I recently had discovered expedition cruising on a trip on board the Aqua in the Peruvian Amazon a year ago, it was an eye opener, I practically had been dragged into it by my aunt who wanted me to go with her... I cant believe I almost missed that trip. Well that is another story. This time I decided to go with my husband, we had spoken about visiting the Galapagos Islands for about a year or two, i always put him off and gave excuses or alternative trips. I have never had been an expedition cruiser and did not know what to expect... As I mentioned my last years trip enlightened me.

We finally decided on traveling this spring, the travel agent was an easy pick, my aunt used Voyagers Travel in Peru for our Amazon trip last year, since they did such a great job I decided to contact their Ecuador office for our Galapagos trip, I am happy we did. Andre Robles and his staff did a wonderful job in planning our trip, they took care of every detail and looked after us throughout the whole journey. I cannot thank them enough for choosing the Evolution for our trip, the staff on board and the guide are true gems.

I do a lot of business travel and since it was an adventure trip, I did not want to be stuck in a large chain hotel, so we decided on a boutique hotel in downtown Quito for our first 2 nights, the Plaza Grande, it was very nice and located right in front of the Cathedral and a short walk from other plazas, churches and museums. Since we had 12 altogether for our vacation, we decided to do some side trips around Quito. Unfortunately it was not the best time to visit the Andes, it rained every afternoon, I appreciate the advise from our agent to visit the cloudforest instead. We were booked for a 2 day tour to visit Mashpi lodge, what an amazing place, it is quite luxurious and in the middle of nowhere perched on a hill top surrounded by green lush trees. We enjoyed visiting the Tulip archaeological site and the trails were quite nice. Read more