To my American friends of Monchismen:
Happy 4th of July! 
Hope you’re all having a great time with your loved ones.
5 Likes
Thanks, Shend. I had to spend this Independence Day away from Uncle Sam, but if I have to miss the fireworks, this ain’t a bad place to miss them:
Spent a week in the Galápagos Islands during my summer vacation with the family in Ecuador. Ecuador as a whole is a great place to be for vacation, but the Galápagos is off the charts.
7 Likes
Quite interesting Ryan.
That turtle must be what… 100 years old?
1 Like
Ask it?! 
Yeah, at least. Documented evidence of turtles as old as 200, some say they live much longer but no one was here to know how old they can get. Imagine, long before either of the World Wars, before the American Civil War…
Another way to think about it, these turtles would have been full grown adults when World War 1 broke out…
While I’m bragging about Galápagos…also got to swim with sea lions, sea turtles, a white tipped reef shark, huge parrot fish, and more. And that tour cost me $45. Of course… getting here is a chore, but once you get here, if you’re willing to play things by ear, you can do it relatively cheap.
Final brag…pic of my son looking out over the caldera of the Sierra Negra Volcano, one of the largest calderas in the world. And the volcano is still active. Erupted most recently in 2005 and 2018.
2 Likes