The recent travel adventures of Mary Pat Treuthart, as told to her blogger husband Dan Webster.

Along with my friend, King County Superior Court Judge Jaime Hawk, I flew from Quito – the capital city of Ecuador – to Santa Cruz Island, one of the 18 major islands in the archipelago group known as the Galápagos Islands.

Why did I want to go to the Galápagos? The truth is I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of these islands. And the opportunity to see the biodiversity they offer, the animals in particular, appealed to me – to both of us.

We landed Sept. 11 at Seymour Galapagos Ecological Airport, a former military installation that is located on Baltra Island just north of Santa Cruz. This necessitated our taking first a bus and then a short ferry ride to where we would spend our first night.

Many visitors visit the archipelago on cruise ships. We opted to take a land-based tour, which allowed us to better choose our itineraries and that ended up being much more economical. (Our tour company was Quito-based Columbus Travel.)

Neither Jaime nor I had worked with a tour company previously, and we didn’t fully appreciate in advance the full range of services that it provided us.

One, of course, is lodging. Before the tour began officially, we had booked rooms at the Royal Palm Hilton, which sits in the misty highlands of Santa Cruz. Having just finished an intense 10-tour of Peru with a delegation from the Seattle-based Center for Women and Democracy, we were looking for a little down time.

Our Galápagos tour officially began the next morning when a Columbus Travel representative picked us up at the hotel. He took us to the ferry dock in the town of Puerto Ayora. That was where, following a bumpy two-hour cruise – and with the help of some motion-sickness meds – we managed to make our way to one of the other main islands, Isla Isabela.

We then settled into our home for the next three nights, the hotel Iguana Crossing – so named because it is where the iguanas scramble every evening, at dusk, toward the ocean.

On our own to explore the tiny town where the hotel sits, we enjoyed the scenery, shopped for souvenirs and enjoyed a tasty dinner. The next morning, we were met by our Columbus Travel tour guide Carlos. We opted not to hike to the summit of the expansive caldera of the island’s still-active volcano, Sierra Negra (most recent eruption, 2018). Instead, Carlos arranged for us to hitch a ride in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Such are the benefits of being older.

On our return, we made a brief stop at Flamingos Lagoon, where only a few flamingos were in residence. From there we went to a tortoise-breeding center where we learned about giant Galápagos tortoises and the island’s conservation efforts.

Our day was capped by a group boat trip to Las Tintoreras, a series of inlets full of marine life, most notably penguins and marine iguanas. We were given the option to hike or snorkel, and we chose to walk out to see the clusters of iguanas.

Day two dawned early – too early for nighcrawlers such as we are – but it turned out to be exciting as we visited Los Tuneles, which are notable as the nesting grounds for Blue-footed boobies and for the landscape that feature prickly-pear cacti growing amid the lava rock formations.

We then were able to snorkel in a nearby bay, with Carlos pointing out all the sea creatures we encountered, including seahorses, rays, exotic fish, tortoises – and more than a few baby sharks.

Day three posed a problem: We could either rise at 5 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. ferry back to Santa Cruz … or choose to fly out at 9 a.m. And let me say that was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. We enjoyed both the extra sleep time and the flight, which was a bit pricey but beautifully smooth, scenic and lasted only 25 minutes.

Back at Santa Cruz, we were met by another guide, Frederico, who took us to the restaurant 1835, where we were served a delicious breakfast (our deal with the tour company included lodging, transportation, activities and some meals). The date 1835, by the way, was the year the naturalist Charles Darwin spent five weeks studying the wildlife and plants of the Galápagos, gathering the information that would help him devise his theory of evolution.

We spent the rest of the morning at the world-famous Parque Nacional Galápagos and the Charles Darwin Research Center. Following Frederico’s lead, we saw dozens more tortoises, prominent among them the glass-enclosed mummified remains of Lonesome George – a superstar tortoise who, the last of his species of Pinta Island tortoises, died in 2012 at the reported age of 102.

That afternoon we opted to take a water taxi to Finch Bay Resort where we hiked from Playa de los Alemanes (named after German immigrants of the 19th century) to Las Grietas (or The Cracks), deep crevices formed by volcanic activity. We watched others swim in the crystal-clear water but chose ourselves to remain dry.

After spending the night at the Ikala Galápagos Hotel in the center of Puerto Ayora, we began our final day by enduring another 8 a.m. departure to join a group for an all-day tour that began with a two-and-a-half-hour sail to Santa Fe Island. While others hiked around the island, Jaime and I took a zodiac-boat ride during which we saw more Blue-footed boobies, tortoises and sea lions galore.

We then snorkeled among the sea lions, one got a little fresh with me, something that I’m still laughing about. We ate a late lunch aboard the boat before sailing back to Puerto Ayora.

We spent our final evening doing a lot of last-minute souvenir shopping in the town’s main street before enjoying a last dinner. The next morning we flew back to Baltra, then on to Quito and home.

Final notes: A highlight of the trip was observing the earnest efforts of the residents of the Galápagos to promote sustainable tourism. I was particularly impressed by their use of glass instead of plastics and limiting showers to a bare seven seconds.

Oh, yeah, the Blue-footed boobies were cool, too.