We took close to 800 pics during our trip to Galapagos. Which is not that many compared to other people. My seasickness prevented me from being photo-happy like I usually am.
Regardless, we’d love to share some of these pictures along with the stories behind them with you guys. Hope you enjoy!
I have to admit that I hit the ‘Couchsurf with me’ button as soon as I saw that they keep llamas at the place we were looking to couchsurf in Quito.
“Llamas?! How cool! How… South American!” I squealed with delight.
Visions of ourselves frolicking on top of llamas in high Andean meadows quickly came to mind.
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador Finding a budget place to eat in Galapagos, especially if you’ve given up on cooking in hostels, was tough. Still reeling from the price tags of the waterfront restaurants of Puerto Ayora, we stumbled across this eating place on a street called Charles Binford, 3 blocks inland. Sharing the cramped eating […]
What are the images you see in your mind when you think of Galapagos? Tortoises? Lizards?
For me, it’s finches. Finches from a poster my third-grade Biology teacher put up on the blackboard of all the different finches that can be found on the islands. You know, Darwin’s famous finches?
Finches. Birds. Small birds at that. I’m not a small bird person. I guess safe to say I’m not a bird person at all.
Quito, Ecuador The first thing that struck me about Galapagos was the distance. The archipelago is a 2 hour flight from mainland Ecuador. But not only that, vast distances separate the islands from each other. On a map, they look all cozy, nestling against each other, but there were nights our luxury cruise trip around […]
Galapagos, Ecuador We’re in the Galapagos! *excited giggles* Assuming everything goes smoothly as planned, when this post published we should be in the middle of our Galapagos cruise. Which was not according to plan at all. We weren’t planning to visit the Galapagos this early on our trip, and the original plan was to explore […]
Otavalo, Ecuador Otavalo is known for its artesans market that’s held every Saturday. We got in to Otavalo after a long day of border crossing from Colombia on Friday and we were excited to see the market. With Jack’s love for souvenir shopping and my love for bargaining, we had a feeling that Otavalo’s artesans […]
Colombia, a country that’s trying so hard to reinvent its image (and is doing a good job in our opinion). Arriving in Colombia, we didn’t know what to expect.
The brutal coastal heat in Cartagena drove us south to San Gil and then Medellin where the temperature was cooler and the landscape was greener. That was when things got better.
We stayed in Salento for 10 days, much longer than any other place we went to in Colombia. Salento didn’t really have a cute plaza where you can hang out (unlike Jardín), nor did it have the prettiest houses (that’s Guatapé). But we ended up staying much longer than we expected for other reasons.
There is something about Jardín that makes you feel like you’ve entered a time capsule and transported back to a non-descript time in the past. A time when people did nothing much other than hanging out on the main plaza and drinking coffee or tea – was there ever such a time?
You might think, ‘Palm trees? I’ve seen enough palm trees to last me my lifetime.’
Well, that’s what we thought too. But Valle de Cocora still managed to impress these palm-tree hardened hearts. The photos don’t do this place justice.
The very first thing we noticed as soon we got off the bus in Barichara was how quiet everything was. Every now and then an old person would walk by. He would stare at us in the same curious way I imagine we were staring at him. Glad to see somebody else is out and about.