Galapagos

Our time on the Glapagos islands has been truly incredible from the five days we spent visiting the three main islands ourselves to the five day Galapagos cruise that we did.

The four of us flew in to Baltra Island from Quito a few days ago which is right beside the main island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos. We got a combination of a boat and a bus to Puerto Ayora the main port on Santa Cruz and found a cheap enough guesthouse with decent rooms. Then we walked down Charles Darwin avenue but stopped to take in the scenes at the fish market on the dock. First of all the fish that were laid out and being fillet at this small market were massive. But what really caught our attention was the audience that the market had. The spectators included sea lions, marine iguanas, pelicans and friget birds, as well as tourists of course. In fact, the sea lions almost looked like they worked there as they stood up on two fins right beside the workers just waiting to be handed some discarded fish. They followed the workers around waiting for a feed but wouldn't touch any of the many fish lying around. No wonder these wild sea lions are known as the dogs of the Galapagos.

Having been amused by this for quite a while we finally moved on and grabbed some lunch before splitting up and going hunting for the best cruise on offer. We knew we wanted to do a cruise and we had nine more days until are flight back to mainland Ecuador, but we also knew that this was going to be very expensive. The general rule with the Galapagos is the further away you are from the islands and the further in advance you book, the more expensive. Our plan was to find the best last minute offer for a decent cruise (we had some ideas of our ideal itinerary) but we weren't sure if the fact that there was 4 of us would play to our advantage or against it.

In all we visited about 12 of the 59 agencies in the town and when we all met back up an hour later Alan had found a gem. The perfect itinerary that we wanted for a 5 day cruise, at a great price. So we all then went to the "Galapagos Best Option" agency and to speak to Juan Carlos and hammer out the final details for our cruise on the Guantanamera boat.

After that we still has time to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station, a tortoise breathing centre where we saw all the different types of tortoise. Fun fact - Galapagos is Spanish word for tortoise and that's where the archipelago got its name! Although in every day Spanish both turtles and tortoises are just referred to as tortugas. We celebrated that night with some pizza and beer.

Our cruise didn't set off for a few days so the next day we were up early and caught the brumby speed boat ferry to San Cristobal island, 2 hours away. On San Cristobal we went to Punta Carola, a stunning beach with sea lions everywhere and we all swam with some sea lions and snorkelled where we were lucky enough to see, and follow briefly, a massive turtle swimming around only a few metres from the beach. Later we went up to see Cerro San Juaquin volcano. We took the short walk up to summit but it was very misty and we managed to see the lake in the middle of crater but only for a few minutes as some of the clouds cleared. After a hectic two days and a great start to our Galapagos adventure we relaxed that evening with a nice dinner while we watched the Wimbledon men's final.

The next day we were up at 6.30 for another bumpy speed boat back to Santa Cruz. Alan got soaked which was hilarious, although he couldn't seem to find the funny side to it. We couldn't resist another gawk at the scenes down at the fish market and then got a nice menu del dia for lunch on a street filled with fish restaurants which we washed down with a delicious mora shake before getting the 2pm boat to Isabella Island.

Although Isabella is the biggest island it is the least populated and built up of the four inhabited islands of the Galapagos with a few sand roads and only two main streets. At dinner that night we happened to bump into Edel and Steph who we'd met in Quito.

The next day we went on a snorkelling tour to 'Los Tunneles' which was definitely one of the highlights of our in time the Galapagos. It was the four of us and a group of three from Chicago along with our guide Juan Carlos. We did two different snorkel sights on which we saw; giant turtles, white tipped sharks, a sea horse hiding in the mangroves, penguins, sea lions and blue footed boobies. Amazing!!! We also went to and walked around on eroded lava tunnels to see the blue footed booby nesting grounds where we got to walk up right next to them. We were all on a massive high after seeing so much that we had a little sing song on the way back. To top the day off we met the two girls again at dinner and afterwards we all went to Iguana bar for a few drinks around a bonfire and to practice our tight rope walking.

The Galapagos had already delivered on everything we'd hoped for and more!! And...the best was yet to come as we started our cruise, which will have its very own post.

After the cruise we returned to Santa Cruz, the main island, and went out for a last supper with Alan and Duffy. The flew off this morning back to mainland Ecuador and onwards with their trip as they need to be in Brazil a few months earlier than us.

We had a great day today to wrap everything up. We visited old lava tunnels in the mountains of Santa Cruz and went to a great Giant Tortoise reserve which is located in the mountains wetlands where the they can roam relatively free. We spent hours walking around finding the tortoises in as natural a habitat as you can get and marvelling at their size and beauty.