A Galapagos Islands Adventure

We all have our bucket lists, I suppose. Mine is more of a “Lord, if I ever get a chance to do such and such, I would really love it!” than it is a firm aim for my life or plans.

The Galapagos Islands were one of those places that I would love to visit if ever given the chance. Known for incredible, unusual and sometimes fascinating fauna and flora, the islands are situated off the coast of Ecuador away out in the Pacific Ocean. Not easy to get to, and expensive too.

On my first trip to Ecuador in 2017, I had really wanted to go there, but the expense and not having my dear wife with me on that trip, with whom to share the experience, made me shy away from pursuing it. In 2018 I had found a local friend who could help me get there, but that year Mum died and the trip to Ecuador (and thus Galapagos) was cancelled.

This year, we had some amazing financial provision come in for us in time for the trip, and my local friend was able to get us an incredible deal for a 9-day tour there, and … we had an 11-day break between training events in Ecuador and the ones we start this week in Guatemala.

So Amarilis and I got to go on the trip of a lifetime covering about seven of the islands and seeing some amazing sights, including a show by Humboldt whales on our first day out sightseeing, and pilot whales on our last day’s outing. Both sightings right by the boat we were on and made our tour guides and boat crew squeal with glee and rush about making sure we did not miss the event. We knew from their reaction that we were being entertained by a sight that was not normal and in one case had never ever been seen by one of the guides! And we were not even looking for whales! We were going snorkelling.

We felt all along that we were being blessed specially by our Father in this little downtime we had aside from our work and He just kept turning on the show for us! What a privilege to tour with God!

Here are some other sights we came across, including pictures of swimming with sea lions and a (raw, unedited) video of the first whale sighting (coming as soon as I can get the bandwidth to post it!!).