Blogs from Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, Ecuador, South America - page 5

Wednesday 1st We leave our hostel in plenty of time to catch the blue bus back to the airport. As we reach the main street we find that there's no traffic at all and the streets are all cordoned off and there's armed police in full riot gear everywhere ! The busses aren't going to run from the normal place and when we ask some locals they don't know where the busses will be. We walk about a mile through check points, with police all around us and armoured cars parked in the side streets. It's 1st May and a public holiday and they're expecting riots ! We can't find the bus so walk back to the hostel for a taxi. The only problem being we don't have enough currency and the ATM's are all boarded ... read more

After 10 weeks of god knows how many super noodle dinners and scrimping and saving where possible, the time had finally come for Galapagos. Hoping for a super last minute deal, we booked a one way flight and hoped for some luck. Only three days prior to our flight departing, the deal was done. We had managed to bag ourselves a half price 8 day cruise around the north and west islands of Galapagos aboard a 'First class' boat. Money transferred and having just spent 1/4 of our 16 week budget on a one week trip, our expectations were high and were really hoping for something special. We arrived in Guayaquil late in the evening, with just enough time to grab some dinner, sort our bags and get to bed. Another early morning, however this time ... read more

31 January 2014 – Friday – Guayaquil to Galapagos, Ecuador Mid-morning flight to Galapagos. The taxi was 25 minutes’ late so that created some anxiety for us. It was raining. The flight was two hours and full of Swedish holiday makers heading for a Galapagos Cruise Tour and backpackers heading for the cheap hostels and white sand beaches. The plane lands on one small island, Baltra, and a local airline transit bus takes us to the ferry. A ten minute ferry ride costs 75 cents and lands us on the north end of Santa Cruz Island. Another bus transports us the length of the island to its capital, Puerto Ayora. Our home for the next three nights is a ground floor flat owned by a native of Galapagos, Aura, a young naturalist working for National Geographic. ... read more

January 1, 2014 Today we left our winter home in Arizona and traveled to Guayaquil, Ecuador via Miami. Relatively painless connections and an overnight stay before our early morning flight to Baltra Island Airport and Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos. January 2, 2014 Flight this morning from Guayaquil to Baltra Airport, Isla Baltra, Galapagos, Ecuador. Easy flight of under 2 hours. Then some interesting ( to say the least ) connections from the airport via short bus ride, a short ferry ride, and a taxi trip to Puerto Ayora. ( all with our bags - Note to self. --Travel Light !!! ) This last segment included a visit to a land turtle viewing area in the wild. This was a very interesting walk through some nice countryside and a very close up experience with some very large, ... read more

We awoke early and headed to breakfast for 4am. We met up with the other 14 people that would be going on this adventure to the Galapagos Islands with us. I am so excited, I've always wanted to go here to see all the animals. We boarded a mini bus and headed to the airport. Here we checked in and flew to Santa Cruz Island. We were met by our guide Dannielle. The 16 of us then boarded another bus, boat, bus then dingy to take us to our boat. This would be home for the next 4 days of our cruise around the islands. After a lovely lunch we headed back to Santa cruise to see the Galapagos giant land Turtles. They were huge and we all spent time taking many photos. We even got ... read more