Travel&Vacation

Taking the Kids

The teen was having a fit. He was hungry, and his mother had left to go to work. His father couldn’t calm him down and finally gave up trying. The teen stomped around, squawking. Sound familiar?

Except we’re not talking about humans here, but rather birds—a juvenile Nazca booby a few feet away from me on an island in the Galapagos that is home to more than half a million birds. The bay we’re anchored in—Darwin Bay at Tower Island (also known as Genovesa Island)—is in fact a caldera formed by an ancient volcano, and we walk around looking at more birds than I’ve ever seen in one place: red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, gulls and frigates, which ignore us just like teens often do. We hike up steep steps to the rim of the caldera and watch the Nazca boobies’ mating dance—the male whistles to try to attract a female.

All week, as we cruise the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, we joke about the parallels between the amazing creatures we encounter here and human family behavior.

We pose with giant tortoises that ignore our presence, and try not to disturb the marine iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks. Sea lions swim circles around us in the water. We hike over black lava fields and snorkel with sea turtles and stingrays. I feel like we’ve stumbled into an episode of
Nova
.

This wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice for an expensive vacation. There are no beach chairs or tiki bars on these protected beaches, where tourists may only venture with a guide. But this is an adventure we’ll never forget, starting with those sea lions we spotted on San Cristobal Island, snoozing on rowboats as if they owned the place.

Along with three other families, we’ve signed on for a weeklong cruise organized by Seattle-based Wildland Adventures, a member of the Trusted Adventures consortium of travel companies.

Our home for the week is an 83-foot boat called
Flamingo 1
, operated by Ecoventura. It’s comfortable but certainly not luxurious. We’re surprised that we can find room for all of our gear in the small cabins. There are perhaps 85 tour boats in the Galapagos Islands, from a 100-passenger cruise ship to small boats that sleep four or six people. Some of the tour boats are yachts, including one designed to replicate Charles Darwin’s ship, the
HMS Beagle
. Ours seems just the right size, sleeping 20 passengers. It has a crew of 11, including two experienced naturalists who make every excursion an adventure.

These remote islands off the coast of Ecuador, where the wildlife (especially the giant tortoises) inspired Charles Darwin’s work, have emerged at the top of many families’ travel wish lists. Where else can you snorkel with sea lions or watch a sea lion nurse her pup? Even at a cost of more than $10,000 for a family of four, adventure companies such as Wildland Adventures, Austin-Lehman Adventures, Abercrombie & Kent, and Thomson Family Adventures report increasing interest in Galapagos trips designed for families.