They tell you to bring a lot of memory card capacity to the Galapagos Islands, but you don’t realize how many photos you will actually took until you start downloading them. Then you wonder what you’re going to do with them all.

I always figured those Galapagos articles I saw in magazines had some talented photographer with a big zoom lens behind them. In fact, you could take a digital camera you bought for $59 from Wal-mart and return home with amazing photos. The animals just don’t give a crap that tourists are ogling them and snapping photos. They just yawn.

Here are two random ones I grabbed and resized. Many more to come after I write up my story on the excellent trip I took with Angermeyer Cruises. I’ll have an interview with the founder running here on the blog in a few days. He’s one of the originals.

Meanwhile, I’m holed up at the misty Royal Palm Hotel in the highlands, which we’ll be adding to our reviews soon. A lovely place to hang out and use as a base if you don’t want to spend a week on a rocking ship. Giant tortoises are a few minutes away.

I will be detached from this blog and e-mail for a while as I’ll be sailing around the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador on the Sagitta 3-masted ship.

The ship holds a maximum of 16 passengers, so I’ll be seeing the islands in an intimate fashion. Andando Tours is the one running the tours, operating ships from Angermeyer Cruises. The two branches have been at this a long time, with the Angermeyer family actually living off and on one of the islands (after emigrating from Germany) since the 1930’s.

This is not your typical big-group tourist cruise experience. This is a company that does it right in terms of the experience and the environment, so I’m looking forward to seeing the operation first-hand.

Watch for a tour feature story on the trip in the coming months. If you sign up for our newsletter you won’t miss it!

It sure took a while, but the Caribbean side of Costa Rica now has a real functioning luxury resort hotel. We’ve got a first-person review of it from one of our Panama experts, Beverly Gallagher. See our detailed review of Le Caméléon Boutique Hotel.

Don’t come here looking for lots of florals and wicker. “Playful minimalism” is more the style, with white-on-white rooms playing against the greenery outside and common areas splashed with bright solid colors.

It’s not perfect yet: the beds are a bit small in the lowest category rooms and the staffers are still figuring out how to get past the sleepy Caribbean vibe that usually passes for hotel service with the competition. This is a bold project executed well though and a major step forward for the region. Now heading to “the other coast” doesn’t have to mean taking a big step down in quality.

See our full list of reviews of luxury hotels in Costa Rica.

Rio won the bidding and will host the 2016 summer Olympics.

Their odds ranged from 2-1 to 11-4 on the betting sites, so somebody made some money.

Now they’d better start building more luxury hotels in Rio…