Beginnings
Galápagos yellow warbler and Galápagos sea lion
Photo by Alan Rousson
I have been privileged to be a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada for 31 years as of this writing. As a geologist and a someone who is fascinated with the history of our planet and the life that thrives on it, few places have fascinated me more over the years than the Galápagos Islands. During the past four years I have worked in the Andes from Venezuela to Argentina including Ecuador as a part of an international development project. I passed through the airport in Quito, Ecuador many times and many times I saw those Aerogal planes, with the big iguanas painted on them, leaving for the Galápagos Islands. I was either on my way to work in Ecuador or on my way home and could not justify staying longer as much as I wanted to jump on one. I guess the pull of the islands finally grew irresistible: one of those places that you have to see before you die. That and my fortuitous following of Charles Darwin’s steps around South America from the Pampas and Patagonia to Peru (I always had a copy of the Voyage of the Beagle in my briefcase so I could compare the world of 1835 with that of today). I guess I had to see the islands that had a powerful influence on his ideas as to how new species appear on the earth. Because of their unique plant and animal life and their role in the formulation of the evolution by natural selection, they are truly the islands that changed the world (at least science’s view of life on it). It all came to a head last fall (2007) when an adventure travel catalogue from the Tours of Exploration travel company in Gibsons, BC arrived in the mail. I think I must have gotten on their list through a fellow student in a wilderness first aid class. My first problem was finding someone to share a cabin. The solution was easy. I had mentioned my interest in doing this trip some time before to my friend, Al Rousson. It didn’t take him long to decide to go once I mentioned my plans to do the trip in March.
The winter of ’07-‘08 was particularly grey, dark, depressing and snowy in the Vancouver area of British Columbia where I call home. I must say the thought of the tropical sun and blue equatorial waters was a sustaining vision during the numerous times that I had to shovel snow from my 30 m long driveway in the dark through December, January, and February. Finally 7 March rolled around. We were off at 5 AM to YVR and at 8:00 AM we were off to Ecuador via Houston on Continental Airlines. We arrived in Quito in the early evening the same day. The weather was pretty well the same that we left in Vancouver—wet and about 8 degrees C. Although Quito is on the Equator, it is far from tropical. Its 2800 m (9200 ft.) elevation gives it a mild to cool climate. Typically rainy, March is winter to them. The Advantage Tours company had an agent and driver to meet us at the airport. They drove us to the Windsor Hotel in the touristy area of Quito off of Avenida Amazonas. It is known to locals as 'gringoland’. I lived in the Windsor for a week two years before while teaching a course there on landslides. It is a nice clean and inexpensive place ($35/ night) with a café (breakfast is included) and a little bar next door. The night clerk at the Windsor warned us that the bar was expensive. We went in for a celebratory beer anyway. We had two king-size bottles of beer, a plate of snack food and I bought two bottles of water for $5. Al was just getting a taste of how inexpensive things are in Ecuador by Canadian standards and the travel bargains to be had there.