I suspect I will get this question a lot so I put some thought into it on the plane from BA-Houston. I don't have a favorite "part" or "place" or "country." There was too much! What I do have are favorite moments and favorite days.
Top five moments in the order experienced:
- kayaking around Melchior Islands on a gorgeous Antarctic day, listening to nothing but our paddles dip and the glaciers calf around us
(somewhere in there are teeny tiny kayakers)
- watching dolphins porpoise under my feet one night as we sailed under a bed of a gazillion Galapagos stars
- enjoying the last night on the Inca Trail where it was finally warm enough to sit outside, frogs were croaking, the clouds settled into the mountain but the stars and moon were still visible, and we had a great hike earlier that day
(somewhere in there are lots of clouds - the light is from the dinner tent)- the jaguar sighting in Manu Biosphere Reserve (duh!)
(photo courtesy Tammy Palmer - I was too busy gawking to get my camera out)- being stunned into silence by Gargantua del Diable Falls at Iguazu
Runner up: sitting at the top of Argentina, looking out across Paraguay and Brasil, wearing a shirt I bought in Ecuador and a bracelet I got in Peru, thinking about our upcoming trip to Uruguay.
(Paraguay to the left, Brasil to the right)And the top five days in the order I experienced them:
- our first day in the Falkland Islands where the sun was shining, the penguins were totally goofy, the albatross colony was ginormous and we took a nice walk around the hills of Steeple Jason
(gentoos running madly around the beach)
(rockhopper posing angrily)
(albatross colony of about 150,000)
(Steeple Jason hike - just gorgeous)- our third day in South Georgia where the skies were gray and the cold hurt at times, where we walked along Shackleton's last few miles of his famous trek and stood around his grave at the end of the day to drink a toast to "the Boss"
(Shackleton hike)
(cheers!)- Bellavista Lodge and the Mindo butterfly sanctuary outside of Quito
(my first entry into the cloud forest)
(hummingbirds galore)
(Mindo butterfly sanctuary)- hiking at Parque Nacional El Cajas near Cuenca
- the second day at Manu where we sat peacefully in the rain for hours waiting for macaws and saw everything but, then the skies clearing for a sea otter family viewing, a peaceful oxbow lake tour and a lovely sunset
(I'm sure I have the name of this bird somewhere... chances are high it's a flycatcher)
(sea otters playing and drifting by)
Runner up day would be the continental landing when we all turned into 10-year olds, having snowball fights and glissading down the hillside.
(somewhere at the top right is a teeny tiny person - great perspective on how enormous the ice is)
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