By land, with a little bit of sea and lots of Tortugas

With an 8 hr layover in San Salvador and nothing else to do (at least we found a Star Alliance Club), I guess I should get around to summarizing our two weeks in the Galapagos.....This will be my attempt to try being "productive" in preparation for our return to the real world in only 10 days (well really more like 30 once we visit family).

We arrived on the island of Santa Cruz around lunch time and made it to our hotel.  Right off the bat we found a tiny baby sea lion walking along the sidewalks and marine iguanas EVERYWHERE!!  We spent a lazy afternoon reading (and watching the sea lion that was sitting in the chair next to us).  I quickly decided I could get used to life here!


















The next morning we headed out on 2 dives, just outside of the bay.  The first dive had pretty bad viz, but we did get to swim with a couple of sea lions and see an octopus, so it turned out pretty good.  I spent our surface interval trying not to puke as the waves made our little boat rock and roll....I know, I know, don't EVER forget to take the dramamine with you!  The second dive was cold, we figure the water dropped at least 5 degs.  Viz was even worse here so it was hard to see much, but we did see a couple huge schools of small fish.  After finishing the dive we headed back to the hotel for the first "activity" of our land package.  We ended up going to a beach about a 30 minute drive from town.  The beach was pretty, unfortunately the horse flies thought we were yummy, so it wasn't very relaxing.  After about 45 minutes we headed back to the hotel.  Had I known ahead of time I would have skipped this "activity" and gone to a better dive location....oh well, live and learn.



After breakfast the next morning we headed to the Darwin Station, which was only a short walk from the hotel.  Here we got our first glimpse of giant tortoises.  We also saw land iguanas that were really big.  It was fun to see the animals but it was set up very much like a zoo.  That afternoon we headed out to some lava caves and took a short walk through them.  It would have been nice to be able to explore them some more.  Our next stop was a farm with more giant tortoises.  I enjoyed this place because you just walked along looking for tortoises.  We managed to find about 10, most of the females were down at the beach laying eggs (it takes them 3 months to walk there and then 3 more months to get back).  This farm had a shell that we could crawl in and experience first hand why tortoises are so slow...it is because there shell is freakin heavy and awkward.  By this time it was getting really hot, so I was ready to head back to the hotel for lunch and some AC.

Pirate "caves"

After lunch we boarded a small boat and took the 2 hr journey to Floreana.  I was smart and took sea sickness pills this time.  Floreana is a much smaller island and we stayed in little cabins right on the lava rock beach.  That evening we hopped in the cold water for some snorkeling.  The visibility was awful but we were able to make out a a sea lion and 2 turtles during our 45 min swim.



We spent the next morning visiting "pirate caves".  They weren't actually caves at all.  The rock had formed an area of big walls which could easily be divided into rooms, which is why the pirates lived there I guess.  We also got to see some more giant tortoises.  Adam and I had a competition for who could spot the most.  He took a commanding 6-1 lead, and then I put on my turtle finding eyes and caught back up.  We ended up 9-9, not bad for 30 minutes of turtle hunting!  We were even able to find a baby tortoise (less then 5 years old).  There are only 2 in the entire area, so it was a pretty good find.

Blue Footed Boobies

It was now time to head on to Isabella Island.  After another 2 hr boat ride we arrived at a tropical paradise.  This island was beautiful, a huge bay full of sea turtles, penguins, sea lions and blue footed boobies was just sparkling in the sunshine.  We spent the afternoon taking a boat ride around the bay and then snorkeling.  While snorkeling we saw several penguins swimming with us (of course the Go-Pro battery was dead), which was a first for us.  The next morning we took a quick land drive on the island stopping off to see a group of Flamingos (would have been cooler had we not just been in Africa, first world problem I know) and another tortoise breeding center.  By this point we had about 300 pictures of these awesome creatures.  Our last stop was at Love Beach and then it was back into a boat headed back to Santa Cruz Island.

Bad day to be a little tortoise

After arriving back in Santa Cruz we had one day left before our cruise started.  We elected to go diving (of course), and this time we went a little bit farther away to another island called Santa Fe.  The diving here was SOOOO much better.  We could see 20-30 meters and there were millions of fish swimming everywhere.  It was hard to know where to look.  At the end of the first dive we saw 2 eagle rays, the first time we had ever seen them and at the end of the 2nd tank we saw a Galapagos Shark.  It turned out to be an excellent way to end our land based tour.  The next morning it was off to board our boat, Galaxy, for the next 4 days.  I will put that in another post because this one is already long.

Check out all of our pictures here