Ecuador: Amazon, Andes & Galapagos Islands

Created 25-Sep-20

I have always had a deep and broad interest in the natural world. As a child I was enthralled by the written accounts of the great natural history expeditions of the Nineteenth Century. After doing a book report in middle school on Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, I dreamed of someday traveling in South America, following in the footsteps of this great naturalist. In July of 1984, this dream came true as I organized and led a group of American science teachers to Ecuador on a two-week in-service study tour of the Galapagos Islands, the Ecuadorian Andes, and the Amazonian rain forest. I repeated this program in 1985, 86, 91 and 94, each time with a slightly different itinerary in order to see different parts of Ecuador.

This collection of three galleries presents my favorite images from those life-changing experiences along with excerpts from my journals. These photographs were made on 35mm Kodachrome 50 and Fujichrome 50, 100, and 400 slide films, then scanned and digitally processed with Photoshop or Silver Efex Pro 2.

The Amazon gallery includes our river float down the Rio Napo on the Flotel Orellana and our visit to Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve on the Rio Jivino.

The Andes gallery includes photographs made in the highlands from Otavalo in the north to Riobamba in the south and the excursions to Tinalandia Lodge on the Pacific slope road from Quito to Santo Domingo de los Colorados.

The Galapagos gallery includes images from my four visits to the island via seven-day motor yacht cruises.