Galapagos & Ecuador: Hello sea lion, may I sit next to you?

So, we haven't heard from you in a long time - probably because of the numerous multi-day hikes we have taken in Peru in the past few weeks. Nevertheless, we want to tell you a little bit about our trip through Ecuador, which is now already more than 4 weeks ago.

As a little highlight, we had from the beginning the idea to make a detour to the Galapagos Islands. In a dubious last minute WhatsApp booking, we decided to log in for an 8-day cruise. Since we booked the ship at short notice, we were dependent on catching 4 flights in a row from the Amazonas in Colombia and staying overnight at the airport in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. After 25 hours, we finally arrived at the Galapagos Islands, amazingly fit and full of anticipation.

The ship we booked based on the unmanageable research definitely surprised us positively and we were spoiled by the crew with the best food (6 times a day). The rhythm was to cruise from island to island at night, sometimes with such strong waves that you had to hold onto the bed to not fall out - no kidding! And during the day we explored the different islands on foot in our group of 10. The truly impressive thing in the 8 days was the overwhelming animal world that presented itself to us up close in the water, on land, and in the air. Not only did the animals show no fear of humans, they were also simply abundant and we could not get enough of the numerous sea lions, turtles, penguins, iguanas (lizards), birds (yes, we also thought 'birds are everywhere' before), but also sharks of various species and plenty of fish.

So two sea lions took the opportunity to play with the two of us during one of our daily snorkeling trips (the water was even cold in the wetsuit), nudging us curiously underwater and swimming around us. But we also observed the sharks while snorkeling, and it was not really unusual to see several hammerhead sharks and even entire schools of sharks during a snorkeling trip - quite unsettling, but at the same time very fascinating. Once even a shark fin appeared directly at the ship, right after Thilo got out of the water from one of his solo swims. We saw the shark from the ship, it wasn't so small (but like the other sharks probably harmless)... We could tell so many more animal experiences, but the pictures probably already give a pretty good impression of this fascinating world.

After our detour to the Galapagos Islands, we spent another week in Ecuador, enjoyed a few relaxed days in the highest capital city in the world at 2,850 meters, practiced altitude training to South American beats and corresponding pace in spinning, and at the end took another animal experience of a special kind with us. Since it is whale season on the coast, we took a small boat out to sea and let ourselves be driven over the waves like a roller coaster, sitting at the very front of the boat - the first time we were glad about the obligatory life jackets. We were accompanied by several whale families that surfaced right next to the boat and that we could observe impressively up close.

After that, we continued our journey with a 36-hour bus ride to our next destination, Peru, straight into the Andes.