I was ridiculously excited to be going to the Galapagos and couldn't stop looking out the window of the plane at nothing but clouds on the hour and half flight. After we arrived at Baltra Airport, we made our way to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. There are four inhabited islands in the Galapagos, and most tourists who want last-minute cruises or plan to do day-tours to the islands stay in Santa Cruz. Once we got into town, we walked down Avenida Charles Darwin with all our things to see if we could find a cruise leaving the same day. After visiting a few travel agencies we decided that it wasn't going to happen. Now we needed to find a decent hostel to stay in... Later in the day, we visited another tour agency and booked a 5 day cruise taking us through the central islands. The guy who sold us the tour was a Canadian-Ecuadorian,who grew up in Brooklyn, Ontario.
So most of the day went to matters of
housekeeping and it was only at night that we were able to walk
around leisurely. Puerto Ayora is small so it doesn't take long
before you have seen everything there is to see in town. We walked
through a street of restaurants serving giant lobster and all kinds
of seafood. Then we headed along the pier and by the post of the pier
we could see sharks swimming around in the water. I guess this is why
people pay the big bucks to come here!
The next day, we headed to the Charles
Darwin Research Centre to see giant tortoises and land iguanas. Along
with research, the centre breeds giant tortoises and land iguanas
that are later released back into the wild. Lonesome George, the
famous tortoise at the centre passed away last June. Along the way to
the research centre, we passed by an outdoor restaurant by the water
and the wildlife we saw around the restaurant was ridiculous-sea
lions, pelicans, crabs, marine iguanas, and many birds. Ramanan and I
wondered why we had booked the cruise, it seems like we had seen
everything we came to see already, well everything except Boobies :-)
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