Seasoned Backpacker Reflects on The Galapagos Experience

Was it worth it?

I asked this question again and again.  Every time I met someone who’d been to the Galapagos Islands off of mainland Ecuador, I sought an answer to the question.

They all said yes, urging me to go, then telling me in no uncertain terms to just do it.

But when I asked how it was worth it, no one really had any answers.  None that satisfied me anyway.

So I wasn’t convinced.   I did some googling but came up with nothing that led me any closer to making a decision on this costly trip.

In the end, emergency cash in hand–lots and lots of emergency cash in hand– (as I still don’t have a debit card), I booked a flight to the islands and set out about finding a last-minute boat tour.

In spite of the fact that my boat tour defied most of the guidebooks’ try-to-avoid suggestions (for it was an overlapping boat tour that employed freelance guides, there was a fuel stop, a change of cooks, captains, guides, and group), I had an absolute ball.

Even though everywhere I looked, my eyes encountered far grander, luxurious boats, er yachts, I grew to love my little boat, Rumba. (And not just because, as the only female among 14 guys, the crew began calling me La Reina (the queen)…)

So there was no hot water.  Or barely any water to shower with at all.  So the cabins were teeny, tiny spaces with no air-conditioning.  So the only indoor common area was crowded and basic.  So there was no bar but only a cooler full of beer.

There was food, good food, and plenty of it.  Our cook for the better part of the trip, George, made magic in the galley kitchen.  One evening he turned out a torta de banana so fabulous, I had seconds–twice!  We ate fresh fish for lunch everyday, salads of pickled onions, avocado, sweet tomatoes.

We snorkled at least once a day, and I swam with sharks and sea lions and couldn’t count the number of manta rays I saw swimming about.

We watched penguins mate in the water, passed by blue-footed boobies, Galapagos doves, and land iguana that seemed less than impressed with our human presence.

On Isabela, before my boat trip began, I visited the tortoise-breeding center, walked the length of the beach until I reached La Playita, and noticing not a single (human) soul, went skinny-dipping in the middle of the afternoon.

On the last day of the boat tour, the morning activity involved a walk on Floreana Island, where Post Office Bay is.  It’s been a long tradition on the islands for visitors to leave unstamped letters and/or postcards in a wooden mail box, and as tourists leave their letters (hoping for hand-delivery, one day!), they can also take postcards to hand-deliver.  As our group looked through the addresses, I gleefully pocketed postcards addressed to places in Queens, Amherst, NY (where my parents live!), and Boston.  I can’t wait to return and personally deliver the mail to completely unsuspecting people.

In closing, was it worth it?

Without a doubt.

But really, it’s just one of those things you’ll have to see for yourself.

Entering Ecuador

My birthday with Limenos

After a super fun birthday in Lima, where I drank tequila like I was turning twenty-one and not twenty-nine, and danced salsa on a makeshift dance floor, I set out for Ecuador.  Instead of crossing the border at the coast as I’d planned on doing before  my bag was stolen, I chose a different route, a crossing which The Lonely Planet called “wonderfully remote.”

Sounded nice.  Splurging on a coche-cami seat instead of the usual semi-cama for the first part of the journey (18 hours Lima to Jaen, Peru), I was ready to move forward, get over the robbery, the lost items.

The first leg of the journey led me to the second, which took me in a shared car (colectivo) to San Ignacio, where I waited for another colectivo to fill up before going to La Balsa, that “wonderfully remote” border between Peru and Ecudaor.

After waiting for nearly an hour and a half–the cars will not leave until they are full of passengers, which means two in the front, besides the driver, and three in the backseat–I counted my Peruvian Soles and decided to offer to pay for a second passenger just so we could just go already!

It worked.  So well in fact that when the driver stopped to pick up a lone woman by the side of the road, he forced her to squeeze into the backseat among three other full-sized adults.  I chuckled to myself, realizing that he intended on getting the full fare for two passengers from me, thereby leaving me to continue the ride alone in the front seat.  He was a clever one (and greedy too), that’s for sure, for certainly if he’d had the woman sit up front, I’d have argued that I didn’t need to pay for two people after all.

At the border, which turned out to be remote but not at all wonderful, I trudged through mud in my flip-flops to get my passport stamped in Peru.

What I walked through to leave Peru legally

Crossing the border into Ecuador, I received an odd look from the border official, a grunt, which I believe was his way of asking me how long I intended to stay in Ecuador, and, finally, an entry stamp.

After waiting an hour for the next means of transportation to arrive, I hopped aboard the ranchera in the photo below.

Two hours on a dirt road in this vehicle=what the hell did I sign up for?

We arrived in Zumba, where really I should have spent the night.  Instead, hell-bent on getting to Vilcabamba, that charming oasis that promised relaxation, massages, hours by a pool, a breakfast with real coffee, horse-back riding, and sleep in a real bed, I bought another bus ticket and held my personal belongings close.

At 3:30 in the morning, I was woken by the bus guy and put out at the side of the road.  There were no taxis in sight and all I had was a memory of an email from the owner of the hosteria I’d booked:

Hostel owner: “Well, Stacey, there are no taxis after 9:30 PM, but you can walk–it’s only 35 minutes–we’re on the main road, can’t miss us!”

So uphill I trudged, my headlamp lighting the way.  I stopped at the first hostel I encountered and jumped the fence when no one answered my persistent bell-ringing.  The sleepy and annoyed (and rightfully so) owner said he had no beds and directed me further uphill to Hosteria Izhcayluma.

Up I went.  And up some more.  I stopped to pee on the side of the road at one point and considered the possibility of camping out by the side of the road until first light.

But I kept on.  Smart girl I am.  Yeah, sure, arriving in the dead of night with no map or clear understanding of where I was going.

When I saw this sign, I nearly cried tears of elation.  “You can do it, girl,” I told myself.

And, “You got this, Stace.  Just a little more.  C’mon.”

And so it was, a few minutes later, that I found myself fast asleep in a hammock because there was no one in the inn when I arrived.

My (free) bed