Writing this from the airport TGI Fridays in Quito. We made it out of the airport in Galapagos without any lizards crawling into our backpacks (which would land us a year in the clinker). After this 8 hour layover and a red eye flight back to the U. S. Of A. We’ll be getting home. Looking forward to our bed and seeing our dog again!
Highlands Tour
• two craters
• lava tunnels. Falling rocks
• Tortoise reserve
• photo pop with tortoise shell
Bay tour
• shark feeding
• swimming in crevasse
• “tunnel of love”
• short walk to a couple other beaches
Sarah, Eric and steph left for the airport before we woke up.
Nothing too eventful this day, mostly relaxed. Booked a combo highlands tour/bay tour for the next day.
In the evening, ate on Charles Binfird street, where tables lined the street and small mom and pop restaurants lined both sides. Alyssa got an amazing grilled fish. It was pink polka dotted before it was grilled. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was delicious.
Early wake up at 5:30 and pack everything up to leave.
Tsingu gave us a quick tour of the land tortoise breeding center and Darwin research station
Got our bags and checked into our new place at hotel Silberstein.
Second breakfast at Il Giardino. Did some souvineer shopping.
Took the water taxi across the bat and ate dinner at Angermeyer Restaurant.
Floreana island
• Wet landing. 600 meter walk
• Post Office Bay. Visited mailbox and found a postcard for St. Paul
• Hike and swim in lava tunnel!
• snorkeling from beach. Tons of sea turtles.
Champion Island – drift snorkeling from the Dinghey. Giant schools of fish, sea lions, sea turtles. and a shark!
Playa Cormorant
• wet landing. 700 meter walk
• lagoon with lots of flamingos
• second beach. Saw a couple rays from the beach
6 hour overnight motor back to to the town on Santa Cruz island.
Española – Hood Island
Gardner Bay – 3 hours free time on the beach
• White Sand Beach
• snorkeling from the beach
• another sea lion colony
Playa Suarez
• dry landing. 2km hike
• marine iguanas
• Nazca boobies
• blue footed boobies
• waved albatross. Nesting and mating dance.
• lava lizards. Finches. Doves. Sea lions.
Mating dance of the Waved Albatross:
7 hours overnight motor to Floreana Island
Lobos Island: dry landing. 200 meter hike.
Attractions:
• blue footed boobies nesting. Mating dance.
• Frigate birds
• dinghy tour of shore
Kicker Rock Snorkeling from Dinghey
• eagle rays
• black tipped sharks
• sea turtles
San Cristobal Island: dry landing. 4km hike
• Darwin Hill
• Interpretation center
• quick swim at beach
• shopping in town
After we boarded back onto the boat, we got two new passengers. Brooks from California, and his nephew, Kevin.
6 hour motor overnight to Española Island
South Plazas Island – dry landing
Attractions:
• landscape
• land iguana colony
• sea lions
• Swallow tailed gulls
Santa Fe Island
• Snorkeling from ding hey with sea lions!
• wet landing
• Cactus forest
• land iguanas
• Sea lion colony
• 800 meter trail
6 hours overnight motor to Lobos Island
Well, I didn’t really get a chance to write anything on this day, but here’s a lovely photo of our boat!
Our travel to the Galápagos Islands from Quito was not without a couple snafu’s, but we made it without any complete disasters. We were told to arrive at the airport no later than 11am so that we could get on our boat in time for our 5-night live-aboard. Our first flight had some issues which made us almost 3 hours late, but the waited for us!
Our guide met us at the airport. His name was Juan, or his newly learned African name which we referred to him as was Tsingu. ALS on our boat was two Russians, Serge and Allah, and two from Netherlands, Rick and Veronique. Everybody gets along quite we’ll, although the Russians don’t speak much English and keep mostly to themselves. There are four additional crew as we’ll. Captain, Captain’s assistant, the chef Virgilio, “engineer” Paul (Pah-ool), and bartender, cleaner, server, Ingrid. I think my favorite ( besides our amazing guide Tsingu), is the Chef, because he constantly wears sunglasses, often a Hawaiian shirt, and seems to be regularly drunk.
We set out quickly after we got on the boat and saw a ton if really cool wildlife on the first afternoon. We stopped at a white sandy beach where we snorkeled from shore, and saw flamingos, marine iguanas, blue footed boobies, and Frigate birds, to name only a few. The weather is pretty hot and we have quite a lot if free time to lounge around on the boat and relax as we motor from one island to another.