Day 6 – Galapagos Islands

Today was the start of our boat tour of the islands.The booking agent told us to be at the meeting point for 9am which we duly were, only to be told by the guide that most of the 12 other passengers would not be arriving until after noon as their plane from the mainland was delayed. The first two other passengers to arrive were Mike and Doug from Vancouver, both were good value and alleviated our fears that we would be stuck on a boat full of geriatric Americans complaining about the size of the breakfast waffles.

The rest of the group arrived and before long we were on our boat Yolita II. When we booked we were given several options but both liked the look of the Yolita and it turned out to be a great choice as the vessel is huge and very modern – had we booked in London the price for 8 nights would have been $2395, going to the islands and paying direct cost just $1050.

We did our first walk on Santa Cruz island (Bachas Beach) and saw a huge amount of wildlife. I could write a million words on the motley crew of birds, reptiles, mammals then another million on the flora, fauna, ecology, biology, history and geography of the Galapagos Islands but you would stop reading, so I won't. Darwin did it better anyway so read his.

Day 5 – Galapagos Islands

Another early morning – this time due to the outrageous heat. Two hiking options were on the agenda today, both trails leaving from Puerto Ayora.

Option one came with the following instructions: 'Follow the main road north 22km from town and turn left at the sign warning that many tourists have been killed doing this trail, follow the badly overgrown path for 3kms over two barbed wire fences until you reach a wooden memorial to a dead Israeli tourist, turn left here and the trail begins to get confusing – bring water, food and a GPS'

The other option was to walk along the beach until tired then turn back. Which is what we did.

We immediately saw a marine iguana coming out from the ocean and spent the next 30 minutes taking about 1000 photos, studying it from every conceivable angle and generally stopping it from going about it's daily business before finally growing bored and moving on. Two minutes later we saw another, then another, then another in fact there are thousands of them so I deleted 998 photos. The highlight was a bird called the blue-footed boobie (insert your own Benny Hill gag here) which happily sat on the rocks a foot away as Ciara and I rolled off another 1000 photos.

In the evening we stocked up on sailing essentials – a bottle of cane sugar rum, an eyepatch and a cutlass.

Day 4 – Quito to the Galapagos Islands

This morning I worked out that we have spent less money in two days in Quito than we did in three hours at Atlanta airport.

We booked a flight to the Galapagos Islands yesterday, where Charles Darwin famously sat down, looked at a load of birds and after much stroking of beard, concluded 'Bloody hell those bishops are lying to us'.

We arrived just after noon at a big shed (or airport as they call it) then took a bus then a ferry then another bus to travel the from one side of the island to the other and the main town of Puerto Ayora. It's fabulous, so we spent the day lazily wandering the streets and as there are only about 12 it shows just how lazily we were wandering. After some negotiations we booked a boat to take us on an eight day tour of the islands.

How is the weather in London?

By popular demand (one person), throughout South America I will be introducing and updating a league table of street food. As a first entry and more than deserved first place we have, today's lunch of:

Fried meat and plantain balls with a shredded salad – $1.50 – Bloody fantastic.

I was also planning a league table of beers, but they seem to only have two in Ecuador, last night I tried one called Pilsner which was bad then another called Club which was better. So tonight I first ordered a Club which was bad then a Pilsner which was better. I think they are the same. This one may require more work.