Page 220 - River cruises

Quito – Galapagos Islands

Very early start today, 04:30 arise, 05:20 cases out and 05:50 on the bus for our flight to the
Galapagos Islands. We arrive at the domestic airport terminal which appears to be in total chaos,
but we eventually receive our boarding passes from our local guide and board our flight. After a
short flight to another local airport we sit for about 45 minutes while the plane refuels and takes on
more passengers, then it’s off for an hour and 20 minute flight to the Galapagos Islands. After
arriving at the Island we go through Local Customs and Quarantine before boarding a bus which
transfers us to our cruise ship, the MV Galapagos Legend. Onboard we settle into our Junior Suite,
then we meet our expert Naturalist guide at a welcome briefing and take a light lunch whilst we
cruised to North Seymour Island.
Our first excursion is a dry landing at a site that has a major colony of blue footed boobies and the
magnificent frigate bird. On our walk around the Island we spot a few land iguanas and hundreds
of frigate birds in various stages of the mating process. At one stage some Blue Footed Boobies
block the path and we have to skirt around them to within one to two metres, they are not ay all
perturbed, but just stand and watch us. We spot some playful sea lions on the rocks before we board
our Zodiac and back to the

Frigate Birds