Skip to main content

Galapagos Day 0 & 1

Day 0 - May 23
We flew from Cleveland to Atlanta to Quito on May 23. We left out of Cleveland, so Teddy could stay with his Grandma while we were on vacation. The flight from Cleveland to Atlanta was uneventful. We had a four hour layover in Atlanta so spent part of that time in the Delta Sky Club since Jim gets free entry. The Delta Sky Club had a nice “free” buffet layed out with several types of salads, pulled chicken, and a few other warm sides. We also had free drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). I felt sitting in the Sky Club, was a much better option then just sitting at the terminal gate.
The 5 hour flight from Atlanta to Quito was uneventful. We landed in Quito at 10:30PM Central time and went through customs and immigration fairly quickly. The tour company representative met us past customs, and had a gift for us two Panama hats. (Side note: Panama hats are actually invented and made in Ecuador, but are called Panama hats because they were handed out to the workers building the Panama Canal. Thus are called Panama hats) We got to the hotel around 11:30 PM which gave us about 4.5 hour to shower and sleep before our 5:00AM pick-up to go back to the airport for our flight to Baltra in the Galapagos.
Day 1 - May 24
The tour company representative picked us up at 5:00 AM, and since we were checking out so early the hotel had a box breakfast made up for us. The breakfast included a yogurt like drink, yogurt, an apple, and a ham and cheese sandwich. It was ok. The tour company representative, personally took us through the Galapagos travel process, which includes getting a special visa, (which the tour company got for us ahead of time), getting our luggage scanned and tagged, and then actually checking in for the flight. The flight consisted of one stop on our way from Quito to Baltra Island where the only Galapagos Airport is. Fun fact: the Galapagos airport code is “GPS”. Second fun fact: The reason the Galapagos has an airport is because the US Military built an air base there during WWII, and when they were done using it turned it over to Ecuador.
The total flight time from Quito to Baltra was about 3 hour to include the short layover, were we did not leave the plane. When you land you end up going to the end of the runway, the plan then has to turn around and taxi all the way back up the runway to the airport to unload. You then go through the Galapagos immigration process and pay your $100 per person park fee. (The cost was included in our tour price.) From there our carry on bags were x rayed, and the contraband sniffing dog gave everyone’s checked bags a once-over. When done the dog got to play with his tennis ball and everyone got to get their luggage. After collecting our luggage, we met our tour guide for the day and boarded the bus to take us to ferry to get us to Santa Cruz Island where we’ll be for three nights.
Once on Santa Cruz we went to see lava tubes and one type of tortoise and have lunch. So contrary to my husband’s teasing, the tortoises did not all go on an off-island vacation. I got pictures of the tortoises. Lunch was good. It consisted of baked chicken, rice, roasted tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, and roasted asparagus. After lunch we checked into the hotel, to drop our bags off before walking to Charles Darwin Station.


The walk over to Charles Darwin Station, think of it as park headquarters, was easy and we got to see our guide direct a small sea iguana out of the road and back towards the water. At Darwin Station we got to see other types of tortoises and the taxidermied “Lonesome George” who was the last of his species of tortoise. I thought the exciting part was going down to beach area to see a few sea iguanas. The sea iguana are black and blend into the black lava rocks on the beach. I got a few nice pictures, and one ran right towards me as it was getting out of the water. The guide said the seals can be worse and will get right up to your nose if you are sitting still. I kind-of hope that happens, I think it will make a good picture. Jim got a few pictures of the iguanas swimming. After that we headed back to the hotel. It is now time to shower, eat, and sleep.

 

Location: Ave Charles Darwin, Puerto Ayora, Ecuador

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2025

This year felt a little off for me; I think it was because I was in a mental recovery mode.  I finished my graduate program in June and immediately went on a week-long vacation to Palm Springs.  I do not recommend Palm Springs in June; way too hot.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the graduate program mentally and physically exhausted me, which I think showed in some of my creative work.  But being able to work with great people like Natalie Hanrion , Coralinx Cosplay , and Anastasia B kept me motivated.  While I didn’t attend as many Cosplay Photo Shoot events as in the past, the ones I did attend were helpful in keeping the creativity flowing.  I also took some time this year to reflect on a few things and will be making some changes for 2025. In 2024, I shot 6241 frames, which is a 30-percent decrease from last year.  I edited 3187 frames, which is a 40-percent decrease from 2023.  I think this year, I started focusing on being very min...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Optical Spot

The weekend of November 16 th , I got a little ambitious and did four sessions to test out the Lindsey Adler Optical Spot .     I originally rented the optical spot from LensRentals , but that session had to be rescheduled; however, I didn’t want the rental to go to waste, thus a TFP weekend. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 1 Optical Spot 2 strip boxes 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 2 light stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Fashion Grey Seamless Gobos Gels Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps Star filter Red Curtains Posing stool     The set up While I did four shoots in one weekend, the lighting setup was basically the same for all four sessions; what changed was the gels and the gobos.  I started with a fashion grey seam...
Post a Comment
Read more

Whispering Waters

On July 19th, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, NY to attend the Whispers of Waterhouse photo event held by Everlore Events . This was an all-day event, which included a light lunch, vendors, arts, and crafts areas, and three different styled shooting locations.  I was one of the roaming photographers for this event, which means you work with models who are not currently working with a featured photographer (who have schedules), and can wander between all three shooting locations at your convenience.  For this event I used: Canon R6 1 Speed light Trigger Umbrella Gels 24 - 105mm lens Camera Settings: This was an outside shoot that had sets in heavy forested areas, out on a pond, and sunny meadows; thus, I was adjusting the settings to the lighting conditions.  I used ISO 100 and 400.  My goal was to keep my aperture around f/4 to achieve a nice background blur; however, depending on the conditions, I had to stop down to f/9 and f/11 to manage the light...
Post a Comment
Read more