Galapagos 1999

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MN Santa Cruz
MN Santa Cruz
Galapagos – the holiday of a lifetime! I’m not usually an avid wildlife watcher, but I’d been interested in Galapagos since I studied a genetics course in the early 80s and learned about Darwin’s finches. It wasn’t until I saw a programme on TV about the islands that I realised you could actually go there as a tourist, and booked up forthwith.

In the summer of 1999 we spent four nights in Galapagos aboard the MN Santa Cruz. The ship cruised as we slept or at lunch time, so that twice a day we were taken off by Panga to explore a new island. Life on board was comfortable and sociable, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Bar
Cabin
Hot tub
The Panga

Before arriving in Galapagos, we visited Ecuador’s capital, Quito, and on our way to and from the UK we stopped briefly in Cuba. I wrote about both of these in 2014’s A to Z Challenge:

H is for Havana

Q is for Quito

Over the next three Thursdays, I’ll take you to the islands we visited and show you some of the wildlife we encountered. NB we didn’t have a digital camera in 1999, so all the photos are scanned. Forgive the quality!

Ecuador

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  2. 1999… goodness, sounds… and looks ;-)… like a different planet!
    The first time I heard abotu Galapagos was also in the 1980s, in a very famouse series of documentaries. I too didn’t know one could go visit the island. But is it safe for the environment?
    Can’t wait to read your posts! 🙂

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    • Tourism is restricted – but not as much now as it was then. Also, you can’t set foot on any island without a guide and you have to wash your shoes between islands to prevent transferring anything that would alter each one’s individual ecosystem.

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