All the way south

There are a few different ways you can "do" the Galapagos, but from what I read the best way, where you make the best use of your precious/expensive time there, is to go on a multi-day boat cruise, where you sleep on the boat as it travels to the next destination overnight. So that's what I decided to do. When I was booking the tour in the Quito hostel-attached travel agency, a friendly Finn named Marko overheard that I needed to go to the airport at the same time as him the next day, so we agreed to share a taxi. As it turned out, we'd be sharing more than that - we were booked on the same tour boat, and sharing the same cabin. The complications that arose from making a last minute booking meant that Marko and I needed to fly there a day before our tour started, as the daily early flight on the day of the tour was booked out. This meant we had a night to chill out on Santa Cruz, the main Galapagos island, which has a well developed though touristy town named Puerto...

Being used to long haul flying, I barely noticed the short hop from Bogotá to Quito, the high-lying capital of Ecuador. An airport taxi pickup from my hostel gave me an easy introduction into this new country. Luckily there was a Danish hipster heading to the same hostel at the same time, so I was able to share the cost with him. View from Secret Garden rooftop With an ultra-modern airport highway, the taxi cruised along until hitting the higgledy-piggledy old colonial streets of the San Blas area of the centre, where The Secret Garden hostel was located. The hostel was recommended to me by a couple of Canadian girls I had shared a dorm with in Medellín, more so for the three day trip to the sister hostel near Cotopaxi mountain that was not to be missed. With the December 10th deadline for the Inca Trail in Peru looming, I only had just enough time to do this three day'er before hitting the Galapagos for four. That would be it for Ecuador. After grabbing a lovely lunch wi...