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Published: November 7th 2009
Photo 1
Hola! 120 year old Tortoise on Santa Cruz. Hola again Amigos and Amigas,
Our days in the sun of Mancora afforded us plenty of time to plan ahead for our next country, Ecuador. It seemed that now was the timed to make Chris’ dream come true and visit Ecuador’s amazing archipelago... the Galapagos Islands.
We took a 9 hour night bus from Mancora, Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador. The border crossing was less than smooth, 4 stops including a handheld luggage search of all passengers. At the Ecuador border I was asked by the Immigration Officer if I spoke Spanish (in Spanish) to which I gave him a blank look. Our Swiss travel buddy, Flavia explained what he asked and I therefore answered “no”. He then proceeded to ask me questions in, you guessed it, Spanish! This is an all too common occurrence for mine in SA. It’s annoying to say the least.
Arriving in Guayaquil to the tune of a rooster crowing in the baggage hold of our bus wasn’t as laughable as it might seem as it was only 6:30am and sleep had all but avoided us. We jumped a cab to the airport in the hope of snaring a flight direct to Galapagos that
Photo 2
Tortuga Bay - Our favourite Galapagos beach. day. Our other less-clumsy travel companion ‘ol Lonely had forewarned us to book our flights in advance. This was attempted without success due to both airlines servicing Galapagos only accepting online booking payments with Diners Card. Hands up all those that carry a Diners card... I can’t see you... hands up! Yeah, thought so!
We hop on the line for “ticket sales” and arriving at the counter we ask if “there are 3 available seats on any flight to Galapagos today” and told that we must go to check-in counter 48 to find out. Seemed strange but off we dawdled (big bags and all) to trusty 48. There was no staff member at 48 so we lined up at 49 where a woman was busily going about her days work. 20 minutes or so later nothing much had happened when a women lining up in front of us asked why we were lining up. We explained. She said that we should go to counter 48. We knew that but she said that when you do, the staff member on 49 will attend to us. So, off to 49 we went. Now at 49, the 48 person attended to us
Photo 3
Close encounter...the marine iguana was scared! (Wow! She was right!) We were told that there were 3 available seats to Galapagos today but we would have to go to the ticket sales counter to buy them. OK... we know where that is... back we go. Again at the ticket sales counter we tell the staffer that counter 49 confirmed there are available seats and with seemingly no reference to anything other than our happy foreign faces, he proceeds to sell us the tickets. Bingo! We had struck pay dirt! We were off to Galapagos. Finalising payment we are told that we have to make some kind of quarantine payment so off we trudge (still with all of our luggage) back past good ‘ol counters 48 & 49 to a new queue which we stood in to a pay a US$10 fee (I’m still not so sure what it was for). All in all it took something like 2 hours just to pay for our tickets and check in. The system is ridiculous but soooooooooooooooooooo South American. You just have to laugh.
We flew into Baltra Island, a small island which hosts the airport for the main island of Santa Cruz. A ferry and bus combination
Photo 4
Aahhh, leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep! got us cheaply to Peurto Ayora, the island’s main town and port. After checking into a hostel we went about trying to figure out the best and cheapest way to see the islands. We opted out of doing a structured island hopping tour and decided to do our own tour. In the end it was a wise decision. Whilst we spent the same amount of money as we would have for an 8 day all-inclusive tour, we managed to squeeze 12 days out of our money.
Santa Cruz is a cool island with lots of things to do. We visited the Darwin Centre which is home to an amazing tortoise breeding program and walked (albeit very slowly) with giant 120+ year old tortoises. We watched the fishermen arrive to port with their daily catches and the shennanigans that occurs when pelicans and other birds, along with a couple of sneaky sea lions, try their hand at theft in broad daylight. We spent a day at Tortuga Bay which is one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen... very white sand, crystal blue water and wildlife galore! We snorkelled at Los Gratis, a kind of water hole that has
Photo 5
Just gotta love boobies! Blue footed ones were our favourites! formed between rocks that is probably 10 metres deep and has the clearest water imaginable (see photo it’s hard to describe). Another highlight was eating. There’s a “cafe” strip which opens at night that is cheap cheap cheap. I found myself devouring fresh lobster tails and rice for only $12.00. Now that’s an expensive back packer meal but when a meal like that costs $50.00 or more back home, one must indulge a little.
We took a boat to Isabela Island. It was 2 long hours of hell basically. It was rough, the boat small and the driver oblivious to the water coming inside the boat. But we made it safely. In true SA style, we were greeted by one our best friends at the port (a guy that we didn’t know but we were his best friends at that particular moment). We took him up on his offer to stay at his hostel. It turned out to be a real gem. George’s Corner Inn owned by Carlos and his wife was a 3 month old hotel with brand new everything and motherly meals to boot. We even had cable TV! At $15.00 each for the night, we on
Photo 6
Big male land iguana on Seymour North. a good thing.
We toured the world’s second largest volcano crater the next morning, Sierra Negra. It IS big let me tell you - 9km in diameter! We even walked on lava flows. Later that day our host Carlos took us snorkelling at Las Tintoreras. We had our first encounters with giant sea turtles and sea lions. We swam with the turtles just ebbing and flowing with the swell of the ocean whilst they went about their feeding. The sea lions gave us a great adrenalin rush. They are just so playful. They would swim right up to us and stare us directly in the eyes before swiftly dashing away into obscurity only to return from a totally different direction, almost scaring us as they did so. On the same trip we also saw white tipped reef sharks (aka Tintoreras) penguins, iguanas, crabs, and a plethora of bird life. Isabela was rustic and less inhabited than most other islands but it was definitely one of our favourites.
We took 2 day trips on our return to Santa Cruz. Firstly, to North Seymour Island and secondly, to Bartolome Island. Both we fantastic but North Seymour was most special. The
Photo 7
Male frigate showing off to the ladies. intimacy available to the wildlife is incredible. Wild birds like blue footed boobies (love boobies!) were totally undeterred with our approaches. They seemed to like the interaction with us, even posing with us for photos!
The last island we visited was the capital of Galapagos, San Cristobal. It too was truly amazing. The highlight was a day trip to Leon Dormido or “Kicker Rock”. Whilst Chris dived deep with sharks and rays, Flavia and I snorkelled with giant sea turtles, sea lions and many many fish species. We even managed a glimpse of the sharks below us which was a surreal experience. We were always taught to leave the water when there are sharks... not to voluntarily enter it!
We made the difficult decision to fly back to Guayaquil from San Cristobal instead of Baltra. The excessive $5.00 administration fee to change our flight was hard to swallow but hey, it avoided another long rough boat ride.
I implore anyone who is considering a trip to South America to take in the Galapagos Islands. It is not as expensive as many say and the rewards are plentiful. It has been the out and out highlight of our
Photo 8
Staring conspicuously at boobies - and not getting into trouble! journey thus far and I doubt that anything will top it!
So our tour next takes us to mainland Ecuador home to many volcanoes, more classic altitude induced South American scenery and no doubt a new culture so different to those we have already experienced elsewhere on the continent.
On a personal note, my hair is officially out of control. I’m starting to look like an ash blonde version of the lead singer from Air Supply.
“Girl you’re every woman in the world to me....”. It just ain’t pretty.
So before I go, I had better ask the question, “Ecuador is a great place but why....”
• do street vendors try to sell toothbrushes, batteries, kitchen scourers, brooms on the side of the road...who buys them?
• do buses stop ANYWHERE? What’s wrong with having a bus stop?
• do many cars not have number plates?
• do they bother with double lines on roads...no one adheres to them..NO ONE!
• do old men play volleyball with a soccer ball?
• are children made to wear school uniforms that resemble laboratory coats?
• do some restaurants charge you VAT and Photo 9
Playa Balcha on Santa Cruz. others don’t?
• do women think that breast feeding conspicuously in public is OK? In church is a bit much too!
• do bus drivers feel the need to play music soooooo loud that the passengers can’t hear themselves think?
Adios
Ryan
P.S. Here’s some vital ongoing travel statistics to enlighten you further:
• No. of countries visited since leaving Aus: 8
• Cheapest beer to date (calculated on 100mL conversion): $1.00
• No. of hours spent on public transport (inc. taxis) in SA: 78
• Cheapest room (double room shared bathroom, breakfast included): $8.33 each per night
• Highest altitude reached: 5,000m
• Distance travelled in SA: 7,392kms
• No. modes on transport used: 21 (foot, jet plane, bicycle, boat, motorcycle taxi, taxi, taxi-bus, coach, ute back, car, 4wd, mini-bus, crawling, ferry, truck, motorised rickshaw, dune buggy, sand board, propeller plane, speed boat, swimming)
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Karolina (Mrs V) and Mark Romesh Gooma
non-member comment
My kinda place
Sounds like you guys have stumbled across my kinda holiday destantion! The water looks crystal clear and how amazing to swim with the turtles. Hey Cliff whats wrong with a breastfeeding woman? You love boobies dont you? :):) Bloo..y hot in Melb... 32degrees and feeling the heat. Love to you Both Karolina and Gooma (and the 30cm inutero bub) xoxo