So on April 23 we flew from Quito (via Guayagil) to the Galápagos Island which lie roughly 1000 km off the coast of Ecuador, more or less right on the equator.


The Galápagos Islands are national park to make sure that this really unique place in the world is protected (entry fee is 100 USD)


And this is really how we were welcome before we boarded our boat:

Only a first impression of how many animals you can see here and how close you can get to them... truely unbelievable!

And this is the boat that will take us (a group of 14 tourists, 8 crew and 1 guide) from island to island in the next week:





Not too bad! We can definitely get used to that!

The biggest problem in the Galápagos is to limit the number of pictures you take every day... and I failed completely so there are a lot of pics form all different kinds of animals and of course also from the beautiful islands...

Lets start with some impressions of the islands:










The islands are actually volcanos which is really obvious in some places:




A "river" of black lava from the last eruption on this island about 100 years ago (other volcanos on the Galápagos have erupted in 2003 the last time):


The lava has formed really beautiful natural formations






Cactus that grow on these lava islands:




So the next entries will be with lots of animal pictures: sealions, iguanas, lizards, birds, turtles, and and and!