Survival of the Cutest: A Galapagos Adventure

I knew I needed to take a vacation this summer, but for once, I wasn't sure where. 

Initially, I was thinking of going back to East Africa, because James would be spending three months there doing research for his masters thesis. The thought of going to Zanzibar and doing all my favorite tropical beach activities sounded tantalizing. However, when I looked at the cost of flights, the time difference, and the fact that I could only realistically take a week off, I decided against it. 

I still wanted to go somewhere and take a fun solo trip, though; the first thought that came to my mind was a beach resort in Cancun where I could spend four days or so doing absolutely nothing. The thought of that sounded wonderful. I have no shortage of problems and stress in my life, and I needed to unwind. But then a crazy thought occurred in my mind: what if I went to the Galapagos Islands? 

I had been wanting to go for years. I felt FOMO from all of my family being in the Philippines this year and if I went somewhere cool, the FOMO would go away (lol). Being a Filipino, I love islands and I love the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to see some fun sea creatures. I could spend some time in Quito, Ecuador's Andean capital, and bask in the familiar atmosphere I had come to know and love in Bolivian cities. I could have it all in one week. I became fixated on the idea, and I started looking into it, hoping it wouldn't be cost prohibitive. 

There were some naive assumptions I had made about the Galapagos prior to planning this trip in earnest. First, I thought nobody lived there, just the animals and maybe scientists or something. Second, I thought you could only visit by booking an expensive cruise. Third, I thought the islands would be hot, humid, and tropical, and the water would be warm. 

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately on that last point, my assumptions turned out to be false! 

As it turns out, you can do land-based tours, and you can wing it and plan an itinerary yourself. However, I am super busy in my daily life and was overwhelmed about planning a trip in a place I clearly had only cursory knowledge about. So I was grateful to come across a tour agency called Galapagos Alternative on my preliminary Google search. The tour agency specializes in land-based tours of the islands, with a focus on supporting local communities and connecting travelers to hotels, restaurants, and people that they have built relationships with. As somebody who usually travels to get to know people and communities (it was somewhat unusual for me to plan a trip around animals), I did not need any more convincing. I reached out to them, they developed an itinerary for me, and I booked the trip. 

This was less than four months before I was set to leave, which is a very short turnaround for me and my international trips. Prior to my lawyer life, I usually planned where to go at least a year in advance. But I decided to do something different this time around, and I am so glad I did. 

Without further ado, here is a play by play of my incredible week in Ecuador, because I know that's what you're really reading this blog entry for! My usual travel reflections will be at the end of this post, in a break from tradition in my previous travel blog entries.

Day 0: Saturday, August 2, 2025

I flew to Quito, via a layover in Atlanta. Before this trip, I had heard about a fun ceramics series by Catalina Cheng, an Asian American artist, and I made sure to find her display while in the airport. Conveniently, my flight to Quito left only a few gates down from her display. 

After arriving in Quito around 9:30 pm, I spent the night at a hotel by the airport. 

Day 1: Sunday, August 3, 2025, arrival

First glimpses of the Galapagos - North Seymour island to the right, Baltra island where the airport is situated in the middle, and in the background, Santa Cruz island

I took a two-hour flight from Quito to Baltra Island, where upon disembarking the plane I was struck by how not tropical the vegetation was. Hah. I lined up with the rest of the tourists and paid the $200 national park conservation fee and then met my driver at arrivals. 

My driver's name was Ruben, and he has been living in the Galapagos for 33 years. He came from the mainland and moved when he was 16 for work. I recognized his accented Spanish and asked if he spoke Quechua, which made him very happy. He said yes, because he's indigenous. I told him I had spoken with many Quechua speakers in Bolivia, which is how I could tell he also spoke it. I asked if there was a community of Quechua speakers in the Galapagos, and he said yes, and I was glad to hear it. He lives with his wife and young children, one of whom was named Frixon, whom Ruben named his taxi after. 

After picking me up, Ruben and I rode the bus to the Itabaca Channel, the channel separating Baltra Island from Santa Cruz Island. 

Itabaca Channel seen from the bus, with little boats ferrying passengers and luggage between Baltra and Santa Cruz islands

My little blue carry-on being unloaded onto Santa Cruz island

From there, we would take a little boat across the channel onto Santa Cruz, as seen in the picture above. Then we would disembark on Santa Cruz Island. Once on Santa Cruz Island, you can either take a bus or a taxi to the town of Puerto Ayora. Because Ruben is a taxi driver whom the agency hired to drive me around during my trip, we got in his taxi, and we drove through the highlands onto the other side of Santa Cruz Island. 

Once I checked into my hotel on Puerto Ayora, Posada del Mar, I met up with Clara, my representative from Galapagos Alternative. I gave her some art supplies I had bought to donate to the children of El Mangle Agile Learning Center, which the tour agency partners with. In one of the emails I received prior to traveling, Javier from Galapagos Alternative wrote:

"If you feel inspired to give back to the community here in Galapagos, we invite you to check out our Agile Learning Center’s Amazon wish list. El Mangle is an ALC that focuses on holistic, project-based, child-directed learning. The students and facilitators created this wish list together in light of the exorbitant shipping and import taxes in Ecuador that make many items inaccessible to Galapagueños. The Mangle students decided they would like to reach out to kind-hearted travelers that might like to contribute. We invite you to take a look at the wish list and let us know if there’s anything you would like to special-deliver to our learning center in Galapagos. Used items from the list that you might have laying around and any other useful gifts (for humans between the ages of 4-18) are also very welcomed!"

I don't like to give money to Amazon, so I bought sketchbooks, color pencils, and drawing pencils from my preferred art supply store and brought them over with me. Clara thanked me and said the kids would be very excited. I was more than happy to contribute!

Clara then showed me the town a bit and dropped me off at the entrance kiosk to the Galapagos Tortoise Breeding Center and the Charles Darwin Research Center. I joined a group to do a guided tour. On this tour, I caught my first glimpse of the creatures I had most dreamed of encountering, the marine iguanas! I have always loved reptiles for some weird reason and at one point wanted to be a herpetologist, so I was especially tickled to see those freaks in real life. 

Marine iguanas!!

My guide Priscila in front of a relief map of the islands

Prickly pear cacti

The breeding center's work helps repopulate the Galapagos with its native, iconic tortoises, each distinct to each island. Each baby is color coded according to the island it is native to, which I thought adorable. These babies were from Santiago island, and they hatched in 2024.

We also saw a pen of saddleback tortoises. Tortoises grow nonstop until they are at least 70, and these tortoises were around 100 years old. At one point, a prickly pear leaf tumbled into the enclosure, and these old men ended up fighting over it. 

At the breeding center, we also saw the taxidermied body of Lonesome George. I had read about how he had died without continuing his species, so it was wild to see him in real life. His story made me think of another solitary male who was thought to be the last of his species, Romeo the frog.

After the guided tour ended, I spent some time on the nearby beaches, La Ratonera and La Estación. I clambered around the lava rocks and spotted marine iguanas, said hello to sea lions sleeping in the sand, and reveled in the sound of the waves and the laughter of children playing in the water. I also sat down and sketched the scene in front of me at La Estación, so I could paint it later. 

For dinner, I went to a restaurant called 1835 that Clara had recommended. I was starving since I had barely eaten anything that day, and I had ceviche and some loaded fries before returning to my hotel to rest. 

I love cute-ified Charles Darwin!

Day 2: Monday, August 4, 2025, roaming around Santa Cruz island

I had some time before my guided tour pickup at 9 am, so I sat on the terrace in my hotel overlooking the pier and painted in my sketch from the previous day. 

At 9 am, Ruben picked me up for my tour of the Santa Cruz highlands, and I met up with my guide, Daniela. From Daniela, I learned that the guides are all independent contractors, unlike the taxi drivers and the fishermen who all have cooperatives (some form of union I guess?). I wondered why that is but thought it interesting. The guides work with different agencies and live aboard the cruises. She told me she usually does around 12 cruises a year. All the guides have a special certification; Priscila from the tortoise breeding center told me that they have to do a 6-month course where they learn what I presume is the information they share with tourists. From my time with the guides they know a ton about the animals as well as the physical geography of the islands. The guides also have matching outfits with their names embroidered onto their shirts. 

At the highlands tour I walked around two giant craters known as Los Gemelos. 

I was highly entertained by this placard about invasive blackberries... If you can understand Spanish, it is well worth the read, or at least I think so. 

After that, we visited a ranch where I got to meet some free-roaming, wild Galapagos tortoises. I loved them!!

A very important meeting

New species of Galapagos tortoise discovered! I sent this to the family group chat and my mom responded with "Survival of the cutest?" I couldn't come up with a better title for this blog entry, hence, this.

Once I got back to Puerto Ayora, I had a free afternoon. I decided to spend it doing nothing for a few hours on a beach. I walked around an hour through some woods to Tortuga Bay Beach. The beach is made up of Playa Brava, which has strong waves and is not recommended for swimming, and eventually set up shop at Playa Mansa, the calmer beach, surrounded by mangroves. 

There was no shortage of Darwin's finches flitting around the beach, as seen below.

Unfortunately, the water was not clear enough for snorkeling, so I mostly just swam around. At one point, I saw some commotion not too far away from me. An older lady also noticed what was happening, and I asked her if she saw or knew what it was. She looked at me blankly. I asked her in Spanish. She said, "Nie rozumiem," which thanks to my rudimentary knowledge of Polish, I understood. I asked her if she was Polish, and she said yes, and we conversed a bit in Polish. She asked if I spoke German, I told her yes, better than Polish, so we spoke in German too. 

She was entertained by me and beckoned her Polish friends to come over and say hi. One of them spoke better English and asked me if I saw anything underwater, and in Polish, I replied, "Nothing." They laughed. 

Back in town, I tried a local endemic fish called brujo for dinner at a restaurant called Bahía Mar. It was delicious. 

I also walked around the shops and particularly enjoyed this ceramics shop. The quality of souvenirs on the island is excellent!

Day 3: Tuesday, August 5, 2025, North Seymour island

I went on my first of two scheduled tours of uninhabited islands aboard a boat called the Galaxy Daily. The first tour was to an island just north of Baltra island, North Seymour, which can be seen on the picture taken from the plane. 

After I found out that I would be doing tours of uninhabited islands, I had assumed that the boats I'd be on would be open-air and that the provided lunch would be sandwiches or something. I was so wrong. 

After meeting in town, our group took a bus to the Itabaca Channel and took a zodiac boat to the Galaxy Daily, one of the boats idling in the channel. When I stepped onto the boat, I was shocked at how fancy it was. It had an air-conditioned cabin and wifi. I wasn't going to be as off the grid as I thought!

Captain Leonardo filling out the log

The trip to North Seymour island took around 45 minutes from the Itabaca Channel. Once we arrived, we got on the zodiac and disembarked with our guide Ricardo. We then hiked around the island for an hour and a half, admiring the abundance of wildlife and learning about the frigate birds and blue-footed boobies from Ricardo. 

Hello there!

Once we concluded our hike, we went back to the Galaxy Daily and got ready to snorkel. 

We would be snorkeling along the cliffs of the island and would be jumping directly from the zodiac into the water. The water was not the warmest, and I did not get the memo about renting wetsuits, but nothing would stop me from living my dream of snorkeling in the Galapagos!

On the zodiac, we spotted a large, dark shape moving under the surface. It slowly came towards us, and Ricardo identified it as a manta ray. A manta ray!! 

We told the crew member maneuvering the zodiac to go after it. We followed it a short distance, and Ricardo said, "If you want to see it, jump in now, jump in!!" Others in the group hesitated, but I did not. I jumped in immediately and caught a glimpse of it swimming away just in front of me. 

I was overwhelmed. It was massive. I got so emotional, or perhaps I was a little shocked by the cold, that I forgot how to snorkel. On land I probably would have started crying but I had the mask and snorkel on and did not know what to do with myself. I tried to calm myself down and eventually succeeded, getting used to the temperature and to the familiar feeling of breathing through the tube, listening to the crackling noise of the sea, gazing underneath at the rocks and the abundant life. 

Eventually, I snorkeled back to the boat and clambered aboard. I was greeted with a three course meal for lunch. 

From there, we made our way back to the channel, and back to the bus that would take us to Puerto Ayora. I had another evening roaming around town planned, and I got some more souvenirs. 

For dinner, I went to a nice restaurant alongside the water called The Point. I took a water taxi from the pier to get there, and I enjoyed a dinner of grilled octopus. I peered over the rail into the water and saw black-tipped reef sharks in the water. 

Once I was finished with dinner, I took a water taxi back to the pier and returned to the hotel so I could get some sleep before the next day's adventures.

Day 4: Wednesday, August 6, 2025, Bartolomé island

The next day, I found myself on the Galaxy Daily once again. Captain Leonardo remembered my name and greeted me as I climbed into the boat from the zodiac. 

The ride would take longer from Itabaca channel; two hours, more or less. I sat at the bow the first hour or so, enjoying the breeze. Later, the waters got choppier. For a brief moment, we saw dolphins playing in our boat's wake. (Video taken by my friend Camila, not me.)

Eventually, the rocky volcanic landscape of Bartolomé island came into view.

We disembarked onto the island in two groups as usual. 

We hiked up the wooden steps to the viewpoint, where we could look out over Bartolomé, Pinnacle Rock, and Santiago island and its lava fields. It is one of the more iconic views of the Galapagos Islands, and I could see why!

Back on the boat, we had some delicious cheesy corn fritter things with syrup as a snack. 

Then we went out in two different groups to get closer to the rocks to try and spot Galapagos penguins. We were fortunate enough to spot three! 

After that, we had another snorkeling excursion. This time, we would take the zodiac to a sandy beach, and then go into the water, rather than jumping in straight from the zodiac. I was once again not in a wetsuit, but I acclimatized to the cold water eventually. 

At one point, a playful penguin swam right up to our group! It wove in and out a school of fish underneath us, but we did not see it catch any. I was impressed by how fast it swam and looped around us. 

Rather than get back onto the zodiac from the beach, I swam back to the boat. Once we dried off a bit, we were once again welcomed with a three-course meal. 

Later that evening, I once again roamed around the town. I visited a lovely wood carving shop, with works created by a family from the islands. I also treated myself to a lobster dinner, since it was lobster dinner in the Galapagos. I would never get this much lobster for $25 in New England!!

Finally, I returned to my hotel and packed my suitcase, in disbelief at how quickly my trip went, but amazed at how much I was able to do and see. 

Day 5: August 7, 2025, back to Quito

On the Bartolomé day tour, I met a young couple living in China teaching at an international school. Euan, the husband, was from England, and his wife Camila was from Colombia. I found out that they were on the same flight back to Quito as me the next day, so we exchanged contact information. They met up with me outside my hotel and rode in Ruben's taxi with me back to the Itabaca Channel. There, I said bye to Ruben, and Euan, Camila, and I took the ferry across the channel then the bus to the airport. Euan said that he hoped to see land iguanas while on Baltra island, and sure enough, we had one final animal encounter at the entrance to the airport. 

We went through security then perused the shops while waiting for our flight. Eventually, we boarded the plane. 

Upon arriving in Quito, we shared an Uber to our respective accommodations and spent the rest of the day on our own. I relaxed in my hostel and enjoyed the view from its rooftop restaurant, then lay down in my room catching up on Instagram reels. 

Later that evening, I met up with Cristina, an old friend. Cristina and I met as 16-year-old exchange students in France, and we hadn't seen each other since our exchange year ended in 2013. As with my other exchange student friends I had been reunited with before her, it was so lovely to be reunited after such a long time. We were able to chat as if we only saw each other yesterday, and it was fun to meet her partner David too!

Cristina and David took me around Quito's historic city center, and I delighted in the delicious food they introduced me to. 

Since that weekend was a national holiday for Ecuador, I was only able to see them that evening before they left for the beach for the weekend. I was so glad to have caught them and to have experienced their city with them!

DAY 6: August 8, 2025, hot air balloons and museums

The next day began bright and early. Cristina had shared information about various events happening the weekend I was in Quito, and one of them was a hot air balloon festival at the Mitad del Mundo park. The park is the site of where the equator is, and I knew I wanted to go at some point, so it worked out to have another reason to go. 

I met up with Camila and Euan at around 5:45 am and half an hour later, we arrived at the park. We watched the hot air balloons being inflated, loud reggaeton party music playing in the background, and we saw them launch into the sky. 

We were particularly excited about the Spongebob/Bob Esponja hot air balloon. 

We roamed around the park for a bit, and got pictures standing across the equator, which was later discovered not to be the real site of the equator, which was 340 meters away or so. Oh well!

For reference, I did the same thing in Uganda when I saw the equator there in 2017. 

Later that morning, we went to another event, Hueca Fest, which had a lot of food stalls and vendors showcasing local food. I was most excited about the Bolivian salteña stall. I asked if the proprietors were Bolivian, and they said yes, and I greeted them with a "jallalla (long live) Bolivia!" They were happy to hear it. 

Once we had eaten, we made our way back into the city for a nap. Later that afternoon, I ventured into the city center once again. My first stop was the Museo de Pasillo, which is an Ecuadorian genre of music. I loved learning about the instruments and composers that made up this genre!

Then I went to a museum of Precolumbian art, dating back thousands of years. The museum was exquisitely well put together, and I particularly enjoyed seeing depictions of women whose figures reminded me of my own. It was a nice reminder that I do not have to conform to ideals of beauty imposed by white supremacist cultures in order to be considered beautiful. 

At the museum shop and ticket booth, I chatted a bit with the ladies running it. One of them recognized the brand of overalls I was wearing and asked if I was an illustrator based solely on my fashion choices that day. I was impressed she could tell, and asked if she was an illustrator. She said yes, and we exchanged Instagrams. I love her art! (Coincidentally, my sister has that same pair of overalls, and she is also an illustrator, so maybe there is something there.)

From there, I went to a restaurant called Runa Tulpa Andina. I had a delicious bowl of coastal Ecuadorian style ceviche, which had a tangy peanutty sauce. 

I continued walking around the center so I could see some of the lights festival that was set to take place this weekend. There were several buildings in the city center that would be lit up with animated projections onto their facades, and I was able to see the projections in front of the Basilica del Voto Nacional and the Teatro Nacional Sucre. 

By that point, I was pretty tired and a little chilly from the rain, so I returned to the hostel. 

DAY 7: August 9, 2025, Quito and returning home

Fortunately, I did not have as early of a start my last day in Ecuador. I checked out of the hotel and went to a cafe called Tres Gatos. There, I had breakfast and met up with Camila and Euan. We walked around the neighborhood and visited a couple of artsy shops. One shop, called Nudo (or knot), was dedicated to urban art and sold a variety of prints. I loved this one that says "Gift yourself flowers, not pains," and I bought it for myself. 

After that shop, we separated, and I went to a fancy restaurant called Quitu. I was joined by Sebastian, a former exchange student to my high school the year before I went to France. It was so fun to catch up and get another local's perspective on Quito! Like with Cristina, I did not speak Spanish the last time I saw him, so it was fun to be able to converse in his native language. 

Always love a crispy pork belly...

Our next stop was a museum down the street from the restaurant called the Capilla del Hombre, or chapel of man. It bore this name because it was a sort of homage to humanity and a showcase of the art of Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamin. I had never heard of the artist prior to planning this trip, but now I am a huge fan of his work. I loved his style and the way that he used his art to grapple with issues of identity, human rights, and colonialism. 

Battle between a bull (representing Spain) and a condor (representing Latin America). Guess which one winning signals good fortune?

In the same compound as the Capilla del Hombre, we visited the house the artist lived in until his death. It was designed by his brother, an architect, and intended to be a museum after his death, so it was purposefully curated with works from different times and geographies to look like one. I loved the entertaining room with the piano and the artist's studio. 

From there, we took an Uber to the teleférico, or cable car. I wrongly assumed that it would be a cable car like in La Paz that people use to commute between different areas of the city, but it was more like a recreational cable car that would take people up one of the mountains surrounding the city. It was much colder where the cable car let us off, 4200 meters above sea level. There, we enjoyed views of Quito, and I took a picture with a llama. 

Before the sun started to set, we made our way back to the cable car, waited in a long line for around 40 minutes, and finally made it back down to the city. I called an Uber and had it take me to Camila and Euan's hotel so I could say a proper good-bye to them, and then returned to my hostel. There, I said bye to Sebastian, and I took a taxi to the airport. 

While I do think this blog entry is plenty long, it would not be a travel blog entry without some deeper written reflection from me. 

I have previously written about travel and the legacies of the age of exploration that tend to be romanticized. In the southern region of Chile, for instance, everything is named after Ferdinand Magellan, falsely celebrated as the first person to circumnavigate the globe. Sure, it's cool to think about how human beings and their indomitable sense of adventure eventually led to the interconnected world we have today. However, what is often obscured in historical narratives of travel is that in the name of "discoveries," white explorers engaged in imperialism that ended up oppressing and enslaving millions of people, all to develop an economic system that would enrich very few at the expense of the masses. 

What is interesting about the Galapagos Islands is that they were formerly uninhabited and did not have any indigenous populations living in them, unlike the rest of the "New World." These islands also did not have any natural resources that became exploited, unlike, for instance, the silver of Cerro Rico. The islands were first "discovered" in the 1500s, and they became outposts for sailors and pirates throughout the centuries with no permanent settlements. Charles Darwin made his famed expedition there in 1835, which then became a catalyst for the theory of evolution, forever changing the course of scientific inquiry. Because the islands were uninhabited for so long, the animals are famously unfazed by the presence of humans even into today. 

I had a conversation with one of my anti-imperialist friends about how these expeditions were meant to assert the dominance of England or whatever other European power wanted to send people out in the name of science; despite that, there is still something so fun about traveling to unknown parts of the world, collecting samples of fossils and learning about weird animals to advance human knowledge. Charles Darwin was younger than us when he went on his famous five-year expedition, getting to learn all sorts of things about the earth and the life forms that inhabit it. My friend brought up how this sense of scientific wonder is found in the character of Uncle Monty in The Reptile Room (book two of A Series of Unfortunate Events), the book that made me want to be a herpetologist at one point in my life. I think it's important to acknowledge the darker parts of human history while also appreciating how the very human sense of wonder can also drive history. Things that may seem conflicting can both be equally true. 

Nevertheless, while on the Galapagos, I could not help but be reminded of how unequal the world is, especially when it comes to people who help make tourism happen. I think of conversations I had with my tour guide Daniela and my water taxi driver, who both said that they would love to visit the United States one day, but they could not afford it. On top of that, it would be extremely difficult for them to even obtain a visa to visit the United States, especially now. Apart from the annoying idea that the United States is some ultimate destination, I hated thinking about how easy it is for people from the US to visit the Galapagos, but the people who facilitate these visits cannot easily make the reverse journey. It is unfair that someone like me with a US passport can delight in the wonder of the islands and their creatures, but it would be difficult for an artisan from the islands to just get up and travel to another part of the world to do the same thing. It's a shame that the course of history has resulted in an economic system that makes it so that only a few people are able to travel and partake in the wonders that this world contains. 

Another inescapable theme on any trip to the Galapagos is that of conservation. The islands contain so many endemic species, and different entities all make mighty efforts to ensure that these lovely creatures continue to flourish in their native land. Impressively, the animals never learned to fear humans, perhaps owing partially to these conservation efforts as well as how well managed human activity is. Nevertheless, it's sad to think about how climate change resulting from extractivist industries and mass pollution might irreparably change the Galapagos and more of the earth's natural wonders. The economic system that exploits the earth's resources and damages the environment in the name of wealth accumulation is the same one that puts these amazing animals and landscapes at risk. It is the same one that restricts the freedom of movement across borders, preventing people from accessing opportunities to explore our beautiful world. 

I want to believe in a world where exploitation does not exist, neither of other human beings, nor of the planet. Where we find ways to live that are so in harmony with other life forms and with the land that we do not have to partake in conservation efforts. Where humanity does not consider itself separate from nature, and no longer sees nature as something to save or to conquer. But while we do not live in this world, I will do my small part to help build it, so that I and the generations to come can continue to delight in the world's marvels.