Guayaquil

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One of the mysteries of this trip was why Globus booked our flight home the way they did. Instead of flying from Baltra to Quito and staying there overnight and just catching a flight to Miami, instead we flew from Baltra to Guayaquil. And tomorrow morning we have a ridiculously early flight to Quito to change planes for Miami. I really think it´s silly! But, I have faith it will work out and I'll get home at some point.

This morning was the walk to the boat to the bus to the Darwin Center back on the bus to the ferry to the bus to the airport. If that sounds like a confusing morning, it was. Left the hotel at 6:45-ish (in South America, it never seems we are actually leaving the time we say we will, especially at the Finch Bay hotel). Walk to the pier (and I will not miss doing that) then the little boat across to Puerto Ayora for a short bus ride to the parking lot of the Darwin Center. Ten minute walk to actually get to the center. I've got to say, I have reached my tortoise saturation point. I'm glad that the center is incubating eggs and raising the tortoises to return to the wild, but after a while, they all look alike to me.

We saw Lonesome George. For those of you who don´t know the story, George is the last of his kind. They have him in a pen with some females of a closely related species, but so far, no success in fertilized eggs. But hey, he´s only 95 years old, so there´s still hope. Last year one of the females laid eggs, but they never hatched. This year she´s laid eggs again, but now they are waiting the 3 month hatching time to see if they are viable.

After visiting the tortoises (and some iguanas) we made our way back to the bus to the ferry to the bus to the airport. Although our boarding time said 10:30, it was more like 11 am when they let us go through security. They can only let one set of passengers through at a time because there is only one gate (door actually) and not enough room for too many people to sit.

Flight to Guayaquil was about an hour and a half, and not bad, except for a bit of turbulence at the end. Picked up our luggage (got to say my green suitcase is really easy to spot), met the Globus rep, and short ride to the hotel. According to her, our flight is now at 6:30, not 7:10 (even though the LAN website still says 7:10), so she's picking us up at 4 am. So, I'm going to call it a day and head to my room, since I have a 3 am wake up call.

Tomorrow night I should be in Miami. I´m already looking forward to going to the 24 hour IHOP next to the Holiday Inn. The stuffed french toast there was really good!

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