After four days at sea, the Tristan da Cunha archipelago was finally in sight. The plan was ambitious. We would visit Nightingale Island in the morning before moving to Tristan da Cunha in the afternoon. We needed to make the most of the day because the wind and swell were expected to increase, making further […]
After the frustrations of the previous day, it was a relief to wake to sunshine at Stromness. A Landing at Stromness It was still windy, but the forecast was improving, and for the first time on the voyage our Group 3 was called in the first round of landings. The gusts were still strong enough […]
The day began with another early start, with the first zodiacs scheduled to leave at 7:00 am for a cruise around Jason Harbour. The plan for the afternoon as a landing at Grytviken. We took one look at the weather. It was pouring rain. After yesterday’s zodiac cruise in similar conditions, we decided to sit […]
After two days at sea, we woke to our first view of South Georgia on this expedition. Our destination? Salisbury Plain. We visited in January 2023 and remembered massive king penguin colonies and heaps of fur and elephant seals, so we were excited to return. This was also our first proper expedition landing aboard the […]
This was the first expedition we had ever taken that started in Chile rather than Argentina, which immediately made the whole experience feel a little different. The expedition package included one night at the Mandarin Oriental Santiago, though we added a second night to give ourselves an extra day in the city before embarkation. Honestly, […]
Our final day of the trip happened to fall on New Year’s Eve. The plan was to break up the drive back to Quito with a stop at Balcon Tumpiki, where we might be able to see a plate-billed mountain toucan. We had been told the road was in good condition, so we made the […]
Today was another transfer day as we moved from San Jorge Tandayapa down to San Jorge Milpe in northwest Ecuador. To break up the drive, we stopped at San Tadeo Birding, another hummingbird photography spot along the way. When we first arrived, the main perches were surprisingly quiet, especially after what we had experienced the […]
It was a 5 a.m. start to visit an Andean cock-of-the-rock lek at Finca La Victoriana in Pichincha, Ecuador. A lek is a communal display area where male birds gather to perform for females, competing for attention with calls, movement, and posture. In the case of the Andean cock-of-the-rock, that means a group of bright […]
Today was a transfer day as we moved from Quito to Tandayapa, deeper into Ecuador’s cloud forest. We left the lodge in a 4WD, which made sense almost immediately. Along the way we stopped at a small hummingbird spot, the kind of place that feels increasingly common across Central and South America. At some point, […]
What a difference a day makes. This next part of our story takes us from the Galapagos to Quito, where we nearly called the entire next part of the trip off, but decided to stick it out and were rewarded with three species of antpittas and some sword-billed hummingbirds at Zuroloma Reserve. But I’m getting […]