Galapagos - Day 1: Hola Ecuador!

We are off on a new adventure! This time we are traveling with Yeye and Nainai only, no L&R. Why you ask? Honestly I wasn't sure they would enjoy it enough to be worth the cost. Kid-ing aside (haha, get it?), L&R have school and their willingness to do multi hour hikes remains questionable. So, a childless vacation! I'm really glad we are traveling with Yeye and Nainai though, as retired academics with PhDs in biology, I feel like the Galapagos is like their Disney Cruise. In the same way that it's fun to travel to Disneyland with a toddler because of how excited they become, I am hoping their excitement over Darwin's playland will make me all that more excited by association too. 

Traveling to South America is always a bit misleading. You think hey, it's only two or three hours time difference! Must be a short hop over there. Wrong. In order to get to the Galapagos Islands, we are taking an 8am flight to Miami, laying over for 2 hours, then another 4 hour flight to Quito. We will catch another mini flight from Quito to Guayaquil on Saturday morning and then board the cruise from Guayaquil (I think). I say I think because this is my least planned trip perhaps ever -- we just booked with National Geographic for the Lindblad Endeavor II -- everything else was taken care of for us. Hotels before and after, all excursions on the cruise -- everything is included in the one booking. No planning! Just pack and go! This must be how Baba feels when he goes on all of our trips...

The flight in was fairly uneventful -- we are actually getting in a full day in advance because I definitely did NOT want to risk a delayed flight causing us to miss the cruise departure. I actually got a LOT of work done on the flight and even took a call from the Admirals lounge in Miami on the layover. This was my first time using the Oneworld Sapphire benefit for Admirals access - it was less crowded than Centurion for sure but I think the food was not as tasty.  Big plus to there being no wait though. 

Here is a photo of Quito from the plane as we are landing (I hear that may be Cotopaxi in the faint faint background with snow at the top). 

We had been warned by Yeye and Nainai who arrived a couple days before us that customs could take awhile. Luckily I think there are less flights arriving at 11pm so we got through fairly quickly...though I could definitely see how slow it could have been -- they asked a lot more questions than any other immigration check I've been through lately!

I was not aware that Ecuador was so big on their roses. There were displays at immigration, baggage claim, everywhere. 

We are staying at the Wyndham Quito Airport, which must be fairly established in Quito because they even have their logo on the airport directions next to all the rental car companies. It was super easy to find their desk attendant, who then walked us to the waiting shuttle. 

And here we are at our final destination for the night! Room is pretty standard, nothing to exclaim over but decently sized, seems clean, etc. 

Arrival day complete! Tomorrow is not going to be super exciting either as I've got a fair number of work meetings scheduled. Hoping I manage to get a couple hours in the afternoon to check out the "Center of the World" (I hear it's super touristy, but you know how much of a sucker I am for things like that! 😆). 

Until tomorrow!