Blogs from Galápagos, Ecuador, South America - page 86

Isla Santa Cruz - Sunday 10th June Well, after a very early morning bus ride to Guayaquil and a very short flight we arrived at Baltra airport. Basically this involved a tarmac runway and ´baggage claim´which was literally a pile of bags on the ground yet amazingly enough all our bags came through unscathed (Iberia could learn from this - it is not necessary to leave my bag behind then, when it finally does get it to me two days later, deliver it broken!) We joined the Nationals queue to pay the park entrance fee only to have an irate (and very sweaty) airport man come and yell at us and try to drag us to the tourist queue. We told him we had CENSO to which he replied we could pay the national fee ... read more

url='/Videos/3689.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3689.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Galapagos Island 1url='/Videos/3690.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3690.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Galapagos islands 2url='/Videos/3691.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3691.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Galapagos islands 3 A couple of weeks crusing the Galapagos islands was absolutey incredible, cant begin to describe how amazing it was (although we shall try....) We were swimming and snorkelling everyday with seals, sharks, turtles, penuins, rays, dolphins etc none of which have any fear of humans so they swam right up and played in the water inches away from us. Then there was hiking on the islands with the likes of giant tortoise, marine and sea iguanas, snakes and loads of amazing birds . Watched the mating dance of... read more

I am going to skip right to the goods. Today I went on a boat tour to an island called Seymore Island it is just off the island Baltra where you fly to the Galapagos. Baltra is a 10 minute ferry ride from Santa Cruz the island I am staying at. Around 6:30 am I clamoured out of bed and got myself ready for the big day. At 7am we were starting to worry about not getting food, because breakfast usually isn´t served until 730. So we walked down the block and ran into a guy we met at the Secret Garden back in Quito, he was going diving. (The previous day he swam with a Whale Shark!!!) He didn´t know any places so I walked around, luckily the lady from the hostel was starting ... read more

Where to begin, ohh my god, the Galapagos was absolutely fabulous and I never ever wanted to leave....sigh....ohh well....back to the beginning...(this could be a long one!) Flew out of Quito on the Saturday morning, managed to wake up in time for my check in, phew! Was talked to by a creepy Ecuadorian at the airport, he claimed to be a tour guide, and or a scientist, but I was quite glad to see we were sitting other ends of the aircraft!! Close call...Got chatting to an Ecuadorian couple on the plane (in my ohh so great Spanish), they were on their honeymoon to the Galapagos, and were so in love it was cute!! Felt a little guilty for asking them to move out of my window seat when I first got on, humdehum! Anyway, ... read more

We arrived in Quito on the evening of the 14th and checked into the Amazonas Inn which was a little different to what we´d been staying in for the previous two weeks but had everything we needed, even hot water and cable tv. That evening we walked up and down a few of the nearby streets but didn´t find any restaurants open and so opted for a take away pizza. Fortunately the lady who owned the hotel was very helpful and ordered the pizza for us, as our Spanish still doesn´t stretch that far! The following day, after catching up with our folks, we updated the blog then took a stroll around Quito. The streets around the hostel were much like any other functional city, with offices and shops and some nice little restaurants and ... read more