TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums World Wide Travel Galapagos and Ecuador

Anybody got any experience and tips for Ecaudor and Galapagos? Booked to go late October on organised trip round both ateas, but would appreciate any first hand tips.

Sunset Sammy is suppose to do the Galapagos in February and he will post a trip report and pictures. Don't know if it is early or late February.

Thanks Eric. Will look forward to reading about it. We're booked late October/early November.

We are sailing from the Las Perlas Islands in Panama around Feb 7 and it should take us about 5 days to get there (I hope). I will be there until Frb 26, then heading to Quito for about 6 days. I'll be posting trip reports in the world wide travel forum. Not sure how available the internet is so it will be dependent on that but I will post as available

Have a great time!

Hi Sue... We went to Ecuador and Galapagos as part of the World Arc 4 years ago. We had a great time in Ecuador, renting a car and heading up in the Andes to Cuenca. Wonderful journey starting off from the coast, through paddy fields of rice and then getting higher and higher in the Andes the scenery changes to a spectacular version of the Lake District but with Llamas. Cuenca itself is a lovely old city high up in the Andes. We also went to some Inca ruins ( the name of which escapes me at the moment ) Wonderful trip.

Then we went to the Galapagos which was one of the big disappointments of our trip. Yes some of the scenery and wildlife was great but we felt we missed out because we couldn't use our own boat to get around. Only way to travel between the islands was on the organised day trips which entailed several hours travelling on tatty, uncomfortable, local motor boats and then only getting a relatively short time ashore.

People who did 5 day liveaboard trips enjoyed it more but most people felt the Galapagos hadn't lived up to their expectations. I think this is because of course we all had our own boats there and we just knew our experience would have been better if we'd been allowed to use them to get around.

Hi Mike. First of all, congratulations on the completion of the sale of Jennius. We now have Salica on the market, hopefully that might pay for the E and G trip- one day!


Thanks for those experiences from your ARC days. I fully appreciate what you say with regards to seeing Galapagos on your own boat. Disappointing and frustrating, but I think the ethics behind so many of their restrictions are good and well meaning. As we will be on a fixed tour we wont have the limitations you suffered and although we're not on one of the bigger boats, will actually have a little more luxury than we are accustomed to when onboard!!





Did you swim/snorkel there at all and if so what were the water temperatures like and at what time of year? I figure the Caribbean has spoilt me? Am really looking forward to visiting Ecuador as that will be an added pleasure for 9days or so. Using a British company who are small but well experienced, our age and accompany their smallish groups, which suits us, but probably wouldn't have worked so well for you?

Hope all is well with you and Jean and that you are enjoying the next phase of your lives.

Yeah, sorry to have been a bit negative about Galapagos. You probably are doing it the best way (or at least the best way that they will allow).

You should probably take a lightweight wet suit for snorkelling. Water temperatures are down at all times of the year compared to the BVI as the water mainly comes up from the cold southern ocean. This cold water does keep the islands at very comfortable temperatures even though you are right on the equator so that is a good point. Water was incredibly clear and full of life so snorkelling was always fun.

Next to Africa, the Galapagos was our best trip.
We flew to Quito for a two night stay and really loved it. At night, we were advised to stay close to the hotel but we never felt threatened. We wandered about both days and had lots of fun interacting with the locals.
We then flew to the Galapagos to sail on Explorer - a small cruise ship run by Celebrity. We visited virtually every island and had many snorkeling excursions. The water is frigid - Humbolt Current - so, you wear wet suits.
The hikes on the islands were very interesting. The animals and birds have no natural predators, so they are very approachable.
The best, by far, was the snorkeling. We saw giant sea turtles, penguins and sea lions. The sea lions would come out to greet us on the zodiaks. They were anxious to play with us.
They would zoom in at our masks and dart off at the very last second. The more you laughed, the more they would do it. That alone made the trip worth while.

We have just returned from our trip, and it was fabulous. So many experiences and things to see. We now need a holiday to recover!
We had four days in Quito, four in Cuenca followed by a couple of days in Guayaquil then on to Galapagos for a full week.
Fortunately we were able to have shortie wetsuits supplied, as I would never have had space in my packing, and they were necessary! The water was breath takingly cold on the first two snorkells, but swimming with sea lions was great fun. Must admit snorkelling in BVI is better though overall. Just couldn't get over how close you can get to birds and animals.
We were very lucky to go with a fantastic company who organise everything, everywhere including accompanying us themselves: a great couple of people. I am still on a high and will take a very long time to organise the one thousand plus photos we took.

Would love to hear more about your trip and see those pictures when you get time!

Will try to do so. Wading my way through over 1000 photos. Unfortunately Mum died two days before we left for the trip and now my Dad is sick too, so time needing to be spent there right now.

How do I add photos?

Probably the best thing in your case would be to create a photo album at like Photobucket (they have a free account available). Then you can link either individual pictures or even the entire photo album.

Here is the link to photobucket: Photobucket website

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to like a UK postcode instead of US zip code and so won't let me register. Oh well. Will investigate further.

Never have heard of a restriction to the US, maybe it did not like spaces in the zip code? Generally in a situation like that you can put in 09999 and it works in most cases.

OK Eric. So have now got on Photobucket and downloaded a few of my pictures. Help me here as I am pretty useless with this technology. What do I do next?

Once you have the photos there, then you would press the share button. Different options based on what you want to do. If it is the entire album, then you would link the url. If it is a single photo that you want to share and post on the board, then you use the bbcode option. That gives you the code to paste with the image tag to display the photo.