along the equator off the coast of ecuador can be found an archipelago unlike anything
you've seen before formed from volcanic lava the galapagos islands hold unique landscapes
and animals found nowhere else on earth originally a hub for pirates and whalers the galapagos
islands were made famous by the research of charles darwin who was inspired by the islands
to create his theory of natural selection and the evolution of species
it has always been a dream of ours to experience these magical islands for ourselves but it
comes at a cost after almost six months of traveling the other worlds of ecuador we decide
to book last minute flights to spend two weeks in the galapagos islands here's why this is
one of the best decisions we could have ever made
we decided to take some time for ourselves here in the galapagos so we spent the last
week on santa cruz island and san cristobal island we had a really nice time traveling
the islands independently and just taking some time for ourselves and we got to see
a lot of different animals just lazing around the streets and the beaches and it was really
nice time for us just to relax we're going to be sharing a lot of tips and tricks in
our buy me a coffee membership so make sure you sign up for that this month is just gonna
be full of advice for how to travel the galapagos islands independently things we're not sharing
in these videos and though that is very exciting what we are most excited for is what we're
doing next we're going on a cruise
we're gonna be spending eight days on the cormorant with royal galapagos and we could
not be more excited for it we're on the cruise sar how is this real i'm so excited that's
where our shoes go yeah you know it's a fancy boat when you have to take your shoes off
all right let's see our room let's check it out
oh my goodness this wow is nice this place king-size bed look at this balcony wow it's
magical there's bathrooms there whoa what this is the nicest bathroom ever wow that's
gonna be nice you spend a lot of time here i'm gonna spend a proper amount of time in
here but i'm gonna really enjoy the view every time
shut the front door we have robes i've never been in a place before where they give you
robes i'm so excited i'm never gonna leave this room
so even though it's day one on our tour we're already on our first adventure to el chato
it's a tortoise breeding ground and there are just these gigantic tortoises everywhere
look at this guy right here
he's our little friend these guys are freaking these guys are freaking dinosaurs their life
expectancy is 150 years so it's estimated all these big ones are like over 100 years
which is insane yeah they're so cool i can't believe we're on this this is so amazing this
is already so fancy and so nice i can't believe we get to do this for eight days me neither
it's incredible so awesome and we have a packed full itinerary so get ready to see the best
of the galapagos islands
so the best part about going on a smaller cruise like this is that you can actually
get kind of close to the action on the islands and we just took a short panga boat or a zodiac
to watch all these different animals catch their breakfast
behind me you can see there's a whole colony of blue-footed boobies
oh my goodness there's penguins they're so cute this is amazing
so along with the boat rides that we get to do every morning we also get to do snorkeling
at least once sometimes twice a day which is so awesome so we're suited up we've got
our own wetsuits the water's pretty cold here especially on the west side of the islands
and around this time of year around like august september it's pretty cold but our guide promises
that today we're supposed to see three sea turtles per person on boat let's hope he's
right
Wow that was so cool just amazing so incredible so yeah snorkel number one excellent
on a nice sunny day like today we get to have lunch on the patio
what do we got here
chicken pork wow we got everything today rice plantains corn beans salad other salad and
quite the view
so we just made it to isabela island and we're here at volcan sierra negra and we're gonna
hike to the top of this giant crater and hopefully the view is clear so we get to see it
can you do that again with your legs
wow you're amazing i want to be like you and i grow up
so what do we got this is crazy whoa this could not have worked out any better for us
look at this
so this is sierra negra this is the second biggest volcanic crater in the world that's
the biggest one is in africa which is 42 kilometers and this one is 22 kilometers wide which is
insane so this is actually an active volcano and it erupts about every five years and the
last eruption was in 2015 so they're actually due for an eruption to happen on the galapagos
very soon it doesn't look like it's going to happen today but this is so beautiful and
i'm so glad we were able to come here today and that is actually sunny and what's actually
very cool is that there is all this cloud cover that's coming up from the east side
over the mountain and into the crater and it's just it's gorgeous very happy that we
got to do this today we've been having such a great time today is has been so action-packed
they've done so many things it's been so so amazing but honestly every day here has been
so wonderful we chose to come on the cormorant with royal galapagos for three particular
reasons number one the boat is just absolutely beautiful i don't know if you can see around
us right now we're on the sun deck it is mind-blowingly beautiful our room is amazing we have our
own balcony every area of this boat is just so beautiful reason number two was the itinerary
so we really really wanted to see the western galapagos we had heard it's a really great
place to visit so when we heard that the cormorant was coming on the west galapagos tour we were
thrilled so the great thing is that it goes around isabela island through isla fernandina
and then up through the different central islands as well and it's just incredible and
the third reason we chose to come on this cruise was because it's only a 16 passenger
cruise which to us is the ideal cruise when you're doing the galapagos because it's really
intimate you have your a lot of one-on-one time with your guide if you want to ask questions
and just has this like family feel like every meal we eat all together and the crew has
been so awesome so it's just been such a nice like relaxed environment when you are with
these people for eight days straight so really we love that yeah so if you're coming to the
galapagos we yeah recommend coming on the cormorant it's just been so awesome yeah and
we also just want to say thanks royal galapagos as well it's been great