We left Buenos Aires behind us to make the long journey to the Galapagos Islands. After a long day of flying (via Santiago) to Guayaquil we pretty much just crashed at our hostel then straight back to the airport to catch our super early flight. Just two more buses and a ferry ride later and we finally made it to the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands!
First thing we noticed when we got there was the wildlife. It was amazing and kind of took us by surprise to step straight off the bus and see iguanas, sealions and pelicans playing around everywhere. Puerto Ayora is one of the only towns in the Galapagos and its not much more than a little fishing and harbour town with a ton of souvenir shops. We found a pretty cool little hotel, with its white concrete stairways and rooftop terrace it looked like it wouldn't be out of place on a Greek Island. It was great that it was such a little town because we were only a 5 minute walk from anything.
We spent most of the first day just hanging around checking out the town. Down at the fish market we watched the fishermen try to chop up the fish while the sealions and pelicans jumped about and harrassed trying to get a bite to eat. They were actually very well behaved and almost tamed. It was awesome to be able to just sit around and watch all the wildlife around. There were blue-footed boobies diving for fish and the pelicans kinda more like flopping into the water after fish. We found out that the people here don't really work too hard. The shops only start opening around 10am and shut down for a few hours through the hotter hours of the day so that everyone can go for a nap. Might take a while to adjust to the pace of this place.
The next day we went for a walk to the national park to see the giant tortoises at the Charles Darwin research centre. After a long time walking around various paths due the signage being all but non-existant we found the tortoise enclosures. Bec was super excited to see the baby tortoises. They were only about 15cm long and I'm pretty sure she considered smuggling one home with us! The enclosures were great because we could walk through them and get right up amongst the tortoises. They were huge, at least twice as heavy as a person, didn't do much though.
We took off on the third day on Santa Cruz to Tortuga Bay which we'd heard had pretty cool beaches. It was a bit of a hike to get there and it was real hot but it was really worth it! The beach was huge with fine white sands and a heap of huge marine iguanas. We tried some snorkeling in a little rock pool we found. There were heaps of tropical fish in the water and it was a great chance for us to use the water-proof camera although the aftermath of the snorkeling wasn't anywhere near as cool. We both got super badly sunburnt, so the rest of the day and the next day was spent taking cold showers to take the edge off. We put sunscreen on at least 3 times throughout the day but I guess the sun on the ecuator is a bit stronger than normal.
Tomorrow we're off to the beach island of Isabella!
