How did this come about?
Oh the Galapagos…. As a kid I loved hearing about Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, hearing about the islands with the giant tortoises and the blue footed boobies. My bucket list, I can’t remember when it started but I had one for a long time. Ever since I went on my first trip out of the country I just wanted to see more of the world, animals and nature always intrigued me. The thought of actually going to the Galapagos officially came into view about 8 years ago after I went on my decade birthday trip. In my twenties I started to make sure I always traveled every year and if possible traveled near or on my birthday. Well for decade birthday’s I thought I should do larger bigger trips. My 30th birthday decade trip was down to Peru. I fell in love with South America and on my flight back to the states the Galapagos islands went right on the list of things I would do.
Fast forward a few years and it is happening. So I was on safari in Tanzania when my friend Cecilia sent me details on some Galapagos trips, she knew it was on my list, hers too and she figured hey I’m about to come back from a trip that is the best time to start planning the next. So I get back and we start looking at details. Now I don’t know if you have done any research on visiting the Galapagos, well I have looked into this into the past, well the islands are off of the coast of Ecuador and due to the nature preservation of the islands they have limited ability to stay on the islands and so if you go you are typically doing this more like a cruise. You’ll be on the boat island hopping, cruising around, you would take day trips over to the islands to explore. Well Cecilia found a few options and one of them, oh one of them, was an option to actually stay on the islands and you would do this by camping.
Okay so I was just staying in tents with lions and hyenas prowling around making noises all through the night, and don’t forget that wind. If you haven’t read up on my African recaps, there was this night, the wind was playing mind games on me and I couldn’t sleep a wink thinking people were sneaking around my tent peering in. I’m a light sleeper what can I say. So the idea of taking another camping trip and sleeping in tents so soon with my sleep deprived brain as it was wasn’t high on my list. Not only that when you read into the details there was commentary of community guesthouses and hostels. Now I am not keen at all on hostels. If that works for you that is fine and I don’t judge it just isn’t for me. When in Thailand I had booked myself at nearby hotels and my friend was staying nearby in a hostel so I got a good look at how things worked and knowing I’m such a light sleeper this isn’t up my wheelhouse. Not only that but I am planning on bringing my camera gear with me and how can I trust my stuff to be safe as I don’t expect to lug all of it around with me day by day. So Cecilia and I went back and forth and she wasn’t too keen on staying on a boat the whole time so I agreed to do this camping adventure. Not really the way I had always imagined going to the Galapagos but I’m going to the Galapagos so I can’t complain (too much at least).
So we worked with a travel Agent, Kara, that Cecilia knows. Actually, we all do our day job together, Kara did a great job of coordinating all the details for our trip. Kara works for Experience Culture Travel and found us a great camping adventure with G Advenures that worked best for us. As we got closer to the day we reviewed the day by day details and any specifics we should know. Carry your own water bottle to fill with clean water, don’t drink the water from the tap there, we would need to bring our own sleep sheets and pillows (they would provide the tents, sleeping bags, etc.), they use US dollars there but they need to be in pristine condition (no tears, etc) and recommended to be in $20 or less denominations. So we were all prepared and had what we needed to go.
Itinerary
We had scheduled this for a 9 day trip but when adding in our travel time it was really 7 days on the islands.
- Day 1: Arrive in Quito
- Day 2: Travel to Galapagos Islands, Camp in Santa Cruz
- Day 3: AM Santa Cruz, Transfer to Floreana Island
- Day 4: Floreana
- Day 5: AM Floreana, Transfer to Isabela Island
- Day 6: Isabela
- Day 7: Transfer to Santa Cruz
- Day 8: Travel to Quito
- Day 9: Fly back to States
What to Pack:
Clothing wise: I brought long pants, a long shirts, zip up hoodie, tank tops, leggings and shorts. It is colder and wet in Quito and apparently it rains quite often on the islands so we also brought a rain jacket. I brought a pair of slip on converse, sandals and hiking boots/shoes are key as there are many sharp lava rocks you will want good grip on.
Make sure to bring you swimsuits and I would grab 2 quickdry microfiber beach towels. I only brought 1 but I wish I had another as sometimes it would be wet or sandy from the beach when you wanted 1 more for a shower or to sit on.
Since we were camping, they provided most of the camping equipment but you needed to bring your own sleep sheet and pillow so I brought a camping pillow that rolls and fluffs up quite nicely to make it compact. Bring a headlamp so you can see at night when you are going to and fro when camping, in your tent, etc and this can come in useful when you visit any lava tubes etc or if you want to do some night photography. Bring a reusable water bottle so you can fill up with the designated drinking water jugs along the way.
As for medications etc bring strong sunscreen, you are at the equator and in water a lot. Make sure to bring bug spray, the second the sun goes down those mosquitos come out with a vengeance and take no mercy. You will be on a lot of boats and vehicles so if you get motion sick bring some motion sickness pills. I am good on boats but I get car sick (the joys of becoming an adult and getting new maladies) so I took these daily and felt fine. I brought some advil and Imodium just in case.
I packed this all away in a duffel bag as a roller bag wouldn’t have been ideal for some of the camping locations. I also brought a drypack in case we were going kayaking or anything where I needed to bring my camera gear closer to water.
What’s in My Bag?
I brought:
- Nikon D500
- 18-400 Tamron Lens
- Panasonic Point and Shoot (I didn’t end up using this, intention was I would use this for video but I decided to push myself to use the 500 alternating between video and pictures)
- GoPro
- Joby tripod just in case (I used this briefly for some night shots but I didn’t get to use it in the lava tubes which is where I was thinking I might use it)
- Platypod (this is a legless tripod to get some different angles etc. I prepped to use it a few times but ended up not due to being tired/weather/lack of time)
- All of the batteries (since we were camping I didn’t know how much access we would have to power to charge up)
- 2 Powerpacks to charge my phone on the go
- Travel power strip
- Plenty of Memory Cards
- I packed this all away in my 26L Mindshift bag but knowing I wouldn’t want to use this for day trips I also brought the ThinkTank Sling Bag
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