We finished working at Gringo on the Beach and caught a bus to Guayaquil - a fairly easy trip from Manta. Arriving in Guayaquil on May Day is a bit like being in Quito for Easter Sunday - most stores are closed and the streets are almost empty. Kim and I dropped our stuff at our hostel and walked down to the mall to find an ATM, get some lunch and pick up a few necessary items before we flew to the Galapagos Islands. Guayaquil has a few craft breweries and we bought a couple bottles to celebrate our last night in continental Ecuador.
The next morning, a short two hour flight landed us on Baltra island in the Galapagos archipelago. Baltra island is barren, very dry, with only an airport and a small dock area for ferrying passengers across the Itabaca Channel and onto Santa Cruz island. Puerto Ayora, an hours bus ride to the south side of Santa Cruz, is the largest city in the Galapagos at about 15,000 people. We found our regal-sounding Hotel Sir Francis Drake (not as fancy as it sounds), and dropped off our bags before we started exploring the town. We knew we had three weeks on the islands, and that we wanted to do a cruise. And so we started exploring the different tour agencies and doing some research on what activities could be done independently.
The majority of the islands are designated as National Park area, and you are not allowed into the National Park without a guide. However in and around Puerto Ayora there are several places that are privately owned or that lie outside the park boundaries. We made a list of things we want to see and places we wanted to go, but part of each day was consumed by shopping for a cruise that suited our budget and let us see the islands we most wanted to visit. It quickly became clear that all the tour agencies had more or less the same information and offers. Other travellers had told us that you can find the best deals on cruises if you book on the islands, and the prices most places offered were much lower than the price listed when we checked online. After four days of haggling over prices and researching boats and islands we booked a six day tour around Isabela island. We knew that we probably could have had a better price if we waited a few more days before booking, but we wanted to enjoy our time and start spending our days seeing what Santa Cruz had to offer rather than in tour agency offices.
We had a week to explore Puerto Ayora and other spots on Santa Cruz. We visited the Darwin Research Center, which sounds far more scientific than it was. In reality it was akin to a very small zoo, so we saw some land tortoises and land iguanas. They also had a breeding center for land tortoises, so we saw some very small tortoises; the tortoises they breed are relocated to the wild once they are old enough. We also took a taxi to the highlands of Santa Cruz and checked out three different spots - los gemelos, the lava tunnels, and las primicias. Our taxi driver turned into a makeshift tour guide as he explained the history of a site or helped us find tortoises and gave his estimation of their ages. Los gemelos, the twins in Spanish, are two giant craters created by magma pockets that emptied, leaving enormous caverns that later collapsed with tectonic movement. Nothing to stare at for hours, but they were cool to see.
The lava tunnels are what they sound like, natural tunnels created by magma flow. Also fun, maybe not great if you get claustrophobic as you have to crawl through a very small gap at one point. The best attraction in the highlands was most definitely Las Primicias. Basically, it's a privately owned piece of land (meaning you don't need a guide to visit) where land tortoises hang out. They probably spend time there because there are lots of guava trees and visitors gather the fruits and help the giant tortoises out.
On another day, we walked 40 minutes out of town to Tortuga Bay, where we would presumably see some marine turtles. To our disappointment, we saw no turtles, but the beach was lovely and peaceful and there were lots of marine iguanas on the beach and occasionally in the water swimming. The marine iguanas are a bit creep (they kind of look like demons), but we probably took 300 pictures of them throughout our time on the island. We revisited Tortuga Bay several more times just to relax. One man we met on the island told us that some locals go every day, calling Tortuga Bay the Temple.
We also went to Las Grietas (the cracks in Spanish), which are exactly that - but filled with clear blue water. We swam around for a bit in the brisk water and when the water was calm, we could see some bright blue fish below us.
During our time in Puerto Ayora, we had a hard time finding a hostel with a kitchen that was not extremely dirty. Thus, we ate out for most meals (sometimes buying fresh bread from the grocery store as a makeshift breakfast or lunch). We often purchased set "almuerzo" (lunch) menus on Kiosko street for less than $5 that were very filling (usually soup, fish or chicken, rice and salad). We also returned to the street for dinner and had some of the best sea food of our trip so far for less than $10 a plate. We treated ourselves to sushi a few times and found that Pelican View restaurant had by far the best on the island (you know it's fresh when you walk past the fish market on the way to the restaurant :)). Kim also became addicted to the ice cream served at Galapagos Deli. I think her record was 3 cones in one day (it was her birthday to be fair).
After a week on Santa Cruz, we were definitely ready to start our cruise and check out the other islands. We met everyone on our boat, the Encantada, at the Baltra airport. All together there were twelve passengers. Kim and I from the US; Lewis, Kerrie and Jenny from Australia; Robert and Julia from Germany; Sevi, Raphi and Sabrina from Switzerland; Heather from Belgium, and Natalie from England. Juan, our guide, was born on the island and has been guiding in the Galapagos for 35 years. Most importantly, he was a ranger for the Galapagos National Park and a Marine Biologist. Kim was immediately impressed with his vast knowledge, especially when he was able to talk lichen with her. We all got onto the boat, got settled into our cabins, and shortly after had our first meal together.
The meals on the boat were good, pretty typical Ecuadorian food (rice, fish, veggies and fruit) and plenty to eat without wasting much. Coffee and tea was available at all hours, and you could grab a beer and mark it down on your tab whenever you felt like it. The cabins were small and the bathrooms smaller, but we didn't empty our wallets to hang out in our cabin, so it was more than acceptable. The boat itself was small compared to other boats, but it was an old sailboat repurposed as a cruise boat for tourists. Where most of the other boats we saw were very modern looking, with glossy white sides and black tinted windows, we were on a fire engine red boat with a mast and circular portholes for windows.
Our first stop was a short trip further down on Santa Cruz island where we got off and walked around on a trail close to Cerro Dragon. This ended up being our first and only opportunity to see land iguanas. Kim and I were ready with our camera in hand and our battery fully charged - but with the battery still in the charger plugged into the wall in the cabin. Oops. So instead of peering at these yellow and orange monsters through the lens of my camera, we enjoyed watching them lethargically move about if they moved at all. Back on board we had our first nightly briefing with Juan before eating dinner. He explained that we would navigate to Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island overnight. That night, before heading out, we saw a sea lion hanging out around our boat trying to catch fish (the fish were drawn to the boat by the lights). The sea lion had attracted a more impressive predator, a Galapagos shark. With the help of Robert's and Lewis' super bright head lamps, we saw the shark dart after the sea lion. To the dismay of some and the joy of others, the shark didn't catch the sea lion (at least to our knowledge).
To put it mildly, the seas were a bit choppy that first night. Kim had been taking the motion sickness pills we had with us, so she wasn't feeling awful, but she did head to bed early. I ended up staying up and playing Uno with Robert, Julia and Sevi. When I did make it to bed (the top bunk), the boat was rocking back and forth hard enough that I was a little worried that I would get tossed out of bed. As such, I didn't sleep so well the first night.
At breakfast the next morning, I found that just about everyone else had the same troubles (you might even say we were in the same boat). The second day we had a chance to check out some marine iguanas and some sea lions before we went snorkeling for the first time. The water was a bit cloudy but we saw lots of colorful fish ranging in size from my pinky finger to my torso. We also saw a sea turtle who was incredibly calm and unafraid of us despite the fact that we were a large group and were quite close to it. Right at the end we saw a huge sting ray nestled into the bottom.
In the afternoon we disembarked in Puerto Villamil and took a van a short ways out of town. We all got out of the van to check out some flamingos in a pond a short ways away. I got out of the van last and the driver closed the door behind me and quickly took off. I thought we were just getting out because we were lucky to see some flamingos, but when I asked Juan he said no, we would walk back into town from where we were. Awesome, because I left my backpack on the van thinking it was just a quick stop. Losing the backpack wouldn't have been a big deal, but it had my wallet with debit/credit cards, and Kim's cell phone in it. Needless to say I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in Villamil worrying about if I would get my backpack back and if so would it have my wallet and Kim's phone in it. It didn't help that when we would ask Juan about it he was fairly nonchalant about it and kept telling us we had to wait to find out - that the driver had gone up into the mountains to pick up a different group and had no way of being contacted for an hour and a half. Ultimately, Juan did pull through, and we got the backpack and important items back no problem. We did get to see the tortoise breeding center in Villamil, though it is much like the one in Puerto Ayora, and I was deep in the middle of a pity party so it wasn't the best Galapagos afternoon.
The second evening we learned from the Captain that the seas were supposed to be even rougher than the night before, and it was a 12 hour navigation to our next destination. A crew member offered to tie us into our bunks (we still aren't sure if he was kidding). More people had trouble with this night, Kim included. We went down to our cabin and she laid on the bottom bunk and told me that she wasn't going to get ready for bed - that she couldn't or else she would be sick. She took her contacts out and gave them to me to put away for her. I had felt a little seasickness myself when we were up on the top deck, but once I sat down on the bed it went away. Luckily, both of us slept through the night without too much issue, something that not everybody was able to do.
The third day we were settled into the routine of the boat, and feeling the swaying of the sea was starting to become natural. We were on the west side of Isabela Island where we walked on a huge swath of black lava rock called Punto Moreno. We walked a ways in and there were some pools with flamingos standing in the water. It was also pretty incredible to see how different plants had begun to grow in the lava rock despite a lack of soil. Even more incredible was how there was a cactus that looks a lot like a penis.
That afternoon we went to Elizabeth Bay, a short ways from Punto Moreno, where we had another chance to snorkel and then did a tour of the bay by dinghy. From the dinghy we saw blue footed boobys, galapagos penguins, and flightless cormorants. In the water we had what might have been our best snorkeling outing. There were penguins in the water with us and at one point a group of them torpedoed directly beneath us as they chased a school of small fish. Later there was an octopus crawling along the bottom of the sea. I followed him for a bit, keeping my distance and just watching what he would do. It was mesmerizing to see how instantaneously and flawlessly the octopus could change his color to match his surroundings, or how he would flash a bright blue when another fish accidentally swam into him. While I was distracted by the octopus, Kim and the others were swimming with a sea lion and a sea turtle.
Day four started at Fernandina Island, which is just west of Isabela. Our walk on Fernandina culminated in us seeing a big male (macho, in Spanish) sea lion barking and honking and chasing a female sea lion. Juan informed us that he was trying to mate with the female and the female was playing hard to get. Our second stop, Punta Vicente Roca, was also to be visited by dinghy only. We saw lots of blue footed boobys and the landscape was reminded me of Isla Nublar. There were two opportunities to snorkel on the fourth day, and we swam with sea lions and saw lots of incredible fish - however the water was a bit too cold for most at the first area and it was murky and too deep at the second stop.
Juan told us that we were going to be crossing the equator at about 5 pm, so Kim and I as well as the Aussies all had a few beers and enjoyed a beautiful early evening on the deck of the Encantada. We stopped at the equator and a bunch of people were trying to take pictures of the ship's navigational equipment reading 0'0'0' latitude.
Unfortunately I didn't see the equator on the day we passed it, but Juan said it is pretty rare to catch a glimpse of it. On the plus side, Kerrie, Lewis and Jenny taught me a wonderful Australian drinking song where you peer pressure your buddies into chugging (skulling, in Australian) their beer.
(Side note, as I'm writing this post so incredibly late I have heard about the eruption of Wolf Volcano in late May. Kim and I were off the islands at this point, but the volcano is on the northern part of Isabela and we sailed around it. We were about a week too late to see the eruption. Damn.)
The fifth day started on Santiago Island and we found a place that had cracks in the lava rock where sea lions would hide from sharks. We saw a large group of sea lions hanging out and playing in the cracks. Juan told us that it was one of the few places to see fur sea lions, as opposed to Galapagos sea lions, but to be honest they don't look all that different. There was also a hole in the ground called Darwin's Toilet where the water would retreat and then come exploding out of the ground. Snorkeling was right from the beach, and the water was warm and clear. It seemed like we were going to see mostly the same animals we had seen the previous snorkeling days, until Kim said that Robert and Julia saw a shark. I swam over to where they were and caught a couple glimpses of a shark, but that was enough for me so I swam away from where the sharks were and back to the group.
Our day ended at Rabida Island. The beach is made up of deep red sand, which made for interesting landscape. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and threatening to rain and there wasn't much in the way of wildlife. We spent most of the hour or so on the island chatting with other people from the boat (I spent a good 30 minutes explaining American Football to Sevi from Switzerland).
The last day on the boat was a quick circumnavigation of Daphne Island. Daphne used to be open to tourists but it has since been closed to the public, only a handful biologists have been allowed to disembark on the island. After Daphne we sailed back to Baltra Island, unloaded our belongings and then ourselves. We all caught a quick bus back to the airport where most of our new friends were getting on a plane back to Guayaquil. Kim and I gave hugs and said goodbye to all before we took a couple busses and a ferry back to Puerto Ayora.
We had originally booked a day trip to Bartolome Island for the day before our cruise started, but there was a miscommunication on the part of the tour agency so the bus left without us. The agency re-booked our tour for the day after our cruise ended. To be honest, we both had mixed feelings about the day tour before leaving since we had just spent 6 days going non-stop. We were tired and both feeling ready to move onto something else. However, Bartolome Island was incredible and we were so glad we went. Our guide was fantastic, and the landscape was stunning (scenes from the movie Master and Commander were filmed here). We hiked up to the top of a hill where you have a panoramic view crisp blue water, white beaches, and black lava rock. Even better were the Galapagos hawks that were soaring around us and seemingly posing for pictures on the handrails not more than six feet from our group.
After Bartolome, we headed over to San Cristobal. It was an almost 3 hour ferry ride. As a native to the Puget Sound, I use the word ferry only in the most literal sense. The boat fit about 25 people and the locals all sit as close to the back as possible. The reason for this became clear as soon as we left the bay of Puerto Ayora and the boat kicked into high gear. I don't have any reference for how calm or rough the seas were that day, but there were parts of the trip where I literally bounced half a foot off the bench. Kim had taken a motion sickness pill, but even so she wasn't feeling too hot. The most frightening parts were when the captain would kill the motor right before a particularly large wave so as not to capsize the boat and it felt like a car fishtailing on ice. Thankfully, we did make it to San Cristobal in one piece, and with no chunks on the ground.
San Cristobal is less touristy than Puerto Ayora with less restraunts and bars, but we heard there were some lovely beaches and good snorkeling. We found a nice little hostel, Casa Mabell, with the sweetest older gentleman running the place. There was a nice restaurant in town, Rosita, that served a fantastic five dollar set lunch (maybe the best set lunch we've had). The huge downside was that it poured rain for the first two days, not leaving much opportunity for visiting beaches. When the weather finally cleared enough (still pretty overcast), we walked a ways out of town to a local beach that was filled with sea lions. We saw some sea lions that looked like they couldn't be more than a few weeks old, and Kim took some great pictures of them nursing and playing.
When it was time for us to fly back to Guayaquil and end our Galapagos adventure, I think we were both a little bit relieved. Everything on the Galapagos is incredibly expensive compared to the rest of Ecuador, and after three weeks, our budget was pretty shot. That said, it was an experience that neither of us will ever forget and something that we wouldn't take back if given the opportunity.
The next morning, a short two hour flight landed us on Baltra island in the Galapagos archipelago. Baltra island is barren, very dry, with only an airport and a small dock area for ferrying passengers across the Itabaca Channel and onto Santa Cruz island. Puerto Ayora, an hours bus ride to the south side of Santa Cruz, is the largest city in the Galapagos at about 15,000 people. We found our regal-sounding Hotel Sir Francis Drake (not as fancy as it sounds), and dropped off our bags before we started exploring the town. We knew we had three weeks on the islands, and that we wanted to do a cruise. And so we started exploring the different tour agencies and doing some research on what activities could be done independently.
The majority of the islands are designated as National Park area, and you are not allowed into the National Park without a guide. However in and around Puerto Ayora there are several places that are privately owned or that lie outside the park boundaries. We made a list of things we want to see and places we wanted to go, but part of each day was consumed by shopping for a cruise that suited our budget and let us see the islands we most wanted to visit. It quickly became clear that all the tour agencies had more or less the same information and offers. Other travellers had told us that you can find the best deals on cruises if you book on the islands, and the prices most places offered were much lower than the price listed when we checked online. After four days of haggling over prices and researching boats and islands we booked a six day tour around Isabela island. We knew that we probably could have had a better price if we waited a few more days before booking, but we wanted to enjoy our time and start spending our days seeing what Santa Cruz had to offer rather than in tour agency offices.
We had a week to explore Puerto Ayora and other spots on Santa Cruz. We visited the Darwin Research Center, which sounds far more scientific than it was. In reality it was akin to a very small zoo, so we saw some land tortoises and land iguanas. They also had a breeding center for land tortoises, so we saw some very small tortoises; the tortoises they breed are relocated to the wild once they are old enough. We also took a taxi to the highlands of Santa Cruz and checked out three different spots - los gemelos, the lava tunnels, and las primicias. Our taxi driver turned into a makeshift tour guide as he explained the history of a site or helped us find tortoises and gave his estimation of their ages. Los gemelos, the twins in Spanish, are two giant craters created by magma pockets that emptied, leaving enormous caverns that later collapsed with tectonic movement. Nothing to stare at for hours, but they were cool to see.
The lava tunnels are what they sound like, natural tunnels created by magma flow. Also fun, maybe not great if you get claustrophobic as you have to crawl through a very small gap at one point. The best attraction in the highlands was most definitely Las Primicias. Basically, it's a privately owned piece of land (meaning you don't need a guide to visit) where land tortoises hang out. They probably spend time there because there are lots of guava trees and visitors gather the fruits and help the giant tortoises out.
On another day, we walked 40 minutes out of town to Tortuga Bay, where we would presumably see some marine turtles. To our disappointment, we saw no turtles, but the beach was lovely and peaceful and there were lots of marine iguanas on the beach and occasionally in the water swimming. The marine iguanas are a bit creep (they kind of look like demons), but we probably took 300 pictures of them throughout our time on the island. We revisited Tortuga Bay several more times just to relax. One man we met on the island told us that some locals go every day, calling Tortuga Bay the Temple.
We also went to Las Grietas (the cracks in Spanish), which are exactly that - but filled with clear blue water. We swam around for a bit in the brisk water and when the water was calm, we could see some bright blue fish below us.
During our time in Puerto Ayora, we had a hard time finding a hostel with a kitchen that was not extremely dirty. Thus, we ate out for most meals (sometimes buying fresh bread from the grocery store as a makeshift breakfast or lunch). We often purchased set "almuerzo" (lunch) menus on Kiosko street for less than $5 that were very filling (usually soup, fish or chicken, rice and salad). We also returned to the street for dinner and had some of the best sea food of our trip so far for less than $10 a plate. We treated ourselves to sushi a few times and found that Pelican View restaurant had by far the best on the island (you know it's fresh when you walk past the fish market on the way to the restaurant :)). Kim also became addicted to the ice cream served at Galapagos Deli. I think her record was 3 cones in one day (it was her birthday to be fair).
After a week on Santa Cruz, we were definitely ready to start our cruise and check out the other islands. We met everyone on our boat, the Encantada, at the Baltra airport. All together there were twelve passengers. Kim and I from the US; Lewis, Kerrie and Jenny from Australia; Robert and Julia from Germany; Sevi, Raphi and Sabrina from Switzerland; Heather from Belgium, and Natalie from England. Juan, our guide, was born on the island and has been guiding in the Galapagos for 35 years. Most importantly, he was a ranger for the Galapagos National Park and a Marine Biologist. Kim was immediately impressed with his vast knowledge, especially when he was able to talk lichen with her. We all got onto the boat, got settled into our cabins, and shortly after had our first meal together.
The meals on the boat were good, pretty typical Ecuadorian food (rice, fish, veggies and fruit) and plenty to eat without wasting much. Coffee and tea was available at all hours, and you could grab a beer and mark it down on your tab whenever you felt like it. The cabins were small and the bathrooms smaller, but we didn't empty our wallets to hang out in our cabin, so it was more than acceptable. The boat itself was small compared to other boats, but it was an old sailboat repurposed as a cruise boat for tourists. Where most of the other boats we saw were very modern looking, with glossy white sides and black tinted windows, we were on a fire engine red boat with a mast and circular portholes for windows.
Our first stop was a short trip further down on Santa Cruz island where we got off and walked around on a trail close to Cerro Dragon. This ended up being our first and only opportunity to see land iguanas. Kim and I were ready with our camera in hand and our battery fully charged - but with the battery still in the charger plugged into the wall in the cabin. Oops. So instead of peering at these yellow and orange monsters through the lens of my camera, we enjoyed watching them lethargically move about if they moved at all. Back on board we had our first nightly briefing with Juan before eating dinner. He explained that we would navigate to Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island overnight. That night, before heading out, we saw a sea lion hanging out around our boat trying to catch fish (the fish were drawn to the boat by the lights). The sea lion had attracted a more impressive predator, a Galapagos shark. With the help of Robert's and Lewis' super bright head lamps, we saw the shark dart after the sea lion. To the dismay of some and the joy of others, the shark didn't catch the sea lion (at least to our knowledge).
To put it mildly, the seas were a bit choppy that first night. Kim had been taking the motion sickness pills we had with us, so she wasn't feeling awful, but she did head to bed early. I ended up staying up and playing Uno with Robert, Julia and Sevi. When I did make it to bed (the top bunk), the boat was rocking back and forth hard enough that I was a little worried that I would get tossed out of bed. As such, I didn't sleep so well the first night.
At breakfast the next morning, I found that just about everyone else had the same troubles (you might even say we were in the same boat). The second day we had a chance to check out some marine iguanas and some sea lions before we went snorkeling for the first time. The water was a bit cloudy but we saw lots of colorful fish ranging in size from my pinky finger to my torso. We also saw a sea turtle who was incredibly calm and unafraid of us despite the fact that we were a large group and were quite close to it. Right at the end we saw a huge sting ray nestled into the bottom.
In the afternoon we disembarked in Puerto Villamil and took a van a short ways out of town. We all got out of the van to check out some flamingos in a pond a short ways away. I got out of the van last and the driver closed the door behind me and quickly took off. I thought we were just getting out because we were lucky to see some flamingos, but when I asked Juan he said no, we would walk back into town from where we were. Awesome, because I left my backpack on the van thinking it was just a quick stop. Losing the backpack wouldn't have been a big deal, but it had my wallet with debit/credit cards, and Kim's cell phone in it. Needless to say I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in Villamil worrying about if I would get my backpack back and if so would it have my wallet and Kim's phone in it. It didn't help that when we would ask Juan about it he was fairly nonchalant about it and kept telling us we had to wait to find out - that the driver had gone up into the mountains to pick up a different group and had no way of being contacted for an hour and a half. Ultimately, Juan did pull through, and we got the backpack and important items back no problem. We did get to see the tortoise breeding center in Villamil, though it is much like the one in Puerto Ayora, and I was deep in the middle of a pity party so it wasn't the best Galapagos afternoon.
The second evening we learned from the Captain that the seas were supposed to be even rougher than the night before, and it was a 12 hour navigation to our next destination. A crew member offered to tie us into our bunks (we still aren't sure if he was kidding). More people had trouble with this night, Kim included. We went down to our cabin and she laid on the bottom bunk and told me that she wasn't going to get ready for bed - that she couldn't or else she would be sick. She took her contacts out and gave them to me to put away for her. I had felt a little seasickness myself when we were up on the top deck, but once I sat down on the bed it went away. Luckily, both of us slept through the night without too much issue, something that not everybody was able to do.
The third day we were settled into the routine of the boat, and feeling the swaying of the sea was starting to become natural. We were on the west side of Isabela Island where we walked on a huge swath of black lava rock called Punto Moreno. We walked a ways in and there were some pools with flamingos standing in the water. It was also pretty incredible to see how different plants had begun to grow in the lava rock despite a lack of soil. Even more incredible was how there was a cactus that looks a lot like a penis.
That afternoon we went to Elizabeth Bay, a short ways from Punto Moreno, where we had another chance to snorkel and then did a tour of the bay by dinghy. From the dinghy we saw blue footed boobys, galapagos penguins, and flightless cormorants. In the water we had what might have been our best snorkeling outing. There were penguins in the water with us and at one point a group of them torpedoed directly beneath us as they chased a school of small fish. Later there was an octopus crawling along the bottom of the sea. I followed him for a bit, keeping my distance and just watching what he would do. It was mesmerizing to see how instantaneously and flawlessly the octopus could change his color to match his surroundings, or how he would flash a bright blue when another fish accidentally swam into him. While I was distracted by the octopus, Kim and the others were swimming with a sea lion and a sea turtle.
Day four started at Fernandina Island, which is just west of Isabela. Our walk on Fernandina culminated in us seeing a big male (macho, in Spanish) sea lion barking and honking and chasing a female sea lion. Juan informed us that he was trying to mate with the female and the female was playing hard to get. Our second stop, Punta Vicente Roca, was also to be visited by dinghy only. We saw lots of blue footed boobys and the landscape was reminded me of Isla Nublar. There were two opportunities to snorkel on the fourth day, and we swam with sea lions and saw lots of incredible fish - however the water was a bit too cold for most at the first area and it was murky and too deep at the second stop.
Juan told us that we were going to be crossing the equator at about 5 pm, so Kim and I as well as the Aussies all had a few beers and enjoyed a beautiful early evening on the deck of the Encantada. We stopped at the equator and a bunch of people were trying to take pictures of the ship's navigational equipment reading 0'0'0' latitude.
Unfortunately I didn't see the equator on the day we passed it, but Juan said it is pretty rare to catch a glimpse of it. On the plus side, Kerrie, Lewis and Jenny taught me a wonderful Australian drinking song where you peer pressure your buddies into chugging (skulling, in Australian) their beer.
(Side note, as I'm writing this post so incredibly late I have heard about the eruption of Wolf Volcano in late May. Kim and I were off the islands at this point, but the volcano is on the northern part of Isabela and we sailed around it. We were about a week too late to see the eruption. Damn.)
The fifth day started on Santiago Island and we found a place that had cracks in the lava rock where sea lions would hide from sharks. We saw a large group of sea lions hanging out and playing in the cracks. Juan told us that it was one of the few places to see fur sea lions, as opposed to Galapagos sea lions, but to be honest they don't look all that different. There was also a hole in the ground called Darwin's Toilet where the water would retreat and then come exploding out of the ground. Snorkeling was right from the beach, and the water was warm and clear. It seemed like we were going to see mostly the same animals we had seen the previous snorkeling days, until Kim said that Robert and Julia saw a shark. I swam over to where they were and caught a couple glimpses of a shark, but that was enough for me so I swam away from where the sharks were and back to the group.
Our day ended at Rabida Island. The beach is made up of deep red sand, which made for interesting landscape. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and threatening to rain and there wasn't much in the way of wildlife. We spent most of the hour or so on the island chatting with other people from the boat (I spent a good 30 minutes explaining American Football to Sevi from Switzerland).
The last day on the boat was a quick circumnavigation of Daphne Island. Daphne used to be open to tourists but it has since been closed to the public, only a handful biologists have been allowed to disembark on the island. After Daphne we sailed back to Baltra Island, unloaded our belongings and then ourselves. We all caught a quick bus back to the airport where most of our new friends were getting on a plane back to Guayaquil. Kim and I gave hugs and said goodbye to all before we took a couple busses and a ferry back to Puerto Ayora.
We had originally booked a day trip to Bartolome Island for the day before our cruise started, but there was a miscommunication on the part of the tour agency so the bus left without us. The agency re-booked our tour for the day after our cruise ended. To be honest, we both had mixed feelings about the day tour before leaving since we had just spent 6 days going non-stop. We were tired and both feeling ready to move onto something else. However, Bartolome Island was incredible and we were so glad we went. Our guide was fantastic, and the landscape was stunning (scenes from the movie Master and Commander were filmed here). We hiked up to the top of a hill where you have a panoramic view crisp blue water, white beaches, and black lava rock. Even better were the Galapagos hawks that were soaring around us and seemingly posing for pictures on the handrails not more than six feet from our group.
After Bartolome, we headed over to San Cristobal. It was an almost 3 hour ferry ride. As a native to the Puget Sound, I use the word ferry only in the most literal sense. The boat fit about 25 people and the locals all sit as close to the back as possible. The reason for this became clear as soon as we left the bay of Puerto Ayora and the boat kicked into high gear. I don't have any reference for how calm or rough the seas were that day, but there were parts of the trip where I literally bounced half a foot off the bench. Kim had taken a motion sickness pill, but even so she wasn't feeling too hot. The most frightening parts were when the captain would kill the motor right before a particularly large wave so as not to capsize the boat and it felt like a car fishtailing on ice. Thankfully, we did make it to San Cristobal in one piece, and with no chunks on the ground.
San Cristobal is less touristy than Puerto Ayora with less restraunts and bars, but we heard there were some lovely beaches and good snorkeling. We found a nice little hostel, Casa Mabell, with the sweetest older gentleman running the place. There was a nice restaurant in town, Rosita, that served a fantastic five dollar set lunch (maybe the best set lunch we've had). The huge downside was that it poured rain for the first two days, not leaving much opportunity for visiting beaches. When the weather finally cleared enough (still pretty overcast), we walked a ways out of town to a local beach that was filled with sea lions. We saw some sea lions that looked like they couldn't be more than a few weeks old, and Kim took some great pictures of them nursing and playing.
When it was time for us to fly back to Guayaquil and end our Galapagos adventure, I think we were both a little bit relieved. Everything on the Galapagos is incredibly expensive compared to the rest of Ecuador, and after three weeks, our budget was pretty shot. That said, it was an experience that neither of us will ever forget and something that we wouldn't take back if given the opportunity.
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