Ecuador--country of contrasts and wonder

Blue-footed boobies nesting on Floreanna Island, Galapagos

It's hard to imagine a country with greater biological and geological diversity than Ecuador.  From the steamy and teeming Amazon to the cool heights of Quito and its surrounding mountains to the incredibly unique creatures and islands of the Galapagos, you can't ask for a more fascinating country than this.

marine iguana, Espaniola Island

We are taking a group to visit the lowlands, highlands and islands of Ecuador from September 17 to Oct. 2, 2017.  You can see our itinerary on our website: http://www.eglobaleducation.com/equador_galapagos/equador_galapagos.html.  
We'll fly to Quito for a short night--most flights arrive very late--before heading to the Galapagos for 8 days.  Don and I spent 2 weeks on the Majestic, a small yacht with only 9 cabins, last year so we could see all the islands and pick the ones we liked the best. A pretty difficult choice since they're all wonderful, but we decided to take our group to the eastern islands with their incredible variety of birds, iguanas, tortoises and sea life.  We will use the Majestic this year also so that our touring group will be very small.

Nasco booby and chick, Genovesa Island

The Galapagos National Park Service determines the itineraries of all the boats touring the Galapagos in order to minimize the impact on the creatures living there.  So, sometimes itineraries change a bit, but every place has its unique beauty.  The Park Service also tries to make sure that only one boat is in a particular cove or landing site at any one time, so you feel like you are having a special opportunity to see the islands.

sea lion family, San Cristobal Island

Many people fly to either Santa Cruz or San Cristobal Islands and spend their time in a hotel.  I think that works well for many travelers.  We preferred the yacht because you can see so much more of the islands.  From a hotel, you must take day trips to a couple of the islands.  From the yacht, you can see all of them in one area of the Park.  So that's what we're doing, and visiting about 8 or 10 islands.

Giant Land Tortoise, Santa Cruz Island

On both Santa Cruz and San Cristobal Islands, there are tortoise breeding centers which are mandatory visits.  These huge creatures used to be unique to each island, but they were captured and eaten in such great numbers by the ships that stopped in the Islands for water that they became almost extinct and disappeared completely from some of the islands.  Now, they are being returned to the islands.  They are remarkable animals, if a bit unlovely, and so wonderful to watch as they amble through their protected habitats.

Sacha Lodge, Ecuadorean Amazon

We'll return to Quito for another overnight before flying to the Ecuadorean Amazon the next morning.  Three days and nights at the Sacha Lodge will introduce us to the rivers and rain forests of this part of the enormous Amazon Basin.  To get to the Lodge, we'll travel by boat and canoe and foot across a lake and along a river and trail to this all-inclusive eco-lodge.  The Lodge has a private reserve with protected animals and plants, a canopy trail hanging high above the forest, several watch towers for viewing the animals and birds, and a host of river and lake trips guests can take to see the huge variety of Amazonian creatures.

Plaza and convent in Quito

Cotopaxi Volcano

Back in Quito, we will stay in what we thought was the most beautiful hotel in the center of the old city, the Casa Gangotena.  We'll spend a day in the high Andes outside of Quito, visiting the national park surrounding the gorgeous 18,300 foot high volcano, Cotopaxi, which erupted only a week after we climbed part way up last year (to a sanctuary at 16,500 feet).

view of Quito from Teleferico

On our final day in Quito, we'll tour this charming colonial city and take the cable car (Teleferico) to one of the peaks above Quito. The cable car drops you at 13,000 feet, where you can climb higher or simply gaze down on the city resting in the valley below.  Quite a sight!