Back to Santa Cruz

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We were up at 530am for our boat ride back at 6am. This boat was a bit bigger, but still packed to the gills with people...even little kids sleeping on the floor of the boat! I was in the back corner of the boat, so the minimal up and down wave action, so I prob wouldn´t get sick...we also took some sea sickness pills around 530...so I think we´ll be good. We also met a couple people from Calgary (again with the Canadians) on the boat ride that were at our hotel too...but hadn´t talked to them until now. They were on a 6-month world tour and were in Asia a week ago. I did my best to nap most of the time and was doing a great job without my ipod until I heard someone start yacking into their little black bag the captain handed out to everyone before we left...so ipod went in my ears ASAP...all it takes is one yacker until everyone else joins in!

I napped for another 10-15 minutes until I opened my eyes again and noticed a dad and son (about 8 years old) taking full advantage of their little black bags...it´s spreading!!! Finally we arrived to Puerto Ayora in Santa Cruz after an arduous 2 hour boat ride. We quickly made our way to the hotel that we stayed at earlier, got the key, and crashed until 1130/12. We got up and went to get lunch at an Italian place...had lasagne...it was alright, but the lasagne I had in Máncora for half the price was WAY better.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap...I was still tired and my mom had a headache. We ended up napping for an hour til about 2. We then got up and headed to Tortuga beach where there are a lot of sea iguanas and where you can go surfing and kayaking. It´s a 45 minute walk down the trail (I´ve done more walking each day that I´ve been in the Galápagos than I´ve done my entire month in South America combined!!!...I guess I have been lucky to be in small beach towns with bars and restaurants close to where I was staying).

We made it to the beach and it was BEAUTIFUL...the white sand felt like powder...very very fine grained. We saw some marine iguanas...some in the water hunting, others lounging and catching some sun on the beach. We made our way around to the Lagoon and saw a sea turtle and got some really great close up shots of a blue footed boobie. We ran into the Russians we met 2 days before in Isabella and chit chatted with them for a few, I´m sure we´ll run into them again at some point tonight. After having our fill of the beach and getting up close and personal with all the life, we headed back down the 45 minute trail and back to the hotel for a shower and change.

We made it back and I told my mom she couldn´t take a shower because she can´t get her stitch wet...she didn´t believe me, so she made an international call with her cell phone to my grandma to confirm what I told her...she did! I told her she didn´t need to wash her hair and that she could wait until we got back to the states...she definitely wasn´t down for that. So we were then on a mission to find a salon where they could shampoo and wash her hair. I asked the women who worked at the hotel where I could find a person to wash/cut hair...lots of hand guestures and simple words were used. One of them said follow her so we did. We eventually found a place and asked for "solo lavaba"...only washing. She got her hair washed and then we headed out to get souvenirs...I definitely needed an "I love boobies" t-shirt before I leave. After we picked up plenty of souvenirs, we headed back to the hotel for her to finally shower so we could go get some lobster...something we´ve been wanting our last day since we arrived.

I went to the internet cafe to throw some pics on facebook and was only there for 10 minutes because the card reader wasn´t working...I ran into Javier who wanted to meet up with us for dinner at 7. I asked him where the best place for lobster was and he said cafe del mar down the street. I told him I´d meet him there in 20 minutes. I went back to find my mom and to get my camelback bladder (Javier has a camel back but lost his bladderj..found that out on the day tour when I asked him about it) to give to Javier as a thank you gift for taking such good care of us (changing all the flights when I was stuck in Peru, moving all the trips back a day, etc.).

We met him for dinner and I gave him my bladder, he was so excited and immediately put it into his camelback. I told him, "Now you have a camelback...no longer just a backpack!". He thanked me and we sat down for dinner. My mom and I of course ordered the lobster and garlic bread as an appetizer while Javier ordered some Octopus...we all ordered some cokes too. When the lobsters came, they were GIGANTIC...the largest lobsters I have ever seen! They were grilled to perfection with a nice sauce drizzled down the middle with some potatoes and vegetable medley on the side with some garlic butter. This lobster would easily cost about 80-100 bucks in the states...here only 30! As I made my way through the legs, leaving the tail section for last (always gotta save the best for last) I was quickly getting filled up. By the time I made it to the tail, I only ate a few pieces because now I was FULL! I let my mom finish the tail section since that´s all she ate from hers (she doesn´t deal with all the work involved with the legs). So after dinner we said goodbye to Javier and called it a night. What a fantastic last day in the Galápagos!

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