I had done a bit of research on tours to the Galapagos Islands before I left. Most advice says the best way to see the islands is to take a boat tour which includes sleeping and eating on the boat so that you have time to visit islands further away from the main port of Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz. The reading I had done suggested a minumim of a 5 day boat tour because the 1st and last day are really only 1/2 days with pick up and drop off taking up the other 1/2 day. When I went to book my tour, a 5 day tour wasn`t available for the time period I had available so, I ended up with a 4 day boat tour and I tacked on an extra 2 days to stay in Puerto Ayora. I had heard of a few things in Puerto Ayoro that I might like to do and four days on the boat was fine with me since I wasn`t sure how I`d handle being on a small boat for that long. All that said, I ended up on the Intrepido for 3 nights, 4 days with a total of 20 dynamic passengers plus crew. The flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands takes about an hour. I (along with the others) was met at the airport by "Gallo", one of our guides. The airport is on the Isla Baltra and from there we took a 10 minute bus ride to a ferry which took us, oh I don´t know, for maybe a 3 minute ferry ride across to Isla Santa Cruz. From there, we boarded another bus and drove about 40 minutes to Puerto Ayora AND THEN took a dingy to our boat, the Intrepido. We all boarded the boat and were assigned our rooms. Now, traveling sola can be interesting. The accommodation prices are based on double occupancy and there was no way that I was going to pay double to have my own cabin so, I ended up with a roomate...Daniel from Romania. Super nice guy who tells way corney jokes (I can say that now after hanging out with him for so long)! And away we go...
My 1st impression of Isla Baltra and Santa Cruz was that I was really surprised at the landscape. I am not sure what I expected, but normally when I think of Islands, I think tropical looking. Not so here. Certain parts look like a desert with Cactus and such and other parts are more like the moutains with green lush landscape...it´s very unique here. Our 1st adventure was on land. We boarded a bus and took a trip toward the middle of Isla Santa Cruz to visit Lava tubes and to see GINORMOUS land turtles in their natural habitat. The lava tubes are caves and tunnels formed by lava from volcano erruptions...interesting BUT the turtles...ooo weee! Amazing! They didn´t like it if you got too close, they would hiss at you. I was too tired at this point to get any real facts on the turtles...they are just really cool!
My 1st impression of Isla Baltra and Santa Cruz was that I was really surprised at the landscape. I am not sure what I expected, but normally when I think of Islands, I think tropical looking. Not so here. Certain parts look like a desert with Cactus and such and other parts are more like the moutains with green lush landscape...it´s very unique here. Our 1st adventure was on land. We boarded a bus and took a trip toward the middle of Isla Santa Cruz to visit Lava tubes and to see GINORMOUS land turtles in their natural habitat. The lava tubes are caves and tunnels formed by lava from volcano erruptions...interesting BUT the turtles...ooo weee! Amazing! They didn´t like it if you got too close, they would hiss at you. I was too tired at this point to get any real facts on the turtles...they are just really cool!
After our visit to the land of ginormous turtles, we headed back to our floating home, had dinner and called it a night!
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