Sunday in the Galapagos

Saturday night – stayed at the ECE girl’s apartment so we could all ride to the airport together. We had to be at the airport at 4:30 so we ended up pretty much just staying up all night. I think I took an hour nap before we left. Got to the airport and then waited… and stood around with my heavy backpack and waited more… torture to wait when we were on our way to the most beautiful place in Ecuador (and quite possibly the world). I don’t even know how long the flight was – maybe 3 hours. Kevin got the window seat, I in the middle and luckily no one beside me.

Finally get on the island. It was the tiniest little open-air airport – we walked directly off the plane onto the asphalt. Then we waited some more.

On the shore of the island of Santa Cruz waiting...

Eventually we got our bus and then got on a ferry and then got on another bus, with waiting in there some. Eventually, we were off with our 19-year-old local guide, Fernando.

He took us to go see “The Twins” – 2 large craters that are very close to one another. They don’t know how they were formed. Basically they are these two large gaping holes in the landscape with trees and moss growing on the sides of the rock and deep down inside.

Looking to the other side of the crater

And when I mean large, I mean HUGE. We were somewhat surprised how the terrain looked on Santa Cruz. Didn’t look very tropical – instead it was almost like a green desert – low trees and large cacti. Sure felt like island weather though: very hot and humid.

Moss grows on lots of the trees during the rainy season

Next we walked down a short path covered in tiny, red volcanic rocks that took us to the Darwin center. To be honest, I didn’t really learn much at all about Darwin.

Huge catcus on the pathway to the Darwin Center

Instead, I learned about turtles. They had 4 types of turtle shells on display – 2 species of turtles; male and female. Males’ shells are shaped differently so they can mate. The shells are also formed differently because of their diet. The ones that have to reach higher to get food have a shell that allows their neck to extend longer.

Then we went to go see the massive, oooooooold turtles. These turtles were about as big as a semi-truck tire or something. Wrinkly skin on their faces, necks, tails and legs. You can guess how old they are by how big the designs are on their shells. We watched one move up the rocks and it was like something out of Jurassic Park – it just didn’t look real.

Carefree Carlos

They moved so ridiculously slow, even when they eat that it looked like a robot. We got so close that we could see him chewing on the leaves. We named him Carefree Carlos because we felt sad that he didn’t have a cool nickname like Lonesome George.

We're buddies now.

Then we went to go see Lonesome George. Poor guy. He’s the only species of his kind – the very LAST of his kind – and he’s about 150-200 years old. They don’t expect him to die anytime soon, either. Good gosh, talk about a long life span! They tried having him mate with 2 females that are similar to his species but to no avail.

Lonesome George and his lady friend

Then Fernando took us the place we would have lunch for the entire week. I’ll tell you what every day was – soup, juice, rice, meat with some sauce. Sounds okay but it was pretty terrible every day.

After lunch we had the day to ourselves to do whatever. Of course we had beaches on the brain – we were on an island!

The pier (notice the interesting horizon in the background)

We take a boat taxi to the “German beach” – nothing too spectacular – the pier had prettier water, but at least it was a beach. Very small.

After laying on the beach and wade in the calm water for a while we went back to the hotel. Kevin, Aaron, Athena and I stayed in 1 room – with 1 bathroom. Worked out well but goodness we learned way too much about each other.

A la playa!

After getting settled in our hotel we decided to go out (don’t ask me how I had energy after an hour of sleep). There’s only 2 bars and 1 club on the island so we went to the Lemon Club. It was a pretty chill place. Open-air place with pebble gravel for the floor. Tables and chairs that looked like tree trunks with Bob Marley playing and people playing pool. We had some drinks, talked with some of the Ecuadorians that were our main guides or organizers of the trip and danced a little. Got back at 11 and completely CRASHED.