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com/