This past January was the departure for our postponed Journey to the Galapagos. Our charter was canceled in March 2020 for the first wave of COVID-19.
We ‒ ourselves and 14 of our guests in five airplanes ‒ were finally able to depart from Florida to South America. After a PCR test five days prior to departure and an antigen test the night before, we were ready to go, less one plane. Unfortunately, the guests tested positive to the PCR, had pretty strong symptoms, and were not going to join us. They were fully covered insurance-wise for medical reasons, and through Travel Guard we received a full refund for the cost of the journey.
Our first leg from Florida was to Cartagena, Colombia. This is a very lively city with a lot to offer. The flight was uneventful; we overflew Cuba, then Jamaica where a couple of the planes made a stop, and then on to the beautiful city of Cartagena. Our home for our two nights there was the Santa Clara hotel, a former monastery that has been totally updated for the modern life and in a very lively area of the old city of Cartagena.
Along the way we took our mascot AJ, short for Air Journey—a stuffed penguin. Why a penguin? Because it’s the only bird that needs Air Journey to fly somewhere.
The first evening in Cartagena was a unique dinner degustation with wine. That certainly put everybody in the right mood to explore a beautiful journey. The meal was amazing and the wine pairing pretty attractive. It was a long dinner, but the next morning we were ready to discover the city.
Part of the old city built by the Spanish in the seventeenth century still shows, including a lot of the Old Wall that protected the city from pirates and outsiders. Outside the city, there was another still-inhabited monastery with monks sharing their view of the city. With its cobblestone streets, its horse-drawn carriages, and its colorful shops, we were all taken aback by the beauty and culture the city has to offer.
On top of the monastery, we enjoyed the view and the rehabilitated different parts of the place. The monks took advantage of the lockdown to bring back its past splendor.
Then we were on to Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, where we learned about its history of defending the city. Then we went on for a walking tour of Old Cartagena with myriad decorated doors, churches, a Botero statue in town, and colorful street vendors. It is certainly a very unique, enjoyable destination.
After two nights, we were on our way to Ecuador and the town of Guayaquil. It is a flight along the Pacific side of the Andes, as the Andes end up in Colombia in Barranquilla right on the Caribbean city. We had a beautiful flight; not a cloud in the sky!
One of the highlights of the Journey is for the participants to take a photo of the GPS as we cross the equator. You will see a whole bunch of zeroes with the letter “N” if you are on the north side, or the letter “S” on the south side. All of that happens pretty quickly, and it’s kind of fun to get photos with the “N” and the “S.”
As we got to Guayaquil, transfer was met, we got to a very nice hotel, spent the night, and got ready for our commercial flight the next morning to the island of Baltra in the middle of the Galapagos.
Can we fly our own airplane to the Galapagos? The short answer is yes. But there is no fuel in the Galapagos for the plane, so you need to make sure that you can tanker enough fuel for the 550 miles to the island and also for its return. Additionally, parking is scarce and expensive: a $5,000 parking and landing fee for a five-day stay. A commercial flight, first class when available, is certainly a lot less expensive, though maybe not as enjoyable.
As we arrived at the airport of Baltra, there was a serious COVID check to make sure we weren’t endangering the different species you can see there. Our short drive from the airport to the tender joining our boat, the Endemic, took us through barren scenery but with colorful animals i.e., iguanas, brightly painted crabs, blue-footed boobies, and other things.
As we got to the dock, we put life vests on, then moved to our home for the next four nights. It was a beautiful boat with only eight cabins and a maximum of 16 people onboard. We met the people who were going to make the next five days a very enjoyable stay, as well as our onboard naturalist who was going to enable us to discover these islands the way Darwin did years ago. The program was to set foot on different places with very few or even no other people. That made for a unique and exclusive interaction with the local fauna.
It was a paradise for the photographer. Numerous birds–of course, the most well-known one is the blue-footed booby but there are many other species as well, as iguanas and lizards plus a huge variety of flora and fauna that are very unique. Since the animals have never been hunted, they are not afraid of human beings. You can get very close to them.
We also discovered all of the sea lions lying on the beaches waiting for time to go by. Again, very friendly animals that are not afraid of human beings. It was more the other way around. When we saw them move unexpectedly fast, we fled, not knowing what to expect from their behavior.
We also saw pink flamingos, and a beautiful red crab with yellow and blue colors. So, we spent a lot of time birdwatching and observing all of the different iguanas. The Christmas Iguanas were the most popular, named so because of their red and green coloring.
The beauty of the Galapagos is that things don’t happen only on land, they also happen in the water. During our private cruise, we made a couple of stops where we were able to snorkel and meet with the sea lion population underneath the water. The young ones are very joyful and playful, but you always have a Type A male who keeps track of his band, and this is the one you need to watch for because he will defend his family if he feels any kind of threat.
The cruise took us back to the island of Baltra, the main city, where we visited one of the large tortoises living on land. These are the ones you might have seen in photographs, with large domes who move around very slowly and can have a lifespan of 120 years. Then it was, unfortunately, time for us to head back to the mainland, but not before seeing one of the last remaining albatrosses who come to the islands to nest and bring young into this world. They learn to fly and start to move their migration again.
We had an early commercial flight back to Guayaquil, where we stayed at the same hotel. Then spent an additional night in Guayaquil because, being close to the equator, there’s the high chance of developed thunderstorms in the afternoon at the time of our take off.
The next stop was Panama, and that’s also an exciting destination, being home to the popular Panama Canal. What’s always amazing about the Panama Canal is that we know it connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific side, so our mind is expecting to see an east to west kind of orientation. But it turns out that the canal goes from north to south. There’s a lot traffic going through, and because of the additional traffic, as well as the larger and larger cruise and cargo ships, there’s been a new system developed parallel to the old one. It’s always a unique sight to see the boats going through the canal while enjoying the Miraflores Locks and all that amount of water going in and out in order to raise and lower the boat at the next level to move along the canal.
Near the Panama Canal, there’s also a unique variety of animals that live in the surrounding jungle. The effort of protection over the years has been extremely important because the water used to raise and lower the canal is coming from rain, and they need to conserve the jungle to be able to have the natural effect of rising humidity, steam, clouds, and then rain again. The animals in that part of the jungle are pretty well on their own. They’ve not been disturbed by many things and you can see howler monkeys, birds, different varieties of crocodile, snakes, etc.
In the afternoon, after the visit to the canal, it was time to go and visit the Old City of Panama. It was built by the Spanish to relocate Inca treasure to be carried over to Spain. The whole city has the look of many of these fortress cities built by the Spanish in the seventeenth century. The newer parts of the city have a number of skyscrapers that remind us of views of Hong Kong, New York, or Chicago. Certainly, a very interesting place!
Regarding COVID, Panama was pretty well protected with the government taking strong action and imposing a lot of restrictions. Some of them are still in place, but that did not impact too much of our discovery.
Then it was time to leave our new friends and fly back home. With the Air Journey connection over the years, I was able to request a private airplane sightseeing tour of the canal. After takeoff, we were connected to a discreet frequency, one plane at a time 10 minutes apart, directed to maintain 2,000 feet, and we cruised along over the canal with a full description of what we were seeing. What an amazing way to finish the journey and get a better understanding of this man-made wonder.
The Galapagos has been a successful destination for Air Journey. We still have one more program in December, and we have three more cruises for 2023. Imagine visiting this wonderful part of the world on your own yacht, at your own pace, and with your new pilot friends.
We’re looking forward to sharing adventures with you over the years!
Air Journey founder Thierry Pouille has visited 172 countries and landed in more than 95 in his or Air Journey participants airplanes. For more information on guided flying tours, see www.airjourney.com.
