Month: January 2018

January 20, 2018 Paul Groves

A 3:30 a.m. wakeup call started our busy day. We started with a quick 1 hour flight from Lima to Cuzco where we were met by our van drivers for the next leg of our journey. We drove 1-1/2 hours to Ollantaytambo to catch our ride on the train to Machu Picchu village. On the…

January 19, 2018 Paul Groves

Again it was an early day with a quick walk to the Darwin Research Center. Here we saw the process where Galápagos turtles are raised and released back to their islands. After this quick visit we re-boarded the bus for our final 45 minute journey to the Ferry and the Airport. We had two flights…

January 19, 2018 Paul Groves

We left the hotel at 6:00 am for our bus ride to the Ferry and another 2 hour ship ride to the island. There was a chef on board so we got a great breakfast on the way. About an hour into the trip, we also sailed around another island, Daphne Major (an extinct volcano),…

January 19, 2018 Paul Groves

After breakfast we were off to our next island, Isla Plaza. A quick(?) 45 minute bus ride took us back to the Ferry (we soon learned that all trips started at the ferry so we had several more of these bus rides to go). We boarded a boat for a 1-1/2 hour ride to the…

January 18, 2018 Paul Groves

The next morning we awoke in the city of Quayaquil, Ecuador. We didn’t spend any time there as we were off to the airport for our flight to the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Our flight was 1-1/2 hours and we landed at Seymour Airport on Baltra Island. Other than the airport, there’s nothing on the island….

January 15, 2018 Paul Groves

Two days after exiting the Panama Canal, we arrived in Ecuador at the city of Manta. Manta is the largest seaport in Ecuador. It’s main industries are fishing (primarily tuna) an tuna canning. It was fun to watch the ships next to us unloading the tuna. A lot of this tuna is shipped to the…

January 11, 2018 Paul Groves

We are making our way down the west coast of South America to our next port of call in Ecuador. Manta is the port. The next day we land at Guayaquil where we leave the ship for a six-day excursion to the Galápagos Islands and then Machu Picchu. Today on ship we are attending lectures…

January 9, 2018 Paul Groves

We arrived at the Panama Canal at about dawn today. Since we did this passage last year, we did not jump out of bed in the dark to watch the approach. However, the call of the “Panama Rolls” and coffee DID get me dressed and on deck early. They only serve these treats until 9:00…

January 8, 2018 Paul Groves

We got up early today for breakfast and then set off on our 7.5 hour excursion. The excursion included a bus ride where we got to see some of the local sites and then on to the Veragua Rainforest Research Center. We met up with our naturalist guide, Daria, who began the talk with how…

January 7, 2018 Paul Groves

Luckily, we had no sea-sickness symptoms since that first day at sea. After a nice breakfast, we went to a cooking demonstration by Samantha. This class was entitled, All About Salmon. We learned about two new recipes for salmon that each look good. Poached Salmon with Herb and Caper Vinaigrette and oven-roasted salmon. The additional…