I was born in Ecuador and am a biologist, but I'm ashamed to say I've never visited las Islas Galapagos. One day. I hope you return with nice pics and fond memories. I want to hear all about it. Will you have a slide show at your house please?
¡Y espero que mis compatriotas ecuatorianos te traten bien!

Celebrated author Hermann Melville, huh? I bet he's got some nice things to say about the place. Let's just take a look [ / paging through piazza tales ]:

"Take five-and-twenty heaps of cinders dumped here and there in an outside city lot; imagine some of them magnified into mountains, and the vacant lot the sea; and you will have a fit idea of the general aspect of the Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. A group rather of extinct volcanoes than of isles; looking much as the world at large might, after a penal conflagration....It is to be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group....But the special curse, as one may call it, of the Encantadas, that which exalts them in desolation above Idumea and the Pole, is, that to them change never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. Cut by the Equator, they know not autumn, and they know not spring; while already reduced to the lees of fire, ruin itself can work little more upon them. The showers refresh the deserts; but in these isles, rain never falls. Like split Syrian gourds left withering in the sun, they are cracked by an everlasting drought beneath a torrid sky. "Have mercy upon me," the wailing spirit of the Encantadas seems to cry, "and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame."... Little but reptile life is here found: tortoises, lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the aguano. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss." Huh. Intersting.
In all seriousness, though, Scott and Michael, I hope you're having a great time. bring us back soem "agaunos."

Two celebrated American authors treat of the Galapagos: Herman Melville, in his essay, "The Encantadas", and Kurt Vonnegut, in his novel, GALAPAGOS.
I believe Mark Twain passed these islands while making the trip which would produce FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.

That's unreal! I'm sure you'll have an amazing time!

(I've heard that, understandably, visitors aren't permitted to touch the animals in Galapagos. This would be very difficult for me to resist).

Hey, Scott, I'm so friggin' jealous! I hope you have an amazing and magical time. Be sure to share some of those 444 photos with us.

have an awesome trip!

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