March 13 to March 18, 2012 Galapagos is home to some of the world’s most interesting creatures – iguanas, blue-footed boobies, sea lions, manta rays and giant tortoises. We’ve come to the islands hoping to see them all and we are not disappointed. Time and budget preclude a cruise so we chose a land-based tour staying on the main island, Santa Cruz and taking a boat trip each day. Our first day is an early start to Bartholomew Island. We are greeted by …
March 8 to 21, 2012 We cross over in to Ecuador with a minimum of fuss. The officials couldn’t have been nicer – we get SOAT. Welcome to Ecuador. First stop is Cuenca to meet up with Ian Moor, the brother of our friend Keith Moor, the Melbourne journalist. The ride takes us away from the desert of Peru to the mountains of southern Ecuador. It’s green, it’s cool, it’s beautiful. Cuenca has a quaint town centre with wonderful buildings like …
After the Nazca lines we decided to take in some of Peru’s natural beauty with a stop at Paracas and Islas Ballestas – and the sea lions and birds. We’ve never seen so many birds. The island is black – covered in ‘guano’ birds – gulls, blue footed boobies, cormorants and pelicans. The ‘guano’ is sold as fertilizer. We saw many seals in Antarctica but we’ve never seen so many as here. We can hear some grunting and then we see the …