GRIOTS REPUBLIC - An Urban Black Travel Mag - Jan 2016

The natural beauty, serenity and
mystery of Galapagos juxtaposed
against the sometimes comical and
occasionally frustrating obstacles we
faced during our tour of two of the
islands quickly became the major theme
of our trip, a trip we all agreed was well
worth the inconveniences.
The members of my international crew
included my Ukrainian-American
mother, Christina, who had retired to a
seaside village in Ecuador a few years
ago. Her Ecuadorian friend, Maria,
came up with the idea to make the trip
to the islands (which sit roughly 600
miles off the Ecuadorian coast). It turns
out Maria’s parents had actually lived
on one of the islands, Floriana, some 70
years ago when her father worked for
the government. Yet neither Maria nor
my mother had ever been.
Maria’s husband, Washington, knew
the Galapagos. He’d been stationed
there while serving in the Ecuadorian
military in the 1970s. Our trip would be
his first time back. Maria and
Washington’s adult children, Cristina
and Santiago, were the fourth and fifth
members of the entourage. Cristina
attends university in Germany;
Santiago works in Quito and had visited
the Galapagos as a boy. I flew in from
Washington D.C. and Cristina’s friend,
Louis, traveled from the United
Kingdom to make it a lucky seven.
The plan was to spend ten August days
island-hopping, with the goal of seeing
as many of the famously unique species
as we could. According to the
Galapagos Conservancy, about 80
percent of the land birds, 97 percent of
the reptiles and land mammals, and
more than 30 percent of the plants
are endemic. One of our guides,
Dario, said our timing was superb as
the best months to visit are August
through November. “Galapagos is
very beautiful,” he told us. “It is one of
the natural marbles of the world and
a wonderful experience to live here
and watch nature.”
While the weather in August can be
slightly rainy and the temperature a
tad less tropical than one might
expect (mid- to low-70s), according
to Dario the migratory patterns of
just about all the animals, birds,
reptiles and fish bring them into view
on the islands during this window.
We began our journey in Puerto
Ayora, the most populous town on
Santa Cruz. There we began our love