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Finding well-being through travel and books. |
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Hello and welcome! I have two great passions in life. The first one is travel. After a series of life-changing events, my husband and I decided to spend the kids’ inheritance and see as much of the world as possible (I’m still bitter about Damascus). Our bible? A Thousand Places to See Before You Die. Please join us on our adventures seeing new places, meeting fascinating people and trying new, exciting, and sometimes just plain weird, food. My second great passion is books. Reading expands my interior world in the same way travel expands my external one. And, books are a great way to armchair travel - not only through distance but through time as well. My tastes are eclectic, so we’ll be looking at a wide range of writing in a possibly haphazard fashion. Come along for the ride! My best, Kirsten ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| “The animals here are not tame, they are innocent. And we want to keep them that way.” Our expedition leader, Ramiro, gave us our orientation talk aboard the Santa Cruz, a Galapagos expedition vessel run by Metropolitan Touring. Ramiro’s face was friendly but there was a bar of steel in his voice. “The short history of the islands when buccaneers and privateers hunted the animals by simply walking up to them and then killing them, was too short for them to genetically encode a fear of humans. They have nothing in their DNA that tells them to be afraid of us.” The Galapagos, indeed all of Ecuador, takes the greatest care to make as little impact on the environment as possible. There was no doubt that we would all be following the rules and regulations of a visit to the Galapagos. “The animals won’t run away from us nor will they avoid us. It will be up to us to maintain a two-metre distance from any animal or bird.” This was to prove to be tricky later. “There is to be absolutely no touching of the animals and no feeding of the animals. Stay on the paths and do not leave anything behind. The environment is to remain as pristine as we found it,” Ramiro concluded. With that, we were ready to disembark into the pangas for our first excursion, Punta Pitt on San Cristobal Island. We landed on a beach littered with sea lions and their pups. We were all a bit stunned as we realized that Ramiro had not exaggerated. The animals either completely ignored us or were curious and tried to approach us. To read the rest and see the fabulous photos, click here.  |
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