Ecuador Experience

It's OK if you like animals!

Advantages: Fauna and flora, unspoilt, controlled tourism, sealife
Disadvantages: Never going to be a cheap holiday, long journey

...the first morning of my Galapagos Island cruise, myself and nine other passengers excitedly boarded a dinghy to take us to shore for our first encounter. After landing and just as we were about to start following the trail, we passed a group from our sister boat who were about to leave following their slightly earlier visit. One of my group spotted a lady she sat next to on the flight over who was looking slightly hot and bothered and admittedly ...
...people considering a trip to Galapagos Islands will already well know that if animals, birds, sealife and nature itself are not of interest then it is probably not a holiday destination to contemplate for too long. Where and what they are The Galapagos Islands are owned by Ecuador and are situated in the Pacific Ocean about 700 miles due west from the mainland of Ecuador. There are 13 larger islands which most holidays will be spent visiting, ...

Cat199 02.07.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Galapagos Islands

A walk around old Quito

Advantages: Beautiful setting, churches and Spanish colonial architecture
Disadvantages: Traffic noise and fumes, some street crime

...volcano. The whole of Quito lies in a long high furrow in the Andes, with the old town at its south-western end. Standing in front of San Francisco church, one looks downhill across the Plaza and over the rooftops ahead to where the mountains rise again to the east, their green slopes speckled with the pink and white of buildings. To the right - the south - another hill forms the end of the valley. This hill is called el Panecillo and was originally ...
...view the full panorama of Quito from above, but it is a stiff climb when one is already short of breath from the altitude. At nearly 3000 metres above sea level, Quito is the second highest capital city in the world after La Paz (or third highest, if you regard Lhasa as a capital, as I would be inclined to). Apart from breathlessness, the other disincentive to ascending Panecillo is its reputation as a haunt of muggers. For this reason, the guidebooks ...

torr 06.07.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Quito

Amazing

Advantages: Cost of things, People, Scenery
Disadvantages: having to watch your bag counstanty

Stepping in to a south American country at high altitude i first expected to be short of breath and overwhelmed with hard working Locals trying to scrape by for money. Yet the capital of quito proved to be a very pleasant surprise. the locals were friendly welcoming and tried their best to make us feel welcome. Visiting the markets on a sunday were the highlight of my time in quito haggling with the marketers and bagging a pair of trousers for just ...
...the city. (by acident...i got on the wrong bus) but was well worth it. After visiting quito i went on to travel the rest of the country and first to a town called Tena. visiting a small village named puma rumi in order to help the community build a toilet block. After my week in the small village we went back in to tena for a class of white water rafting with a very well established local company 'River People' who had recenetly opened a very nice ...

lkpearson1 16.02.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of General: Ecuador

The Come To Galapagos tour was more than we knew to dream of.

Advantages: Personalized, customized attention to detail
Disadvantages: We had to return to our real lives afterward and think of the things we were missing.

...cras marketing. Fortunately we found Come To Galapagos. Our first contact e-mail was replied to within hours, a phone conversation followed shortly after that and several months later we were on our way. From the moment we landed in Quito we were confident we were in good hands and could relax. The hotels and guides on the continent were wonderful. I left my camera in the van on the day we toured Quito and Come to Galapagos had it waiting for me ...
...be able to have been welcomed into the community as we were and then shown the islands from the perspective of these wonderful people was an experience we didn't even know to dream of. The food was wonderful, locally grown and caught, the guides were delightful, knowledgeble and with excellent people skills, instinctively knowing when it was best to fade into the background for family time and step forward when there was something noteable to be ...

rickroley 10.08.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Come To Galapagos Tours

My Favourite Wildlife in The Galapagos

Advantages: Once in a lifetime photo opportunities of unique wildlife were the subjects actually stay still!
Disadvantages: Not a cheap trip

My Favourite Wildlife on the Galapagos Islands. I decided I would write about the wildlife on these Islands as the wildlife on these islands is like nothing else to be found in the world. Blue Footed Booby. We first encountered these birds at Punta Suarez on Espanola where there is quite a colony of them. The name Booby comes from the Spanish term “bobo” which means stupid fellow. They certainly look real silly when they dance during courtship ...
...some of the most amazing wildlife we saw. There were birds and other smaller creatures we saw but I cant mention them all. I hope that I haven’t bored you but I feel this wildlife is so unique that it was worthy of a review all to itself. Please note that I have now changed the photos from my review “A trip of a lifetime” to this review and put photos of the scenery on that review. Thank you for reading. If you would like to see this kind of wildlife ...

rosehall 30.05.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Wildlife Of The Galapagos