Galapagos Islands

It was a long day of travel as we got picked up by our Uber at 11:30 am, which gave us time to board the 12:00 pm Logan Shuttle from Framingham.  After getting through customs, we waited for over 3 hours for the first leg of our flight to El Salvador.  The five hour flight was packed with Salvadorians who were making a pilgrimage to their homeland from the US.

After a two hour layover, we had another smooth and uneventful flight to Quito in Ecuador, where we arrived at 2:45 am local time.  We slept, ate, and received our Transit Control Card for entry into the Galapagos Islands.  The TCC cost ($20/person) is the first of many entrance fees associated with this special area.

In preparation for our trip to Ecuador, we conducted some research (thanks ChatGPT) about the Galapagos Islands.  Here are a few interesting facts of this area:

• The Galápagos Islands were formed by volcanic activity and are still geologically young. Some islands, like Fernandina, are among the most volcanically active places on Earth. In fact, volcanic eruptions still occur regularly, shaping the islands in real time

• The islands are named after the giant Galápagos tortoise ("galápago" means tortoise in Spanish). These slow-moving reptiles can live over 100 years and weigh up to 900 pounds. Each island has tortoises with slightly different shell shapes—Darwin used this to develop his theory of natural selection

• Only in the Galápagos will you find the marine iguana, the world’s only lizard that swims and forages in the sea. They dive to feed on algae, sneeze salt from their noses, and bask on lava rocks to warm up after cold-water dips

• Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos in 1835 aboard the HMS Beagle. His observations of finch species—which varied in beak shape from island to island—played a critical role in shaping his theory of evolution by natural selection.

• When Charles Darwin arrived in the Galápagos aboard the HMS Beagle in 1835, he didn’t expect to rewrite biology’s playbook. But what he found on these remote islands—a group of birds later known as “Darwin’s finches”—changed everything. Back in London, ornithologist John Gould confirmed that what seemed like minor variations in beak size and shape were actually twelve distinct species, each perfectly adapted to different food sources—some cracked seeds, others nabbed insects or probed cactus flowers

• Over 80% of land birds, 97% of reptiles and land mammals, and more than 30% of plants in the Galápagos are found nowhere else in the world. This makes the islands one of the most unique and biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet.