Ever get the feeling that the world is too much for you—maybe particularly since, I don’t know, last November, or maybe mid-January, or last week, or even today? I’ll say this: No one should need an excuse to visit the Galapagos—it’s been doing rather well for itself for literally millions of years—but if you find yourself having the urge, start making some exit plans. Your sympathetic nervous system will thank you for it.
There are, of course, many ways to experience any number of the 18 major islands that comprise the 3,000 square miles of what we generally consider the Galapagos area, from staying at one or two islands and day-tripping your way around, to joining up with one of the many group tours that traverse various itineraries on larger boats of various sizes. For our particular get-away-from-it-all excursion, though, we hopped the Aqua Mare, an extremely well-appointed 50-meter superyacht, along with Francesco Galli Zugaro, the founder of Aqua Expeditions; his wife Birgit Galli Zugaro, the company’s expeditions director; and a handful of fellow travelers for a four-night trip (Aqua’s trips here are normally either seven or 14 days) that followed Charles Darwin’s travels almost 200 years earlier.
First things first, though: I didn’t know it just yet, but virtually from the moment that the plane from mainland Ecuador touches down at Seymour Airport on Baltra Island in the Galapagos, you’re in another place—geographically, mentally… spiritually, if you will. Large (friendly, casual) iguanas meander across the sidewalk as you leave the airport and hop in a car, headed off to lunch at Rancho Il Manzanillo, an open-air restaurant amidst a massive giant tortoise reserve. Next, we passed through a stunning, ghostly forest of palo santo trees in the Highlands region of the island (our car had to take great pains to avoid the enormous animals on the tiny road leading to the restaurant—fines for hitting or hurting them are enormous), and a pre-lunch stroll in a misting rainfall (called a garua) led us past scores and scores of them, variously walking, resting, and, uh… taking great care to ensure their species’ survival for another generation, let’s say.
From there, we piled onto the Aqua Mare to make our true getaway from civilization.
The exquisite 50-meter vessel itself deserves mention—this is the first genuine superyacht experience in the Galapagos, with just seven wood-lined private cabins that feel more boutique hotel than expedition ship and a crew of 16. The culinary program, overseen by Francesco himself, offers Nikkei fusion cuisine that would be at home in a Nobu dining room, but reimagined with local Galapagos and Ecuadorian flavors. The real Aqua Mare luxury, though, isn’t the pan-seared scallops or the exceedingly well-curated Chilean wine list—it’s the intimacy of the experience. With only eight guests to one naturalist guide (half the typical ratio in these parts), we wouldn’t be just observing the islands and their boundless animal life; it felt like we had it all to ourselves.
