About a month and a half ago, as I was removing various undesirables from my diet, I was skimming over my weekly Travelzoo email when I came across the following:
$1459 — Galapagos Islands 7-Night Land Package, Save $690
http://www.travelzoo.com/top20/63788138-1426683
Source: Red Mangrove Galapagos & Ecuador Lodges
The Galapagos Islands have been on my travel bucket list for a while and lately I’ve started treating Travelzoo deals as an electronic message from fate, a digital sign pointing to a distant land I’ve been meaning to visit. For the most part, my desire to visit the places on my list is evenly distributed; I don’t prioritize one over any of the others. Given this attitude, it makes sense to me to pick my next destination based on whatever’s on sale at the moment. At the very least, the money saved from doing this a few times could easily pay for another trip.
After researching flights, dates, and Ecuador for a bit, I called up Red Mangrove to get more details. While chatting with the travel agent, she informed me that the agency could take care of booking the flight from mainland Ecuador to Galapagos, which would cost $400 to $500. I thanked her for all the information and gave her my email, preparing myself for a long afternoon of airfare hunting. Initial searches revealed $1000 round-trip tickets from San Francisco to either of the major cities in Ecuador (Quito or Guayaquil), resulting in an airfare total of $1500. On a whim, I searched for round-trip itineraries from San Francisco to Galapagos, which would cut out the middle man (the travel agency). The total round-trip cost if I booked all the flights myself? $880. It was cheaper to go to Galapagos, which requires going through mainland Ecuador, than it was to go to mainland Ecuador itself.
I don’t understand a lot of things about the air travel industry (like why airlines don’t load people onto flights back to front always), but this was just baffling. I tiptoed to my dresser, grabbed my wallet, and entered my credit card number into the American Airlines website to quietly secure the potentially erroneously priced airfare. Once American confirmed the flights, I booked the package through Red Mangrove and started making a list of things I’d need for my trip.