Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos archipelago was created from volcanoes, much like Hawaii. It consists of 13 major islands and is located 600 miles from Ecuador to whom it belongs. The Galapagos Marine Resources Reserve is the world's 2nd largest, after the Great Barrier Reef. They have flora and fauna that is found nowhere else on the planet, and different species on each island. For that reason, they have strict regulations of what can come in or out of the islands and how many people can be in any one place at the same time. They even sprayed the overhead compartments in the airplane with an insecticide before landing. Charles Darwin came up with his theory of evolution by natural selection from studying the fauna on the islands. The famous “Darwin Finch” is now 13 different species. The tortoise has become the symbol of Galapagos and are the world’s largest tortoises. Drought is happening there too and sometimes the tortoises have to travel several miles inland in search of something green to eat. On another island, it was greener and food was more plentiful for them. Other daily sightings were of sea lions, colorful crabs, iguanas, marine turtles and tons of birds. Snorkeling produced countless sightings of colorful fish and coral, rays, eels, marine turtles, even a shark, and the younger sea lions found it fun to swim with us. After our Galapagos segment, we traveled to the Amazonian jungle, down Ecuador’s largest river, which will be our next blog.