Galapagos Adventure

We just returned from a great adventure in the Galapagos. Just for your reference the Galapagos is a small group of islands 1.426km from the coast of Ecuador and that is part of Ecuador.

There are two airports in the Galapagos. One is on the island of San Cristobal and the other is on the island of Baltra.

We started our adventure at the airport in Baltra.

Baltra is a small island that is rough and dry with low-lying brush and cactus's. There isn't anything else on the island other than for the airport and a small port on the south of the island where the water taxis wait to take you across to the main island of Santa Cruz.

Leaving Baltra

After a short crossing between Baltra and Santa Cruz we boarded a bus and then experienced an extremely rough ride over a road that was being worked on. We found our way to our accommodations and had a leisurely day exploring the town of Puerto Ayora. This is the largest town on the island and is where most of the tourists stay.

Early in the day we came across these marine iguanas having a siesta.

That night we went walking and came across a restaurant/bar that had some very lively Ecuadorian music and dancers in traditional dress.

The music had a very inspirational effect on Nieve. She loves her countries music and so do I.

Our accommodations were through a friend of Nieve's who runs a small boarding house along with her profession as a lawyer.

The cost was $50 per day. The room was very nice, not hotel quality, but very nice and clean. However, there were a couple of problems.

On our first night we discovered ants crawling on the floor in our apartment and some even managed to get into our bed. I killed around 15 to 20 and there were still more. The next day we pointed this out to Nieve's lawyer friend and she had the problem resolved that day. Another issue was the shower. There was no way to set the shower so that it was a constant temperature so you had to keep adjusting it during the shower session.

Another annoyance was that you had to use the air conditioner as there wasn't much air movement to keep the humidity at bay. The air conditioner created a cold draft which did not make for a great sleep.

We did check on the prices of some other accommodations and found that the hotels facing the ocean could cost as much as $328/day. But there are accommodations that are less. We found one hotel that looked good for $150/day. Everything is overpriced in Galapagos, including meals, cruises (even day cruises), taxis, and clothing. There is no doubt this is a tourist town.

There are three large islands and a fair number of small islands. We visited all three of the largest islands and a few of the small ones.

On the second day we went on a scuba dive off two different islands (Bartolome & Santiago) just north of Santa Cruz. Once again we had to traverse the extremely rough road going from Puerto Ayora to the north of Santa Cruz so that we could take the dive boat to our dive location. This time the ride was not so rough as the truck we road in had much better shock absorbers. 

The boat ride took approximately one hour and some of the other divers were not doing so well from the bouncing of the boat through the rough waves. Nieve wasn't sure whether she would get sea-sick or not so she took an anti-sickness pill which one of the other divers were kind enough to give her.

Rocky Bartolome Island Where We Had Our First Dive

Nieve had never dove before and as it happened did not get a chance to dive because she had difficulty breathing through the restrictive regulator that is required when diving. It regulates the air between the scuba tank (where it is stored) and your mouth. Some regulators draw air easier than others. These particular regulators had an adjustment on them, but I am not sure they remembered to help her with that as I was off diving with another group.

Nieve

They held her secure by the boat while trying to get her comfortable but it was just too much for her so she spent the rest of the day snorkeling which said she enjoyed very much. She is still adamant about learning how to dive and in a more controlled environment like a swimming pool I think she will do much better.

My dive was very good. We saw many white-tipped sharks and one hammer-head. The white-tipped sharks were only about 4 meters away from us. They were very casual just cruising around the reefs looking for the next meal I guess. There is an abundance of food for them on the reefs so there is no danger of an attack on a human unless you managed to cut yourself and were loosing blood into the water.

The cost of the scuba diving trip was $330 for the two of us. They did not offer to refund any money because Nieve was unable to dive.

The next day (Aug 9th), we hired a taxi for the day and had him take us to various spots on Santa Cruz at a cost of $150. 

The tortoise population was considerably threatened for many years and as a result there are various facilities that have been built to increase their numbers by raising them in protected environments. The following photo is from one of these facilities on Santa Cruz.
 

The Spanish word for tortoise is tortuga. This tortuga is approximately 150 years old.

Next we visited a very beautiful beach where we went swimming. The water was a bit cool to start with but once accustomed to it it was fine. We found that as we moved around in the water we could feel warmer and cooler spots. This effect could be the waters of the Humbolt current (coming from the Antarctic) and the warmer currents coming from the north intermingling.

On the way to the swimming beach we encountered this marine iguana and many others.

Once back into Puerto Ayorta we looked into the possibility of a 3 or 4 day cruise. There were many different prices, different locations that were visited, different levels of luxury on the boats, and different types of boats.

Because I was concerned about Nieve's ability to cope with the a rocking boat, we were mostly looking at a catamaran-style boat. Catamarans have two hulls and this adds to the stability (i.e., they do not roll around as much). However, Catamarans are rated in the 3rd class (called Luxury) and 4th class (called First Class) and as a result are more expensive. The only price I can remember was $1200/person for the 2nd class (called Mid-range) for a 3 day cruise. Prices like this can only be obtained if you ar already in the Galapagos. If you book before arriving you will be looking at a much higher figure.

Example of one of the many catamarans available

We could not find a cruise that was going to the islands that we wanted to go to so opted not to do this on this Galapagos visit. Instead we arranged for a day trip to Isabela (the largest island). This cost was $130 for both of us and included lunch. We left at about 9am and returned at about 4pm. It takes one hour to reach Isabela from Santa Cruz.

After reaching Isabela we were taken ashore and had a chance to do some snorkeling before boarding a tour truck which shuttled us to various sites on the south part of the island.

Our snorkel equipment, unfortunately, was less than adequate (equipment supplied by the day cruise agency). One point of delight was Nieve's experience swimming in the ocean with a couple of sea lions. That experience wasn't new for me.

The tour truck was OK except that in wearing my hat I did not see the low wooden cover over where we were to sit and waked my head a considerable blow resulting in a bit of a gash. I guess these trucks are not made for tall people.

We were transported to various locations where we saw pink flamingos and another sanctuary for land tortoises (in various stages of growth).

After seeing much of Santa Cruz, Isabela proved not much different and was not that interesting to me. Most of the wildlife that exists on this island looks very much the same as other islands, but in fact is quite different genetically and I would imagine if you observed them closely you would see the differences.

The next day (Tuesday) we took a leisurely day part of which we used going to a beach close to Puerto Ayorta. The beach was long and beautiful and the day was sunny and enjoyable.

Wednesday, we looked into the possibility of another day trip to an island called Floreana (an island southeast of Santa Cruz). Unfortunately, none of the tour boats were going to Floreana until Aug 14th (today being Aug 12th). We had already spent a fair amount of time on Santa Cruz and seen most everything it offers so rather than try and find something to do for another day while we waited for the boat cruise we decided to go to San Cristobal: An island we had not seen yet and the island we had to get to catch our flight back to the mainland.

So, on Aug 13th (Wednesday) we made a very rough, 2.5 hour boat trip to San Cristobal ($60 for both of us).

ASIDE:  One thing I should say about these boat trips is that the best place to sit is near the back end of the boat. You will experience far less roughness than if you are near the bow of the boat. Don't sit at the very back of the boat either as you may get wet if the boat has no splash curtain (which some boats do not have).

After arriving on San Cristobal we strolled around the town and found an art store with some very beautiful artwork.

We soon discovered that San Cristobal was a very boring island to spend any time on as there was very little to do and there are very few good restaurants. In retrospect we should have stayed on Santa Cruz. I had done some research before coming to the Galapagos, but had not seen any mention of San Cristobal as being a dull island to visit. Anyway we were here and had to make the best of it.

We found another place to stay for $50 per night. As with our apartment on Santa Cruz, this place was not on the malecon. It was a few streets back from the ocean. They originally wanted $60 per night, but when they noticed I was interested in going to check the hotel across the street they lowered the rate to $50 per night.

The place was small but clean and had a much better shower than we had on Santa Cruz.

The next day (Aug 14th) we rented a couple bikes for half a day ($20 for both of us) and rode around the town (Puerto Baquerizo Moreno) and made our way to another beach (La Loberia).

Near the beach there was a place where we got very close to one blue-footed boobie and took a few photos but the best one turned out a bit blurry. Nonetheless here it is and if you look real close you can see it's blue feet.

We also visited a facility called the "Interpretation Center" that contained lots of information about the early inhabitants of the islands, as well as, information on the wildlife.

On the 15th we managed to find a boat cruise to go on: The only one they seem to have on the island. There seems to be some kind of licensing issue where all the cruises must leave from Santa Cruz. In any case, this boat trip turned out to be the highlight of our stay on San Cristobal.

The boat took us to another part of the San Cristobal where we did some snorkeling but did not really see anything other than many fish.

Then we were taken to a place called Kicker Rock which is well known for the presence of sharks, sting rays, and sea turtles. This snorkeling experience proved to be very worthwhile.

Nieve was the only one to see a hammerhead shark ('tiburón martillo' in spanish - 'tiburón' means 'shark'). It was approximately 6 meters away from her and slowly swam away.

The channel behind us is where Nieve saw the hammerhead shark

We all saw many white-tipped sharks, a sting-ray and a few sea turtles. 

Some people had these small underwater cameras which I wish I had as well.

Since we had one more day before our departure we hired a taxi to show us around the rest of the island ($130). We went to another beach but did not do any swimming. We were going to see the largest fresh water lake in the Galapagos but it was very overcast in the center of the island so we decided not to bother.

August 17th was the day of our departure.

Two happy adventurers!!

And salud to you all!!