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CAU > Seminars and Study Tours > Galapagos and the Andean Highlands: A Family Expedition

Galapagos and the Andean Highlands: A Family Expedition

December 17-27, 2010

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We're delighted to return to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands with a new itinerary that combines the amazing natural history, wildlife, and birds of Galapagos with the rich culture and ecology of the Andes. Our journey will begin on the Galapagos Explorer II for a first-class, four-night cruise among the islands, including daily ponga boat landings to tour San Cristobal, Española, Santa Cruz, and Rabida. We'll observe sea lions, blue-footed boobies, enormous tortoises, and other creatures, and we'll snorkel and swim off coastal beaches.

After a grand tour of historic Quito, we'll travel north one hundred miles into the Andean highlands, where we'll stay for four days at Hacienda Cusin, a restored seventeenth-century Andean estate. The beautiful gardens surrounding our hotel contain countless varieties of flowers and trees and attract over fifty species of birds. We'll ride horseback, swim, visit Otavalo Market, tour the Condor Project at Hacienda Zuleta, hike Cotacachi-Capayas Ecological Reserve, and explore Cuicocha Lake and nearby volcanoes. We'll spend our last afternoon and night relaxing in Quito before departing the next morning for home.

Our guides and academic leaders throughout this journey will be geologist and past Cornell president Frank Rhodes and Cornell biologists, wildlife experts, and entomologists Cole Gilbert and Linda Rayor. Youth leaders will include popular Cornell graduate students. Ecuadorean naturalists and guides will join us as we discover the beauties and the natural history of the Galapagos and Andes.

Double occupancy:$8,660 to $9,490
Price per child or teen (8-17):$6,990 to $7,800
Single supplement:$3,400 to $3,900
Fitness scale:Slightly strenuous. May require extended walking over uneven ground as well as the ability to climb stairs and to stand for considerable periods of time.

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