13 Mar

Day 1 – Off to Quito!

The big day was here!  I’ll let you know upfront that I took over 5000 pictures on this trip.  5000!!  It was a photographer’s dream.  I posted several over on my Cruising with Tammy account on Instagram, and you can find several videos there in my story highlights!

Originally we had only planned on coming in the day before our 7-night cruise.  That was before I looked at flights and realized that getting to the Galapagos on our own was not easy!  With Celebrity?  Super easy.  So we upgraded to the 10-night package which included two nights in Quito before, one night after, flights to Quito, and a charger flight from Quito to the Galapagos and back.  With the discount Celebrity gets on the air, it wasn’t even a big price difference.  Totally worth it!

We flew from Colorado Springs to Houston to Quito.  We had a very long layover in Houston, but we knew we would and were prepared for it!  What we did not know was that a long layover would turn into a CRAZY long layover. 

I was ready!

We landed at 11, and ended up not leaving until midnight or so.

We didn’t get to Quito until around 2:30 am!

We had a 45-minute drive to the JW Marriott and got there around 4 am. There were 6 other couples on our flight. The Celebrity rep told us our (included) tour of Quito started at 8, which meant we would get about 3 hours of sleep! She said we could sleep in and join the trip to the equator around noon if we would rather.

I was like – yes, sleep! Stephen was like – no, we can do it!

He won I guess, because three hours later we were up!

I wasn’t prepared for a redeye and no sleep, so my camera battery wasn’t charged! So I guess the phone would do for the day.

We went down for the hotel buffet breakfast, which was great! Then we met in the lobby and checked in with our assigned group for the day.

The Flora carries 100 passengers, and close to that many people were in Quito. We were split into groups of 14-16. We ended up really enjoying our group and hung out with them once we were on the ship as well!

Diego was our guide for the day, and we started off at the park.

Inside the building, there was some amazing traveling art.

We asked some fellow travelers (who we later got to know and spent lots of time with) to take our picture.

Then we went downtown to old Quito.

We had lunch in this gorgeous church!

Then we took a bus to the equator.

Amusingly enough, when the French first measured the equator, they were about 800 feet off! They built a museum there and everything. Well when GPS came along (thanks, Space Force), they realized it was off! So we went to the correct equator. Ha!

Our guide did some crazy things at the equator. He balanced eggs, he showed us how balance can be off, but the craziest to me was the water draining. He stood about two feet from the equator and poured water into a drain and we watched it circle clockwise. Then he moved two feet on the other side and it drained the other way! Insanity!! Four feet made the difference!

Stephen couldn’t pass up highlighting GPS.

At the end of our tour, we tried some cocoa beans.

I was starving, so I went to the shop and got a Coke Zero and some chocolate for a snack.

Then we took the bus back to the hotel. We had about 45 minutes to relax before we met for dinner.

Dinner was in a local restaurant where they sat us by the group we had been with that day. It was fun!

We had to take our large luggage down to the lobby to be weighed and collected. We condensed everything down to a carry-on. We hopped into bed afterward, and slept sooooo well!

Gallivanting in the Galapagos – October 1-10, 2022
Day 1 – Off to Quito 
Day 2 – I May Love Small Ships 
Day 3 – The First Encounters with Wildlife
Day 4 – Penguins and Turtles and Birds, Oh My! 
Day 5 – Lava and Bad Choices 
Day 6 – Glamping in the Galapagos 
Day 7 – Civilization! 
Day 8 – Tortoises are the Grandest of Finales!