Hi friends! It's true, I've found a new love. Her name is Isabela; she's a beautiful island in the Galapagos, and I have made room in my heart for her to stay forever.
When planning this trip, we opted for a land-based visit to the Galapagos (versus a ship-based trip that would sail around the islands), and we chose to visit Santa Cruz and Isabela Islands. As reported in my last blog, Santa Cruz exceeded all expectations. It is 97% protected national park, so the wildlife is abundant and so treasured. The giant tortoises are everywhere (all the fences in the limited farmland are high enough off the ground to allow their free passage). We day-tripped on a boat with an awesome family (hi Michael and fam!) to North Seymour Island and saw sea lions, land iguanas, blue footed boobies, pelicans, and frigate birds.
Ginny struggled with sea-sickness, but she rallied and snorkeled with a sea turtle! Baker and Lu also tried snorkeling, but both freaked out pretty hard. (Baker opted to just swim in the ocean without goggles, which is my actual worst nightmare.) The following day we biked to Puerto Ayoro and visited the Charles Darwin Research Station, where scientists are studying the diverse biome of the Galapagos and are working to rebuild tortoise populations.
Look at these baby tortoises! Once they reach 27 cm, they are considered "prey-proof" and will be released back to the wild. Go baby tortoises, go!
From there we hiked out to Tortuga Bay and saw our first marine iguanas! These guys are so rad. They adapted to gather red and green algae from the ocean as their food source, so they just hop in the water and use their tails to propel them into the surf. Once on land, they sneeze out the salt they ingested, so their grumpy little faces are always white.
We kayaked around Tortuga Bay, and saw tons of sea turtles and even a baby white-tipped reef shark! There truly are beautiful animals everywhere you look. It is heaven.
Okay, now for Isabela. Sigh. We flew in a super tiny airplane (sorry, Ryan!) from the airport on Baltra Island to Isabela.
Isabela is 99.99% protected national park, so flying over her massive desolate landscape was just incredible. The island was formed when six volcanoes finally joined, so the lava rock seems to go on forever. We arrived and went on a boat tour of the bay with some more awesome people (hi Emma and Maya!) and saw PENGUINS! They are so cute. Here are a few of them hanging out with some blue-footed boobies:
Then we hopped onto a little island in the bay and walked around with thousands of baby marine iguanas and a handful of sea lion pups waiting for their mamas to return from the ocean. Cuteness overload. We found the most perfect snorkel spot for the kids--basically a protected cove full of fish and often visited by sea lions, turtles, and penguins. Lu found her stride and snorkeled with me (swooooon), Baker continued to swim without any idea what was lurking below (how??), and Ginny and Ryan explored every corner. We hiked out to some lagoons that had, you know, flamingos (what??). And then, the beach. Holy moly the beautiful beach.
It took me a minute to really nail down why I was so in love with this place. The easy answer was that nothing about this island triggered by Type A tendencies. Everything is so chill. There are no crowds or lines to compete with. It is just easy breezy. But then it hit me--this was the first time I was doing things that were truly my type of fun alongside our kids. For the last 9 years I have left the kids behind to do the things that I really love to do, the things that fulfill me and remind me who I am outside of mama life. Isabela made it possible for me to do those things with our kids, and I was in happiness overload.
We are back in Quito now and headed to Lima, Peru in a few hours. We'll be in the Peruvian Amazon for a few days and then will head to our home in the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco for three weeks. I am so excited to have a home for a while. This also would be a great time to visit us (hint hint). We miss you all!
All my love,
Madeline
So so happy to hear you found those moments. I’m sure the kids realized too - how special. Sounds like one of your soon-to-be acquired animals upon return (pony horse included) will be Isabela 🩷
eeks so tempted by the visit invite. Squeezes to you all!
Love this update! So happy that you’re hitting your stride and finding beauty and new feelings through new experiences.
The only trip my mom got to take outside the US was to Galapagos. Never been and yet it holds a special place for me. Wish she could tell me where she went because (surprise, surprise), I didn't really bother with those details back in the day. Glad you're loving it!.