Saw my last sunrise in the Galapagos from the comfort of my bunk on board before we bundled up our stuff and bid farewell to the King of the Sea, thanking the crew for a great journey.
Our final activity for the morning was to visit the highlands on Santa Cruz. After a short walk around the area of the Los Gemelos - twin collapsed volcanic craters - our group said goodbye to each other and all went our separate ways. Althea and I agreed we will remain pen pals - until I get an address I will just send her postcards from where I am travelling and she will send me email updates on her year in Ecuador. It’s pretty random that you become friends with a 9 year old but that kid is adorable and I look forward to seeing what she goes on to achieve with her life. Laura, her mum is awesome too and I hope we all do stay in touch.
Given my flight wasn’t until 12.30pm and I was at the airport by 9.20am, I felt a little like I was wasting my last morning on the island but instead had to embrace the extra transit time and overpriced airport coffee. That aside, during my forced reflection time I realised that today marked exactly five months since I left Australia. In the past 152 days I have travelled through 11 Countries - all of Central America and Cuba, sailed to South America, explored most of Colombia and now Ecuador. I’ve improved my Spanglish, climbed around 7 volcanoes, boarded down one, got my PADI and Open Water Diving Certification, completed around (27 dives), trekked to the Lost City and explored most of the Galapagos Islands. Not a bad effort really is it?
Got back to Quito around 5pm and it took a good hour and a half to get back to the hostel from the airport. I settled back into the Secret Garden, did some life admin including findng a cheap flight to Arequipa in Peru from Quito and then headed to bed!
