From poison apple trees to an “Alice in Wonderland” mangrove forest, everywhere you turn is like stepping into a storybook. These islands make it into the pages of legendary books such as “Robinson Crusoe” but you would never guess that you would turn the corner to see a Galapagos Hawk eyeing you from the treetops like the Cheshire Cat or a Darwin finch hopping about as quick as the White Rabbit. The snow white beaches are certain to steal your heart, even if you have to be as small as a dwarf to crawl through the mangrove trees to reach them.
Words don’t do this place justice, least of all my words. So here’s another gallery of fascinating birds, mammals and aquatic creatures. www.expeditions.com
Despite being a little bit jetlagged, day one in the Galapagos Islands with Lindblad Expeditions has been awesome. It’s not so bad goin’ solo and it’s fun making some new, colorful friends.
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To do a Galapagos Islands Cruise identical to mine onboard the super cool National Geographic Endeavour… www.expeditions.com
I’m crossing one more destination off of my bucket list tomorrow — Ecuador‘s Galapagos Islands. It’s going to be tough to beat my last adventure in Veracruz, Mexico, where I made so many great friends, conquered my fear of bugs, heights, the jungle and the dark and defied death on a class-IV rapid, repelled down a 130-foot cliff and swam in several dodgy bodies of water.
One of my favorite activities on my recent trip to Veracruz, Mexico, was learning to make and wrap black bean tamales. Our experience, orchestrated by tour operator Yambigapan, started at a local farm where we picked the banana leaves that would wrap our tamales for cooking.
We chose the leaves we wanted to wrap our tamales in. // (c) Janeen Christoff
After a light hike nearby, we headed to Yambigapan’s rural home-stay facility, located on a bluff over looking a small valley.
We hiked through an abandoned textile factory and along a river. // (c) 2013 Janeen Christoff
From the home, you can walk to the Laguna Encantada for boat rides or hike to a variety of destinations including the Volcan San Martin. Our group was their to experience local culinary traditions – specifically tamale-making.
Tamales are made in a traditional kitchen. // (c) 2013 Janeen Christoff
We started by chopping chepil, a Mexican herb that is somewhat similar to coriander.
Chepil // (c) 2013 Janeen Christoff
Then we kneeded the masa (tamale dough). You are gonna need a lot of muscle for this.
Kneeding the masa // (c) 2013 Janeen Christoff
Then came the hard part, folding the tamales in the leaves. It’s actually not that hard. You just plop a blob of masa onto the leaf and then fold the tamale like an American flag.
Pop ‘em in the oven for a while, launch some globos (paper lanterns, which we also learned how to make), listen to some jarocho son music and voila, you have dinner.
The finished product: yummy black bean tamales // (c) 2013 Janeen Christoff
The L.A. Travel Mom 